A good majority of contemporary photographers are printing their works out BIG. As one of the artists at my gallery
is a photographer, I hear about the advancements in digital printing such as longer archival life, better quality, and
the ability to produce larger/clearer images. In fact, I know that one of the best studios to have cibachromes made in
New York, possibly the world, has ceased making cibas and is only working digitally. Even Lambda prints are on the way
out. So as techonology evolves can we expect photography to keep utilizing it and pushing it's boundaries?
Regardless, one key question to ask is why are photographs so darn big? I have always thought that it made them more
painterly when they were on a larger scale; enchanting and encompassing. SF dealer Jeffrey Fraenkel says in a recent
NYTimes article about this subject attributes it to the following:
...a long-standing feeling in the art world that photography was, perhaps, a second-class citizen…Once it became possible to make authoritative large-scale prints, photographers could challenge the other arts, especially painting, on a level playing field.
But not everyone agrees this should be the universal default size…
Today, any photograph can be made huge. But not every photograph should be. Vince Aletti, writing about the big-picture phenomenon in The Village Voice in 2001, observed that "When virtually everyone is striving for new levels of drop dead monumentality, size loses its power to wow and becomes almost beside the point. . . . For too many photographers, however, bigger is not better; a weak image doesn't suddenly look important when it's blown up to the size of a store window.
So, is a photograph better if it's bigger? No. Same as painting (or anything else really)...some work better on a
large scale, some look better on a small scale. What I think may not work is the in-between, the middle. Seems like
photography either needs to confront you or be precious to make it that extra special something. Oh, and the subject
matter counts too…mais bien sur!
Image: Thomas Struth Musee d'Orsay Paris, 1989/90
1. or maybe it does. Would you frame a 4" x 6" photograph and hang it in your living/bed/dinning room, probably yes if your 17 or under minus the frame plus some bluetack - otherwise i doubt it. On the other hand would you display a 400" x 600" photograph there - more to the point could you - probably not. So for practical reasons we need limits, at least for the photographer wishing to sell to the "general" public. However i don't believe that the word practical should be used with reference to art of any sort - so artist should do what the hell they like be it Big or Small or Inbetween and stuff the consequences.
Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Amanda Hankinson