It is impossible to discuss the “problems of photography criticism” as though they were clearly formulated and widely agreed-upon issues, consciously faced by a diversity of critics familiar with each other’s relative positions, and known to an audience engaged in active observation of critical interactions and the concepts emerging therefrom. This is very far indeed from being the case. […]
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“Palante” sets a high standard for activist photojournalism, and shows the way. It will take courageous, committed photographers to follow Abramson’s lead, but the challenge implicit in its existence is one which we have every right to insist be met from now on. […] The dialogue which currently is most bitter but which promises to be most fruitful is that which engages the more specific question of how public monies for the arts should be allocated. Often foolish, dependably acrimonious, the interchange on this subject at least addresses matters more substantive. The hottest area of this debate — hottest, perhaps, because those under fire are those whose job is arguing in public over issues of art — is the Art Critics Fellowship program of the NEA. […] [In the fall of 1995 I received a review copy of the new Diane Arbus monograph, Untitled, just published by Aperture. Planning to review it, I sought answers to several legal and structural questions its production and publication raised. Becoming suspicious when I proved unable to get satisfactory answers — indeed, any answers at all […] In the last analysis, whether working in black & white in the urban social environment or isolating the particulars of a flower or shell insect in their distinctive coloration, Feinstein is still showing us a world filtered through his own inimitable sensibility. Animated by the same spirit, the works of his earlier years and these more recent projects actively enrich and amplify each other. A profound awe in the presence of living things manifests itself in all his pictures. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |