Image courtesy Edgar Martins/HotShoe Gallery
I’d agree with Joerg that We Need Better Critical Writing About Photography. This is pretty simple task – just cut out the jargon. Having posted On Statements last month, Joerg is only demanding the same of critics as he is of photographers.
Which brings me to Exhibit A: Photographer, Edgar Martins is talking bollocks again.
“One could argue that this work seeks to communicate ideas about how difficult it is to communicate. My images depend on photography’s inherit tendency to make each space believable, but there is a disturbing suggestion that all is not what it seems. The moment of recognition that there is something else going on, the all too crucial moment of suspended disbelief, is the highest point that one can achieve. This process of slow revelation and sense of temporal manipulation is crucial to the work. Above and beyond this, in having to shift between the various codes, the viewer becomes acutely aware of the process of looking, of the reconciliation required between sensory and cognitive understanding. As you rightly say, it is difficult to know for sure if what you are looking at is a photograph. However, they are photographs.”
Déjà vu
You might remember Edgar Martins. He’s the photographer who photoshopped images of foreclosed America for the New York Times. It was one of the more substantive photoshop kerfuffles of recent years.
I remember at the time thinking that the way Martins wiggled his way out of the controversy was skilled; he put all his energies into How can I see what I see, until I know what I know? a meditation on truth in photography, diluting his deception in M.F.A. critical theory references.
Martins confused 90% of his detractors with his busy response and sapped the energy of the remaining 10% who were looking for the next headline anyway.
He really intrigues me!
– – – – – – – – – – – –
Thanks to Alan Rapp for the tip-off.
Prison Photography 
4 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 26, 2010 at 2:05 am
DCB
This is, to be honest, a bit of a misreading and simplification of Edgar Martins’ practice. If one were genuinely interested in the rejuvenation of the critical discourse that surrounds contemporary photography, perhaps one should nuance one’s own arguments a little better as a starting point. This anti-intellectual discrimination is precisely what makes current criticism unable to find a relative position of popularity; it is negative, non-conducive and, well, conservative. Edgar Martins’ work is an important contribution to contemporary photography, and his theoretical positions are valid for the most part.
July 26, 2010 at 8:23 am
Tom White
No confusion here Pete – He is most certainly talking bollocks. It’s all very well to fill your bookshelf with art theory and philosophical texts but it’ll do you no good if you just regurgitate the stuff without actually critically assessing your work to see if what you write about it bears any relation at all to what it is you are doing. Just saying something doesn’t make it true. That’s my definition of talking bollocks. And using big words doesn’t impress me. I’ve got a dictionary full of them.
July 27, 2010 at 11:13 am
DCB
Hmm…
July 27, 2010 at 11:36 am
petebrook
Daniel (DCB), My position is not that one of anti-intellectualism, it is a position that asks for clarity.
I understand this introduction. Clear (and also not intellectual): “One could argue that this work seeks to communicate ideas about how difficult it is to communicate.”
But then Martins follows up with, “My images depend on photography’s inherit tendency to make each space believable, but there is a disturbing suggestion that all is not what it seems.” It is Martins’ presumption to think people know which tendency he is talking about and what space he refers to. I’m curious, what space?
Martins is essentially talking about the issue of truth in photography which is not new. The subject he has chosen (planets) is an interesting take on the discourse, I’ll admit.
I suspect Martins doesn’t need to accommodate a diverse audience because he has the ear of curators who attend to his linguistic turns. I’ll nuance my arguments if Martins and his acolytes can move to clearer expression. Note, his ideas needn’t change but his presentation could.
All this …
“The moment of recognition that there is something else going on, the all too crucial moment of suspended disbelief, is the highest point that one can achieve. This process of slow revelation and sense of temporal manipulation is crucial to the work. Above and beyond this, in having to shift between the various codes, the viewer becomes acutely aware of the process of looking, of the reconciliation required between sensory and cognitive understanding. As you rightly say, it is difficult to know for sure if what you are looking at is a photograph. However, they are photographs.”
… says only “I present something that looks real, it’s not, the viewer eventually realises that.”