From: Sarah Van Keuren (svk@steuber.com)
Date: 09/28/00-09:39:20 PM Z
>
> Ah, dear Judy, do I sense that you feel that you have more illuminating
> comments to make about what makes photography art? If so why do you keep
> them to yourself?
>
> Rod
>
Maybe she realizes the futility of trying to articulate what makes
photography art.
I appreciate the thought and the knowledge of art history that Rod brings to
the question and a dutiful part of me thinks this is good topic for
discussion; but another part of me isn't even interested in trying to say
something that is bound to exclude many other wonderful ways in which
photography functions which may or may not be as art.
One of the first books I bought for myself was The Family of Man that was
sold in a drugstore by my bus stop. For a twelve-year-old om Washington,
DC,these photographs were a window on the world, not 'art'. People take so
many different things from photographs according to temperament, need,
background, stage in life.
And I really don't care whether others consider what I produce to be art, or
not, since I have come to it step by step and it is what has emerged like a
tree bearing fruit. We don't criticize trees for doing what they do or birds
for singing the songs they sing. People seem the same way to me. To
understand is to forgive any expression of the individual although we may
choose to ignore or exclude 99% of what passes before us and embrace the
remaining 1% ‹ but that is one's personal taste, not something that can be
put down as principles or a sort of constitution.
Sarah
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