Culture Stagnation

“We are now almost a quarter of the way through what looks likely to go down in history as the least innovative, least transformative, least pioneering century for culture since the invention of the printing press.”

Jason Farago,
“Out of Time”, New York Times Magazine, October 15, 2023

I strongly feel that photography has also been in this deep cultural rut with little innovation and progress, and images that are not that good. This writing is a continuation of a previous post “The Photographic Dilemma” in which I am very critical of the state of photography and what I see as its downward progression into mediocrity over the past twenty years. According to Mr. Farago “…the present state of culture feels directionless…” which is how I feel about photography today.

I recently viewed two local art exhibitions. One was a members show (non-juried) which usually contains work of varied quality. The photographic pieces in the show just sort of blended into the wall. The other show was the Pennsylvania Annual Art of the State juried exhibition where the quality is much better but the work (especially photography) struggled for attention. The best photograph was a black and white image looking down on a street from several stories up which was composed of people walking amid geometric patterns. It showed a distinctive and unique eye of the photographer. I know this photographer and I know he has a track record of consistently creating exceptional work over a long period of time. We need more photographers of his caliber in today’s world.

It is as if many of today’s photographers have no interest in the history of photography and the images created by the photographers throughout that history. Perhaps, they have decided to throw out the past and assumed they were going to create something new. Unfortunately, this has not worked.

Ten years ago, Aperture magazine made a major change to their publication with the Spring 2013 issue where the main section of the magazine was divided into two parts–Words and Pictures. Beginning with that issue the number of pages compared to the previous issue (Winter 2012) nearly doubled (152 pages to 88 pages). This was not good for photography. The lackluster photographs have been diluted by words. As I wrote before in a post, it used to be said that a photograph was worth a thousand words. Now it is necessary to have a thousand words to explain a photograph. Aperture has done their part in contributing to culture stagnation as it relates to photography.

Today, an individual can scroll through thousands of photographic images but there is nothing to see. Culture is at a standstill.