Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Sun, 10 Jan 1999 00:54:56 -0500 (EST)
On Tue, 5 Jan 1999, Galina Manikova wrote:
> Once there was an art critic who has written a long article about one of my
> exhibitions, trying to understand, whether what I do is art or craft,
> utilitarian object or not. Not enough that I am using photographic images, I
> am also a potter by education. How can I dare to call it art ?
>
> I found that totally uninteresting and irrelevant. A picture on the wall may
> be an utilitarian object just as a pot in the kitchen. And pottery can be
> pure art. In some way utilitarian objects are looked down at, art is still
> considered to be a higher level.
And in this half-century many "potters" make pots that have no opening, or
are otherwise non-utilitarian, but they're still considered "craft." For
one thing, there's an enormous specialization among critics-- they write
about "art" or "photography" or "craft" or "architecture" and if they
cross over are bound to put their foot in something. Most major ART
critics are amazingly dumb about photography -- don't even know one
process from another. Photo historians are not necessarily better. Naomi
Rosenblum has 8 mistakes in 5 pages in her World History of Photography
section on "alternative processes." Not to mention that critical thinking
generally goes in well-worn grooves -- but you knew that.
> There are a lot of well-known artists using photography in their work,
> most of them do not know anything about the craft. I wish it were
> possible to combine both. Unfortunately it is still ahead its time,
> nobody understands what I am talking about.
Some years back the Museum of Modern Art in NYC had a show called Many
Photographies, or Other Photographies, or like that -- which included the
famous "artists" using photography today -- Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger,
and company. But most of these were what you might call "lab tech," that
is more or less design items or in the directorial mode. The famous
artists rarely do hands on...
Thanks to you both for esthetic discussion...
Judy
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