The Relentless Jessica Eaton

[D Fuller]

I’m not sure I follow the argument fully. What you are saying if I understand correctly when you say that images can and should stand on their own is no wordy underpinning. No explaining and describing. Perhaps no title even, not sure about that. Is that what you mean by standing on their own?

Where this position fails for me, if I am understanding you correctly, is there is always some context because of shared experiences and shared cultural standards and what not. What I’m trying to say is the context is implicit, shared and understood. That means the artist or photographer can never stray too far from mainstream norms of his or her audience because then the image won’t be able to stand on its own. Is that not a bit limiting?

Martin, I have no idea what you’re saying. Or if I do, I don’t think the logic holds.

Contexts are not the same for all viewers. That’s a fundamental problem (consideration?) for art in the past century or so. It’s usually less so for photography, because photographs are usually pictures of something, and that something carries context with it. These images share the problems of abstract art in that they are images in their own right. They are not of anything. Their beauty comes purely from their form and color. Context is largely irrelevant, I think.

[OmerV]

You can't... it is logic (especially in the case of "all generalizations") 

Most, of even vast majority of pictures should and do stand on their own. That does not mean that there aren't those whose appeal (marketing especially) is helped by uniqueness, scarcity, difficulty in reproducing (the original method, not the end product), explanatory title or legend, etc. Their existence does not devalue the original premise (about images standing on their own merit), on the contrary, it reinforces it (as in "exceptions prove the rule").

Marketing is indeed helped by uniqueness, etc. On that we agree.

Also, explanatory or method of conception does not devalue a premise. Agree again.

But does outlining the method of production help reinforce the value? Only to galleries, curators and collectors, as both of us have said. If everyday art visitors to an exhibition of Ms. Eaton’s pictures were subjected to a lengthy explanation of her process, they would probably say “Uh, huh,” and walk away without having gained a better understanding of her ideas.

I’m not against a salient, coherent explanation of some artist’s ideas, so long as it isn’t just some MFA boilerplate blather. Interestingly, there is very little in the article that gives the reader a notion of what Ms. Eaton ideas are, in fact.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I’m not sure I follow the argument fully. What you are saying if I understand correctly when you say that images can and should stand on their own is no wordy underpinning. No explaining and describing. Perhaps no title even, not sure about that. Is that what you mean by standing on their own?...

Martin, I am equally puzzled by your understanding. Have I not said, explicitly, the following:

That does not mean that there aren't those whose appeal (marketing especially) is helped by uniqueness, scarcity, difficulty in reproducing (the original method, not the end product), explanatory title or legend, etc. T

It is not an either-or proposition, i.e., either it stands on its own or it requires an explanation. It is both, in the sense that there are pictures that can stand on their own, and there are those that are helped by a context, title, legend etc.

[D Fuller]

Marketing is indeed helped by uniqueness, etc. On that we agree.

Also, explanatory or method of conception does not devalue a premise. Agree again.

But does outlining the method of production help reinforce the value? Only to galleries, curators and collectors, as both of us have said. If everyday art visitors to an exhibition of Ms. Eaton’s pictures were subjected to a lengthy explanation of her process, they would probably say “Uh, huh,” and walk away without having gained a better understanding of her ideas.

I’m not against a salient, coherent explanation of some artist’s ideas, so long as it isn’t just some MFA boilerplate blather. Interestingly, there is very little in the article that gives the reader a notion of what Ms. Eaton ideas are, in fact.

I think in this case, because the method of production is so unique, it does help reinforce the value. But I don’t think it’s required at all for an appreciation of the images; those are strong enough to stand on their own in any gallery.

I too would love to know more about her ideas and specifically how she thinks about color and light. As she works. But that is, I think, because I think about those things all the time, and have for most of my life. Nobody reallly needed to know Albers’ color theories to appreciate his paintings, but if you were interested, there was enough depth there to keep you interested for a long time.

[amolitor]

Honestly, the method of production is what we know as "photomontage" and it was a broadly applied artistic technique as of 100 years ago.

I have not heard of anyone else building up color (rather than tone) through multiple exposures, but I would be astonished to find that Eaton is the first. I suspect that if we poked around in the light painting community we'd find people doing this, albeit with LED wands rather than flash-exposed neutral objects, but that's a technical quibble.

This is not to dismiss the work, at all. She is doing her own thing, it has unique and distinct features, and she is doing it with real ability and clarity of purpose. Good on 'er. But it is not really a revolutionary method, it is distinctly evolutionary. It is being pitched in this piece as revolutionary, but that is a polite fiction.

[Martin Kristiansen]

Sorry I confused so many. I was mistakenly assuming Slobodan to be saying images should stand on their own unsupported by any type of explanation.

My apologies for adding nothing but puzzlement to this discussion.

[TommyWeir]

Really enjoyed this article, the short film clarified things too. 

[Rob C]

Shakespeare said it best: much ado about nothing.

:-)

[amolitor]

It is worth mentioning, I think, that Eaton has done quite a bit of work beyond what we see in the front page piece. It is all, as far as I have found, cut from the same cloth, but there is far more breadth than we might imagine.

[Alan Klein]

Every artist looking to make money is trying to do something unique.  That's what sells. Aesthetics comes second. 

[jeremyrh]

Every artist looking to make money is trying to do something unique.  That's what sells. Aesthetics comes second.

Someone for whom money is important is probably not going to become an artist.

[g_wittigmd@yahoo.com]

There's a clear dichotomy in the visual arts between work that is representational in nature, that references, renders or interprets objective reality in some fashion, and work that is non-representational. Non-representational work split off from the mainstream of traditional Western visual art circa early 1900s. In photography there's a long tradition of non-representational work, from Alvin Langdon Coburn's 'vortographs' to Carl Chiarenza's torn paper 'landscapes'.

Non-representational work now utterly dominates contemporary art, the 'cutting edge' stuff for very wealthy collectors whose dealers and art consultants tell them what's good. From Damien Hirst's stuffed shark to Jeff Koons' balloon animals to Tracy Emins' unmade bed, the driving force is the concept, the conceit, the wit behind the work, rather than skill in the rendering. Traditional representational art is often derided by promoters of non-representational work as mere kitsch, outdated, philistine. But it resonates with many if not most viewers, and provides boundless room for interpretation and creativity without abandoning its grounding in objective visual reality.

No accounting for taste, whatever floats your boat. If you love non-representational art, knock yourself out. But it's not what I think of when I think of a luminous landscape. If this is a harbinger of the future direction of LuLa, I suspect many longtime readers will vote with their virtual feet.

[Robert Roaldi]

No accounting for taste, whatever floats your boat. If you love non-representational art, knock yourself out. But it's not what I think of when I think of a luminous landscape. If this is a harbinger of the future direction of LuLa, I suspect many longtime readers will vote with their virtual feet.

I don't recall the content of this site ever having been restricted much to traditional landscape. For fun, I just went to the main site, clicked on Articles, and scrolled back through 2-3 years of headline content. I saw all kinds of content, not just landscape. And the forums have always included non-landscape discussions. So why should the presence of a non-landscape article now cause an exodus of readers.

[KLaban]

There's a clear dichotomy in the visual arts between work that is representational in nature, that references, renders or interprets objective reality in some fashion, and work that is non-representational. Non-representational work split off from the mainstream of traditional Western visual art circa early 1900s. In photography there's a long tradition of non-representational work, from Alvin Langdon Coburn's 'vortographs' to Carl Chiarenza's torn paper 'landscapes'.

Non-representational work now utterly dominates contemporary art, the 'cutting edge' stuff for very wealthy collectors whose dealers and art consultants tell them what's good. From Damien Hirst's stuffed shark to Jeff Koons' balloon animals to Tracy Emins' unmade bed, the driving force is the concept, the conceit, the wit behind the work, rather than skill in the rendering. Traditional representational art is often derided by promoters of non-representational work as mere kitsch, outdated, philistine. But it resonates with many if not most viewers, and provides boundless room for interpretation and creativity without abandoning its grounding in objective visual reality.

No accounting for taste, whatever floats your boat. If you love non-representational art, knock yourself out. But it's not what I think of when I think of a luminous landscape. If this is a harbinger of the future direction of LuLa, I suspect many longtime readers will vote with their virtual feet.

As an artist and photographer I can and do appreciate what many would describe as representational art. As an artist and photographer I can and do appreciate what many would describe as conceptual art. As an artist and photographer what I don't appreciate are hard distinctions.

I can and do appreciate the mix here on LuLa as I do in the real world. 

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

As an artist and photographer I can and do appreciate what many would describe as representational art. As an artist and photographer I can and do appreciate what many would describe as conceptual art. As an artist and photographer what I don't appreciate are hard distinctions.

I can and do appreciate the mix here on LuLa as I do in the real world.

Beautifully expressed, Keith. I am in full agreement.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

There's a clear dichotomy...

Well put, G.

[Alan Klein]

Someone for whom money is important is probably not going to become an artist.

Lik?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

..l what I don't appreciate are hard distinctions...

You can appreciate white, and you can appreciate black, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a hard distinction.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Lik?

A perfect example, in my book. 

[amolitor]

One ought to be a little careful with words like "nonrepresentational" which tends to get used as a synonym for "abstract", but it's not.

Koons animals are abstract, but representational, like Cubist paintings and so on. There are clearly objects from the real world that are represented by these things, although the representations are abstracted. Contemporary art is often, but not always, abstracted. It is sometimes, but not always, non-representational. It is almost invariably conceptual, in the sense that the idea is the thing that matters, the execution is secondary.

Eaton is non-representational, abstract, but honestly the concept seems to be lacking. In the piece on the front page, she articulates no concept beyond the business about "you have to pick the simplest form and repeat it until the form loses meaning and the idea becomes the art" which is so circular as to be slightly silly. Your idea is to repeat the work until the idea becomes the art? But.. where does the idea come in?

She is a hard worker, making an appealing thing at a rate that proves she can make more work, but not so fast that it floods the market and becomes un-special. She has a pretty good story to tell. So, she's got gallery representation and is presumably selling pretty well. Good for her!

Making these things seems to me the most boring job conceivable, but she seems to enjoy it. A bit OCD, maybe.