*One of these days I will tell you all about how I went to see a Cartier-Bresson exhibit at the Art Institute with a friend (hi, Tatyana!) and we laughed over the stodgy, dull, pseudo-Marxist-y language of the curator. Not the curator for the Cartier-Bresson exhibit, which was wonderful, but for a different set of photographs in an adjacent exhibition.
“Paris fortuitously was home to a host of great photographers in the mid-19th century when the Emperor Napoleon III undertook the transformation of the medieval city of dark alleys into the modern City of Light, with its broad boulevards, hidden sewers and glorious public parks.”
July 11, 2009 · 6 Comments
Categories: autobiographical · interesting links
Tagged: art, Cartier-Bresson, Paris, WSJ
6 responses so far ↓
ETat // July 11, 2009 at 9:51 pm |
It was a great exhibition, wasn’t it? One of the things I tend to forget at exhibitions from that era – how rare were the big-size photographs; not like in contemporary galleries: the paper was too expensive even for successful artists.
Reminds me of an early-Victorian aluminum brooch I saw at FIT goth fashion and jewelery exhibition. Right next to buckles covered in small round diamonds: it was equally expensive at the time.
Jonathan // July 16, 2009 at 9:49 am |
I started enjoying art museums when I realized that I can look at the exhibits without necessarily taking seriously, or even looking at, the “artist’s statement” or the catalog or the ponderous explanations next to the displays. (Not that the written info is always junk, but it usually is for any artwork that’s less than 100 years old.)
ETat // July 16, 2009 at 1:35 pm |
It is liberating, to permit oneself a bit of cluelessness, to skip the biographical data or, worse, the agitprop of the received wisdom (almost wrote “instruction”). Art either speaks on itself, or it is not.
Besides, you probably already know more about exhibits than you give yourself credit for, w/o the didactic pointers on the wall.
onparkstreet // July 16, 2009 at 1:45 pm |
yeah, it’s the agitprop that annoys me. do they think we are stupid and can’t see through it?
ETat // July 16, 2009 at 2:11 pm |
sometimes; more often it’s a sort of nobleisse oblige to them: to pretend they believe their own propaganda, and that their mission is to “educate the public”.
Jonathan // July 16, 2009 at 8:35 pm |
“do they think we are stupid and can’t see through it?”
I think most of them don’t know better. It’s rare to find an artist/actor/musician who isn’t a muddled thinker.