From: shannon stoney (sstoney@pdq.net)
Date: 10/05/03-06:41:26 AM Z
I am working on a little paper about neo-Pictorialism and regular old
Pictorialism. My idea, which I thought I invented but which turned
out to be sort of a commonplace once I started researching it, is
that the antiquarian avant-garde and Holga users and pinhole folks
constitute some sort of revival of the old Pictorialist aesthetic of
the late 19th and early 20th century. You know, soft focus,
vignetting, romantic subject matter (sometimes), fooling with the
negative, alternative processes, interest in dreams, memories, and
visions as opposed to just the hard-edged, scientific, f64 world out
there. This is an over-simplification but you get the drift.
I was wondering if anybody has some ideas about why this "trend" has
occurred, when it started, what it was a reaction to, where is it
going, what is its relationship to other "avant gardes" that it is
contemporaneous with, how it relates to so-called postmodernism,
whether it is a form of postmodernism, whether it is just retro or
truly avant-garde, how marginal it is, how academia and institutions
see it, and any other questions you can think of. Of course I will
credit you in my paper for any of your ideas, although I have no idea
how to cite emails in the end notes. Maybe like: "Jane Doe, email
communication, 10/4/03" ?
Also if you have images that illustrate your idea about this, that
would be great too (attached to emails to me off-list of course), or
links to websites could be sent to the list or just to me, as you
wish.
We had a fun meeting in Houston yesterday at Clay Harmon's house, and
I saw a lot of stuff that fueled my interest in this question, and I
heard a lot of good ideas about why we do what we do. Thanks,
Houston and Austin folks, and especially Clay.
thanks in advance for your thoughts,
--shannon
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