IS PHOTOGRAPHY AN ART?

Photographic art: a bit of history

Living initially in the shadow of painting, an ancient and respected art, photography was long perceived as a simple industry. Indeed, while from its inception some considered photography to be an art in its own right, others saw it as nothing more than a vulgar industrial process, a simple profession, or even a practice of self-proclaimed artist impostors, in no way comparable to painters, for example.

In reality, the recognition of photography as an art is relatively recent and it was only from the surrealist movement that it made a timid entry into the art world with Man Ray. But it was especially with the 70s, that it would become the subject of philosophical and aesthetic theorizations and legitimizations and that we would see it exhibited in the greatest museums, integrated into prestigious collections and gradually becoming the object of speculation, some photos then reaching record prices, a sign of a certain consecration for an art form still despised until recently.

Definition of photographic art

First of all, what is art in general?

The definition I have encountered most often (Merriam Webster dictionary for example) is the following: art is the conscious use of a certain number of techniques in the service of a creative imagination with the aim of producing one or more aesthetic objects. Art is therefore an intellectual approach, even a desire to convey a message but without forgetting to produce beauty or in any case aesthetics that are acceptable to the greatest number, a consensual art built around the notion of beauty. In short, art would be a kind of science of beauty.

We could debate endlessly about art and its definition, but in attempts at definition we always find the notions of creativity, talent, mastery of techniques and respect for the rules of art (craftsmanship), in an attempt to produce a work that is validated as artistic by those who will observe it later.

So what is photographic art?

Photography: Digital Industry for the Masses

If millions of images are produced every day and flood our screens, only a tiny fraction is of artistic interest compared to the billions of photographs produced by millions of button-pushers. On social networks we say "great", we like and it is the thumb that gives its opinion, that thinks. This flood of images has taken away our free will and our ability to judge. We confuse art with beauty in the best of cases but above all photography seems to become again what it was at its birth, a simple tool, a mass industry.

Photography is a true art

In my opinion, photography cannot be reduced to a simple discipline, a technique or even a pure hobby. Photography is an art where technique and personal vision are inseparable. Of course, not all photographs are works of art and not all photographers are artists, just as not all painters are artists. But when photography is the result of a conscious process so that the eye becomes vision and there is a deliberate intention on the part of the photographer to construct, to think about a photograph and not simply to press a button to keep a memory, then we can speak of photographic art. Artistic photography is not there only to bear witness but to interpret, even in a classical way, reality as the eye sees it.

Photography is not reducible to a mechanical act, that of taking a picture. Artistic photography is the product of a three-way dialogue: camera, photographed subject, and the photographer's interpretation of it.

Photography is the art of looking at reality differently, but above all, it is the art of conveying a personal interpretation, an individual and partisan reading of reality. For me, the photographer-artist must interpret what he sees and not record raw reality; this is how he will create a work of art and not just a pretty photograph. You cannot make an artistic photo, or an artistic series without passion and without bias. It is the product of a particular personality and not just a skilled technician.

Photographic art is about sublimating the ordinary

Even by photographing the most banal reality, even by photographing Paris and the banks of the Seine for the umpteenth time, and even if we can have the feeling that everything has already been photographed and by artists who have entered museums, we can, through our personal gaze, access, even modestly, the beautiful artistic history of the photographic medium. An atypical framing, the particular use of a particular light, the play with shadows and shapes or even perspective, the intention behind the eye, a fine cropping in post-production, an adapted and/or daring effect can give birth to something unique, truly artistic or in any case aesthetic.

But it's also up to the viewer to say whether it's art or just something pretty or nice.

Fine Art versus Photographic Series

Today when we talk about art photography we tend to think of the term "Fine Art". Fine art is art that you can hang in your living room because it goes well with the painting or the sofa. This does not mean that it is not art, it means that the aesthetics of the image take precedence over the photographer's interpretation of the subject. It is beautiful, it is "only" beautiful. We must not look for a vision, a message in the photo nicely framed under glass or in its American box. It is an element of the living room or the entrance hall and nothing more, chosen for its pure aesthetic qualities, corresponding to the sense of beauty for the buyer. Fine Art, if it is not art, can however be created by an artist, the latter having deliberately chosen to make a photograph pleasant to look at (which is already not so bad). The line is sometimes tenuous between the two. Let us remember that a photograph can be beautiful without being art, just as art is not necessarily beautiful.

With the photographic series, on the contrary, photography is much more than a simple matter of technique. It cannot be reduced to the search for beauty. It is a declared, very personal approach to making something potentially artistic. It is an intellectual construction. The obsessive aspect of the artist shines through especially through his artistic series. Here the photographer tries to convey a message and his vision of things. This is where the viewer will be able to discern the photographer's intention and not simply the luck he may have had on a single image. With these small serial bodies, he reveals himself to himself and reveals to others something unique, vision or subject. There is only art if the photographer wants to show much more than he sees and sublimate banal reality.

Taxation and the dollar as the consecration of photographic art

Taxation to the rescue of photographic art

Today, art is inseparable from the idea of commerce. The art photographer cannot escape the temptation to sell his work, and it is sometimes even his main source of income. He is on social media, he has his own website. He is a merchant who does marketing. This is not a shame, it is a fact.

In any case, photography is indeed an art in the fiscal and legal sense of the term. In terms of taxation, the General Tax Code offers us a definition that has the merit of simplicity: "Photographs taken by the artist, printed by him or under his control, signed and numbered up to a limit of thirty copies, all formats and media combined, are considered works of art." Whether on paper or digital media, they must be signed, like a painter who signs his painting, it is a guarantee of authenticity. In addition, they must be numbered if they are intended for sale in a maximum of thirty copies. Art photography is rare, if not unique, in the era of copy-paste and infinite reproducibility, and it is "rarity" that determines the price.

So we have some elements to define an artistic photograph: an artistic photograph is a personal work produced in small numbers whose authenticity is guaranteed by a signature.

But a SIRET number doesn't guarantee that you're dealing with an artist. A wedding photographer is never an artist; they're a craftsman who is often skilled and creates beautiful images. Often presented as photojournalists, they copy each other and don't create unique works. A photographer specializing in baby photography is certainly a professional, but they respond to orders from parents who have seen other baby photos taken by other photographers and want the same thing as everyone else. They don't ask for anything original, let alone unique.

The dollar as the ultimate consecration of photography as an art

If further proof were needed that photography is indeed an art, it is the prices that sometimes soar and the ever-increasing number of collectors and museums that are building collections in the same way that they buy paintings and sculptures. Photography has become respectable. One can invest in photography, just as one can in painting. Thus, photography seems to have definitively left its status as an industrial technique or leisure activity to become the object of lucrative speculation.

Look at the prices reached by certain photographs: more than 600,000 dollars for Robert Mapplethorpe, (Andy Warhol), more than 1 million dollars for Edward Weston (Nautilus), 1,200,000 for Richard Prince and his Untitled (Cowboy), 3,300,000 for Andreas Gursky, 99 Cent II Diptychon and almost 4 million for Cindy Sherman, (Untitled #96)… And yes, the quality of an art is also appreciated and measured by the money spent on the contemporary art markets.

To finish, here is a quote that I find fair and magnificent, it is from Marcel Proust:

" Photography acquires some of the dignity it lacks when it ceases to be a reproduction of reality and shows us things that no longer exist ."

I would add that they do not yet exist, yes, they have never even existed.