Month: October 2017

In this text, Fontcuberta questions the use of Photoshop to retouch photographs widely publicised in the media. She talks a lot about actress Keira Knightley, and how her figure has been altered multiple times to suit a particular role she was playing, or product she was promoting.

Chanel enlarged Keira’s breasts in their famous ad, to give her a more ‘feminine figure’. However, this was seen as perfectly ethical, due to the fact that it wasn’t false advertising, because she was promoting a perfume, not herself. In fact, she was even a “trending topic across numerous celebrity gossip blogs” for her enhanced chest. Fontcuberta then goes on to give an example of false advertising. Olay were slammed by the ASA and had to retract an advert they’d created for one of their anti-ageing creams. The advert featured a youthful looking Twiggy, but was later found to have been manipulated to erase all wrinkles or signs of ageing. The fraudulent images enhanced the advert’s power of persuasion, and was therefore pulled from circulation.

“Corrective digital retouching or ‘adjustment’ has become standard practice, a kind of default post-production process that is taken for granted and passes without comment”. We’ve become so used to seeing doctored images, that it’s become normal to us.

Fontcuberta also brings up the point, that it’s scandalous for photographers to edit their own photos, simply to make the composition more interesting, whilst in no way changing the focus or concept of the image. But it’s perfectly fine for publishers to manipulate photos so that they can sell more magazines, “justified on grounds of editorial policy”.

In this text Moschovi explains the journey that photography has taken to be accepted as a contemporary art form. The way that photography has changed throughout the years has affected the way it is seen from an artistic point of view. It was originally seen as something that would accompany art, or an extension of work already produced by artists. Having little ‘artistic value’ just as a photograph. Alan Bowness (Tate Gallery director in 1982) said at the time that they would not collect the work of artists who are exclusively photographers. He would only exhibit photographic work that was a natural extension of an art piece.

Moschovi talks about Harvey’s political economic theory of ‘monopoly rent’ with specific reference to the art market. This may be described as the ‘ability to realise a monopoly price for a commodity’ (Harvey, 1982, 349). He goes on to explain that a piece of art that is considered prestigious, and exhibited in a specific gallery holds a high monopoly rent, as people will come from all over to view this one piece of art. However, as photographs are more easily accessible, and can be exhibited in multiple galleries at the same time, we reduce the monopoly rent or advantage for these galleries. Does this then reduce the desirability to view the photograph, because it isn’t reputable enough to only be exhibited in one place? Would it be considered the ‘real thing’ if there were multiple versions out there?

Throughout the 80s, as technology evolved, photography became more widely recognised and appeared more frequently in museums. The field expanded to a large array of practices including film, digital, advertising, video and fashion. People started to embrace the ‘anti-art’ movement which saw art museums adopt the ‘return of the real’ and a little less of the traditional as the media started to play a big part in modern life. The demand for more contemporary art came in the eighties after the economic hardship of the 70s, and photography fit the bill, being more affordable and accessible to the masses. Nowadays, photography is exhibited in museums all over the world, appreciated as its own contemporary art form, not simply an extension of traditional art.