For those few of you who may not already know, Colberg's got a fundraiser for CPHMag.
Personally, I am uncomfortable with this. I have a knee-jerk adverse reaction to cyber-begging, and it also seems to me that CPHMag is a part of Jörg's "brand" from which he is already deriving, presumably, a living. He does, after all, teach in an MFA program on the very subject of his web site. This strikes me as different from, say, ToP's funding efforts - Mike's web site is his livelihood, turning it in to money and thence food is right up front, it is the point.
If money was not tight this year, I might kick in a few bucks anyways. Were I actually opposed to Jörg's fundraising, I would have remained silent. Do as you will, of course!
Isn't that really a Patreon thing?
ReplyDeleteI think Patreon is more for ongoing fundraising and Jörg seems to be shooting for a one-time deal (or maybe "1 week every year" or something).
DeleteI'm not sure how savvy Jörg is with social media. His video is hilariously terrible. On the other hand, he's a legitimately popular blog (and for good reason) so I expect him to do well.
I had to smile at your post because I just about had the same thoughts/came to the same conclusion.To me, it is not clear from the various things of biographical info I have come across what his teaching status is. Apparently, he is a 'visiting assistant professor' at some art school in Hartford. Well, that does not necessarily sound like a rock-solid career, and I am sure some extra income would be helpful. - All this comes down to what bothers me greatly, but about which I am absolutely powerless to do anything about, and that is the state of our economy, and how the 'gig' economy is taking us into a direction which I find alarming.
ReplyDeleteNow if somebody could comment/explain to me what this recent statement by Jörg, that is from his post on Transgressive Photography, means? "...In discussions with students, the idea of collaboration in portraiture comes up a lot. I don’t subscribe to that idea. It might work for a variety of contexts. But if you want to make portraits for an art context, there can be no collaboration when the portrait is made..."
I have been meaning to write up some sort of response to "Trangressive Photography" and hope to get to it soon. I was struggling with this other thing (just published).
DeleteThis seems like Jörg doing what he does best, and while I probably disagree with tons of stuff in it I find enormous value in him thinking and writing about it. I like to imagine that, from time to time, he dips in to my blog and disagrees vigorously with me!
Ya, I like that post, and it's definitely needs ongoing discussion. However I was totally thrown by the statement that if one collaborates on a portrait, it can't be art.
DeleteI think Colberg is just saying that if photographer and subject collaborate, the resulting photo will be of little value as art because there is an (unspoken) agreement that the subject will come out of the event feeling that s/he got what s/he wanted, flattered in some way. The photographer does not exercise full control, so there can be no art. Merely artifice, however smooth and competent.
DeleteI think that must be what he's aiming at, but I think it displays a remarkable lack of imagination on Colberg's part. I am left assuming that it was one of those momentary thoughts that seem so clever and obvious in the moment, but which upon examination are obviously silly. Having written a few of those down myself, I am familiar with the symptoms.
DeleteSorry, my reply to ericke ended up in the wrong place. Did that on the phone!😃
DeleteYes, silly indeed. I wonder what Colberg makes of self-portraits.
DeleteOk, ya - I get that! However to me that is like writing an interesting and informed post on evolution and then throwing in "of course there would be no evolution if the earth weren't flat."
ReplyDelete