Photo Books After Conceptual Art

The British people on the whole are not necessarily considered connoisseurs of fine art, but there are a few that make it their business to visit as many of the 375 galleries in London as often as possible. I have to admit that I am one of them, I just love to soak up the latest offerings from installation artists, performance artists, and dare I say it, those artists of a conceptual inclination. The only problem with enjoying these rather intangible types of creative wonders is that there is an almost definite lack of an object. It is impossible to buy a performance piece or a conceptual idea, and more often than not, I invest in photo books in gallery shops as a way of keeping a memento of some of my favourite works. It has led me to wonder if these items of merchandise have become artworks in themselves.

Art and the object is a big subject, and there are still major debates about what art is. The boundaries have been blurred beyond description since the conceptual art movement in the 1960s. Art is no longer about paintings and sculptures, and in fact, there are many artists that try to negate the object altogether, which is incredibly difficult in what is essentially a visual medium. This means that in the absence of an object, for example in conceptual and performance pieces, photography has often taken on a role that has extended beyond documentation, and produced instead iconic images that have become the art object.

Photo Books of Joseph Beuys performances are often regarded as containing images that have artistic merit; a small slice of time from an impromptu performance captured and then presented as a way in to the work. For most people that may cherish these images, only a very small proportion would have actually witnessed the performance itself. It is our desire for some sort of relic that makes artistic photo books so popular; the same desire that crushed the very essence of the conceptual art movement itself.

In trying to negate the object, artists such as Beuys actually created a new art object, the documentary photograph. From this, there has been a surge in the number of artists that create artworks specifically to be photographed, and in doing so have made photo books their medium of presentation for the work. Andy Goldsworthy for example is an ephemeral sculptor, creating temporary works from natural materials that degrade or disappear, and therefore can only be presented to an audience through the medium of photography.

Using ice, snow, leaves and water Goldsworthy creates a form of land art that has no direct audience. To document the final piece, he uses photography, but rather than using a documentary aesthetic, Goldsworthy chooses to take well framed, sharp focussed pictures. For the original artists specialising in ephemeral or temporary works, the documentary aesthetic hinged on what many photographers would consider a bad photo. Framing and focus was of no importance, the quality was often grainy and monochrome was preferred over colour.

The difference in aesthetic has seen a shift in the presentation of works in photo books. It is almost as if artists have realised that no matter what they do to separate art from the object, the art loving public will find a way to create a memento, whether it is a well photographed image or not. By accepting this desire, artists have embraced the documentary photograph as a way of creating an art object. At the end of the day, photo books are a saleable item, acting as a gateway to recognition and a way to generate an income from art that no longer exists.

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