Photography and the democratization of art
As you might have guessed by the title of this new essay, I am going to continue writing about the relationship between photography and art, how interconnected they actually are, how they have influenced each other, and our understanding of both terms in contemporary society. If you haven’t done this already, I would recommend you read some of my previous articles such as Why is photography an art form (part I and part II) and WTF NFTs?. These previous essays can serve as a foundation of my own position and ideology surrounding art in general and photography in particular, alongside their relation. However, I might still hint at some of those exposed ideas in this new article so we can all be on the same page.
Let’s start from the beginning (of the arts, not humanity; we don’t need to go that far back). The concept of art as we understand it today is quite a recent idea, recent meaning a few centuries old. We have Kant to blame (again) for the modern conceptualization of art, which is still unconsciously implanted into our brains: the definition of an art object as the carrier of aesthetic beauty, alongside the concept of the artist (or in Kant’s words, the “genius” or “master”, who, surprise!; was only Man) as the seeker and finder of beauty.
Ahh, the old dilemma… What is beauty then? Can we quantify it, formulate it, explain it with words, universalize it? Not really. So if we can’t agree on what beauty is because it is a subjective idea influenced by sociocultural, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic structures, how can we agree on what art is? If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then art should be whatever the beholder sees as art, right? Well, yes, in theory. But in the real world, that is not the case. Art is what some people think art, and therefore beauty; is according to those structures, which are usually Western ideals, materialized through their gaze (traditionally the male one as man is the artistic genius).
I believe it to be wrong to identify art with beauty. We all agree art is a subjective experience that can’t be quantified and formulated scientifically even though humans have been trying to do so for a long time, believing art can be understood and practiced objectively. I don’t think that is possible, because a subjective experience can take many forms and have many different sources, each with its own structural influences. Beauty is just one of those many forms with its different sources. That is why I prefer to identify art as an aesthetic experience, something that has an impact on the viewer regardless of it being considered beautiful. Something that moves you from the inside, that makes you think and reflect on your life, on society, on a certain topic, on skill and craftsmanship. Aesthetics is not (only) beauty, but everything that we perceive through our senses that has the capability to leave a mark on us, whichever this might subjectively be (not exclusively a “positive” experience).
This shift in perspective in regards to art and its aesthetic qualities is not new, even if you think I just came up with a way to refute Kant (that was done pretty much right after Kant wrote about it). There was an experiential shift in the arts (I refer here to the classical art forms: painting and sculpting) at the end of the XIX Century. Artists were more interested in depicting their subjective experience to transmit it to their audience. Abstract art was underway. Not breaking entirely with figurative art (excluding Cubism), artists wanted to become part of their works, not just a mere tool of objective representation, emphasizing their feelings, emotions, and subjectivity into the art object.
And here is where photography enters the scene. I would dare to say it was the most influential factor in the mentioned experiential turn. Why? Photography introduced a new way of seeing the world, unmediated (or so we think) by the hand of the painter, a hyper-reality that classic arts could not match. Photography appropriated figurative representation, forcing painting and sculpting to move away from it towards abstraction.
So obviously, for a lot of “purists”, photography was not bringing opportunity, rather the doom of the arts, rejecting its aesthetic qualities and, unlike Baby in Dirty Dancing, putting it in the corner. There was also a classist motive behind this rejection, for to be an artist required years of training in the fine arts, masterful skill to depict the sublime (another of Kant’s terms), and a deep understanding of aesthetic beauty that was not available for anyone. There were certain material conditions an artist needed to have in order to become one: be a rich, white man who could afford an art academy in France without needing to work in the early capitalist factories. Art was made for the rich by the rich. But not all rich people. Women were not able to distinguish “good” art (Kant’s words, not mine), because they were the objects of art, excluded both as art makers and art viewers. If you want to know more about women in the arts, stop what you are doing (but come back!) and read the world-famous essay Why have there been no great women artists? by Linda Nochlin (I don’t rule out writing on this subject in the near future).
But photography brought something else, something that I am pretty sure those “purists” were outraged by: an affordable and available way for anybody to create aesthetics, ergo art. Now art could also be created by those who had been excluded from the club for so long. This alongside art movements such as Dada, reclaiming the employment of everyday materials and breaking away from just oil paint and canvas, opened the gates to democracy in the arts. Needless to say, the elite was not willing to give its ruthless power away so easily.
However, they had to throw in the towel eventually. Artists had discovered a new way to interact with their audience, expanding their experience and adding new aesthetic dimensions. The artistic revolution brought by photography, and then film and other new mediums, came to stay and evolve, and the classist elite was not able to stop it. It seemed the democratization of art was finally established after centuries of rigid tyranny. But… (there is always a but…)
Reality is not so pretty. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a utopian world. We live subjugated by a predator-ruled system of profit over intangible value. And the artworld is no exception, adopting this modus operandi out of economic interest. And even though photography changed the arts, not only aesthetically but also in terms of accessibility as an audience and as an artist, we are still under this power structure that dictates what art is and what isn’t, and that implies certain rules of acceptance to the club.
These rules still apply today, making it difficult for ordinary people to access the arts. For instance, we live in a world in which it is mandatory to have a high level of education because they told us we would succeed and be better off with it (HA!). However, and I am writing this as a European, sometimes higher education, aka university, is still not accessible for a lot of people. What is worse in the case of the arts, most high education programs for the arts are extremely expensive because they are not “useful” for society, therefore not “competitive” enough to be included in public universities. Democracy failure. And if we look closely at photography specifically, it follows the same path. Camera equipment is prohibitive for most people. How can someone with a low income but with artistic urges be able to afford it? Or to pay submission fees for open calls and photography contests to get their work out in the world? It doesn’t look very democratic to me.
There is no denying the fact that art is more democratic in its accessibility to emerging artists and new audiences than it was historically for centuries. Photography brought new ways to understand the world, expand the aesthetic experience of the viewers, reaching new and less knowledgeable people, allowing common, not-trained photographers to access the art realm, democratizing the arts while turning the traditional artworld upside-down.
The democratization of art since the beginning of the XX Century thanks to the aesthetic interest of common objects, like Marcel Duchamp’s famous toilet, to appeal to social problems and to criticize the direction the artworld had taken, emphasizing the artist’s subjectivity, has however derived into an aesthetic elitism only available to those with the intellectual and academic capabilities required to understand, admire and categorize modern and contemporary art, moving away from the real world in order to belong to a new and exclusive aesthetics elite to preserve their privilege over ordinary people while profiting through speculation.
There is no real democracy under capitalism, and that includes the artworld too. But it is our duty as democratic citizens to fight for it, and as artists to speak out about the injustices we witness, working towards a more equal world in which everyone can have the same opportunities to pursue their dreams and turn them into art through any artistic expression. We need to take the chances that we have nowadays to shape the reality in which we live, united under one common goal.
