Liz Lee: What Kind of Pictures Do You Take?
Artist(s):
Title:
- What Kind of Pictures Do You Take?
Exhibition:
Creation Year:
- 1996
Category:
Keywords:
Artist Statement:
Pablo Picasso once said: “Those who can’t paint, photograph.” Perhaps that explains the need for retaliation by photographers toward “new” media. In other words, if you can’t photograph, digitize.
What Kind of Pictures Do You Take? emerged from the frustration I feel about the relationship between the photograph and the digital image. There is a stigma attached to photographers working with computers, a Picasso-esque hostility towards new technology. At the same time, there is a survivalist backlash coming from the computer world, a smug kind of reprisal that all photographers who work digitally only do so in fear of their livelihood. There are, however, a few of us multimedia types who work in a variety of materials interchangeably. We slip easily from one medium to the next choosing the appropriate media for the message.
What Kind of Pictures Do You Take? is a statement about being labeled – boxed in, if you will – into separate categories within art and photography. In photography, there is a separation of themes: portraiture, advertising, photojournalism, documentary, abstraction, and traditional forms, along with the everpresent threat: digital imagery.
My question to all of us is what of box number 10, a box that appears empty because its image cannot be compartmentalized? For me, as an artist, the computer is another tool. It has become a bridge between my mind and my materials. Like my camera and my hands, my keyboard has become an extension with which to convey my thoughts. What Kind of Pictures Do You Take? is a literal, smack-in-the-face comment on how media are translated and accepted. It is a piece that directly confronts the visitor and asks: what kind of pictures do you take?
Affiliation Where Artwork Was Created:
- Savannah College of Art and Design
