jeffbuck@swcp.com
Date: 04/08/02-02:36:37 PM Z
Judy: Boy, there's so much truth in your note here. Thanks for taking the
trouble.... Isn't it a delightful irony, though, that Steichen's direct
carbon print of Hartmann is justly revered (well, I revere it) these days as
one of the greatest photographic portraits of all times? Anyhow, it's gotta
be about the most "painterly" photo portrait Steichen ever did, with the
possible exception of the one of himself with the palette and artist outfit.
It wasn't the only time Hartmann ever sat for what he had to know would be an
extremely romantic portrait either. Cracks me up. -jb
Judy Seigel <jseigel@panix.com> said:
>
>
> On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, shannon stoney wrote:
>
> > ... I found the very interesting thread that I'm sorry I missed
> > in February about good and bad photography. I only bring this up to
> > say that if anyone is still interested in thinking about whether the
> > Emperor has no clothes or not, she might like to peruse the most
> > recent issue of The New Republic, which has a very trenchant (some
> > might say over the top negative) review of the Gerhard Richter show
> > in NYC by Jed Perl, and also a shorter article by him about the
> > exhibit at the Jewish Museum. He addresses a lot of the questions
> > that were raised in the thread on this list and puts it in an art
> > historical context. Good writing, most of which I agree with, even
> > though I have not had a chance to visit the Richter show and have
> > only seen his work in books.
>
>
> Shannon, I think you haven't read Jed Perl carefully enough, because I
> doubt you'd agree with what he's actually saying. You mention "emperor's
> new clothes," meaning, I assume, that we dummies/peasants admire "art
> world" art just to prove we're in the know. But Perl, who despises
> virtually all 20th century art, is poster child for throwing out the baby
> with the bath water, and doesn't understand much of either art or
> photography.
>
> It is odd that a fellow who makes his living writing about art seems to
> hate most of it, but it's there on the page. He gives a pass to Picasso,
> Matisse and Mondrian, mirable dictu, but fewer than half a dozen since
> then. And the ones he does like -- whew ! His star, his sublime grand
> maestro, is -- are you ready ? -- Balthus !
>
> So OK, Balthus has a certain lubricious charm, but can we take seriously
> as guide and giver of "art historical context" a man who says Balthus's
> "'A Midsummer Night's Dream' constitutes one of the greatest gallerygoing
> experiences that New York has ever offered"? That drool is the "good art"
> in the Perl article. The main theme is Perl's hatred -- yes hatred -- for
> Gerhard Richter.
>
> When this citation arrived, I was working on the P-F index (yeah, it's
> taking forever) and there was "Perl, Jed, #5, p. 47". That led to "The
> Dumb Quote File," an article of my own. Perl had earned the honor with,
> "There can be no grand style in photography since the camera cannot
> generalize." (New Criterion, April '85. I'd filed it.)
>
> He didn't say why "grand style," a 19th century notion, is desirable, let
> alone why it's supposed to generalize, which might have made an
> interesting discussion. Perl doesn't do interesting discussion. He does
> angry assertion and rant, repeated in lieu of supporting argument. He also
> does gross error -- in this case about photography. As I commented in the
> article, "Someone should explain to Mr. Perl that the genius of
> photography is exactly the grand way it generalizes."
>
> But Perl has an inferiority complex about painting vs photography
> generally, his tin eye perhaps infected by fear of photography -- and in
> 2002 is STILL sounding the tocsin. He hates Gerhard Richter, largely, it
> seems, for playing paintings off photography. He says Richter and Chuck
> Close "have ceded the act of creation to the camera." (Tho that bit of
> sublime silliness at least defies the conventional assumption that the
> camera isn't "creative" !)
>
> Perl is still bitterly lamenting a 1981 show in which most of the painters
> "felt a need to slavishly mimic photographs." He wants painters to
> "respond to nature" without "a camera to do the looking for them." And so,
> failing to understand either art or art history, he falls back on a
> romantic notion of painting directly from "life" rather than photographs .
> (And thinks he could tell the difference, which he couldn't unless it came
> with a printed announcement, like Close & Richter's.)
>
> That this wretched "photo-dependency" has long been a "fact of artistic
> life" drives him batty. He even, or maybe especially, finds painting from
> photographs made from life an affront. This, he feels, simply shows the
> painter's "inability to make anything on their own."
>
> Earth to Perl: "painting from nature" is NOT "working on one's own."
> Making it up entirely out of one's head might be "working on one's own,"
> somewhat, but who cares? The notion, cobbled up to fit Perl's bizarre
> agenda, evokes old ideas of "purity" in photography, but now backwards.
>
> Fifty or 75 years ago, the photo police were calling for photographers to
> do it on their own, "pure" and "straight" without a whiff of painting.
> Now Perl cries for painters to do it "on their own," without a whiff of
> photography. Both notions are irrelevant, a grasping for rules where
> there can be none, the wrong rules even if there were any, and a
> thoroughly debunked notion of purity.
>
> But, speaking of blind, Perl says "Richter gives us nothing to look at,"
> his painting is "without savor, without warmth, without life," and
> "stupefyingly lifeless." (Perl fills space by saying the same thing many
> times.) I'd say, on the contrary, that whoever can't respond to at least
> some of Gerhard Richter's painting shouldn't brag about it. I find it
> extraordinary, stunning and quivering with life -- and, yes, I trust my
> eye over Perl's.
>
> Most widely seen have probably been Richter's baby on the covers of Art in
> America & Artforum (both in the same month!), his wife reading, seen from
> the back, and now the painting NR snickeringly puts on its cover, the roll
> of toilet paper. (I must add, however, that my then student, Sookang Kim,
> did an equally exquisite gum print of the subject, seen P-F #1, tho hers
> was TWO rolls.)
>
> As for the toilet paper, Perl seems never to have heard of irony,
> apparently assigning exaltation by "subject." By that rule, a depiction of
> an exalted or beautiful object would ipso facto be exalted or beautiful,
> as is rarely the case. So, along with the tin eye we have the lead brain.
> Besides his non-comprehension of irony, Perl has -- oops ! -- missed the
> dialog between painting & photography. That is, he has missed the two
> leitmotifs of later 20th (& now 21st) century art. As early as Julia
> Margaret Cameron, even Talbot, photography was directly inspired by "art"
> (remember "pencil of nature"?). Since then, whole movements of painting
> have addressed photography. But to Perl, that means they "ceded the act of
> creation to the camera."
>
> Shades of 1930 and Lincoln Kirstein on gum printing ("odious"), Helmut
> Gernsheim's scorn for Julia Margaret Cameron's tableaux, Beaumont Newhall
> & James Thrall Soby sneering at "rayographs," etc. (This is already too
> long, so I skip citations, but they're in P-F #1, 3 & 5.) In the 20th
> century, pundits from Sadakichi Hartmann to Brett Weston denounced
> photography with any hint of painting. Now Perl plays the flip side,
> denouncing "photo dependency" in "artistic life."
>
> BUT, he tells us, "Great painters have been working directly from
> nature straight through the 20th century." Oh boy. From the moment
> photography arrived, the two media have been in conversation. Whoever
> wants to go off alone & shut the door can certainly do that. But we have
> reams of evidence and testimony of painters AND photographers about their
> inspiration from each other, from Vermeer to Degas and forward, not even
> counting David Hockney's claims about optical devices used by "old
> masters."
>
> True, if you found Perl's hysterical denunciations of what he fails to
> understand persuasive, you're in a goodly company, but poke at them with a
> feather & they fall into smithereens. I'll add, however, that I suspect
> the whole act (the Jerry Springer of art crit ?) is a ploy, a calculated
> effort to "epater le culturati"(which worked, as we see above).
>
> We all like a good rant about art, I do a few myself, but Perl substitutes
> invective for understanding, assertion for insight, and makes up whatever
> "rules" come to mind as he goes along. I'd guess, however, that the New
> Republic is trying for buzz. It's sad to see them in such dire straits, &
> the magazine so perilously thin, with that too too cute roll of toilet
> paper in a gold frame on the cover. That is, the Perl act looks like
> desperation -- the poison chalice.
>
> I'll add, for what it's worth, that I heard in a roundabout way that
> Balthus himself actually worked from photographs. Whether he did or
> didn't, the most interesting topic in latterday art is probably the cross
> pollination between "photography" and "painting." And trust me, Balthus is
> NOT the greatest art experience in a NYC gallery. (My own last week was
> Saul Steinberg on 79th Street, but that would be off topic.)
>
> Judy
>
>
>
--
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