Out of town: April 2006 Archives

The Oregonian published an interview with Gregory Crewdson in connection with the new show of Crewdson's work (juxtaposed with Candida Hofer - a strange pairing in my opinion.) Many of the questions drive at Crewdson's affinity for the cinematic.

First and foremost, I consider myself a photographer in that I'm dealing with the central problem of creating a still image grounded in the real world in some way. And I feel very connected to the tradition of art photography -- the work of people like Lee Friedlander and Walker Evans. But that being said, photography has also easily absorbed the conventions of film, advertising and popular culture, too.

An interesting tic is how Crewdson naturally switches between "we" and "I" when talking about his working process. I'd need to analyze the interview more closely to determine whether there is a conscious pattern as to when he uses which pronoun. In any case, this plays into a pet thought of mine (not really a theory, just a thought) about the development of the "artist as project manager" brought about by the devaluing of individual skill coinciding with increased valuation of the artistic idea over physical artistic expression. Matthew Barney and Richard Serra would fall into this category as well. This is not to say that Crewdson is not skillful, it's just that his photography chops are not what are of primary value, its the overall conception of the piece. Execution is a matter for the production crew.

(via PORT)