From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 12/14/02-10:44:13 PM Z
On Sat, 14 Dec 2002, Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
> .... My question is this to the group: Must one always be
> able to articulate precisely why, for what reason one did certain work?
> Especially if it is really glorious? Must one always be able to clearly
> articulate the why of a photograph? Can't one say: "Let the photograph speak
> to you!"? Is this a cop out?
Hi christina.... and even if you do articulate it, odds are you'll be
wrong, or change your mind the next week or year, or if your work is
famous and survives (assuming the world survives) it will be valued for
entirely different reasons... The reason this notion is rampant in
schools is because otherwise how are the teachers to imagine that they're
teaching? It's academia -- you gotta do CURRICULUM.
In response to the panel I described some months ago ("Art Education: Is
It Either?") I added my own formula for art education: give them the tools
& techniques, power saw, pouring of resins, mixing colors, whatever, show
them a lot of art & get out of the way.
That of course is simplistic... I know I myself feel need to articulate an
idea or insight or premise when it forms in mind... But perhaps as in
anything, morals, friendship, parenting, whatever -- rigid formulation:
decreeing what we must feel, say, do, is a pain in the butt and gets
nowhere except to misses or irrelevancies... I think of the T-shirt
of 2 hands holding the bird -- what's the saying? Let it go & if it
doesn't come back kill it? I've got it wrong, but something like that
obtains with "explaining" art.
HOWEVER, if you want to get famous, it helps, is probably crucial to have
something easily articulated -- art crit does need, goes by literary
values. And maybe teachers should point that out, too.
On the other hand I'd point out some presentation of photography that
flaunts NO WORDS, Get a copy of Robert ParkeHarrison's "The Architect's
Brother," and point out to class NO WORDS, except small type titles & an
entirely (and too too poetic, I thought) irrelevant essay at the end. Yet
the work is astounding... Speaks for itself.
But then again, on 3rd thought, maybe not. The works themselves are
HIGHLY literary.
Judy
> I've been contemplating this all night and now day--call it a crisis in
> conscience about my relationship with photography and teaching. All I know
> is that my favorite photographs, the ones that speak to me that I have done,
> are those that I have shot from the gut. Sure I have done whole conceptual
> projects, right now working on a nipple quilt for instance, but my
> relationship with photography is deepened when I look at my contact sheet
> and see on it the images that tell me something about myself and my world
> that I might not have even known I was taking.
> Chris
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Katharine Thayer" <kthayer@pacifier.com>
> To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
> Sent: Saturday, December 14, 2002 1:50 AM
> Subject: Re: Susan Sontag article
>
>
> > Jonathan Bailey wrote:
> > >
> >
> > > But, I'd like to ask: at what point did it become necessary for artists
> to
> > > also be intellectuals??
> >
> > According to an article in the New Yorker several months ago about a
> > crisis in the Harvard studio art program, artists started getting more
> > intellectual when more of them started getting academic degrees, and
> > it's my personal opinion (and as I recall it was also the opinion of the
> > writer of the article, and no, it wasn't Jed Perl) that this
> > intellectualism hasn't served art very well.
> >
> > But I'm an intellectual myself, and although I mostly keep art separate
> > from my intellectual interests, as I've written before, I do have Sontag
> > in my studio library, and after reading the current article on war
> > photography, went out into a wild storm to retrieve her so I could see
> > what the fuss was all about, since I couldn't remember anything about
> > what she had to say in her essays one way or another. (In contrast, my
> > copies of Robert Adams' books of essays are worn and written all over
> > from many sessions of re-reading and writing comments in the margins,
> > and I could quote at least half a dozen passages sight unseen.)
> >
> > But try as I might, I couldn't stay interested long enough to read even
> > one essay all the way through.
> >
> > I think the crucial difference between Sontag and Robert Adams, for me,
> > is that Adams is a working photographer, as is/was? Szarkowski, and
> > that's what makes their writing worth reading.
> >
> > Katharine Thayer
> >
>
>
>
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