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John
Paul Caponigro – Juror's Statement
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PhotoSpiva
2007 is selected from 500 photographic (analog and digital)
pieces (tiny and large, glossy and matte, black-and-white
and color) by 107 artists (amateurs and professionals)
working in highly diverse modes.
Contemporary visual artists use diverse media. The images
entered for consideration in PhotoSpiva 2007 represented
work created with a variety of analog and digital capture
and output processes applied in a variety of manners;
flawless and distressed surfaces; collage and montage;
colorful bi-products of controlled energetic accidents
employing a variety of uses of electromagnetism and
chemistry; etc.
Contemporary artists create diverse types of artifacts.
The images considered were created through a variety
of modes of practice, employing varied visual genres
and languages: documents; abstractions; social commentary;
celebrations of beauty; humor; intimate disclosure;
self-analysis; self-conscious posing; kitsch; reference
to art historical themes (occidental and oriental);
media referents; artifacts of process (historical and
soon-to-be historical); etc.
The question “Is it photography?” is not
very useful. A more useful question is, “What
kind of photography is it?”
In our highly dynamic, diverse, pluralistic, post-post-modern
world, to make qualitative distinctions, what criteria
are most useful and how can they be best used?
Here are some of the things I consider when looking
at images: a sensitive application of craft; appropriate
contextualization; an understanding of the history of
ideas and their development within the visual arts;
an intelligent exploration of ideas (with extra emphasis
when insights arise that seem fresh beyond what we already
know); a sense of mystery (escaping easy definition
despite our best efforts to understand the work, its
essential nature continues to elude us, begging us to
return to it again and again, hopefully with each revisiting
we learn more); authenticity (a quality akin to originality
but not to be confused with novelty, a uniqueness rising
out the ground of individual being truthfully disclosed);
communion (the ability to reach out to, embrace, and
be overwhelmed by the extraordinary world we live in).
To varying degrees and in varying proportions, all these
qualities could be found in the work considered. It
was a pleasure to look at this work. It was a highly
enjoyable challenge to attempt to fully appreciate it.
And, it was instructive to do so. This was time well
spent.
I would like to thank the staff and volunteers at Spiva
Center for the Arts and all of the artists who participated
in this delightful celebration of images. And, I’d
like to thank you for the devotion of your time and
your respectful consideration of their contributions.
— John Paul Caponigro |
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Spiva
programs are made possible with financial assistance
from The Friends of St. Avips and the Missouri
Arts Council,
a State agency.
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you for your continued support |
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