http://nicholasknight.net/wordpress/?p=196 Wed, 08 Sep 2010 04:34:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 hourly 1 http://nicholasknight.net/wordpress/?p=196&cpage=1#comment-25528 John Staples Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:37:01 +0000 http://nicholasknight.net/wordpress/?p=196#comment-25528 Ditto. Ditto.

]]> http://nicholasknight.net/wordpress/?p=196&cpage=1#comment-25520 Nicholas Knight Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:48:57 +0000 http://nicholasknight.net/wordpress/?p=196#comment-25520 As the past couple years have seen the waning of the Wall – Crewdson school of narrative photography, there has been renewed interest in abstract photography. But to this viewer’s eyes (and ears), there has been insufficient clarity about just what constitutes an abstract photograph. The natural assumption seems to be that if it doesn’t show a recognizable subject, it’s abstract; or if it uses some highly materialized technique, or some vestigial historical technique, it’s abstract; or if it’s formalized to a degree that overrides its subject, it’s abstract; etc. These readings miss the mark for me. An abstraction is a model of (a portion of) the world, reconstituted in a containable way so that we can speculate about it. It ultimately has nothing to do with recognizability or technique; it has to do with our own understanding of what the image-work “is”, ontologically and conceptually. And when it’s good, it follows up our reading of what it is with another, more fulfilling reading of what _else_ it is. As the past couple years have seen the waning of the Wall – Crewdson school of narrative photography, there has been renewed interest in abstract photography. But to this viewer’s eyes (and ears), there has been insufficient clarity about just what constitutes an abstract photograph. The natural assumption seems to be that if it doesn’t show a recognizable subject, it’s abstract; or if it uses some highly materialized technique, or some vestigial historical technique, it’s abstract; or if it’s formalized to a degree that overrides its subject, it’s abstract; etc. These readings miss the mark for me. An abstraction is a model of (a portion of) the world, reconstituted in a containable way so that we can speculate about it. It ultimately has nothing to do with recognizability or technique; it has to do with our own understanding of what the image-work “is”, ontologically and conceptually. And when it’s good, it follows up our reading of what it is with another, more fulfilling reading of what _else_ it is.

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