Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/07/23

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: Re: FW: [Leica] Political Correctness
From: Dante A Stella <dante@umich.edu>
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 10:24:31 -0400
References: <200007230210.TAA16588@swan.prod.itd.earthlink.net>

Not to really beat a dead horse, but isn't the purpose of a gallery to display
and sell prints?  Although the Hondurans might make for a good photojournalism
or coffee-table book (or the big ones at Borders), I think many of the gallery
owners are reticent because this isn't the kind of thing people buy to put in
their houses.  An art museum perhaps, but people here don't even buy pictures of
suffering African Americans, which by Tina's definition, would be first-world
photographed by first-world.  Maybe I live in an isolated frontier town, but the
galleries we have here all show works that are decorative and not
socially-significant.

Dante

Peter Choy wrote:

> Dear LUG,
>
> At the risk of kicking a dead horse, I am attaching below Sean Kernan's
> reaction to Tina's plight.  Sean is a friend and teacher and a long-standing
> Leica shooter (to whom I introduced Tom A's Rapidwinder, which he promptly
> wore out but restored to good working order by emergency surgery conducted
> under real-time telephone guidance from Tom himself).  In addition to his
> fine-art and commercial work (see <www.seankernan.com>), Sean also teaches
> at Santa Fe Workshops, where Tina had her collision with political
> correctness.
>
> Peter.
>
> > ------Original Message------
>
> (snip)
>
> > My project is "Las Familias" - an exhibit (possibly book) of my photographs
> > of Honduran families.  I learned that many galleries will not accept my
> > project because it is politically incorrect - I am a photographer from the
> > first world photographing people in the third world.  To make the project
> > more acceptable it was suggested that I involve the families in the project
> > by (a) giving them a camera and letting them photograph their own live (b)
> > getting them to write comments about the photographs.  (a) wouldn't work
> > because the people I visit don't have time to take photographs - they spend
> > all of their waking hours trying to feed their families (b) might work with
> > a tape recorder but many of the people I photograph don't read or write -
> > and several of the families in the project were killed by Hurricane Mitch -
> > do I exclude those photographs?
> >
> > What do you think about political correctness?  Gallery owners and
> > publishers who reviewed our work seemed to think it is an important issue,
> > but it honestly never occurred to me.
> >
> > Leically,
> >
> > Tina
> >
> >
> > Tina Manley, ASMP
> > http://www.tinamanley.com
>
> How deadly!
>
> I have been working on a project in Mexico, and sent some of the work to
> Doubletake. There was quite a flurry, but in the end they were returned
> because they were incompatible with the "style" of the magazine.
>
> What all of this suggests is that there are a number of slots prepared to
> receive work. The architecture of the slots has little or nothing to do with
> the work that might be being done at any time. Another way to say this is
> that the art business can be a stranger to art.
>
> My dealer won't handle my Mexican work because she can't sell it. I
> understand and respect that. But I didn't do it to sell it, I did it to
> learn things , and I have continued with it and learned.
>
> The story is told that when Mondrian was young he did some paintings over
> his old canvases. When a friend pointed out that he was wasting perfectly
> saleable canvases, he said, "I'm not trying to make paintings, I'm trying to
> find things out."
>
> I think that in order to learn from your project you have to do it your way.
> To tailor it to business risks undercutting that learning. It's not that the
> suggestions are outlandish or wrong-headed, and there might be some learning
> in them, but to do them for either correctness or saleability seems to risk
> diluting thye power of your vision.
>
> In any case the answer probably isn't simple, and will be arrived at through
> doing.
>
> Sean Kernan

- --
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dante Stella
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~dante

In reply to: Message from "Peter Choy" <pmcchoy@earthlink.net> (FW: [Leica] Political Correctness)