When you said you were not aware of Frank's position I thought of OUR
Frank - who certainly is a fan of HCB as am I. I didn't know about
Robert Frank's opinion either.
I saw the exhibit at MOMA - my final opinion was that it was too
inclusive - that is - there was too much of the work that he did
strictly for pay, not his personal work and that somehow watered down
the impression someone might have who was unfamiliar with him.
when I was there, I ran into an old friend who happened upon some of
that work before seeing the iconic images and was leaning toward not
being very impressed - so I took him to the good stuff :-) and he
thanked me. This is a friend whose background is steeped in art and
who has a good eye doing his own mostly travel photography for the
memories. His father is a reknowned art collector (fairly recently
deceased) - my point being just that he isn't a casual observer.
anyway, I love HCB and thought that the exhibit was poorly curated
and did him a disservice.
ann
On 5/15/2014 17:32, Christine Aguila wrote:
Hi Everyone:
In the foreword to the 2013 edition of The Best American Travel Writing, Jason
Wilson includes some curious quotes from reviews of the HCB retrospective
exhibition at MOMA several years ago:
"The show was deemed 'almost unenduringly majestic'
by The New Yorker's Peter Schjeldshl, who gave this stern assessment
of what he called [HCB's] 'platitudinous' work:
'richly satisfies the eye and the mind, while numbing the heart.'
This was seconded by the [NYT] Holland Cotter, who claimed that [HCB]
'ideas and emotions are diffuse' and that 'surprisingly little tension
builds'
in the exhibition.
Both critics trotted out tired old comparisons to the work of Robert
Frank, a detractor of [HCB] who once unjustly said of the older
photographer, 'He traveled all over the world, and you never felt he was
moved by something that was happening other than the beauty of it, or
just the composition.'"
I have to say I was surprised by these views, and I wasn't aware of Frank's
position.
Any thoughts from the list?
Cheers, Christine
P.S. I wouldn't recommend this edition of BA Travel writing. To much of the
work was down right dull.
Sent from my iPad
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