Week two

Theory: Charles Harrison, "Modernism"

How is Modernism defined- it's the intentional rejection of what's come before

Modern qualitys

1st - If its modern then it must demonstrate a wide spread social issues of contemporary culture

2nd - medium

3rd  - criticism

"Kitsch"

Key point raised  "The point is that the from of attention the painting both demands and defines is one that results in a form of critical consciousness: a responsive awareness not only of painting as object, but of the rich determinate range of metaphorical meanings the sutface of the object, in akk its plenitude an

d  its particularity, is embled to sustain; a self-conscious awareness, that is to say, of which is the other." Harrison p199

Criticism: Clement Greenberg, "Modernist Painting"

- Unique and irreducible over all and in each art

- "Modernism used art to call attention to art: Greenberg

- Flatness is unique to painting, so modernist painting uses flatness to define

- Emphasis on color induces the flatting out of painting

Key Point  "Bit the making

 of pictur

es means, among other things, the deliberate creating or choosing of a flat surface, and the deliberate circumscribing and limiting of it. This deliberateness is precisely what Modernist painting harps on: the fact, that is, that the limiting conditions of art are altogether human conditions." Greenberg p6

Curatorial: John Szarkowski, "Introduction" to the Photographer's Eye

- Photography the art of selection

- Painting are made/ photographs are taken

What is artistic? Painting recorded what was important/ Photography mad thing important by recording them, with out thought of composition, light, form or texture.

- Photography the actual

- Truthful

- Facts/ suggestive clues

- not conceived but selected

-Choosing and eliminating the central act

Scroll Painting

- describes or alludes to time

- Clarity or obscurity of the vantage point

Key Point  "An artist is a man who seeks new structures in which to order and simplify his sense of the reality of life. For the artist photographer, much of his sense of reality (where his picture starts) and much if his sense of craft or structure (where his picture is completed)are anonymous and untraceable gifts from photography itself." Szarkowski p103

Practice: Lewis Hine, "Social Photography: How the Camera may Help in the Social Uplift"

Paul Strand, "Photography"

- photography as a fine art

- straight approach/the belief to depict detail clearly

- the potential depends on the purity