Yet more urban art

[Mj]

Seems I can't help but grab these when I come across them...

[chrisk]

MJ, if youre aim was to document the art then youve done a fine job. i would have liked something else to coexist with it for my taste personally.
ie: more atmpspheric with more in the frame like slow shutter of moving people, some urban sprawl, the artist in the frame...anything like that.

[Matt. K]

Michael
I love the way you have captured that graffiti. Graffiti has no formal composition because it is not created in a defined space. It bleeds along walls and fences and around railway carriages....but when photographed the photographer creates a defined image space by his act of selection. That creates or forces a formal composition onto the graffiti work. In that sense you have created a formal work from an informal one. And it's often the case that when that is done then the work is lifted to a higher plane by the photographer, even though you are simply copying another artists creation!
The argument could be made that your creation of the graffiti is better than the the original artists creation. Interesting Huh?
Comments...anyone?

[surenj]

Matt, you've opened a can of worms. Are you saying that if I re photographed one of your photographs and improved composition, then 'my art' is better than your art?

MJ, if youre aim was to document the art then youve done a fine job. i would have liked something else to coexist with it for my taste personally.

Same here, but I admit that I've never liked or figured out how to photograph other peoples' art. Ok I did take a picture of 'David' by Michael Anjelo with a sun burst at the crotch but that was a few years ago.

[surenj]

OK, perhaps not. We did take some nice shots of the sculptures over the years.....

[Matt. K]

Suren
No, that’s not what I am saying. My photograph is a complete work, contained within a space with a boundary. The boundary being the edge of the paper or the black line around my image when it is viewed on a monitor. If you re -photograph my image then you are merely copying it. If you photograph a small section of my image then you are merely selecting a detail of it. In the case of the image posted by Michael the original was created on a wall that may have contained works by other artists, (I use the word artist generously here), and also contained windows, pipes, signwriting, bird shit, peeling paint etc. All or any of these other elements may have influenced how the artist created his own work. However, his work has no formal composition unless the artist draws a frame around it. When he does this the frame declares that the elements within it have been arranged, composed, created, crafted and designed to make a complete ‘work’. It then has a formal composition.

I am assuming the normally accepted academic definition of composition which is, ‘ The arrangement of figures and forms within a defined or fixed space’. There may be other definitions.

In the sense that most graffiti has no formal composition so too does aboriginal rock art have no formal composition. Why discriminate between the two? Assume that you have been given a contract to remove the graffiti and its support that Michael photographed in order to exhibit it in the Museum of Modern Art. How much of the surrounding brick wall do you leave attached, or remove? What if the artist tilted the work to point to some other feature on the wall such as a fuse box or a painted advertisement? Would you remove that also? How can you know what the artist had in mind in relation to other elements on the wall if they have not been formally bounded by a frame?
When Michael framed the graffiti in his viewfinder he made some choices that the original artist did not make. His decision to frame the image in a certain way and isolate it from its surrounds presents it to us in a more formal, stylised way. The image removed from its original surrounds is now something else….and in that Michael may well have improved it. I suspect that if I walked past the original then I would give it sparse glance….but seeing it here on the forum in an uncluttered way….I like it.

[chrisk]

The image removed from its original surrounds is now something else….and in that Michael may well have improved it. I suspect that if I walked past the original then I would give it sparse glance….but seeing it here on the forum in an uncluttered way….I like it.

That's about all I could make sense of from what you posted...and I would agree.
Interesting observation.

[Matt. K]

Why discriminate between the two?

What I meant by the words in the quote is discriminate between formal and non formal or no composition. Not between rock art and graffiti.

[aim54x]

Love the colours in this...and am going to stay out of this philosophical arguement

[Mj]

Interesting discussion on this one. I did think it might generate some polarised views
There are often times when I take this sort of shot that I question myself 'why' and 'is it enough' to stand up as an image in it's own right. After all, as Suren commented, I am in essence recording someone else's art.
For urban art I try not to 'think' it too much but take what I see and feel (sorry if that sound wanky!).
As Chris suggests perhaps having the inclusion of some moving people or other focus points and context might add interest, however that was not going to occur naturally in the location and, at least for these images I take, I do not seek to manufacture and contrive by adding props. Of course you can argue, as I have been selective in the composition, that that is to contrive in itself. Matt is certainly right in so far as the image I took is not the art that is on that wall but something that I saw within it. I have a number of images like this and seem to be attracted to taking them. Derivative art (if I can be cheeky enough to title this) I suspect is a highly contentious in all it's forms.

[chrisk]

The art out of art issue I have no problem with. I liked Matt's take on it and I don't see the contentious nature in the slightest. People photograph art all the time and turn it into "photographic art", be it sculptures, paintings even architecture if I may be so bold.

[surenj]

Matt, I've never considered or heard the concept of your discussion! It is certainly very interesting to define all 'art' on the basis of composition. An to define things are 'nothing' when it doesn't have an obvious composition. What are your thoughts on the sculptures by the sea? Some of those didn't have boundaries as such.

Graffiti has no formal composition because it is not created in a defined space

To be sure of this one needs to ask the artist, don't you think? Perhaps the boundaries are not obvious?

[chrisk]

I may be wrong, but am not sure Matt is being so absolute.

I looked at it as the graffiti was art in the context of its presence in the urban environment. Once that environment was removed and it was defined within the photographic frame, (removing the urban elements), it changes its context and thereby creates a piece of art in and of itself that can stand alone.

That's what I took out of it anyway.

[Matt. K]

Suren said:

define all 'art' on the basis of composition. An to define things are 'nothing' when it doesn't have an obvious composition

Suren
I'm not saying that the work is nothing because it doesn't have a formal composition. Nor would I define all 'art' on the baisi of it's composition. The composition of a work is merely one element of the work. What I am saying is that in this case the graffiti is painted on a wall in company of elements that the artisit did not create. What we don't know is if the artist painted HIS work in sympathy with those other elements around him and how they connect...or don't...to his work. Therefore when we evaluate the image we don't know where the extremities of the image are in relation to the artists concept at the time. If he had painted a frame around his image then we would know precisely where his image ends and someone elses starts. In this MJ made those decisions when he re-framed the image and made a photograph. In this I believe MJ is the co-author of the image of the graffiti, but in a minor way.

Chris. That's pretty well my point.

[stubbsy]

There is actually an art term for what is being talked about here: appropriation

A lot comes down to what has been transformed or changed and acknowledgement that appropriation has occurred. That's why there was so much fuss last year around the sydney artistwho airbushed other photographer's images then sold them as his art.