Random Excellence: Robert Phillips

Robert's portrait of Thomas Struth, another leading photographer of the Düsseldorf School, taken last July. (Struth has several famous photographs of people in museums looking at artwork, including the one on the cover of the Stefan Gronert book which you can see in the Featured Comments two posts down from this one.) He had only ten minutes for the shoot.

Here's Robert's website.

And by the way, Ed Kuipers reports that Andreas Gursky: Works 80-08 is the best Andreas Gursky book currently available (here's the U.K. link). The only one I have is this one, which is good, and which is still available new from several sellers for reasonable prices even though it's out of print. A number of Gursky books (of which there are many) have gone way up in price and are no longer easily attainable unless you have big bucks to spend. Not four million dollars, though.

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Hans Muus: "I always enjoy TOP—the photographs, the discussions, the width of its scope in general. An education permanente in photography. And then there are the photographers I would never have heard of, of save for TOP. Enter Robert Phillips, just after recently having immersed myself again in Struth and Gursky. I know art (photography) is not a contest, and that at different moments and in different moods different photos speak to me most. That being said, right now the work of Phillips appeals to me more than any of the above. Maybe it is its unpretentiousness, and the sensitivity for context, I dunno. Made me a very happy viewer this morning. Thank you, Mike, for once again pointing the way."

Mike replies: Thank Robert, not me! And by the way, you're allowed. Just because some photographer sells a print for a lot of money doesn't mean you have to like it or even engage with it if you don't want to. I used to quite often make an attempt to "engage" with art I didn't understand, to figure out what I could get from it, and in many cases that's greatly enlarged my horizons. But I also became comfortable long ago with the idea that art is personal and also that what has meaning to us changes at different stages of our lives. In fact I think one of the great distractions of things like record prices for artwork is that it makes everyone think they have to engage in some way with the artwork, or that it has to engage them. Not so. I'm perfectly comfortable with the fact that I'm not moved by Frank Stella or Francis Bacon. Just the way I am and who I am. An expensive picture is just another picture; deal with it accordingly. There's nothing wrong at all with liking Robert Phillips more than Andreas Gursky if that's who you are and where you find yourself. Being honest with ourselves might even be the first prerequisite of joining the audience for art.

Comments

[Ed]

El capitan! Somehow demistying Ansel Adams. But I don't think Thomas likes posing that much, I sens some reluctance in his posture. Must been taken at the Whitechapel gallery. I saw the same show in Dusseldorf (twice).

Greetings, Ed

[luka]

The book mentioned, Works 80-08, really is an outstanding thing. Very good reproductions and quite a lot of them, too.

[Joe Reifer]

There was a really great in-depth article on Struth in the New Yorker last month (subscription required to read the whole thing): http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/09/26/110926fa_fact_malcolm

[Don Jagoe]

Damn I learn a lot about photography here. Thank you, again and again and again. The entire Gursky thing has been yet another revelation. Where have I been?

I looked at Rhein II, thought "snapshot, meh...." and then did the Vimeo clip and then thought...and thought, and thought some more. Cripes, he's good.

Did I say thanks TOPS?

[Harrison Cronbi]

The Struth show was excellent, and the Whitechapel Gallery is now maybe my favourite place to see photography in London. This particular print of 'El Capitan' was actually one of a few that looked worse on the wall than in the catalogue. To my eyes the highlights were blown, but hey, I'm sure these guys know what they're doing, and approve each photograph before it is hanged even if they don't craft the print themselves, right?

I published my take on the show here:
http://www.cronbi.com/2011/08/16/thomas-struth-photographs-1978-2010/

[Michael Stevens]

It may be just me, but is the chap on the left "marking his territory"?

[Hendrik]

The problem with Gursky books is they have to be real large, otherwise you wonder--see the original post below--what it's all about.

"Works 80-08" is fine if you want to *know* about Andreas Gursky and his development, but 8x10 is far too small to appreciate the pictures. I'd recommend the MoMa book (http://www.bookdepository.com/Andreas-Gursky-Peter-Galassi/9780870700163) which is very enjoyable.

[Al Jaugelis]

You could call Robert Phillips's shot, "Two and a half men"!

[David]

Well, if I had taken that photo, someone would have asked me why I included the road and cars! Just saying.

[hernan zenteno]

I don't like to pay for photographed images where some things were erased. This can be art but I don't see them as photography. But my taste is not the current norm, so every person that goes for the money need to purchased this book, this will be a very expensive item for the art world, those I will never will penetrate.

[John Hall]

Saw a show of Thomas Struth's work.
Lovely stuff. I especially liked his museum photos. Well worth seeing in person.
cheers,
john

[Oskar Ojala]

The Works 80-08 book is indeed good, but there is the problem that Gursky's prints are huge and normal books are not, so there is somewhat big discrepancy in Gursky's case in looking at a print vs. looking at a book.

That said, most of the pictures don't look bad at all in a small size, it's just not how Gursky intended them.

[Ed]

Ah, thanks Mike,

The nice thing about 80-08 is that it also contains the early work of Gursky befory he shot to fame in the nineties. Pictures of Germany and the same part of Germany that lies next to my doorstep. And seeing a photographer develop his tallent on about 300 pages is also very exiting. And I must admit the early work of Gursky is more to my liking then his later work. Then he foremost used the camera to create the image and not the computer to create his vision on the image. Not that I dislike computer editing (I put the Ed in editing :-)) but his pallet changed somewhat in the last years (more brilliant) and I think I liked his more subdued, older pallet a little better.

Greetings, Ed

[Ed]

Hendrik. Wait till 1-9-2012......then go to Dusseldorf. Gursky will open at the Museum Kunstpalast. And he's currently on display at the Gagosian in New York. New work and somewhat older one. The new work was made in Bangkok and features the Chao Praya river up close and personal. Not the glistening Gursky world but man he's done it again.

http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/2011-11-04_andreas-gursky/

Greetings, Ed

[Robert P]

Mike

Thank you for the publicity.

It is always encouraging to hear such positive responses to my work. Maybe I should enter something into your print sale - it looks like we would have at least one buyer in Holland ?

Robert