Erik Kessels' installation, "24 HRS in Photos," a "room filled - floor to ceiling - with printed versions of every picture uploaded to Flickr during a 24-hour period," has generated some online buzz. The Pier 24 press release states that Kessels' provides the viewer with an opportunity "to both visually and physically experience the overwhelming number of photographs shared online." Indeed, he does.
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Erik Kessels
"24 HRS in Photos"
Installation view at Pier 24
2013
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I entered "24 HRS in Photos" a few minutes after leaving another room of the exhibition, one devoted to Stephen Shore's "Uncommon Places." The contrast between the spaces was jarring. The simple framing of Shore's work -- broad mats provide ample quiet space around the prints -- isolates each picture and draws the viewer in. Accordingly, I spent long minutes with each of Shore's photographs, pouring over details and "reading" the pictures like a short story. Every Main Street, bowling alley, parking lot, and road sign in Shore's photographs has a rich tale to tell.
My "read" of "24 HRS in Photos" couldn't have been more different. Upon entering Kessels' installation, I didn't know where to begin. I knew I was looking at an accumulation of individual photographs, but I could take in the work only as a whole, as a swell of blues, whites, and blacks with occasional bursts of yellow or red. As Ariel Rosen writes over at SFAQ, Kessels' "mountain of photos" is "antithetical to any careful choosing." The installation reminds us that the vast majority of images being produced today are neither intended nor received as pictures to be pondered; they are snapped, uploaded, shared, consumed, and forgotten.
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| Stephen Shore "U.S. 22, Union, New Jersey, April 24, 1974" |
Standing at the base of Kessels' photo slope, I thought first of mayflies, insects best known for being short-lived and dying en masse, their bodies littering river banks and yards. Then, as I studied some of the images at my feet, I thought of Native American middens; the Ohlone shell mounds that were a part of the Bay Area landscape for generations are often written about romantically, but they were essentially dump sites, valuable to archeologists chiefly because they provide a window into "the debris of daily life" for a 16th, 17th, or 18th century Ohlone village or camp.
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Erik Kessels
"24 HRS in Photos"
Installation view at Pier 24
2013
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How should those of us who continue to find pictures so potent contend with such an over-abundance of images (and with the consequential disregard most of us have for them)? One way is to prioritize process, distinguishing art photography from all other pictures based on the methods employed by the creator(s). The contemporary art world has generally embraced this approach. There are many art photographers who achieve critical (and sometimes commercial) success because of the novel or antique processes they employ to distinguish themselves from the mass of photographic sameness. Unfortunately, it isn't a very good way of sorting the good from the bad or the bland; a fascinating or unorthodox method is worth little if the subject matter is uninteresting.
In any case, there are scads of brilliant photographs taken by amateurs today -- a good number could be found among the pictures that are included in "24 HRS in Photos," I'm sure -- most of whom are using iPhones, point-and-shoot digital cameras, and prosumer DSLRs. As a natural history enthusiast, I regularly look at amateur wildlife photographs, and it's plain that hobbyists and professionals alike are producing stunning images. But I've come to admire the lion's share of these photos on strictly technical terms. As cameras and lens have improved and become more affordable, the "wow factor" of good wildlife photography is diminished. (I know photographers who, even though they take advantage of them, bemoan the technological jumps of the last twenty years because they've so lowered the barriers to entry; no longer does a good photograph require the taker to understand the internal mechanisms of the cameras, master chemical treatments, or spend hours alone in the dark.)
Perhaps we can contend with the flood by prioritizing the work of those photographers who have good "batting averages," if you will. After all, one expects that the ratio of good to bad photographs produced by the amateur is significantly lower than that of the working photographer. On the other hand, this isn't entirely fair, as the professional edits and curates his or her work, only letting the better images out into the world. And even this editing process is subjective; one person's discards and deletions are another's solo show. And that's just it. Technical considerations aside, all of aesthetics and criticism is subjective. So is there no measure we can resort to? Have we no way to confront the deluge?
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Erik Kessels
"24 HRS in Photos"
Installation view at Pier 24
2013
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In the midst of Kessels' collection, I stooped and picked up one photograph, chosen because a stroke of yellow in the picture caught my eye. By plucking this single print from the mix, holding it up, and contemplating it, I was mollified. Here was a picture, unexceptional and technically challenged though it may be, that I could appreciate. I didn't drift into it the way I do most of Shore's photos, but, nonetheless, the rest of Kessels' midden fell away. Perhaps the best way to deal with the superabundance of images, then, is to isolate them, glean what we will, and not worry so much about seeing everything?
In any case, holding up the single photograph and realizing that I might write about the Kessels/Shore counterpoint, I snapped several pics for this post -- adding three more drops to the ocean.
"A Sense of Place" is on view at Pier 24 through May 2014.
Photography credits: Christopher Reiger, 2013, and Stephen Shore, 1974
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