From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 04/12/02-01:35:55 AM Z
On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, shannon stoney wrote:
> I guess it depends on where you live. In Tennessee, where I live
> most of the time, when I can escape from Houston, there are more
> trees than media. The tv doesn't come in too good, and I don't watch
> it anyway. I don't read newspapers because then i have to recycle
> them. I don't listen to NPR much because I would rather listen to
> the people that live with me. So, trees are a more relevant topic to
> me than media.
Perhaps so, but you make it sound as if your main sources of information
about contemporary *art* are, on the one hand your doctrinaire trendoid
professors, and at the other extreme -- Jed Perl. True, you and he may be
kindred souls. But my take on Perl is that he has little to say beyond
railing against the basic premises of the 20th century.
That's his privilege -- and your privilege, and I trust that some speed
reader on the list won't take my comments as defense of the offenses of
contemporary art. But my comment about media was because the two of you
seemed to take art about media as ipso facto pernicious and meretricious,
proof of original sin.
The information I tried to provide is that there are intelligent,
talented, sincere folks who are not interested in trees and ARE interested
in media, which is part of the general environment & not simply a sure
sign of depravity. In fact I suggest perhaps you might let a few "media"
enter your life, to give yourself the wherewithal should you ever wish to
see around or beyond Perl.
For instance, I'd even recommend April 2002 Art in America -- to
everybody. A provocative double review of David Hockney's "Secret
Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters" paired
with Philip Steadman's "Vermeer's Camera." An article about the painting
and photography of August Strindberg, his "dreamscapes", in both
photograms & paintings. There's a photogram of crystals and another he
calls a "Celestograph", apparently exposed to the sky. We know Strindberg
mostly for his misanthropy, but we read here that he "began to edge the
theme of chance toward the heart of European esthetics." (A 20th century
theme I daresay gives Perl the vapors.) (But note "esthetics" without the
"a." At last.)
Of even greater interest to "alt" photographers might be Kunie Sugiura's
life size photograms and other cameraless images -- with similarities to
Adam Fuss (she put kittens on sensitized paper & left them, etc.) but some
of it could be earlier.
An article on Eli Nadelman shows several UNfamiliar & delicious works,
among much else. And if you want haut trendoidery, there's a shot of
the new Prada store in Soho designed by Rem Koolhaas. It's across the
street from my gym, and I've been directed by a friend to visit it in
atonement for my sins perpetrated and as yet unimagined.
But speaking of photographing human-made scenes vs. "nature"... I want the
built environment, especially the ugly, which photography does so
beautifully. I recall 100 or so years ago reading about some school of
Asian (Chinese?) painting that insisted on at least something, however
small or peripheral, "man-made" in every scene. Or did I imagine that? I
did a print as an illumination with an invented text saying it was the Han
dynasty (which I have less than a nodding acquaintance with). But I'm
pretty sure it was/is true.
I myself am not now, tho I confess I have been in the distant past, a
member of the "ain't nature grand" school of art... Now I like ugly, and
my camera practically insists on it. But finally, if Jack Fulton is trying
to claim membership in the school of tree photographers he's full of
baloney. I have his WONDERFUL book, and he is absolutely a *conceptual*
photographer. That is, OK, he loves the great outdoors, and he photographs
trees, but it gets a whole other treatment (or tree-tment?) (including --
are you ready -- words and BORDERS !!)... so don't try THAT again, please
Jack.
best,
Judy
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