Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/08/19
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Feli, On these intellectual history issues, I think we might be quite like minded :-) I've wondered long and hard over what happened between very roughly the first half of the 20th century and the latter half. In any case, while I have no definitive answer, I can still mourn. Scott Feli di Giorgio wrote: >I'm not against artsy fartsy. Heck, both my parents are artist. >I just have something against navel gazing artists. > >Most artists have big egos and it's a necessity. You can't be an artist >without an opinion. > >May Ray and the rest may have been out there, but it's hard >to argue that weren't a very talented bunch. > >If one reads some of the papers written by the various Bauhaus artists >one will discover that there is an awful lot of thinking that went in to >those "squiggles" and seemingly senseless pieces and that's what >I don't see in a lot of modern work, which is often like bad acting. >Bad actors imitate. Good actors don't. Don't act, be. > >Feli > > > > >On Thu, 2004-08-19 at 13:51, Scott McLoughlin wrote: > > >>It's a good point made that Capa was hip. HCB hung around >>with the most pretentious, self-consciously navel-gazing art >>crowd you can imagine, Andre Breton and the surrealists, >>and did his first commercial work, IIRC, for one of Breton's >>surrealist/communist (go figure on that mix!) publications >>in the 30's. >> >>But anyway, whatever their work product or public persona, it >>shouldn't surprise folks that artists are typically, well, artists! You >>know, the self-consciously artsy, elite hipster types :-) The >>public product and private person don't have to match up. >> >>Weird examples (not photogs): quintisentially "American idol" >>Cary Grant was a bisexual Brit who liked halucinagenic drugs; >>real "down home" country musician Bonnie Raitt grew up in >>New York and went to Harvard (my alma matter). Here's >>another really weird one. "Dukes of Hazard" Boss Hog went >>to Harvard too. Yup! In real life, he was a "Dunster House Tea >>at 5:00" type of guy. >> >>You get the idea. Have fun, add your own examples. It's not >>very hard! >> >>So back to M and photogs, even if they do-or-have-done photo >>journalism work that we all adore, it doesn't mean that they >>themselves necessarily view that work as their best. Maybe, but >>maybe not. Maybe that just pays the bills. Maybe they like to >>travel. Of course, maybe some do view their journalism work >>as their highest calling. >> >>But we shouldn't necessarily assume so. Just as likely, I'd wager >>that some, maybe many (no, not all!!!) really, really elite photogs >>are a bunch of somewhat "artsy fartsy" types who might have >>gone to nice schools, have a yearning desire to "do something >>new with the medium" and so on and so forth. What do you >>want? They're artists. >> >>But I haven't seen "M", so I'm not claiming it doesn't totally >>suck :-) >> >>Scott >> >> > > >_______________________________________________ >Leica Users Group. >See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > >