Artopia's monster photo posts

John Perreault started his May 24th Artopia entry "Why have I written so little about photography?" and then banged out a 2000 word essay on Weegee. On June 7th he made two additional entries of similar length and scope, so perhaps he felt a need to make up for the oversight. One post is on John Coplans; the other on Picasso's muse, Dora Maar.

Buried in the Weegee post is a bit on the role of captioning, something we don't talk about much anymore since the mass media photo magazines have all folded. (I'll write some on the related impact of August Sander's titles in a few days.) John Coplans' work is described as "grizzly self-portrait nudes" - not exactly an enticement. Maar's work appears to presage Arbus's freaky images. Plus there's a long section that outlines Perreault's taste in photography, which is quite differenet from mine. At least he doesn't go in for conceptual stuff, but he shows a preference for accidental photography, which I find troubling by its deemphasis of the artist. Shows discussed in his posts:

Weegee
Through July 23 at Ubu Gallery
416 E. 59th St.
(212) 753 4444

John Coplans
Through June 26 at Andrea Rosen
525 W. 24th St.
(212) 627-6000
Through June 26 at Per Skarstedt Fine Art
1018 Madison Ave.
(212) 737-2060

Dora Maar
Through June 28 at Dorsky Gallery
11-03 45th Ave., Long Island City
(718) 937-6317