Topic: provocative interview about photography as art -- for found photo fans & others

[hookstrapped]

http://www.americansuburbx.com/2013/12/asx-interview-interview-joachim-schmid-2013.html

[Terry]

I never understood the dilemma: clearly everything I like is art.

[Francois]

I find his way of treating "ordinary pictures" a bit  weird.
Somehow, I think there is something incredibly attractive about things that the general public dismisses as pointless.
One of the books I have and like a lot is Taschen's Bizarro Postcards. It is filled exclusively with all types of photos that were published as postcards and that make you go WTF! You always wonder who would get postcards made from such images. Yes, it's got its share of cheesy motel pictures, strange fashion, odd industrial products and such. But it manages to make you smile in a way and that's always good in my book...
As unique items, they are relatively pointless. It's the oddball assemblage that gives it its power.

I think it's the same with ordinary pictures. You have to make some sort of pattern for them to be interesting in any way.

[Terry]

Yeah, this is one of those arguments that'll never be resolved.  You can assign an aesthetic value to a thing (or to a body of work) but we've still got no universally accepted working definition of ART.  Francois, you remind me of something my ex used to say: "Why do you take pictures of ugly things?"  Short answer: they're not ugly.  Individually we find aesthetic value where we find it; if we can look at a body of work and find a narrative thread in it, so much the better!