[Leica] 20 Discards - now art history

[phong at doan-ltd.com (Phong)]

I do not agree with you, Or should I
say I only partially agree with you.
And I strongly disagree with that
English teacher.  Has he not read
James Joyce ?  Or Mark Rabiner ?  :-)

Understanding the tradition in which
the particular artist/writer/photographer/
filmmaker works or comes from is often 
important.  Allusions, conscious and 
unconscious, to other works occur all the 
time.   That tradition is just part of the 
context of the work, among other things,
including the author's personal life.

Take a very mundane example, just
because I happened to be thinking about it.
I would not have enjoyed Quentin Tarantino's
"Kill Bill" had I not watched and enjoyed
the Kung Fu movies, the spaghetti westerns,
the Japanese woodcuts and comic strips,
and gangster movies in the 70's
It is not a great movie in any sense, but
without understanding the tradition whence
it comes from, the viewer would miss the points.
Same goes with many, many works of creativity.

There is art history, and there is art theory,
and it is all too easy to go overboard with the
theory.  Go make history and don't worry about 
the theory.

- Phong


B. D. Colen wrote:
> Don't get sucked into that one, Simon. It sounds to be like a theory
> developed by someone with a PhD in nevertookaphotograph. I have the
> greatest respect for people with extensive knowledge in any subject, no
> matter how arcane. But at the same time I think we can far too easily be
> sold a bill of goods about what we don't know about things we may
> understand far better than people who tell us what we don't know. If
> that makes sense.
> 
> The idea that you need to study art to see what's in a photo reminds me
> of the English teacher who used to say that if a poem has a "hidden
> meaning" the poet has failed. That doesn't mean you shouldn't need to
> really think about what a photographer, or a poet, is saying - it just
> means that you should be able to understand the photo or poem.
> 
> B. D.