WELCOMING REMARKS BY
Tom Drysdale, Chair, Department of Photography

The National Graduate Seminar has been created for you, who have distinguished yourselves at you home institutions and in the eyes and minds of the jurors who selected you. As promising students of photographic art, you will be contributing to the future definition of the field. We very much wanted to give you an opportunity to meet each other and to work together in an examination of some of the many issues that confront photographic artists, critics and historians. Your input in this process will be important, indeed last year’s program was productive precisely because of the enthusiastic contributions of its student membership, some of whom have returned to assist with our work during the next few weeks.

I would like to acknowledge contributions to this second annual event from the Agfa Division of Miles, Inc. and, specifically Eelco Wolfe and Dion Tron who have supported this project with not only a substantial grant, but with exceptionally good advice and consistent encouragement.

New York University, through its Challenge Fund and through the office of the Dean, has assisted us with physical and financial resources. Finally, I’d like to express my appreciation to Cheryl Younger for her tireless work on behalf of this seminar, which she first proposed three years ago and which is now becoming something of an overnight institution.

I would like to offer a few general remarks about my personal feelings regarding photographic art today. One of my own teachers, Lawrence Alloway once said, "There is no such thing as good art and bad art, there are, simply different audiences." I argued with him at the time, because I sure as hell knew good art and bad art when I saw it, but I’ve come to believe he was right.

Photography, since it emerged nearly twenty five years ago as a "legitimate" member of the society of serious arts, has undergone some changes. Not the least of these is its certification as an academic discipline. When you speak with people who participated in the creation of the original version of the Society of Photographic Education (SPE) you have the sense that they had in common a great love of pictures and picture making.

In return for admission to the society of serious art, photography has suffered something of a fall from grace, or a loss of innocence. Photographic art has gained prestige, market value, hierarchies of "important" artists, critical theories historical constructs, galleries, museums, collecting patrons, fellowships, grants, blue-chip portfolios, public relations campaigns, career management and ideological confederations, in short all of the real world sophistication of the "other " elite art media. The more you have, the more you have to lose and one must often unravel the embroidery of a competitive superstructure to find the art within.

There is also the continuing identity crisis of commercial versus fine art, with galleries offering for sale, as art, work which was commissioned, and with photographers who established themselves as fine artists working quite regularly in advertising. Photography’s identity is further challenged by the proliferation of mixed media practices, by the incorporation of text ala Barbara Kruger where poetry is often primary and photography is incidental and the emergence of electronic technologies which, if you read yesterday’s NY Times business section, has George Eastman’s minions battling what they would have us think as the Pacific scourge, or digital imaging.

Documentary photography, long established as a noble calling among photographic practices, is also under siege, as new thinking about representation challenges some of the mythology of photojournalism. Those who construct still-life or tableaux which happen to be recorded photographically and others who combine appropriated images and graphics electronically raise questions about photographic process versus photographic vision. Indeed, many artists have devoted their energies to the interstices between categories, so that there is now a virtual continuum of practitioners in every area.

Critical theory has been a driving force behind much of what has come to the public eye in the last ten years. In simple terms, to paraphrase Jean Claude Lemagny in an interview he did with Shelley Rice a few years ago, "The problem is that writers always need new to write about and artists are always addressing the same issues." Some photography is easier to write about and our culture still regards certification in print as the official stamp of approval. This is further reinforced by the academy which is prone by its very nature to favor text over image, the latter being beset with vulgar associations.

For the working artist, there have never been more choices to draw from, practically or intellectually. While there are flavors of the week, we live in an age characterized by the simultaneity of all tastes. You can buy a French impressionistic painting with the paint still wet, or a daguerreotype made last weekend. While you may have more options, creatively, you are more accountable than your predecessors as well, because you have access to the archive of the works of others. As you consider the possible trajectories of your respective careers, however, let me tell you that I envy you not a little bit.

You are relatively free now, to do your own work, more so than in ten years when you have the momentum and inertia of your growing reputations. Take the time you have now to enjoy the process of emergence. By all means, take your work seriously, raise our standards as high as you can and share your work with other artists. I know that teachers, dealers, critics, magazine editors and others of significance may be able to do something for you, but I think your peers, who share your idealism, may contribute at least as much to the progress of your work. To abuse Keats, the truth of the beauty of this seminar is that the friendships you make here with each other may be as important as anything else.

Finally, I would only add a plea for tolerance. This assumes an independenceon part of each of you, for if you are truly secure in your own work, you will be more apt to receive the work of others with a modicum of generosity. The " real world" I spoke about before is competitive by design and purpose, but much of what you are mow about has little to do with anyone else, as you clarify your personal intentions and the work that proceeds from your convictions.

While we will indeed argue and chafe some during the next few weeks, don’t be selfish with each other. Greenwich Village, our town with in a town, has a reputation for freedom of expression. Express yourselves and enjoy your time here.