From: Steve Shapiro (sgshiya@redshift.com)
Date: 08/19/02-01:22:49 AM Z
In a recent interview with grandson [to EW] Kim Weston, he explaind that
while looking over the logs of his grandfather's print sales, his most
reproduced print was the Pepper, (I seem to remember he was quoted it was
#40, but it may have been Pepper #30) and that one he made 26 prints. 26
prints of his most reproduced picture. Kim's point was, why do young
photographers make so many prints?
Kim used to sell the negative with the one print. Now, he tosses the negs
after a couple of prints sell.
S
----- Original Message -----
From: "Shannon Stoney" <shannonstoney@earthlink.net>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca>
Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2002 11:50 AM
Subject: austere sensuality
> Carl,
>
> Thanks for the technical info about the lightbulb. I can't wait to try
> this.
>
>
> >
> > Weston's work has suffered from having a few iconic images reproduced
over
> > and over again making his work seem more limited than it was.
>
> I think this is exactly right. I had only seen these images in books and
> slides until this show, and I had no idea how varied the work was, and how
> incredibly satisfying it is to look at until I saw the real prints
> yesterday. I am beginning to think that the essential thing about
anybody's
> photographic education is to do whatever is necessary to see the real
prints
> of the masters and mistresses of the art.
>
> The nude that
> > so upsets Judy is a good example of this. It's been reproduced ad
nauseum,
> > but one reason it got that status is that of the eight or nine pictures
in
> > the series, it's the only one that *could* be reproduced for many years
> > because the others all showed pubic hair, which back in those days meant
> > they could not legally be sent through the U.S. mail, and few galleries
> > would risk showing them. (See the fascinating book-length memoir by
Charis
> > Wilson for a discussion of this and other sessions for which she was the
> > model, and a lot of refreshing myth-debunking.)
>
> Charis and Beaumont Newhall talked about this in the video. Apparently
the
> MOMA board was very upset by what one of the secretaries called "public
> hair." Nancy Newhall insisted on putting some of those prints in the
> show, knowing that the board or trustees or whoever would throw them out.
>
>
>
> >
> > It's amazing how many incorrect myths surround Weston. That he was a
> > doctrinaire, concept-driven artist, that he can be defined by "the group
> > f.64" theories, that he used the Zone System, that he was "an austere
> > sensualist" (would someone please tell me what in the world Jed Pearl
can
> > mean by that?) Who cares whether an artist is labeled modernist, or
> > post-post, or anything else by a yammering critic. Weston made fabulous
> > pictures, and they're worth looking at.
>
> That's it in a nutshell.
>
> Although I think I am beginning to understand the idea of "austere
> sensualist." I think it's sort of like the Japanese idea of "shibui" or
> "wabi sabi," the idea of very simple, very stripped-down things having a
> kind of material presence that is sensual, while being the opposite of
> baroque. Like tea ceremony bowls. I had never really liked minimalism
> until I went to the Chinati foundation this summer in Marfa and saw Judd's
> concrete boxes, which I photographed with a lot of pleasure, and also the
> aluminum boxes, which I was only allowed to take digital pictures of (no
> tripods allowed for some reason.) If you said, "Judd made 200 aluminum
> boxes of slightly varying design, but all basically the same size, and put
> them in two big rooms," I would say, "So what?" But when you see them,
they
> are, well, sensual. You want to touch them, although you're not allowed.
> The light plays all around them and on their surfaces in fascinating
> reflections and mirrorings of the other boxes and the outside grasses and
> sky. IT's austere, but it's sensual. Go see it! Marfa is cool.
(Another
> must-see is the Mystery Lights.)
>
> I'm not sure I would agree with Jed Perl that Weston is a minimalist
> photographer, but there's something of the minimalist aesthetic in some of
> his work.
>
>
> --shannon
>
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