There He Goes Again - Sean O'Hagan on the Dire State of Contemporary Photography

'The Library of Chained Books,' Hereford Cathedral, Hereford, UK, 1992.
Photograph © Chris Killip.

Every year at this time the short list is announced identifying the contenders for the Deutsche Börse photography prize. You can find the 2013 press release here. And with clockwork regularity we are immediately treated to a misguided lament from Sean O'Hagan at The Guardian. You can find this year's installment of his annual complaint here. I have commented on O'Hagan repeatedly here in the past. Our views converge nearly never.

I do think that I finally have figured out why O'Hagan's views so regularly seem misguided. Consider the opening and concluding passages from his comments on the 2013 Deutsche Börse short list:

The only surprise in the just-announced shortlist for the Deutsche Börse photography prize is the name Chris Killip. He is the only documentary photographer on the shortlist and the only one with a substantial body of work stretching back over several decades. He probably won't win. The other three contenders – Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Mishka Henner and Cristina de Middel – are contemporary artists who use photography as part of their practice.

[. . .]

Killip is included in the Deutsche Börse shortlist for his series of photographs, What Happened/Great Britain 1970–1990?, which chronicles the decline of working-class industrial communities in the north-east. Does the Deutsche Börse photography prize 2013 shortlist reflect the state of contemporary photography? Probably. Should it be renamed the Deutsche Börse photographic prize? Yes.

I will note that virtually every year the nominating committee puts forward at least one photographer who does relatively straightforward documentary work. O'Hagan's lament is simply mistaken on that count. It is no surprise that this year's short list contains someone like Chris Killip.* That, however, distracts me from our underlying disagreement.

It strikes me that O'Hagan thinks of photography in terms of a pile of images. In that sense he misses the fundamental point (lifted from the inestimable argument of philosopher Patrick Maynard) that photography is a technology for depicting people, places, things and so on; it is a tool for making marks on surfaces, marks that we use to amplify our ability to envision and imagine the world. Having missed this point, O'Hagan goes on and on about why this or that photograph or pile thereof does not "really" count as photography. But he is missing the point in a truly fundamental way. Each of the nominees this year - Killip included - is using photography for some purpose. Failure to grasp the basic pragmatics of photography leads O'Hagan to make his truly dim closing recommendation.
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* To avoid muddying the waters, let me be clear that I quite like Killip's work. Unlike O'Hagan, I simply do not think that his approach to photography exhausts the legitimate range of possibilities.

Is Sean O'Hagan a Birther? On the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize

The prize for 2011, according to this release in The Guardian, has gone to self-proclaimed "documentary storyteller" Jim Goldberg of that oh so radical Magnum Agency (here too). Don't get me wrong; this is not a complaint about the judges's decision. The Magnum crowd, Goldberg surely included, are talented and produce lots of provocative work. The point is that the jury this year, like it regularly has done in recent years, has honored a pretty mainstream documentary undertaking. Moreover, they have honored a photographer who works for what arguably is the pre-eminent establishment institution in the field. No news there. I say all this just to remind folks about Sean O'Hagan's plaintive voice which is raised annually asking why, oh why the Deutsche Börse short list is so full of dreaded "conceptual" photography. O'Hagan, of course, is photography critic at The Guardian. You can find his most recent missive on the matter here.

On this topic O'Hagan has begun to remind me of those "birthers" who, despite all evidence to the contrary, insist that Obama was born on some other planet. In other words, his view seems wholly impervious to evidence or argument. And, like the birthers too, O'Hagan is seeking to
police the boundaries of legitimacy. They are obsessed with political legitimacy, he is worried about what is legitimate photography. I've pointed out several times - here and here and here - how far off the mark O'Hagan actually is. In light of this recent decision, we can, I suppose, anticipate a reconsideration in his column any day now?

Prizes, Critics, and the Uses of Photography

Fire-Escape (from the series “House on Myasnitskaya”), 1925.
Photograph © Alexander Rodchenko.

French photographer Sophie Ristelhueber has won the 2010 Deutsche Börse prize. You can find a report here. This has prompted Sean O'Hagan, photo critic at The Guardian, to renew his lament that “the Deutsche Börse judges have shown a distinct bias for a certain kind of conceptual art photography that might be better suited to the Turner prize shortlist.” The problem with this attempted gerrymander is three-fold, at least.

First, as I mentioned in this earlier post, responding to an earlier iteration of his complaint, O'Hagan doesn't seem to grasp what actually has happened in the selection process over the past few years. To save you having to follow the link, I pointed out that "Robert Adams won the prize in 2005. Esko Männikkö was picked in 2008 from a largely traditionalist short list. And last year the list was similarly recognizable." Conceptual Art? Not hardly.

Second, in the same post I suggested that O'Hagan seems to have a naive view of the purpose of prizes - they are, on my view, largely about agenda setting in one or another way. He seems to think there is some nefarious move afoot to subvert the claims of "traditional photographs." In a remarkably un-self-reflective way he fails to notice that his own complaints are attempts at agenda setting of just the sort for which he criticizes the judging panel. Would he, for instance, suggest that, say, Rodchenko or Man Ray not have been plausible candidates for a prize of this sort?

Finally, if we think more about photography as a way of doing things - say, following Patrick Maynard, as a technology that allows us to mark surfaces and thereby enhance and amplify our ability to see or imagine - then the defensiveness O'Hagan evinces is misplaced. There is no need to define the remit of a photography prize conservatively as being bestowed on someone for creating pile of photographs. We might instead simply see the point of such awards - at least in part - as recognizing creative uses of photographic technology for whatever the purpose might be.

Deutsche Börse 2010 ~ Fashion Statement

For a while now, The Guardian has had up this slide show presenting some work by the four finalists for the Deutsche Börse prize. In his accompanying column Sean O'Hagan proclaims:

"Photography, like art, pop and literature before it, is now awash with prizes. . . . If the health of a medium corresponds to the number of gongs, contemporary photography would seem to be in fine fettle. It is, of course, not that simple. Prizes are not just a barometer of excellence, but of changing taste and, perhaps more importantly, curatorial values."

Let's not be naive. This is true enough but too polite by at least half. Professions form themselves - usually under the heavy hand of a select few discourse shapers - by institutionalizing venues and establishing the media of self-congratulation. In photography think only of the way John Szarkowski helped establish Walker Evans as the benchmark. In social science think of the way economists accrue capital via the Nobel Prize. In each instance the processes at work are deeply political and so, none-too-pretty. So, in the description just nipped from The Guardian what seems missing is that prizes do not so much reflect changing tastes as contribute to the process. The curators and other bestowers of honors are trying to create fashion (and dollar value) by promoting work that embodies their own preferences. By situating themselves as creators of fashion, as promoters of this or that hot artist, the curators can bask in the buzz and maybe score some new "major" show. Does any of that really need saying?

In any case, the four Deutsche Börse finalists this year are Anna Fox, Zoe Leonard, Donovan Wylie, and Sophie Ristelhueber. And a quick look at the short lists for the past half-decade, by the way, suggests that O'Hagan's claim about the emergence of "conceptual" work is strained, at best. Robert Adams won the prize in 2005. Esko Männikkö was picked in 2008 from a largely traditionalist short list. And last year the list was similarly recognizable. O'Hagan must've been working a tight deadline. Otherwise he might've looked for himself.

Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2008

Esko Männikkö ~ Photograph © Pekka Pääkkö

Somehow I missed this announcement last month. But Esko Männikkö was awarded the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for 2008. As I mentioned in earlier posts, he was not my first choice; I'd have preferred John Davies. If you are interested in knowing why see [this post] and [this one too]. In any case, the jury could've done considerably worse.

And ...The Envelope Please!?!

Well, I'll be dipped! This just in from The Photographers' Gallery:

"Walid Raad /The Atlas Group (b. 1967, Lebanon), has been awarded the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for 2007. The Prize value is £30,000 and is awarded to one of the four shortlisted international photographers for their significant contribution to the medium of photography in Europe between 1 October 2005 – 30 September 2006. The Prize is presented by The Photographers’ Gallery and the exhibition continues until 9 April 2007.

Walid Raad /The Atlas Group was awarded the Prize for the recent exhibition The Atlas Group Project at Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart in Berlin, Germany (22 September 2006 – 7 January 2007).

Undertaken between 1989 and 2004, The Atlas Group is a project to research and document the contemporary history of Lebanon. In this project the authenticity of photographic and video documents in the ‘archive’ are queried leaving the viewer uncertain as to how history - in particular one marked by the trauma of civil war - can be told and visually represented. Appearing to be based on one person’s memories, it also draw on cultural fantasies constructed from the material of the collective memory.

Walid Raad / The Atlas Group was chosen by the Jury, chaired by Brett Rogers, Director, The Photographers' Gallery - Krysztof Candrowicz (Poland), Director, Lodz Art Center; Shirana Shahbazi, (Iran) artist & winner of The Photographers’ Gallery’s 2002 Photography Prize; Urs Stahel, (Switzerland) Director, Fotomuseum Winterthur and Anne-Marie Beckmann, (Frankfurt), Curator, Art Collection Deutsche Börse."

I never thought the Atlas Group would win the prize; I am surprised but pleased, though, since this was my choice. You can find my earlier posts on this award here [0] [1] [2].

Unsurprisingly, I suppose, The Atlas Group was not the popular favorite among visitors to the Gallery. As the PG web page reveals, this is the ordering given by gallery goers:

"Philippe Chancel was voted as the Gallery visitors' favourite artist for this year's Deutsche Börse Prize. The visitors' poll was conducted in the Gallery from 9 Feb – 21 March 2007.

First: Philippe Chancel
Second: Anders Petersen
Third: Walid Raad
Fourth: Fiona Tan"

Deutsche Börse photography prize 2007

The prize is due to be announced tomorrow. I offered my thoughts on the probable outcome in a post when the shortlist was announced last fall. (This practice of announcing shortlists for awards to be given many months later is the literary/art world equivalent to likely Presidential candidates repeatedly announcing when they plan to announce whether ot not they plan to transmogrify into an actual candidate. It is all about calling attention to the prize rather than the work. It is pretty annoying.) Last year's DB Prize winner was Robert Adams who turned his winnings over to Human Rights Watch. Today The Guardian has a slide show containing a couple of photographs made by each of the nominees, should you want to have a look.

In any case, I am pulling for the Atlas Group but suspect that we will see Anders Petersen win the Prize.

From the series We decided to let them say, "we are convinced," twice. © The Atlas Group 2002.