“Down Home” is not simply a set of images, but a more complexly structured work involving a lucid combination of words and images to present the texture of present-day life in a small Alabama town. […]
“Down Home” is not simply a set of images, but a more complexly structured work involving a lucid combination of words and images to present the texture of present-day life in a small Alabama town. […] The language currently applied to photographs as distinct from other kinds of images is derived entirely from the jargon of technique; it is a form of shop talk which pertains to the manufacturing of photographs as objects rather than to their workings or effects as images. […] It is impossible to discuss the “problems of photography criticism” as though they were clearly formulated and widely agreed-upon issues, consciously faced by a diversity of critics familiar with each other’s relative positions, and known to an audience engaged in active observation of critical interactions and the concepts emerging therefrom. This is very far indeed from being the case. […] “Palante” sets a high standard for activist photojournalism, and shows the way. It will take courageous, committed photographers to follow Abramson’s lead, but the challenge implicit in its existence is one which we have every right to insist be met from now on. […] The dialogue which currently is most bitter but which promises to be most fruitful is that which engages the more specific question of how public monies for the arts should be allocated. Often foolish, dependably acrimonious, the interchange on this subject at least addresses matters more substantive. The hottest area of this debate — hottest, perhaps, because those under fire are those whose job is arguing in public over issues of art — is the Art Critics Fellowship program of the NEA. […] |