05/07/09
Text: Scott Indrisek
Let's get one thing straight: the New York Photo Festival is a fantastic, one-of-a-kind event, and you should definitely, definitely trek out to DUMBO on May 13th-17th to check it out. Last year's offerings gave us renewed faith in both the art world and the photographic medium. That said, we're a bit perturbed by a recent bit of info regarding a section of the festival calling itself "We Are All Photographers Now!" This is part of a section entitled "All Over The Place!"—curated by William A. Ewing, who evidently is a huge fan of exclamation points.
"As part of his curated exhibition, 'All over the place!', William A. Ewing celebrates photography’s diversity by offering an interactive component during the New York Photo Festival that any photographer may participate in," the release notes. "By using special software developed by the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, anyone may submit a photograph via website that is stored in a server in Switzerland, sent to a projector located in The powerHouse Arena, and then broadcast for all Festival attendees to see....With 'We Are All Photographers Now!', Ewing asks, 'Has the digital revolution tilted the field of battle irrevocably in the amateur’s favor?'"
We're all for getting people involved with the creative process. But suggesting that digital technologies make everyone a photographer does a disservice to the art form and the profession. It certainly doesn't dissuade those people who think that the medium is a farce, open for anyone able to point-and-click (and afford the latest camera.) It's why we have so many people taking bad pictures of their dumb, drunk, naked friends in the hopes of becoming the next Ryan McGinley (who we love, for the record. Check out those cave pictures in the new issue of Tar magazine. God damn.) It's also part of the current rabid enthusiasm for "interactive technologies", a.k.a. the reason we have to see idiotic online comments from everyday people scrolling along the screen when we're trying to watch CNN. There can and should be a happy medium between high-minded, snooty elitism and "anything goes" mediocrity. You don't see the Surgeon General handing out scalpels and admonishing us that "We're All Doctors Now!" (Though that, perhaps, would be an America hilarious enough to live in.)
Enough bitching. There is one amateur-based photo show we're psyched to see, and that's Sex Cells at Third Ward, in which "artists & layman alike were challenged to create thought provoking erotic work using only the abilities of their cellular devices." The show opens on June 12th; we'll have to nurse our digital erections until then. We really, really hope someone from Reader's Digest is there to cover the proceedings.
