Art Photography and Photography-By-Artists

In looking through the recent history of photography text and in thinking about the comments made about Yasumasa Morimura's piece, Daughter of Art History, which is a color photograph mounted on canvas..I came upon a section of text entitled Art photography and Photography-by-Artists. A portion reads as follows, "As Solomon Godeau pointed out, art photographers continued to treasure subjective & intuitive expression, the intricacies of craft, and the sharp dividing line between fine art & commercial imagery. Briefly put, art photography aspired to the condition of painting...and access to gallery.

In contrast, photography-by-artists owed little to the traditional values of art photography. It critiqued the notion of personal expression..For those who praised and those who disparaged her work, Cindy Sherman became the exemplar of the photography-by-artists movement. In fact, she was one of the first image makers who worked exclusively in the medium to be called an artist rather than a photographer.

It goes on to state that by the end of the century the terms "photo-based artist" and "photo-based work" replaced "photography-by -artists" ...David Rimanelli observed, "Given its absolute and tiresome omnipresence..photography looks like the academic painting of our time."

As an artist that considers myself a painter, but works with various media, this reading was of particular interest.