Still from Nancy Davenport's Weekend Campus, 2004.
George Baker states the obvious.. Photography is a medium in CRISIS. Baker, however, urges us not to despair. The medium has only expanded.
In this piece George Baker heavily borrows and references “Sculpture in the Expanded Field,” by Rosalind Krauss. (which I am not familiar)
Krauss
What I basically ascertained from this work was a notion of the necessity of mapping. Let’s lay out ground rules for where we are, let’s navigate through the treacherous swampy aftermath of Post Modernism. Let’s map the un-mappable, up in here. Resist the tradition, embrace the changes.
Everything is out of focus, hell yeah! Way better than wet collodion.
A major issue at hand is photography’s relationship to cinema. Photography essentially only does a fraction of what cinema does when one factors in the alternative accessories. Sound, motion, music, sweet transitions; I’m sure when the first talkies came out more than one medium felt threatened. Where does that leave photography? Like- cool bro, you froze time, big whoop.
Photography has been foreclosed, cashiered, abandoned- out moded technologically and displaced aesthetically.
Proclaims Baker. Funny, didn’t we do that to painting?
Enter Jeff Wall.. blah blah blah, he references a lot of paintings. (I’m totally kidding, I have mad respect for Wall).
A Sudden Gust of Wind, Jeff Wall
Philip diCorcia, from Hustler series.
nothingislosteverythingisconnected 