October 6, 2008
Los Angeles, CA
I stopped by the gallery yesterday to say hello and thanks to Lydia Takeshita for having taken a chance on me and given me my first solo exhibit opportunity (its only good manners). She wanted to discuss my work and its possibilities which invariably brought up the idea of “the decisive moment” as made famous by Henri Cartier Bresson.
Bresson says “There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment…There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative.”
The question is natural and is one that is always in the back of my mind, beckoning for an answer – or at least a visit. At what point is the work beyond documentary and becomes art?
Lydia felt that there are images in “Wok the Dog” that is just documentary. But then there are others that goes beyond. The comment is fair. I would say that out of an average of 40 rolls of film, maybe I only end up with an edit of 20 plus images that I think that goes beyond the act of documenting. Yet, some part of me feels that there is value to the document, even if it is just a way to get to images that have more.
Lydia believes that when you have captured that decisive moment then it is art – she then goes on to add that if an additional element is infused to the image, such as humor, for example, when the work is not solo depending on the objects and actions that are rendered / captured – then we have made ART.
This is where it becomes interesting for me. The additional element. This morning, I looked through the 4 of Sabastiao Salgado’s books in search images with the decisive moment plus that extra “something.” Naturally there are plenty of images that is only a document – but then I found ones that has more.
Now here is the next question: What make one want to own a piece of art?
In the introduction of “Migration,” Salgado says ” More than ever, I feel that the human race is one. There are difference of color, language, culture, and opportunities, but people’s feelings and reactions are alike. People flee wars to escape death, they migrate to improve their fortunes, they build new lives in foreign lands, they adapt to extreme hardship. Everywhere, their individual survival instinct rules. Yet as a race, we seem bent on self-destruction. Perhaps that is where our reflection should begin: that our survival is threatened…We hold the key to humanity’s future, but for that we must understand the present…We cannot afford to look away.”
We cannot afford to look away.
