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[OM] Re: Arbus

Subject: [OM] Re: Arbus
From: andrew fildes <afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 09:21:46 +1000
I'd forgotten the photographs of the handicapped. But you then end up 
asking why they are considered art. I class them with examples like 
Bacon's plastic surgery paintings - horrific but compelling. And the 
sympathy/empathy? Perhaps itcomes down to our personal view of human 
nature and even whether there is such a thing.
It's always a difficult problem and it lies only within the viewer I 
suspect. I had the same discussion somewhere over Avedon's 'In the 
American West' where I saw an essential sympathy with his subjects 
and others saw an exploitation. Of course there was an exploitation 
but there was also a reason as to why he found them worth 
photographing. I think that in that case, the exploitation argument 
was based in a shame from which, as a non-American, I was supposedly 
'excluded'- as if that does not occur (and worse) everywhere. People 
do not like seeing the underbelly of their society exposed. In the 
same way, some only see the horror in Salgado's work, not the human 
dignity.

You have the advantage of me here in, as you say, seeing so much of 
it in one place and time and getting a different perspective. Fair 
enough. I'd counter by suggesting that she herself did not see them 
in that way, all together at once, but had a different experience of 
them. And why 'self-loathing?' I know nothing of her life apart from 
bare details but I don't see that in the images. Nor  loathing for 
her subjects.
AndrewF

>I saw that photo, but did not see the sympathy or regret. All those
>pictures of retarded people had all the sympathy of entomology.  It is
>different seeing a photo here or there and seeing several hundred at
>once. You get a much better feel, I think. Someone else seeing them may
>have a different conclusion though. Since you brought it up, after
>seeing the exhibit, it seemed clear to me that it was not despair for
>the human condition that killed her but self loathing.
>
>
>
>
>Winsor
>Long Beach, California
>USA
>
>On Apr 9, 2004, at 3:22 PM, andrew fildes wrote:
>
>>  A criticism I've heard before and never accepted - I always saw a
>>  deep sympathy for the human condition and a personal despair - the
>>  despair that killed her. That kid in the straw hat and the badges at
>>  the pro-Vietnam demonstration for instance. I always felt that she
>>  was asking me - "How could we let him come to this?" and by extension
>>  query ourselves about every young person displaying an enthusiasm for
>>  a position beyond his/her capacity to understand fully.
>>  For me a good photograph or artwork or literary work is one that
>>  discomforts the viewer/reader in some way. I don't 'like' the stuff
>>  either but it is scary wonderful.
>>  AndrewF
>
>
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