Thursday, December 03, 2015

Look and feel

One phenomenon of the last ten or so years has been watching photographers reshape their work to fit better into traditional art categories. At the same time photography has been absorbed by artists as an increasingly important visual tool. No matter how many times critics or curators or anyone else has declared that photography is art in its own right, it's taken some adjustments to let it take the spotlight in the most prominent spaces of art institutions.  The exhibition Ocean of images: new photography 2015 made it to the first floor of MoMA so it seems like the right place to go to look for trends. Following up on our list of how to make big art on smallish budgets, here are 10 ways photography is making itself ‘feel like art’.

1   Print big

2   Add a video screen or multiple screens

3   Present work as free-standing cut-outs

4   Cover wall with duplicate images

5   Exhibit images as piles of giveaway posters on the floor

6   Add a sound track

7   Use many eccentrically shaped frames

8   Make small objects, photograph them and present both

9   Print images as a book and then display multiple copies open at different pages

10  Go high concept. Build an environment, like a shop, as an exhibition space within the exhibition space

Images: top to bottom left to right, Indre Serpytyte (8), Edson Chagas (5), Yuki Kimura (10), Mishka Henner (9) and DIS (2)