Art and Context

I don't see myself as an "artsy" photographer, as I'm more a fan of documentary-type shots rather than high concept work. I like photographs to be appealing on their own merits, rather than becaue they were taken by a particular photographer.

A lot of high concept art can be found in the Tate Modern gallery on London's South Bank. I'm not knocking it - it just isn't really to my taste, generally, as I find I simply don't understand much of what I see. In fact, the only thing that gives it meaning I find are the accompanying written panels and explanations.

This made me think when I was last in there, as I was looking at some tastefully-arranged cereal boxes - "I'm only looking at this as a piece of art because someone is telling me to." Were these cereal boxes anywhere other than in an art gallery, they would have been viewed as a pile of recycling. However, because they were in the Tate Modern, people were stroking their chins and poring over them, conceptualising and imagining. It made me think that context is of paramount importance.

I tried a little experiment. When nobody was around, I took a photo of the gent's toilets (sadly I don't have it to hand). It was an image of three egg-shaped urinals on a black tiled wall. I showed it to people and said, "I was at the Tate Modern the other day. I took this photo. Is it an artwork, or is it the gent's toilets?". Because of the reference to the Tate Modern, almost everybody viewed it as an artwork.

Now consider the same for photography. Are your images only artistic because you're telling people what they are outside of the images, or do they speak for themselves? When you hear a name like Ansel Adams or Cartier-Bresson, do you immediately change the way you're looking at an image?