urban ku # 95 ~ what?
Thursday, August 16, 2007 at 02:13PM 
Old boat in an old boat yard • click to embiggenA couple of weeks ago, over on Muse-ings, Tim Atherton wrote about somebody else who wrote; "It is my belief that most contemporary American color photographers are not only working with a medium, but they are also working within a tradition, or a way of seeing ... the overwhelming current practice and art-world presence of what I can only describe as “straight” contemporary American color photography. Most photographers working in this genre are pursuing aesthetics and concerns that were initiated in the 1970s, and have changed very little over the past thirty years. Different photographers incorporate different approaches, and embrace or abandon concept and/or narrative to varying degrees, but aside from subject matter, there is often little else that distinguishes the work ..."
This notion has been rattling around in my head ever since and it seems to me that the entire construct is hanging by very precarious thread - the razor-thin caveat of subject matter aside.
How does one view a picture and set subject matter aside?
Reader Comments (1)
Oh, I don't know - none of these are really about the apparent subject, which is essentially incedental:
http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/content/images/2006_1285.JPG
http://www.clevelandart.org/exhibcef/woodcut/illusmag/1984-61.jpg
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/m/matisse/matisse_apples.jpg
http://www.home.netspeed.com.au/derek.allan/picasso122a.jpg
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/cezanne/sl/cezanne.sl-apples.jpg
http://www.gerhard-richter.com/art/images/paintings/large/4759.jpg