Selfportraits with

Concept or Visual?

I made the mistake of getting into a discussion about photography with a friend of mine — a very technical photographer. By “photographer” I mean someone who shoots what resonates with them, has their own vision, and shows it through their images. By “technical,” I mean a person who knows the entire technical side like a prayer, shoots well, but will keep redoing the frame until that one single eyelash is perfectly in focus.

Right now in Kyiv, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, there’s an exhibition of winners from a Vogue competition. I assume it’s Ukrainian Vogue, because all the projects and works are from Ukrainian photographers. I won’t say exactly which images are there, because I haven’t visited in person — I only saw the posters on Instagram. But I did see that one of my absolute favorite Ukrainian photographers (Artem Humilevskyi) is part of it.

My friend’s opinion was pretty straightforward:

“Why can’t the visual speak for itself? Why is there so much abstraction? Don’t artists know how to deliver their idea through the visual alone, without the description at the entrance of the hall?”

Spoiler: I couldn’t change his mind.

I’ve often been to exhibitions where I had no idea what was happening on the canvas or in the photo. Sometimes it was just scribbles, sometimes a can glued to the wall, sometimes a woman in a colorful sweater with heavy makeup… And I walked through the halls thinking: something must be wrong with me if I don’t understand why this is here in a big museum.

But I always had the desire to figure it out. So I started reading the descriptions, the author’s bio, asking mediators what it was all about. And only then did I begin to understand and feel the power of these works — so many emotions that could make me laugh, cry, or deeply reflect. That’s when I began to truly see the scale of what I was looking at.

After that, gallery visits stopped being a light and fun pastime — they became real work. Like reading a book or diving into someone’s life. You enter one hall, immerse yourself in a project, feel it, live through it, understand it — then come up for air and step into the next hall, where you dive into another project. It’s real effort. And yes, sometimes the reflection only comes the next morning.

It’s like picking up a book, for example "Тигролови" by Ivan Bahrianyi (a Ukrainian writer , the literal English translation is “those who trap tigers”). You can just glance at the title and guess what it’s about, you can read a review, or you can read the book itself. And if you want even more depth, you can study the author’s biography and see what period of his life he was in when writing it. And for the very curious, you can dig into the history of the country and the world at that time. On every level you’ll get to know the book — but the depth, understanding, and attitude will be completely different.

Spoiler: it’s not about tigers. 🐅

We’re so used to getting information quickly, scrolling short videos because long ones are “too much,” rarely engaging with things that aren’t immediately clear… because that takes effort. We’ve gotten lazy — we want to walk into a gallery and understand everything instantly, and when we don’t, we get annoyed at the art itself, because we feel stupid and don’t want to admit it.

Beautiful, easily understood images had their glory days in the era of realism — because back then, beauty was rare. In today’s world, you can’t shock with beauty alone. You shock with thought and emotion. (And, okay, a little bit with visuals too. But let’s be honest — almost everything has already been photographed, and creating something entirely new is nearly impossible.)

And honestly, I like that concept wins in today’s art world. Because art is signaling: it doesn’t want to be understood by everyone. It doesn’t want to become television, or advertising, or mass-market entertainment, or news. It doesn’t want the random visitor who walked in just because they were bored at home. Contemporary art wants immersion, it wants attention from those who are truly interested. Everyone else — it simply doesn’t care about.

Art has stopped being mere entertainment. It has become thinking.

And only those who are curious enough, or patient enough, will ever really touch great contemporary art.

This is just my opinion — I’m open to debate 😉

And I’ll add: I appreciate both conceptual, project-based art and clear, visual beauty equally. And just to be clear — I don’t mean to offend anyone with these words. I’m only sharing my own experience: the times I felt lost, frustrated, even angry at art, thinking I was “too stupid” to get it. This is just me reflecting on my own journey.

P.S These are our first self-portraits together since Gary proposed a few days ago. 🖤 We do have a couple of earlier frames from Japan (they’re in the Patreon shop), but this time feels different. These are our first self-portraits as fiancée and fiancé.