Photography (apart from the legacy-analog/digital-future thing these here dudes are talking about) seems to be attracting a cottage industry of self-described 'critical thinkers' (mainly academics) because, IMHO, the still photograph yields so little contextual information about a) the subject and b) the photographer's intentions, that it is effectively a blank slate upon which to project ... pretty much anything you can think of.

*cough*bullshit*cough*

Can't the same be applied to any (static) visual art? Everything's open to interpretation, you can take as little or as much as you want from a painting/sculpture etc. Minimalist art offers even less context to the viewer.

The context of minimalist art, and other established/traditional creative genres is the gallery: a blank canvas in a store is a blank canvas, a blank canvas in a gallery showing is minimalist art.

You do seem to be spouting elitist bullshit, but I may be mis-parsing what you wrote.

Would you care to clarify if/how you see putting a scribble in a room as art whilst a photograph is nothing?

I agree somewhat - if something's in a gallery, then it's been defined as art, but the space isn't the context for the image, at least in the majority of cases. I guess there's an element of this gallery has this type of art or the gallery becomes part of the art, either in installations or literally as in the Work No. 227: The lights going on and off by Martin Creed, but other than that many galleries I've been to are agnostic of the work they display and will show many genres from the whole history of art.

That definition of art is based on decisions made by artists, their peers, critics and ultimately the public (who may or may not need telling what constitutes a piece of art. I'm giving people the benefit of the doubt). Then, given the thumbs up, that art is submitted and shown. Admittedly that's a fairly simplisitic way of looking at it, but y'know nutshells 'n that.

 

po-mo 'irony' transforms the most random of snapshots into high art indeed, to the cognoscenti. This is not something which occurs to common sense (whatever that is).