A Quote by David Hockney

People criticized me for my photography. They said it's not art. — © David Hockney
People criticized me for my photography. They said it's not art.
I collect art on a very modest scale. Most of what I have is photography because I just love it and it makes me happy and it looks good in my home. I also have a pretty big collection of art books mainly, again, on photography. A lot of photography monographs, which is great because with photography, the art itself can be reproduced quite well in book form.
Some people's photography is an art. Not mine. Art is a dirty word in photography. All this fine art crap is killing it already.
Has it led you to the conclusion that photography is an art ? Or it is simply a means of recording ? "I'm glad you asked that. I've been wanting to say this for years. Is cooking an art ? Is talking an art ? Is even painting an art ? It is artfulness that makes art, not the medium itself. Of course photography is an art - when it is in the hands of artists."
I didn't want to be criticized for taking low-quality photographs, so I tried to reach the best, highest quality of photography and then to combine this with a conceptual art practice. But thinking back, that was the wrong decision [laughs]. Developing a low-quality aesthetic is a sign of serious fine art-I still see this.
Black-and-white photography, which I was doing in the very early days, was essentially called art photography and usually consisted of landscapes by people like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. But photographs by people like Adams didn't interest me.
Although photography generates works that can be called art-it requires subjectivity, it can lie, it gives aesthetic pleasure-photography is not, to begin with, an art form at all. Like language, it is a medium in which works of art (among other things) are made.
Contemporary art photography, or, more specifically, what I would term mainstream art photography, represents for the most part the mining of an exhausted lode.
I assumed from the outset that photography was already art, and that I and other people working in photography were artists. I understand now that this was a minority point of view.
To speak technically photography is the art of writing with light. But if I want to think about it more philosophically , I can say that photography is the art of writing with time.
Photography was the medium preeminently qualified to unite art with science. Photography was born in the years which ushered in the scientific age, an offspring of both science and art.
Photography was increasingly being seen as something outside the art world. As a sort of illustration. They just fired the director of photography at the Sunday Times Magazine - that's where everyone went with their photo essays in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. It was the place to get published. It is an issue. And I feel it. There's no budget. The budget-holders are very often people who've been to the professional colleges where art is not taught. So art as a part of education is something that's missing - since Thatcher's day, anyway.
... photography is just a medium. It's like a typewriter. Photography as an art doesn't interest me an awful lot; as a participant, though I like to look at it.
To know whether photography is or is not an art matters little. What is important is to distinguish between good and bad photography. By good is meant that photography which accepts all the limitations inherent in photographic technique and takes advantage of the possibilities and characteristics the medium offers. By bad photography is mean that which is done, one may say, with a kind of inferiority complex, with no appreciation of what photography itself offers: but on the contrary, recurring to all sorts of imitations.
Michael Jordan was criticized. Barry Bonds was criticized. Some of the greats in every profession have been criticized. Not everything is peaches and cream.
Street photography is art and if art is a crime, please God, forgive me.
The first half of the 20th century belongs to Picasso, and the second half is about photography. They said digital would kill photography because everyone can do it, but they said that about the box brownie in 1885 when it came out. It makes photography interesting because everyone thinks they can take a picture.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!