I believe that an increasingly sophisticated audience will begin searching out and paying respect to those collections whose coherent structures organize the medium’s imagery in diverse and meaningful ways. […]
|
Follow me on Mastodon:
@adcoleman@hcommons.social
 |
Photography collecting as a field is still at such an early stage in its development that in the late ’70s connoisseurship alone was deemed worthy of extensive media attention and considerable corporate/governmental patronage. Wagstaff’s cunning in getting sponsors to cover the promotional costs of a marketing enterprise clearly contrived to net him a small fortune raised no eyebrows I’m aware of, save my own. […] Many contemporary artists appear to believe that photography is a virgin territory without a history, free from relevant precedents and prior accomplishments: a brand new field of ideas which have not even been touched on by the medium’s own practitioners, in which any small step breaks new ground. […] The lack of knowledgeability of the art critics in regard to photography does not stop with them; it is transmitted to both the audience and the artists. Such a situation is not merely regrettable, but damaging to all concerned. […] The contrast between the world outside the hospital, where the physically well cannot find relief from emotional pain, and the world inside the second of Julio Mitchel’s “Two Wards,” is the photographer’s major point. It emerges from neither of these two essays separately; it is created by their combination. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014All content of this publication is © copyright 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 by A. D. Coleman unless otherwise noted. All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without prior written permission. All photos copyright by the individual photographers. "Fair use" allows quotation of excerpts of textual material from this site for educational and other noncommercial purposes.
Published by Flying Dragon LLC.
|
