Changing Places: The. Rebranding of Photography as Contemporary Art
Alexandra Moschovi
In this text, Moschovi explores how over recent decades photography has overcome its stigma and has been now been accepted as contemporary art. “Somebody like Bill Brandt for example, we would not collect because he is exclusively a photographer. On the other hand, there are many artists to whom a camera is just a natural extension of their activities. They use photography as a part of their sculpture – Richard Long or Hamish Fulton for example – and then we do collect photographs.” Moschovi refers to this quote from Bowness, former director of the Tate Gallery, this quote clearly outlines how photography was less significant to painting and sculpture. Nowadays, the works are cataloged in an unbiased manner; Moschovi examines why this change has taken place.
She questioned why photographic works had a lowered monopoly rent, ‘the ability to realise a monopoly price for a commodity’, (Harvey 1982) in comparison to sculptures and paintings. Photography is a discipline that relies on mechanical reproduction, that may be of an original negative or a replica of a print. Photography ‘contravened the modern art museums fundamental principles’ because of this. A collection of masterpieces within a museum will ‘enhance the museum’s prestige’ due to having unique, authentic; as a result, the museum will benefit from admission fees; public and private sponsorship deals and or corporate events. Photography is ‘easily distributed and marketable’ meaning that the monopoly advantages were simply erased.
In order to end the prejudice between contemporary art and photography, the practice needed to be somehow redefined. The anti-art era in the 1960’s and 1970’s kickstarted photography’s new image. A shift towards the more mundane, mass-produced artifacts that were before excluded in art was appearing in museums, with artists such as Damien Hurst and Micheal Landy were inspired by Duchamp’s readymades. Here, photography ‘became a mode of documentation and the photograph evidence of presence that could mediate the work in time and space.’ The alleged ‘decriminalisation of art and the graduated collapse of the formal hierarchies between genres and media contested not just the museum’s taxonomic practices of collecting, its technologies of classification and modes of display but also grand narratives, challenging its status of an authoritative engine of legitimising and materialising culture.’ The photographic practice was beginning to become incorporated into the high art world however, there was still a disconnect, photography still lacked the sacredness of an original work and therefore wasn’t seen as monopoly rent.
Photography was finally accepted into the museum when a revelation happened, that photography could be part of the monopoly if there were limited, numbered prints. This theory meant that photographic images were only deemed modern art if they were taken by an artist, but infarct all work could be celebrated. The idea has ‘provide a convenient solution to the taxonomic headache that the standard accusation of such practices caused museum curators for years…’