On the Web: June 2004 Archives
Since May, Lenswork has been running a strange little blog consisting entirely of audio essays. I found the June 2 entry about choosing subject matter particularly interesting. "If you can’t make a great photograph of a mundane subject, at least make a mundane photograph of a great subject."
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
Via Coincidences, Aperture has posted an excellent, short interview with Bill Hunt, Director of Photography at Ricco/Maresca Gallery. He talks about how he drifted into collecting photos and current trends in the art photography.
"Aperture : What advice would you give to a young collector just starting out, for example, how to develop an educated eye, how to go about looking for pictures?
Bill Hunt: First of all you go to galleries and museums, and you go to pre-sale exhibitions at the auction houses and look at the catalogs. It's a way to see the whole history of photography as well as what's in the marketplace.
Open yourself up to the visceral experience of looking at photographs and paying attention to what makes your heart beat faster—not what makes your head pound. When you start to notice what are the exceptional moments—what pictures really turn you on—try to identify and articulate what appears to be your own taste in photography."
I have let my Aperture subscription lapse because of the political slant of the mag, plus about 75% of the stuff they print just doesn't do it for me. I assume this interview was a Web-only feature, which is surprising since their site has been so "content-free" for so long.
