Réjouissante Madone

 

General Photography

Réjouissante Madone calls French blog Zoum Zoum Katharina Bosse’s work on motherhood (NSFW, btw). Not everybody agrees, though. After seeing the work presented in German photo magazine Photonews, Rolf Nobel, professor of photojournalism, writes a letter to the editor (which is so 20th Century!), declaring the work to be irrelevant and a calculated provocation (my translation of the German words; his position is mentioned in this post). Unfortunately, none of the Photonews kerfuffle is online (it’s Germany, after all), but Nobel’s letter caused a whole string of follow-up ripostes and defenses (letters to the editor again). Regardless of whether you agree with Herr Prof. Nobel or not, it’s a bold move, isn’t it? When is the last time you saw someone willing to call an artist’s work “irrelevant and a calculated provocation” in public (and no, anonymous cranks in comments or online discussions don’t count)?