Photography
The Imperfect Photo
Nan Goldin / The Ballad of Sex Addiction, 1985
Perfection imposes distance; imperfection adds value. According to the great principles of Japanese Wabi-Sabi, the beauty of an object is inseparable from its imperfections. Is an imperfect photo a mediocre photo? These are the considerations that fuel this discussion. Above all, a photograph must communicate an emotion.
Wabi-sabi: When bad photos are better
Jamie Windsor's YouTube video produced in October 2019
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency by Nan Goldin
A collection of nearly 700 snapshot-like portraits sequenced to an evocative musical soundtrack, Nan Goldin 's The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a deeply personal narrative, illustrating the artist's experiences in Boston, New York, Berlin, and elsewhere in the late 1970s, 1980s, and later.
Named after a song from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's "The Threepenny Opera," Goldin's ballad exhibition is itself a kind of urban opera; its protagonists, including the artist herself, are captured in intimate moments of love and loss. They experience intensity and pain through sex and drug use; they revel in dance clubs; they suffer violence and the ravages of AIDS.
“The Ballad of Sexual Addiction is the journal I let people read,” Goldin wrote. “The journal is my form of control over my life. It allows me to obsessively record every detail. It allows me to remember. The Ballad developed through multiple improvised live performances.”
Imperfection adds value
Perfection creates distance
Getting the perfect picture isn't the photographer's only goal
Imperfection breeds individuality, individuality adds value
Emotional narrative and imperfection, driven by spontaneity
Photography is not reality, but an interpretation of reality
At the heart of Japanese philosophy and wisdom is a concept called 'wabi-sabi'; a term that denotes a commitment to the everyday, the melancholic, to something a little broken and imperfect.
The principles of Wabi-Sabi
(Japanese aesthetic concept)
Nothing is permanent
Nothing is finished
Nothing is perfect
The beauty of an object lies in its imperfections
Links to collections of imperfect photos
Carl Vanassche exhibition at Galeria Mutuo
The concept of sampling
Photos from a Carl Vanassche exhibition in 2017 at Galeria Mutuo
Album: Carl Vanassche exhibition in Paris in May 2013
Let's go to the source
Carl Vanassche
Here is the choreography “Body Remix / The Goldberg Variations” by Marie Chouinard
And here are other examples produced in a few seconds with the 'Grunge HD' app from a photo captured during a performance by the Marie Chouinard troupe of the production bODY_rEMIX/les_vARIATIONS_gOLDBERG
Is sampling an original artistic creation process? Or is it simply a post-production process that adds no value to the original work? Is it a form of appropriation of a creator's work? In my opinion, this kind of practice raises questions of intellectual appropriation that call into question the creators' intellectual property.
The perfect illustration of the Wabi-Sabi philosophy: a broken vase, finely repaired, which allows a bond of uniqueness to be established between the object and its user, with a story that recalls a breakage, skillfully repaired, to make it an object of refined aesthetics and unique in the world.