Imago Winter 1999 [antikvár]

/îTseveral texts on the prevailing situation in photographie production we comc across the question, expressed either directly or indirectly, in what rcsides the essence (if I may use such a traditional, though not very popular term) of contemporary photography? The discussion froin the end of the eighties and early nineties still carries echoes of the measure to which digital technologies have influeneed the form of the médium. Whether it is truly necessary to discard the subject of photography and rallier dévote attention to problems of visual production and whether we are in the " post-photography era". (Certain departments at academies of fine arts are not termed any longer chairs of photography, but of visual communication." To this we may also add questions as to how topical, new and unex-pected are the creative initiatives offered by authors at exhibitions or !11 book-published projects. Ail these discussions help to relegate a far more essential problem into the background. That is to say, if we keep on dealing mainly or exclusively with classification, then the core of the issue is likely to evade us - i.e, what is the place of art in the society. Everyone undoubtedly feels and sees that the position of art, as well as that of artists, lias considerably alter-ed over the past hundred years. We meet more and more frequently with evidence to the effect that art lias been turned into entertainment, production of objects "made to measure" to fit a potential clientele. Art is not looked upon any longer as a report on essential questions of existence. The overlapping of art with design, the frequent stress on the immediate utilitarian functions of the video-clip, or picture, tends to lead to an easy replacement and substitution by finished products. The question is whether such a trend will definitively alter the profile of art, or whether something from the productive concept of a work of art as a means of communication on the pillars of existence will be preserved. It seems to me that not everything has as yet been wasted, that there still is a chance for concepts of art, perhaps rather too traditionalist to some, to be preserved. I see the cause to lie in an inadéquate - luckily! - globalization of the world of art. If we compare the main movement in photographie thinking in Germany or the USA with that in Ukraine or Latvia, we fincl that they differ considerably. In fact, we note that in both the latter countries, the concept of photographie art as a mode of contact with the ever evasive truth or beauty, still functions with undiminished strength and startling freshness. There is no trace here of utilitarianism, apt to quantify everything, that sets up statistical ladders of the best contemporary artists and dégradés artistic production down to a stock market commodity. To my mind, even a momentary sobering of post-modernism from the many years of fascination is proof that dissatisfaction reigns with what is being offered on a mass scale as works of art, with what fi 1 Is exhibition halls, or is shown in cinémas. A key to its solution may be a renewal of discussions on art as an irrational way to the essential values of existence - that a total revitalisation will be replaced with an attempt at a hierarchization which may use such terms as mystery, message, magie, etc. And it is precisely in the photographie cultures of Central and Eastern Europe, but also e.g. in the works of Brazilian or Mexican photographers that we find sufficient evidence for the fact that photography may meaning-fully exist as a visual poem, an image remotc from any immediate utility value and is, in the true sense of the word, unprofitable. For its unique ambition is to address truth and beauty. Irrelevant, against the background of these facts, are also discussions on where exactly photography begins and where it ends. Whether classical photography will comc to be an analogy of graphie techniques mastered uniquely by a few specialists and digital technologies will be used on a mass scale. Or, whether it is correct or not to include in an exhibition of photography also installations that make use of works or videoprojections experimenting with photography. The essential issue is whether art will also in the future be first and foremost a dialogue with the infinité, or a consumer article that should be promptly sold. Vâdav Macek