The exhibition offers an alternative to presenting artistic photography based on a traditionally instructive model. In this sense it is also an attempt at critically reviewing the ingrained idea about the relationship between photography and fine art in which the adjective “artistic” played until recently the role of a hub of controversy around which were spun both endless and often fruitless debates, as well as endeavours producing things of artistic value that were worth revisiting.
The exhibition works as a form of liaison between the viewer and
one of the current trends in photographic discourse. This does not
prevent it from also being a spectacle buoyed up by the quality of
tried-and-tested as well as unsung photographs and works of fine
art. Although dedicated to the second half of the 20th century, it
is by no means a definitive history comprising artists and
photographs that have become a staple diet at similar events. On
the contrary, the concept of the exhibition attains its goal by
bringing back into discussion notions, themes and points of
argument typical for the second half of the 20th century and
indicating just why they were so important. It concentrates on
areas where the artists fashioned their photographs in forms that
evidently refer to fine art and those where photography was
completely autonomous and even was a reason or precondition for the
rise of a particular artistic discipline. As the relationship
between photography and fine art in the period under scrutiny was
bilateral, rather than a one-way affair it might seem to have been
from numerous interpretations disregarding the rest of the world in
the name of photography, the show will also feature works of fine
art which in some way reflect a relation to the principles of
photography.
The exhibition is divided into sections making a statement, within
the confinements of artistic artefacts in different media and
regarding traditional genres and movements, such as landscape,
op-art, Art Informel, photorealistic painting, conceptual trends,
etc. Rather than a simple comparative approach to form, although
this is also present, it is concerned with their interlinking based
on their shared principles. This makes it possible to juxtapose
landscapes by pictorialists searching for an ideal record and
contemporary digital montages, objects and conceptual photographs
or, for example, photograms and documentary photographs.
One of the most controversial issues in photographic theory and,
at the same time, a characteristic that in our eyes is responsible
for what photography is about is its ability to document, i.e.
provide an objective record of the outer world. This aspect is also
pivotal for the concept of the exhibition. We have tried to avoid
the identification of photography with the final realization of a
perpetual desire of Western civilization to have a tool of perfect
representation. In contrast, we have given it the role of a
referential framework, both for fine art and photography, as we
hold that each of these artistic media has been building its own
particular relationship with photography, based on photography's
unique capabilities.
The exhibition is the last in a series of three comprising In Full
Spectrum. Photography 1900-1950 from the Collection of the Moravian
Gallery in Brno (4/11/2011 - 5/2/2012) and L'étude d'après nature.
19th Century Photography and Art (24/2/2012 - 20/5/2012) dedicated
to exploring the relationship of photography and art to mark the
fifty years of the existence of the photography collection of the
Moravian Gallery in Brno.
