Most of the images submitted so far, romanticize, even glorify, the extreme excesses of power and wealth accumulated in the centers of capital around the world (but primarily in the west). As artist and designers and creative thinkers, is it our Job to glorify the kings, and kingdoms, of the modern world? Should we allow our art to be a form of advertisement and propaganda for these excesses of wealth and privilege? Or should we be questioning the kind of world that allows these structures to be built in the first place.
Art is the one space where we can still offer a countervailing vision, and alternative narrative. It is the last space where that freedom is permitted, even embraced - or is it? Even though I really love many of the images submitted so far, they are exactly the same kinds of images that you find in every architectural magazine.. or Instagram and Pinterest board. Are we all simply copying a language, a style, a kind of ‘normative’ visual thinking. When the curators of this collection of images evaluates and judges the submissions, what criteria do we expect them to use? What defines “better” or “best”? Many of the images submitted re-produce and mimic what has already been done a thousand times over, but their defining feature, differentiating them from similar images made before them, is they are produced at higher and higher resolution. Is that, in itself, enough of a basis to justify their supremacy - I’m just wondering? As creative individuals, thinking, and living, in the world today, how do we feel about this? Wouldn’t this mean only those with the privilege to own the best equipment, access to the newest technology, captured at the highest resolution, copying a generic, overproduced, but “accepted” style, always come out on top?
I don’t want to suggest the image I’ve submitted here provides an answer to the many questions I’ve raised. I am simply offering it up as a “question-mark”. In being so completely different from everything else submitted so far, I hope to somehow draw attention to the nature of work that has been presented. I am using this as an opportunity for reflection. As creative, thinking, individuals, living today, what are we saying - what are we communicating? Who benefits from our visual expression - are the beneficiaries those that already hold an excess of power? As we all know, much of the art produced today is as much about the “idea” as it is about the formal aesthetic concerns. In fact, formal aesthetic concerns are frequently tossed out the window, and the idea is seen as most important. I’m going to make the assumption, based on the context of this competition, both the idea, as well as traditional aesthetic concerns, would be of interest to the curators.
The original image I submitted, (posted the other day), was also an attempt at posting a “question mark”, but on further reflecting, I realized it was inadequate. When I submitted it, I thought it was enough to offer an alternative vision of wealth that somehow operated on a more human scale, in its embrace of both the ‘decorative’, as well as the ‘classical’, it was a clearly anti-modern form of romanticism. But I realized it didn’t go far enough in its opposition to the clean stylized aesthetics of high modernism - a style that is clearly still relevant today. So I’ve opted for the updated submission.
This new image represents a time when, despite the many centers of power, and kingdoms, that existed at the time, there was always a periphery that one could escape too. You could choose to live inside the boundaries of certain city-states, and conform to the laws that were required to be considered a resident, or you could choose to live outside those borders. Obviously, the further and further outside you went, the less control those systems could exert upon you.
I wanted to write more, but it is nearly 5pm and I must submit this next photo.
Photo was taken in Ihlara Valley, Turkey.
Camera used was a Lumix DMC-GF1 / G 20mm F1.7 Lens / Software used was DXOPhotoLab