From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 08/18/02-04:02:36 PM Z
On Sun, 18 Aug 2002, Shannon Stoney wrote:
> Judy wrote:
>
> > Seagull turds and peppers have BEEN DONE.... !
>
> Were there turds?
See Point Lobos pictures. (But of course *aesthetic* turds.)
> > I don't even mention Weston's photographs of women -- most of whom appear
> > with their legs spread, face-down naked in the sand, screamingly
> > post- or pre-coital, or Tina Modotti-ish weeping. Thanks a bunch.
>
> Oh. The ones I liked were the ones where it was illustrated that it was ok
> not to shave your legs.
Well, that was about 1940, right? Before they had electric razors for
women. If you look around the streets in summertime, you don't see (m)any
women who seem to agree today... From the pierced-navel type to Ms.
Corporate Lawyer, the brunettes have smooth legs. The blondes....who
knows?
But seriously, about those nudes, which seem to get some ardent defense on
this list. Someone said (possibly offlist), you got something against
women with their legs spread? When that's the only representation, of
course -- somewhat impolite or inappropriate as stereotype, emblem or
generalization, wouldn't you say?
At the same time, I admit, the only Weston women I'm familiar with are the
iconic ones. I think of four (plus the Modotti):
The naked lady spread-eagled face down in sand. I wonder if she got hazard
pay for that hellacious position. (I assume she got sand in her crotch.)
Charis on a chair backwards, that is, she's facing us with her legs spread
either side of the back of the chair, skirt hiked up, slip showing.
I think it's also Charis, seated on the ground wearing riding boots &
tight jodphurs. Her knees are up and also spread, camera aimed, again at
the crotch.
The one on the book cover, probably most reproduced artsy fartsy nude in
history -- the head is down on her knees, which are drawn up, now primly
together, coyly "hiding" the crotch, which is of course the point of the
photo. Who would ever pose like that otherwise? It's not the way people
sit. The arms are around her ankles, camera aimed again dead center. I've
seen versions without & supposedly with pubic hair -- who cares? The
obscenity is the coy artifice as "art."
I admit, I'm influenced by the women's movement where, oh oh, must be
brainwashing -- the SUBTEXT of photographs is the subject. The subtext of
these photographs is *naked lady peekaboo.* Pubic hair is a matter of
fashion, like leg shaving -- but the peekaboo is the point. That however
went totally under the radar of the guardians of propriety, so "ordinary"
is it as "art."
There may be other less peekaboo Weston portraits of women I didn't see or
fail to remember. I've also seen his early pictorial fashion shots in old
magazines, even reproduced one on cover of Post-Factory #6. That's not
this discussion.
I'll add that I've read the Daybooks, and found them interesting as well
as revealing. I simply have, oh I'd call it a wider angle view of the
history and "text" of photography.
> I like really sensual, really beautiful photographs, and I'm not yet able to
> make them as beautiful as I want them to be, but that quest is discouraged
> in the photographic community I have been hanging out in. However, I'm about
> to change photographic communities, so maybe that will get better.
Sounds like you're due for that Shannon. But the bad news is, beauty
really & truly is in the eye of the beholder. What you find beautiful may
or may not be shared by others. In my experience, once there's a shared
standard of "beauty" -- uh oh.... cliche. And then that cliche of "beauty"
starts to look ugly.
> When PM is the consensus, the only way to go against the grain, and flaunt
> it, is to say how silly it is. Or maybe it's better just to ignore it.
However, if you checked the word in a massive data base, I think you'd
find that post-modernism, so called, is like Lil Abner's famous schmoo,
meaning whatever the folks using the term want or need at the moment, ping
ponging between whipping person & liberation. On the one hand it's
conceptual, flatfooted and a bore, Richard Prince type art, but it's just
as likely and as often applied to "alt-photo" -- the hand work, "fancy
borders," manipulations, toning, solarization, camera tricks and other
devices of "crooked photography" so utterly forbidden by mid-century
"modernists," or purists. Andy Warhol is post-modern as are David
Wojnarowicz, Dan Estabrook and Betty Hahn.
But I repeat myself, having made this point previously on the list, and in
P-F #3 article "'Violating the Medium' through Photo History." I wouldn't
be surprised if I had to do it again one day, because, speaking of "myths"
of photography, that's another will not die.
Judy
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