Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/02/14

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: Emperor's new clothes...
From: "Mark Rutledge" <markrut@ticnet.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 00:38:29 -0600

>>Too much "unaccessible" photography gets hung
in galleries.  I suspect that the reason for this is that many gallery
curators are trained in art history and in traditional art forms.  They do
not "understand" photography.  <<

George,
Not trying to be argumentative, but photographers struggled for along time
to have photography considered in the same vein as traditional art forms.
The fact that photography, any photography is shown in galleries at all is
due to the fact that people struggled hard to remove the distinction
between say painting and photography, making them artistically equivalent.
Photography as an art form does not require a different understanding than
sculpture, painting, etc.. At least that's what is hoped.
I do agree that allot of crap gets shown,applauded,heralded! But there are
gems out there whose impact and importance may not be evident immediately.
Much work from the early days was criticized as inaccessible at the time,
but is now viewed as seminal.
Thanks for the read.
Mark Rutledge
markrut@ticnet.com