Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/09/14

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Subject: RE: [Leica] quotations and Surrealism
From: Buzz Hausner <Buzz@marianmanor.org>
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 07:43:21 -0400

Time to review the Surrealist Manifesto.

- -----Original Message-----
From: Robert Appleby [mailto:robert.appleby@tin.it]
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2000 3:07 AM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: [Leica] quotations


>>>>>
"The taste for quotations (and for the juxtaposition of incongruous 
quotations) is a Surrealist taste."

Unfortunately it does little to increase knowledge or understanding.

Cheers,

Bob
<<<<<
Of course, photography was first made interesting by the surrealists - and
I don't mean Man Ray, but rather HC-B and his friends. The decisive moment
is when quotidian reality quotes itself. By now we're all Surrealists,
there's nothing innovative about putting the umbrella next to the ironing
board or booby-trapping a child's toy with plastic explosive. Lasers in the
jungle? Everyday karma. So it is that Nachtwey and Calvin Klein inhabit the
same photo spread and the latter pays a premium to get that space.
The taste for aphorisms is a nineteenth century taste, which begat the
Surrealists, and modern photography. Walker Evans (a disciple of Flaubert
and Balzac) fought against it with scant success and his pictures look
pretty slow-moving today.
As for knowledge and understanding - 18th century stuff!
Rob.
Robert Appleby
V. Bellentani 36
41100 MO
Italy
tel. (+39) 059 303436
mob. (+39) 0348 336 7990