I went to the captivating new Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Royal Academy today. Like most of the public, I was absorbed by the form, texture, and most importantly, pigment of the works.
As I was leaving, a small niggle began to form inside my head; namely, that some of the works derived their impact from primarily their size alone. For example, there is no doubt that ‘Hive’ – with its rusted steel and inspired vaginal opening – is a captivating piece. However, as it stands well over 7 meters tall, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people were principally knocked out by its size than anything else.
This led to me to think how much impact a large photographic print delivers from size alone. Surely, a great image is a great image and this is independent of print size, no?
Well, not really. As large prints begin to fill one’s field of view (particularly panoramics), they require the eye to scan from side-to-side and this creates a sense of immersion even when the subject matter is not that compelling. In short, if a large, well composed print is at the top of the ‘wow’ scale, and a small, poorly composed print at the bottom, then unfortunately there does exist a ‘mid-sized wow’ for artistically deficient yet large prints.
I can only hope that I’m not guilty of catering to this sin (all of my limited editions are accepted or rejected at a transparency stage, so the maximum size I ever see them is only 17cm across). However, with the advent of ever-larger exhibits and the growing public appetite for larger, better, faster art, we should never forget the basic foundations (i.e. timing, light, composition - TLC) that underpin a great photograph, no matter what the print size…
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Anyway, the exhibition is great and go along and let me know what you think (click for website, details and video)…
