Photo by Unknown
The Pompeidou centre library is truly wonderous. The photography section is the largest I’ve seen and the tables, and stuff is great. There is wireless internet but it is like owning a temperamental ass, it does what it wants, and only works part of the day. So many attractive girls in the art section. They all seem very wary of me though. They must know that I’m writing an essay on them.
- Had a look at some of Edward Weston’s daybooks. It’s always such a shock of recognition looking at the writings of another artist. You feel like you’re reading the diaries of a twin brother. You don’t feel exactly the same way, but you’re writing about the same things. He bitches a lot about Steiglitz. Whereas I would have rejected his work out of hand before I came to Europe, I can see the good in it now. And I can see the intelligence. Perhaps instead of wanting meaning in a work what I really want and appreciate is personality, daring, and intelligence. Shock! That’s what I desire from people in life too. He was defensive about his subject matter. But rightly so, it’s great that he did that work. Next I’ll start liking Steichen and Minor White! I get so much from looking at the older, deader masters. I really am fucking competitive. I didn’t really know that. No, really I didn’t.
- Galassi on Friedlander: “He subsequently continued his self-assigned tutorial in the rich collection that slumbered there. “I was interested to know what had been done,” he explains matter-of-factly, as if any young photographer would do the same. But this was unusual behaviour. Even today, when most aspiring artist-photographers attend graduate school (in part to acquire the credentials that will allow them to earn a living by teaching the next generation of aspirants), only a few take it upon themselves to study photography’s past so avidly.”
- “The Leica’s thirty-six-exposure roll of film is just as important as its negligible size and weight; and a patient review of the contact sheet is as fundamental to the art as any number of hours spent on the streets.” Would Winogrand agree? Probably.
- Freidlander. Dense. But only visually. Winogrand was dense with happenings.
- Evans’ writings are strewn around half forgotten magazines and mouldy out of print books. I must find them. The cunt was a razor.
- Szarkowski in the New Documents text: ‘In the past decade a new generation of photographers has directed the documentary approach to more personal ends. Their aim has been not to reform life, but to know it.Their work betrays a sympathy—almost an affection—for the imperfections and frailties of society. They like the real world, in spite of it’s terrors, as the source of all wonder and fascination and value—no less precious for being irrational.’ Fuck I have to read everything ever written by Szarkowski before he dies. I have never seen someone who can see art so CLEARLY!
- Awesome that his first book was just all self-portraits. Fucking sweet. How would it look now with Stephen having delivered curries from a gallery? Still it’s funny and things like that need to be done. But looking at the actual pictures, I don’t think the book was frivolous. Preceded that shallow Sherman.
- Paul Strand also went off to make films and then came back to photography.
Posted 11 months ago
