“By photographing his daily life, did Andy Warhol prophesy Instagram?“
1With his Polaroid, Warhol has multiplied the photographs, of all and nothing, true documentalist of his own life.
“The photo permits me to remember where I was every minute. That’s why I take pictures. It’s a visual journal.” explains the artist.
Among this multitude of Polaroids, self-portraits in mirrors, maybe precursors of our selfies — supposes Jacques Braunstein 5, images of Pop artists and stardoms (eg. Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Yoko Ono) to which come add, from the late 60s, the band of the Factory and all those, sometimes unknown, who frequented it.
Jacques Braunstein concludes: “In fact, it would be more accurate to say that Andy Warhol invented a way of documenting and narrating his life through his Polaroids, his paintings, his films, his magazine Interview and, at the end of his life, his show “Warhol TV”. And that new technologies have subsequently looked for ways to permit everyone to do the same.”6
Instagram claims in September 2015, 400 million users around the world. The application that began in 2010 has only one principle: to broadcast to its network images in the square format (the format can be currently rectangular), adding filters for embellish its. And the application creates the debate. For instanve, one of its uses is to take pictures of meals, especially in gastronomic restaurants. Top chiefs, David Chang, of the Ko restaurant in New York, Martin Burge, head of Whatley Manor in England, have decided to ban photographs of their culinary creations, saying that this could constitute an infringement of the right to author, and give ideas to the concurrence. In 2013, the German Federal Court of Justice in 2013 decided to ban the free sharing of all photographs of meals in restaurants.
Laurent Jenny 7/8 speaks about the possibility of an aestheticization of life by Instagram:
“Instagram filters are in fact a of a very contemporary requirement of aesthetic appearances, especially images in circulation , whatever about their status (private, advertising, journalistic). There is currently a debate for or against Instagram, in the name of the purity of the photographic regard […] But what is striking is the extreme banality of Instagram images, the standardization of their aesthetics and the difficulty of upsetting its. (since the role of Instagram software is precisely to prevent any personal intervention, any failure and therefore any success).”
“This standardized aesthetic brings a paradox: more the images get aesthetic, less they get our consideration. This is obviously due to an effect of accumulation. Crumbling under the number of “beautiful” photos we take with mobile phones, we all have stopped printing them to scroll them at high speed, showing them to our friends and relatives. On the other hand, it has become very difficult to find images that catch the eye more than a second.”
According to Jenny, despite the filters, the images would not be so aesthetic because they are displayed on web like ends in itselves, but the beauty of the aesthetic image is to be a “starting point for reflection. and for the imagination “to have” an enigmatic force “and” to open in us a temporality of contemplation. The true aesthetic image is therefore a challenge to the image.”
Public pictures?
Richard Prince, american painter and photographer, created the scandal by exhibiting in 2014 at the Gargosian Gallery in New York, New Portraits a series of 38 snapshots of portraits or self-portraits stolen from Instagram. Each printing is on sale at around $ 100,000. Doe Deere, creator of a brand of cosmetics found herself unknowingly in giant on the walls of the gallery.
“I think I have to post this, since everyone is telling me about it. Yes, my portrait is currently on display at NYC’s Frieze Gallery. Yes, it’s just a screenshot (not a painting). No, I did not give my permission and yes, the controversial artist Richard Prince has exposed it anyway. It has already been sold ($ 90,000 according to what I was told) during the private sale. No, I will not pursue it. And no, I have no idea who bought it! 10” she said … in an Instagram post. Prince had already taken pictures that did not belong to him, for example in his project Cowboy, a picture made from collages of a cigarette advertisement. By this, the artist claims to redefine the concepts of copyright, property rights. Very controversial for this way of doing, the photographer has, several times, to deal with the justice, but the jurisdiction in the United States remains unclear around these issues, which is favorable for the cause of Prince, but does not prevent some critics to denounce his work.
In the article “Richard Prince Sucks” 10 Paddy Johnson accuses the artist of violating the rule of copyright, of being futile and sexist in the commentary he wrote in a few words to accompany each picture stolen. According to her, he probably had to ask third parties to help him in the choice of images, in order to “understand what is cool”, because he can not do it himself. Johnson concludes: “Brief summary: There is no reason for these reproductions to exist, except to make give some money to Prince, the printings are apparently going on for up to $ 100,000 a unit. This makes the show exceptionally tasteless. Do not go to see it. Never buy his work.”
Social networks could become a new space to reveal the banal. By the photography of common objects, shared moments, short sentences that summarize the moods … But the abundance is such that all these snapshots of everyday life are lost in a considerable flow and network. However, they can be interesting documentary elements, but like the Internet and television, the worst is beside the best. Social networks develop a new market, user preferences are recorded, sold to advertising agencies to establish marketing strategies. The dominant powers know all the time how to do it.
Social networks propose at first to talk about oneself, and to share this “self” with others. A work of construction of the self-image takes place : what to show and to whom, and for what purpose? The web permits easy access to knowledge and could thus satisfy the autodidacts but some present themselves as experts or others producing entertainment, and nothing guarantees the informations they share are reliable.
Of course, probably the banal — or its cult — remains present in art, but the twentieth century — allowing itself to be reformed by these elements from the banals but also from popular culture and the consumer society, settled the question . This is not yet the case for the social and Internet networks that still need to be thought — sociologically, philosophically…
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notes
1–3 Braunstein Jacques, « Les Polaroids d’Andy Warhol, précurseurs de nos selfies ? », GQ web, Culture/arts URL, Published on 11st Aug. 2015 4.Jenny Laurent, teacher of language and modern humanities 5. Colard Jean-Max interviewe Laurent Jenny pour les Inrocks « Ce qui est frappant, c’est l’extrême banalité des images Instagram », URL Published 29 may 2013 6. « richard prince sells other people’s instagrams for almost $100K » URL (en), publié le 22 mai 2015, consulté le 5 janvier 2016 7. Johnson Paddy, « Richard Prince sucks », URL published on 21st oct., 2014 8. Curator, writer, art critic
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