An Abstraction of Self

[The_Traveler]

You can't inject meaning into something with a title.

Firstly: Your assumption that I am trying to make something from nothing by attaching an overblown title is incorrect. The title I have chosen for this piece has a connection to its content; that you (or that others also perhaps) cannot see or make this connection does not alter the fact.

Secondly: To say that the title any piece is given will not affect its meaning is a non sequitur. Even calling something untitled has an effect on how this will be received. Words are arbitrary, titles are not.

So what you are saying is that your picture, and accompanying title, are really deeply meaningful but that meaning is hidden from me either because I'm not educated enough to make the connection or my artistic sensibilities aren't refined enough.

 

[sashbar]

The term "abstract" is much more loose in photography compared to a fine art, but an abstract image is a more dangerous territory than one might think. This image looks like a shot of a shop window with an accidental reflection of a photographer. But if I accept it as an abstract portrait - and I have no problem with that - then I start looking at it differently and start thinking what this accurate row of cut off phallic symbols doing there on the forefront? Surely, if it is a portrait, it is all here on purpose..
If it is an abstract portrait - well, the question is what does it say about the person? A sensitive viewer would think that this is a portrait of a somewhat sexually frustrated person obsessed with order and organisation, who was probably brought up by strict parents who never gave him a chance to figure out for himself what is good and what is bad. This image is full of ready made recipies for life. No harm intended of course and what I say may well have nothing to do with the author whatsoever, but yo can not play with portraits, just because they are "abstract". Everything can be translated and interpreted. Sometimes wrongly, sometimes not, but your portrait is you and if you claim this one is you, you better think about it
I apologise if wrote some unpleasant things here, but I am just honestly telling what I see.

 

[peter27]

You can't inject meaning into something with a title.

Firstly: Your assumption that I am trying to make something from nothing by attaching an overblown title is incorrect. The title I have chosen for this piece has a connection to its content; that you (or that others also perhaps) cannot see or make this connection does not alter the fact.

Secondly: To say that the title any piece is given will not affect its meaning is a non sequitur. Even calling something untitled has an effect on how this will be received. Words are arbitrary, titles are not.

So what you are saying is that your picture, and accompanying title, are really deeply meaningful but that meaning is hidden from me either because I'm not educated enough to make the connection or my artistic sensibilities aren't refined enough.

Not necessarily deeply meaningful, but that they are connected, yes. Not hidden from you due to a lack of education or sensibility, but rather because of your reluctance to accept that there could be any meaning here other than that which you ascribe to it. When I read metaphysical poetry it takes a long time and a considerable effort on my part to glean any meaning from it, and even then I cannot be sure I have understood it as it was intended. Still, I don't just rubbish it and reject it out of hand because it doesn't fit readily into any predefined mental pigeon holes in my mind: I lower my affective barrier and experience something new.

 

[The_Traveler]

You are saying that I don't understand your picture because I have not put enough effort into it.

My reaction is that, when I am given what seems today a Herculanean task, I like to know that the task will be worth the effort and so I have developed a fairly effective quality detector. To me, the task seems over- weighted with effort for the value it poses as a photograph.

 

[peter27]

The term "abstract" is much more loose in photography compared to a fine art, but an abstract image is a more dangerous territory than one might think. This image looks like a shot of a shop window with an accidental reflection of a photographer. But if I accept it as an abstract portrait - and I have no problem with that - then I start looking at it differently and start thinking what this accurate row of cut off phallic symbols doing there on the forefront? Surely, if it is a portrait, it is all here on purpose..
If it is an abstract portrait - well, the question is what does it say about the person? A sensitive viewer would think that this is a portrait of a somewhat sexually frustrated person obsessed with order and organisation, who was probably brought up by strict parents who never gave him a chance to figure out for himself what is good and what is bad. This image is full of ready made recipies for life. No harm intended of course and what I say may well have nothing to do with the author whatsoever, but yo can not play with portraits, just because they are "abstract". Everything can be translated and interpreted. Sometimes wrongly, sometimes not, but your portrait is you and if you claim this one is you, you better think about it
I apologise if wrote some unpleasant things here, but I am just honestly telling what I see.

Interesting, but then aren't the ideas which you refer to as bearing unconscious witness and which you say are open to interpretation those which you yourself bring to the piece? Once you start to explore the work and make an attempt to give meaning to it, it becomes an abstraction of your self!

 

[peter27]

You are saying that I don't understand your picture because I have not put enough effort into it.

My reaction is that, when I am given what seems today a Herculanean task, I like to know that the task will be worth the effort and so I have developed a fairly effective quality detector. To me, the task seems over- weighted with effort for the value it poses as a photograph.

Ah, but the real value is in the idea: the thing in itself, not as it is perceived.

 

[The_Traveler]

You are saying that I don't understand your picture because I have not put enough effort into it.

My reaction is that, when I am given what seems today a Herculanean task, I like to know that the task will be worth the effort and so I have developed a fairly effective quality detector. To me, the task seems over- weighted with effort for the value it poses as a photograph.

Ah, but the real value is in the idea: the thing in itself, not as it is perceived.[/


OMG, I haven't experienced this level of BS since early in college.

 

[sashbar]

The term "abstract" is much more loose in photography compared to a fine art, but an abstract image is a more dangerous territory than one might think. This image looks like a shot of a shop window with an accidental reflection of a photographer. But if I accept it as an abstract portrait - and I have no problem with that - then I start looking at it differently and start thinking what this accurate row of cut off phallic symbols doing there on the forefront? Surely, if it is a portrait, it is all here on purpose..
If it is an abstract portrait - well, the question is what does it say about the person? A sensitive viewer would think that this is a portrait of a somewhat sexually frustrated person obsessed with order and organisation, who was probably brought up by strict parents who never gave him a chance to figure out for himself what is good and what is bad. This image is full of ready made recipies for life. No harm intended of course and what I say may well have nothing to do with the author whatsoever, but yo can not play with portraits, just because they are "abstract". Everything can be translated and interpreted. Sometimes wrongly, sometimes not, but your portrait is you and if you claim this one is you, you better think about it
I apologise if wrote some unpleasant things here, but I am just honestly telling what I see.

Interesting, but then aren't the ideas which you refer to as bearing unconscious witness and which you say are open to interpretation those which you yourself bring to the piece? Once you start to explore the work and make an attempt to give meaning to it, it becomes an abstraction of your self!

I think you are partially right, but only partially. One can approach an abstract art subjectively, but I believe (and art critics will confirm that) that any art, including abstract is open to an objective critisism/analisys - be it Kandinsky abstract expressionism, Newman "zips" or Rothko interrelationships of hues. If it were not the case, anyone could produce something shapeless and claim it is art.