SFGate: Curator as artist meme strikes again

Yesterday, I ran across this great little article from SFGate.com (via NY Art Magazine) about Anonymous, a new book of found photography, featuring anonymous photos from the collection of Robert Johnson, curator at Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts. The book's cover photo is outstanding.

"If I never see another 'Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico' by Ansel Adams or Winston Churchill's portrait by Yousuf Karsh, it wouldn't be too soon,'' Johnson says. "We've taken many of our historical fine art photographs and hugged them to death. When you go to the flea market and go through that box of photographs, whether they're good, bad or indifferent, you're going to be looking at 500 photographs you've never seen before. And you're looking at stuff in a very unfiltered way.''

To be sure, and the article says this, most anonymous photography is drek. (Think of how many "keepers" were in your crop of Christmas snapshots.) A few gems can be seen on Snaptorium, a found photography blog I stumbled across while on this jag. If you want to get started collecting found photography, the Snaptorium online store has nothing but.