Reading 2: Elkins Photography, Pages 51-62, 63-76, 77-86

leighdodson
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Jan 18, 2011 1:35 pm

Re: Reading 2: Elkins Photography, Pages 51-62, 63-76, 77-86

Post by leighdodson » Tue Feb 08, 2011 1:20 am

63-76
Darkness is the next technique analyzed by Elkins in his quest for formlessness. Painting with darkness is deemed qualitatively superior to photographing with darkness, because the latter is too easy to achieve and is employed by too many photographers. Elkins favors the use of the grid as a technique for achieving formlessness. He admirers the paradox between the rigidity of the scientific grid and the obscurity and suggestiveness of a blank, unfinished, or unclear grid. In his piece, Corpse and Mirror, Jasper Johns overlays two suggestions of a grid, but in such a dysfunctional way that neither us consistent or descriptive. It is almost as if the artists describe by Elkins have reclaimed the grid from scientists by stripping it if its functionality. To deprive the grid of its ability to describe and clarify is an epic win in the battle towards formlessness.
Elkins’ discussion of the anti-optical impulse is framed by the modernist distrust for the indexicality between photography and reality; this indexical relationship is taken for granted in the post-industrial world. Elkins points out that commodity fetishism has increased our love of the camera and this love is blinding us into heavy reliance and trust. Photographers like Marco Breuer are challenging this blind trust by experimenting with the medium in self reflexive ways. Breuer strives towards formlessness by avoiding ordinary photographic representation in any way possible.

shaun
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Jan 06, 2011 1:58 pm

Re: Reading 2: Elkins Photography, Pages 51-62, 63-76, 77-86

Post by shaun » Tue Feb 08, 2011 1:28 pm

51

63

77

leighdodson
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Jan 18, 2011 1:35 pm

Re: Reading 2: Elkins Photography, Pages 51-62, 63-76, 77-86

Post by leighdodson » Tue Feb 08, 2011 4:21 pm

78-87
The final section of Elkin’s segment moves on to the problem of qualifying blurred and formless images. While he clearly believes that formless photography is less auteuristic than painting, he gives a lovely example as an exception to his preference of Jennifer Ramsey who photographs ‘overlooked places’ and blows these images up so large that they becomes dark, blurry, and abstract. Elkins believes that the problem with blur in photography is that it is too easy to achieve, and thus has become overdone, sloppy, and meaningless. He even goes so far as to point out that this out-of-focus aesthetic is used repeatedly in Martha Stuart cookbooks, and suggests that such formlessness loses the aura of the work, leaving no substance. After describing failed attempts at formlessness, Elkins attempts to define his criterion of value. First, a work should slowly descend into formlessness and not attempt to plunge directly into it. To achieve this, he suggests blurring an image to a certain, specific, meaningful level so that it is not just to achieve formlessness, but has other prerogatives that are enhanced by such abstraction, or are necessarily formless. Another factor of a quality piece, as defined by Elkin, is the acknowledgement that one cannot push every boundary of representation all at once. Elkins also seeks for the work to have an arbitrary line between blur and clarity; an unsure middle ground between focused and unfocused.

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