Tom C wrote: >On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 8:51 PM, Mark Roberts <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Tom, perhaps what's bugging you about Eggleston's work subconsciously >> is that same thing that bugs me consciously about it. I'm not an >> Eggleston hater - quite the contrary, I find I have a greater >> appreciation for his work after seeing it in person and in a large >> collection. I see some pretty good ideas at play and some pretty good >> work resulting. What annoys me is the over-glorification of Eggleston >> by the art world. It's as if, after years of dismissing color >> photography, when the art snobs found one color photographer they >> liked they overreacted to the point of near-deification, compensating >> for past oversights by heaping excessive praise on work that didn't >> deserve it. >> >> In short, I think his work does deserve praise, but not the ridiculous >> adulation it's received from some quarters. >> > >Mark, > >Interesting perspective. I must admit that I've never known there was >a predjudice regarding color photography in it's early days. I've of >course noticed how black and white is often viewed as art regardless >of the merits of the image, so maybe that's still a leftover from >years ago. I'm sure some still deify B&W.
It's true. Heck, one could probably write a history of art built around various trends and the eventual overreaction against them. One of the recurring issues with art in general and photography in particular is that of beauty: There are people who think a pretty subject is necessary (and sufficient). Hence all the kitten and flower photos in the world. As a reaction to this is the notion that "good art" must *not* be beautiful. It's trite to say that neither view is correct and almost everyone would agree with that statement, but there are plenty who don't behave that way, though they'd certainly deny it. Somewhere in the Eggleston exhibit was a quotation from a critic disparaging color photography because it had only been used for advertising or for the kind of (beautiful) photographs seen in National Geographic (horrors!) To the kind of person who is deeply suspicious of beauty, Eggleston was a godsend and he reaped the benefits of producing the right work at the right time. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
