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Author Topic: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...  (Read 16355 times)

RSL

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #80 on: May 12, 2019, 08:00:42 pm »

Bottom line, it's a pretty picture. In spite of all the high-sounding garbage from Edward Burtinsky: “Stephen’s refined photographic explorations evoke his keen awareness about the poetics of space and the history of painting, while also walking the line between documentary and intimately personal visualizations" I suspect pretty has something to do with it.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2019, 07:55:16 am by RSL »
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Rob C

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #81 on: May 13, 2019, 07:35:05 am »

That there's anything further to say about the magnificent prize winning image astounds me: as Tina sang, it's simply the best, better than all of the rest!

Let's just say it's worth a small fortune and the other competitors must have been sooooo close to winning too! It's so terribly difficult having to disappoint so many other good people entering into the spirit of the thing in such selfless manner, oh but that were prizes to go to everyone!

But, as ever, the cream rises right to the top, even when it's gone off.

:-)

RSL

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #82 on: May 13, 2019, 07:57:07 am »

...as Tina sang, it's simply the best, better than all of the rest!

Which may tell you something about all the rest.
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RSL

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #84 on: May 13, 2019, 08:56:38 am »

Well, there you go.
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drmike

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #85 on: May 13, 2019, 08:58:47 am »

Based solely on the three images from each photographer Marlene Creates for me.
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amolitor

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #86 on: May 13, 2019, 09:03:28 am »

This award seems to be for Canadian Artists and, to be honest, if you're an established artist living and working in Canada you're probably not very good. Not because Canada sucks, but because if you really are something good, you go someplace else. Canada simply doesn't have the density of the kinds of people you need to be hanging around with.

That said, I think I am beginning to get what Waddell is doing with these vernacular-ish things. What I am beginning to understand is simply not that interesting. It's Düsseldorf-Lite, and anyways I mostly don't have much time for the Düsseldorf people.
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elliot_n

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #87 on: May 13, 2019, 09:17:08 am »

It's Düsseldorf-Lite, and anyways I mostly don't have much time for the Düsseldorf people.

In what way? Waddell's work seems more closely related to fellow Canadian Jeff Wall (who is hardly a minor artist).

Canada has a rich tradition of photographic art practice:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_School
« Last Edit: May 13, 2019, 09:20:29 am by elliot_n »
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amolitor

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #88 on: May 13, 2019, 09:40:10 am »

Canada has a rich tradition of a lot of second rate art. They have second rate novelists, second rate painters, second rate photographers, second rate playwrights. Second rate doesn't mean terrible (ok, well, a lot of the writers were fairly dreadful) it just means not first rate.

Again, this isn't an indictment of Canada, it's simply that if you're first rate you move to New York, or LA, or Paris, because that's where you need to be to have that first rate career.
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elliot_n

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #89 on: May 13, 2019, 09:59:25 am »

Photographic artists such as Jeff Wall, Stan Douglas and Rodney Graham may be 'second rate' in your opinion but they are firmly established in the artworld pantheon.
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amolitor

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #90 on: May 13, 2019, 11:09:05 am »

Sure, they're well established in the artworld pantheon. They, like, I dunno, several thousand other photographers, and a few 10s of thousands of other media artists, have representation, are collected by some museums and collectors. They're not nobodies, they're not failures.

They are not A-list, they do not in general get major travelling shows like Diana Arbus, or Sally Mann, Richard Avedon, and a small handful of others (is that the "A-list"?) Nor are they particularly dominant on the international stage while not getting major travelling shows like, say Crewdson, Ruff, Struth (photographers recognized as Good and Important, but pathologically incapable of drawing anything resembling a crowd).

The Vancouver School photographers are never described as Important Photographers, or Major Artists. No, these guys are always Important Canadian Artists, the recognized Great Men of the Vancouver School of Photoconceptualism. Which, you know, makes a lot of people who aren't canadian say "the Vancouver School of what, now?" and then you look it up and you see that it is/was a real thing, with a real aesthetic and some ideas. It looks a bit like some of the Düsseldorf School, but it's not as Important. It might, if you squint, have some evolutionary ideas from New Topographics, if only in that the latter opened the door to Dreary Photos of Crap in the Americas, but again it's not as Important.

The Vancouver School isn't exactly Bauhaus, but then it also isn't Fishboy. It lands somewhere in between

Like Emily Carr, they are seen as major and important artists in Vancouver, and as you move away from Vancouver, they tend to shrink. They do not vanish, but they shrink.

Personally, I dislike all of them, but as often as not I recognize roughly what they're trying to do, and recognize also that they're a bit clumsy. They lack the deft touch of the truly brilliant. As a person who also lacks that deft touch, I have a certain sympathy for them.
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32BT

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #91 on: May 13, 2019, 11:13:24 am »

... but pathologically incapable of drawing anything resembling a crowd).

Hah, I'm at least half way en route to be an A-list artist then...!

;-)     <-------------------
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #92 on: May 13, 2019, 11:58:17 am »

Canada has a rich tradition of a lot of second rate art...

Andrew, the honey badger! A sight to behold  ;) :) ;D

elliot_n

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #93 on: May 13, 2019, 12:02:54 pm »

Andrew, whether you like him or not (and I have my reservations), Jeff Wall is of massive importance in the history of contemporary photographic art practice. He has major retrospectives around the world and his prints sell for millions. He's up there with Andreas Gursky, Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman. Sure, a Leibowitz or Avedon exhibition will have greater footfall, but that doesn't make them greater artists (if they're artists at all). Whilst Stan Douglas and Rodney Graham haven't achieved the fame of Jeff Wall, they're still major players. You need to brush up on your history.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #94 on: May 13, 2019, 12:10:12 pm »

We are once again encountering the distinction that I described long time ago as between phtotograhers trying to create art and artists which happen to be using photography as a medium. The former are much better known, respected, and emulated by the LuLa crowd. The latter, not so much. But the curators and artsy crowd apparently knows them well.

faberryman

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #95 on: May 13, 2019, 12:18:31 pm »

Andrew, whether you like him or not (and I have my reservations), Jeff Wall is of massive importance in the history of contemporary photographic art practice. He has major retrospectives around the world and his prints sell for millions.
Does contemporary photography have a history? Seems like an oxymoron to me. And while I have heard of Gursky and Sherman (and Richard Prince because he is a fraud), I've never heard of Jeff Wall so I have no opinion on his work. I am not from Vancouver if that matters.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2019, 12:32:38 pm by faberryman »
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #96 on: May 13, 2019, 12:24:23 pm »

Vancouver is currently best known as the money-laundering capital of the world. Perhaps that explains how those photographs sell for millions? ;)

elliot_n

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #97 on: May 13, 2019, 12:32:38 pm »

Does contemporary photography have a history? Seems like an oxymoron to me.
Yes, it begins in the early 70s (at the point where most Lula members tune out). Jeff Wall plays a central role.


Quote
And while I have heard of Gursky and Sherman (and Richard Prince because he is a fraud)
Prince is a clown, not a fraud. He's funny.


Quote
I've never heard of Jeff Wall. I am not from Vancouver if that matters.
So you're not that interested in art photography – that's ok!
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amolitor

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #98 on: May 13, 2019, 12:32:50 pm »

Does contemporary photography have a history? Seems like an oxymoron to me. And while I have heard of Gursky and Sherman (and Richard Prince because he is a fraud), I've never heard of Jeff Wall. I am not from Vancouver if that matters.

I, like many people who are interested in but not immersed in the Contemporary Art Scene, had heard of Jeff Wall in that "hey, wikipedia, oh right he's that guy" way.

My list of "oh, right, that guy" probably has a few hundred photographers on it, which is quite a bit larger than the list of photographers I can actually cite off the cuff with some intelligence. I speculate that most of us are in roughly the same boat.

How it works in other media, I do not know, but in photography there is this interesting phenomenon where people, like me, who spend some effort to be mildly knowledgeable, have A List of Names that we're pretty sure are important photographers. The number of people who might reasonably turn up on this list is, I don't know, at least several hundred, maybe a couple thousand. It takes a while to realize that Your List and My List are not generally going to overlap that much, and that each of our lists mainly consists of a small handful of the actual A-listers, and then whichever half dozen or so B-listers we're heard of recently.

This doesn't mean that either of us is particularly wrong. It simply means that there are a hell of a lot of "kinda important, kinda influential, but not you know monumental" photographers out there, too many to reasonably keep track of unless it is literally your job, or your obsession.

I am reminded of a terrible zine I stumbled across, showcasing the work of a dozen rotten photographers, along with a little interview. It was eerie how many of them cited Ren Hang as an influence. It turned out that Ren Hang committed suicide a few days before submissions for this zine opened, and that news was covered on PetaPixel. Of course, there was not a trace of Hang in any of the pictures, and these photographers had not heard of him a week earlier, but it was a name that popped into their heads when they needed to write a list of Influences for their "interview" piece. I do not think they were lying, as such, I think they were simply struggling to come up with anyone who wasn't Avedon.
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OmerV

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #99 on: May 13, 2019, 12:51:00 pm »

We are once again encountering the distinction that I described long time ago as between phtotograhers trying to create art and artists which happen to be using photography as a medium. The former are much better known, respected, and emulated by the LuLa crowd. The latter, not so much. But the curators and artsy crowd apparently knows them well.

An echo chamber is a security blanket. Nothing wrong with that unless one chooses never to leave their crib. And that goes for both camps.
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