We live in a century (the 21st) where people say, “What I do is art because I say it is art. I don’t care what you say to the contrary.”
We live in a century (the 21st) where Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Leonardo da Vinci would seek employment insurance after a few months in Vancouver. Neither men would understand what “an installation” is. Perhaps female artists would fare better with the current feminist movement. I know for a fact that a teacher of History of Art was recently (I will do my best not to divulge the teacher or the school) told to minimize Picasso as the artist had not treated his female partners well and furthermore had abused them.
The lost art of the airbrush might also be in disuse with temperas and Liquitex.
If something takes time it is not worth doing.
In that light I smiled when a former exotic dancer friend of mine who went by the name of Tiffany asked me, “I am curious what does a photographer have hanging on his wall? “
My answer was a quick one, “Family portraits.” That is not quite true. In 1977 I had my first all person show (my first and last at a restaurant) of street photographs I had taken in Mexico. Many of those grace the walls of the stairs to our (now my) guest room.
I started taking photographs around 1958. Since then I have shot the gamut from portraits to landscapes. I would think (and I do) that I know a good photograph when I see one.
My photography, which was born in that last century, involved lots of knowledge that did not include auto-buttons. I had to learn from scratch. Based on that experience I have little patience for contemporary photography which I think has little style while being sharp and ultra-saturated (meaning the colours are super intense). And of course I avoid all art installations.
Newton, Scriabin, Leopold & God, But Shirley Wasn't Always Blonde
I can remember a memorable (in negativity) one at the former Emily Carr College of Art, before it became, to me, the colorless behemoth on the former tractor and forklift lands. It had a full-size replica of a doctor’s waiting room including boring magazines on the table.
The family portraits on the walls of my Kits home stare back at me and I try to think on how I should weigh their value to me. I cannot.
And yes Tiffany, the family portraits on my walls are proper portraits. They are not snaps. Thought went into taking them and in every single case they all posed for me and took my instruction.
That procedure, I believe is lost and deemed irrelevant..