RE: What is "Good Photography"?

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From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 02/25/02-12:43:54 AM Z


On Sun, 24 Feb 2002, Christopher Lovenguth wrote:

> For humor. A retelling of Dave Barry's column....of course Duchamp wasn't
> British.
>
> Janitors and artists never see eye to eye
> We Americans tend to assume that the British are more intelligent than we
> are, because they speak with British accents. That's why we need to know
> about the Turner Prize.

CUT----

I am an ardent Dave Barry fan... I think he's the funniest man in America.
But if that "quote" is actually as he wrote it, he's in over his head.
It's not only not funny, it's ignorant about art -- also badly
constructed, as in bad writing.

For instance, by coupling a fake "Marcel Duchamp" as if a living artist,
with Damien Hirst, who *is* a living artist, & then taking it nowhere, he
so thoroughly garbles whatever point he thinks he's making that we get no
point at all beyond "urinal -- janitor -- hee hee, yuck yuck." Which is to
say I don't get the "joke."

Or rather, the "joke" is on you: Duchamp laid a trap all those generations
ago -- and some folks, imagine, are STILL walking into it ! And I suppose
for the next 100 years their heirs will do the same. But think for a
minute: when a guy puts a urinal on a pedestal and signs it R Mutt.... do
you suppose he's trying to get a blue ribbon in the local art fair? Or is
he baiting the peanut gallery -- you ? And how very brilliant he was --
folks are still biting after all these years.

Did Barry just hear about Duchamp and the "readymade"? What next, a rant
about punctuation in James Joyce? Jump up and down because Picasso put
both eyes on one side of the lady's face? Tell us that Isadora danced
barefoot? Get really upset because Vachel Lindsay doesn't rhyme?

I myself could live quite happily without Duchamp, which is hardly the
point. The point is that he is father of one of the most influential
strains of art in the 20th century. 100 years ago. Time to get over it.

Of course in fussing about modern art, Barry is in good company. Tom
Wolfe, one of our most brilliant literary lights, also shot off his mouth
on the topic and also got in over his head. He did the upscale version of
this rant in "The Painted Word." And, tho more coherent than Barry is
here, also got it wrong. I wasn't a great fan of the art he meant to
denounce either, but still could see he was getting it all wrong --
"demolishing" what he thought it was, which it wasn't. And telling us what
*real* art is, which it isn't.

The question isn't whether the stuff these folks are foaming at the mouth
about is or isn't so great -- a lot of it we pray will disappear sooner
rather than later. But to take the bait, and give us that century-old
rant... How about taking a course in modern art? Then you might at least
know what you're supposedly "demolishing." And that you are flogging a
verrry dead horse. Or proving the artist's brilliance in making art that
can STILL "epater le bourgeoisie" after all these years.

Now that's brilliant.

PS: Has anybody else noticed that this thread is also waaaaay off topic ?
Maybe we should send it to the Old-as-the-hills list?

Judy


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