I appreciate lively debate. I use Google Reader to access posts that I have subscribed to and there have been at least 10 from various (read: important) sources pointing to the Jeff Wall show at MOMA. Since documentary photography was the starting place in my passion I found this post from The Spark of Accident to be the fuse. Discussion? Controversy? You choose.
At one point in the article Wall is quoted
as saying, "I couldn’t get into ’60s art photography — Friedlander, Arbus and
Winogrand and Stephen Shore,” Wall says. “These guys were in a photo ghetto.
They were into their own world, with photo galleries and their own photo
books."
Lively.
Posts
Okay, I'll bite. I know this is a theme you have been wrestling with: photography is/as art.
ReplyDeleteI agree (or why can't it be) with this comment from the conversation at Lightstalkers:
For me, definitely visionary, and no way lazy.. I don’t see his work as ‘ultimately fake’, it is only possibly that if you try to pretend he is a street shooter, which he isn’t, nor does he pretend to be. I don’t think he sees himself as a photographer either, but as an artist with a camera. (Uh oh..what’s the difference..answers on a Jeff Wall postcard to..) I find his methods strangely fascinating, so far removed are they from how I, or most photographers work. Hooray for diversity, that’s what I say. :) Best,
by David White Sun Feb 25 19:04:25 UTC 2007 | Bristol,United Kingdom