A propos of which, I've wanted to send a message headlined "Who Is Sarah
Boxer?" because a person writing under that name wrote a review of Josef
Sudek's pigment prints in last Friday's NY Times (5/3/96) which annoyed me
so much I wanted to STRIKE BACK! Of course the Times photo "criticism"
has long been, let us say, imperfect. Charles Hagan (he of "the task of
photography") seems to have vanished -- maybe Boxer is his reincarnation?
I think I've seen the byline before, but not I think in photography, which
would confirm my impression that the woman is not only presumptuous to
make the sweeping statements she does, and to damn, as she does, with
faint praise, but out of her depth. OK, whatever, if she's two phD's in
History of Photography, she *is* on this subject out of her depth.
And for some reason (probably over-educated) obsessed with Sudek's
"giving up" modernism (that this is like giving up an evil mother-in-law
doesn't seem to have registered), but concedes, finally, "It wasn't
such a bad bargain either." Whew! I am relieved.
Grrrrrrrr. (We ignore the Times's judgments on all art media, as far as
intelligence is concerned, but the incontrovertible fact is that they are
the most influential arts publication in NYC hence arguably in world,
being read by most of the supposedly more influential, certainly more
clued-in critics, & comes out while show is still up!)
Judy