From: Doug Franklin
On 2011-01-21 19:39, Eric Weir wrote:
Interesting article on the relevance of photojournalism today in
this week's New Republic. Its a review of the introduction to the
catalogue of the Cartier-Bresson exhibit organized by the Museum
of Modern Art that is now in San Francisco and a new book on
photography and political violence. In concluding the reviewer
describes the writers as "levelheaded romantics....determined to
rescue the power of photography from the scourge of
sensationalism.
http://www.tnr.com/article/the-picture/81733/photojournalism-cartier-bresson-capa?utm_source=ESP+Integrated+List&utm_campaign=3b8c2d6859-TNR_BA_012111&utm_medium=email
Sounds to me like largely pointless navel-gazing. Time will tell us
what the role of future photojournalism will be. Prognosticating
about it now does little good, to my mind, other than figuring out
where there might be investment opportunities, if you're not a photo
journalist, or where the job opportunities will, or won't, be, if you
are.
It took me several attempts to read through it, but I finally figured
out it's not really an article about photojournalism.
It's a book review by the New Republic's Art Critic, deconstructing a
postmodernist work criticizing a lack of moral relevance in today's
criticism of photojournalism, comparing that to another work on the
history of photography criticism. All of which appear to be driven
mainly by a lament for the passing of the genre of great, popular,
photography driven, weekly "news" magazines as represented by Life and
Look.
Obfuscation piled upon obscurity, although I may have gotten them backwards.
It's difficult to see where Linfield's criticism of photojournalism
criticism's lack of relevance ends and Perl's criticism of Lindfield's
lack of relevance begins. Or how either of them fit into "the difficult
terrain where the most extreme artistic expressions and the most urgent
ethical questions cannot be disentangled."
It's another postmodernist repetition of the Worm of Ouroboros (the
dragon who devours his own tail). The story ends in the same place where
it begins, circling in an ever descending spiral until it vanishes up
its own asshole.
I just don't understand postmodernism. You can't kill it by hitting it
over the head with a big rock. So, as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't
really exist.
I do agree that Life and Look were great magazines, and I wish they were
still around ... and still hiring.
See also: Hoop Snake.
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