‘The Treacherous Medium’

 

General Photography

As I mentioned before, I am noto all that much into photography criticism or theory. To make an utterly silly comparison, if I was given the choice between two extreme choices, the first being the Wittgensteinian going into a museum/gallery, looking at a single photo, and then leaving, the second being to spend a long time looking at each and every photo and then reading a ten-page in-depth discussion about the photography, I’d opt for the former, and this is not because I’m lazy (have a look at what Wittgenstein actually is trying to say to find out more). Having said this, when I read the following, the rules of gravity suddenly didn’t seem to apply for my eye-brows any longer: “Put most bluntly, for the past century most photography critics havenÂ’t really liked photographs, or the experience of looking at them, at all. They approach photography - not specific photographs, or specific practitioners, or specific genres, but photography itself - with suspicion, mistrust, anger, and fear. Rather than enter into what Kazin called a ‘community of interest’ with their subject, these critics come armed to the teeth against it. For them, photography is a powerful, duplicitous force to be defanged rather than an experience to embrace.” (story) Since I haven’t read many of the texts referred to in that article, I’m not going to disagree too strongly (even though these days not knowing what you’re talking about usually doesn’t prevent people from having a strong opinion about it). As usual, you want to read the article yourself and see whether you agree or not.