Critique / Discussions

Makes me wonder wether all the discussion about photography made any step further in the last 100 years...

Or is it a more ancient discussion about Art...?

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Coming from a group home page (?)

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I think that the instant we press the shutter button, we have created art, and any process that is used afterwards is just an extention of that creative process, no matter how well or poorly done.
The mere fact that we recorded an image constitutes art, especially if you read what art is in a dictionary! The argument will always be is it good Art, acceptable art, pleases the critics.
What can be a snap shot of a family gathering to one person, can be critically aclaimed by the art world, particularly if that critic wants to draw attention to him/her self, and maybe this is the route cause of much of the discussion we read of these days. Say something shocking to attract attention to ones self! I would much rather they said BOO.

Yes I suppose that things have not changed too much since 1907 and I doubt that they will any time soon. One thing is certain though and that is what people construe as "Art" will evolve and change because everything changes and nothing is stagnant.
What is called modern art and is widely accepted as such came about because of some artists who challenged the accepted notion of what art is and what does it look like. I am referring of course to the Dadaists and the surrealist artists. When Duchamp took a bottle rack that he bought at a department store and displayed it as a piece of art he was making the statement that art is what he calls art. He was challenging the bourgeois concept of what what art is.
Today, we are still debating the same. However, the debate is different. No one challenges the work of those Dada artists as being indeed "art". We may like the work or not but its designation as "art" is not in question at least for most. Do the works of Maplethorp, or Christo (at least some of them) deserve the "art" designation? Some would say yes others would loudly object.
The debate is fueled by the fact that there is not a commonly accepted definition of what art is. Some define art in terms of aesthetics, others define art in other terms. However, most agree that art is vehicle or a medium to transmit something to the viewer. It is in the definition of this "something" where disagreement and divergence of opinions lie. The question in my mind is it really important what this something is? Do we all have to agree to see the same thing in a piece of art? If we did agree wouldn't that mean the death of art and the death of society as a whole?