From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 09/19/02-03:30:33 PM Z
On Thu, 19 Sep 2002, Jack Fulton wrote:
> . . but, his methodology, perhaps verging on the truly obsessive, pointed
> out that if your work hard enough (i.e.: take a quadrillion photographs) a
> result will come forth. Kinda like that wolf stalking the couple in "At The
> Zoo."
It figures for Coleman. But who DOES he approve of, except the stars of
his book on the "Grotesque" & a couple of his buddies -- like Richard
Kirstel, whose specialty, I kid you not, was naked ladies mud wrestling.
Coleman called him the "Baltimore Oriole," & cited his wisdom until the
women's caucus of SPE threw a fit. (God knows what took them so long).
In fact, Coleman may sneer at just about everyone NOT "grotesque," if you
think about it. But IMO a man who did ONLY "At the Zoo" could shoot his
camera off in a dark closet with no film in it for 100 years & still be a
giant. The bear (?) with his teeth on the sign is another great moment of
the medium.
As for the Winogrand personality, I believe the consensus is that if we
judge art by niceness -- or civility -- of the doer, we'd have precious
little.
Meanwhile, the conventional wisdom (usually wrong, of course) is that a
photographer has about 8 creative years. Some have only one or two. But
let's say for the purpose of this "discussion" that Winogrand -- dying of
liver cancer probably -- had lost it. Or, as Pam says, just wanted to
*take* the pictures. Whatever. So some carrion crows went through his
unedited, unpublished archive and made their own show... That might make
a good case for directing one's heirs to burn the negatives.
However, I saw the posthumous show at MoMA that everyone jumped up and
down on. I don't know why. OK, maybe no killer shots, but plenty of good
ones -- I liked it a lot. And, yes, I prefer my own judgement to
Coleman's... among others.
PS. Every good artist I know is obsessive in some way, shape or form.
Judy
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