From: Jack Fulton (jfulton@itsa.ucsf.edu)
Date: 08/23/02-12:43:04 AM Z
>> And, Judy, I know how you are about those nudes and Ed etc. and there has,
>> indeed been history prior about all that . . it was that I feel Ed's work
>> can be seen in the light of objectivity. He was interesting to me for his
>> subjective objectivity. Or, is that objective subjectivity? Photography is
>> good at that if one has no fear to practice and don't hide that under the
>> guise or mire of pretension.
>
> I don't get your point here, so comment only that what bothers me is the
> hypocrisy, not the naked. Half of humanity has the same equipment so
> what's the big deal. The pretense that this is not erotica, but just
> "art" is, however, too much.
Okay. Erotica.
erot·ic
Greek erOtikos, from erOt-, erOs
Date: 1651
1 : of, devoted to, or tending to arouse sexual love or desire <erotic art>
2 : strongly marked or affected by sexual desire
Hmm. I'd say, under your aegis, Edward's photographs fall into category
numero dos . . . markings, so to speak, regarding his sexual desire. Maybe
his name should have been Frank rather than Edward for that's the way he
places his eye.
The point I was attempting to make was in regard to the sexual revolution
which came about in the 1960's but primarily in the 1970's. There are
elements in society which need prior altruistic truths of representation so
as to substantiate the new paradigm/premise. For instance, today one can
visit the erotic frescoes of Pompeii and Herculaneum w/out permission. The
Italian government (and you know those Italians and their libido . . or is
it Lido) has decided to become' modern' so to speak. There is no other
photographic work, than perhaps Emmanuel Radnitsky, which is so readily
available, so much on the tongue of people's mind.
Prior to the 1960's the only nudes one could find (I searched as a young
lad) were generally nudist camp magazines. Then Playboy hit the stands. I
even telephoned Marilyn Monroe one night when she was married to Joe
Dimaggio and told her I was her paperboy and she hadn't paid her bill from
last month. Imagine that, Mrs. Dimaggio was in the phone book. Now, how them
naive apples. So, the point I was loosely making is that Weston and his
nudes represent, in the American eye, the curator, museologist, hedonist,
photogonist etc., an artist's view of the nude female. Since they were
rather frank images and perhaps taken with an erotic POV but posed in a
(don't' jump at me here) natural way . . . hey, look @ Imogen or Annie
Brigman or what Isador Duncan did or represented. I have a nice book of
nudes done in 1914 done by a Mr. Goetz here in SF and they are, polite.
Frank, err, Ed wasn't. He was honest to himself and that can perhaps offend
others. I believe the image of the toilet, 'Excusado', which means 'water
closet' in Spanish, is done in a similar direct manner as is the famous
pepper implying some lusty peccadillo. He knew what was different about his
visioning. I presume that's one of the reasons he was so excited by the
medium.
Quite honestly, I'm a bit more offended by the Surrealists and their
blatant innuendoes such as Man Ray's (or was it Marcel Duchamp) castings of
the negative space between a woman's legs. They surely employed photography
in a tricky fashion. Duchamp ripping off Marey like that.
Anyway I fully appreciate and understand where you come from . . what your
point is. However, I feel it is overt in this case and that Weston does mean
something to the post 70's person who may be more libertine. He, somehow,
did something in the photographic medium that others hadn't done. He went
where angels feared to tread . . and it was in his backyard where he got off
on rocks most of the time.
I'm not saying he is the cause célèbre for Hustler and Playboy but was the
forerunner of that milieu. He was, in a sense, their sanitized raison
d'être.
Jack
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