{"id":28465,"date":"2016-02-03T23:45:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T04:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/?p=28465"},"modified":"2016-02-16T17:53:45","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T22:53:45","slug":"because-it-feels-so-good-when-i-stop-2-1974","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/2016\/02\/03\/because-it-feels-so-good-when-i-stop-2-1974\/","title":{"rendered":"Because It Feels So Good When I Stop, 2 (1974)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A.<\/a>[This is the complete text of a speech delivered at New York University on December 10, 1974, in which I assessed the condition of my field 41 years ago. It was presented as part of N.Y.U.’s 4th Annual Art-Critics-in-Residence Program, which was supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. A few minor revisions, additions and updatings were made subsequently, but the statement stands essentially unaltered. It was published in the October 1975 issue of <\/em>Camera 35, subsequently reprinted in my 1979 book <\/em>Light Readings. Part 2 appears below; click here for Part 1<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

As a follow-up, you may enjoy my fall 2011 London lecture, “Dinosaur Bones: The End (and Ends) of Photo Criticism (Part 1)”<\/a> and “Dinosaur Bones: The End (and Ends) of Photo Criticism (Part 2),”<\/a> in which I assess the state of photo criticism 37 years later. Spoiler alert: It got a little better, but not for long. \u2014 A. D. C.]
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Because It Feels So Good When I Stop:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Concerning a Continuing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Personal Encounter With Photography Criticism (cont’d.)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

… Therefore, rather than attempting to predict what some of the “problems of photography criticism” may turn out to be, it seems more practical under the circumstances to address ourselves to the three interlocking hurdles which will have to be surmounted in order for a provocative critical dialogue in photography to begin.<\/p>\n

To start with, there is the necessity for creating a network of appropriate forums for critical commentary.<\/p>\n

\"Camera<\/a>

Camera Work No. 2 (1903)<\/p><\/div>\n

Criticism, by its nature, is a public activity. Its purpose, as a process, is to establish, develop and share a set of ideas and definitions intended to enable a group of disparate people \u2014 the critics, the audience and the artists as well \u2014 to find in the work under discussion a common ground, a unifying metaphor for their mutual experiencing of the world and their understanding of that experience.<\/p>\n

This makes it virtually impossible to become a critic in private. The public role is inherent in the activity; the position does not become official (one might also say that the circuit is not complete) until the aspirant begins to publish and thus throws his\/her hat into the ring.<\/p>\n

Consequently, the existence of adequate training grounds is a prerequisite for the evolution of a generation of full-fledged critics. There simply must be places for beginning critics to cut their eyeteeth, work out their ideas and test their attitudes regarding the medium. Most other media have well-established structures within which this maturation can take place: college and university workshops and publications in which to debut, “little magazines” in which to learn and grow, and thence to the larger critical journals or to more diversified, general-interest publications. Such systems not only permit critics to evolve and operate at their own organic pace but also \u2014 nature abhorring a vacuum \u2014 encourage people to engage in critical activity.<\/p>\n

\"Afterimage,<\/a>

Afterimage, November 1974<\/p><\/div>\n

No such system exists in photography at present. Even though formal photography education on the undergraduate and graduate levels has multiplied dramatically over the past decade, the number of schools whose photography departments and publications pay any attention whatsoever to photography criticism as a field of inquiry is minuscule. The rarity of “little magazines” is still noteworthy, and until quite recently those few extant devoted more space to reproductions of imagery than they provided for response to same. (Presently, one can point to Aperture<\/em>, Afterimage<\/em>, and Exposure<\/em> as outlets for critical writing; there are few others at this level.)<\/p>\n

There exist no “larger critical journals” in photography \u2014 nothing at all approximating Artforum<\/em> or even Art in America<\/em>, although a few art magazines (including those two) do give periodic space to the medium. And, as noted before, no general-interest magazines and only a few newspapers devote space to writing which concerns imagery rather than hardware.<\/p>\n

This brings us to a group of publications which I have not discussed so far because they are unique to photography and anomalous in the history of criticism. These are the large-circulation photographic monthlies \u2014 Popular Photography<\/em>, Modern Photography<\/em>, Camera 35<\/em> et al \u2014 and the various annual and semi-annual spinoffs therefrom. With the possible exception of writing, there is no other medium with as many amateur practitioners as photography can claim. And any comparison ends when one adds in the equipment involved in producing photographic images. Writing, painting, dance, music \u2014 none of these incorporate the acquisition of so much machinery and the consumption of so much material as does photography.<\/p>\n

\"Popular<\/a>

Popular Photography, April 1974<\/p><\/div>\n

Like most hobbyists, amateur photographers get into the equipment at least as much as they involve themselves in image-making, if not more so. The primary function of the big photo magazines is to bring these hobbyists together with that technology \u2014 to marry the consumers and the products, or to be more blunt about it, to flog the goods unmercifully. Much of the writing they contain, consequently, is what we in the trade call “nuts and bolts” articles: equipment ratings, explanations of techniques, lists of tricks to assist in making something that looks meaningful, and the like.<\/p>\n

Presumably these publications feel some slight obligation to inform their readership of developments in the medium of photography as a creative and communicative force. This presumption is based on the regular appearance within their pages of writing which considers exhibitions and book presentations of photographs. For what it’s worth, these publications have provided more consistent coverage of such material than any other.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it’s not worth very much. The problem is not merely that these magazines, the major extant vehicles for photography criticism, are seriously if not entirely compromised by their absolute dependence on the billion-dollar photo-merchandising industry for ad revenue and thus for life. Intelligent, honest writing is often capable of redeeming the triviality of its vehicle. The deeper flaw is that much of what appears in those publications is at best a facsimile of criticism, written primarily by photographers who too often fail to comprehend or acknowledge the significant distinction between meaningful criticism and the exercise of one’s personal taste patterns.<\/p>\n

\"Camera<\/a>

Camera 35, October 1974<\/p><\/div>\n

One prominent writer\/photographer, for example, gives over goodly portions of his book reviews to numerical counts of how many layouts fit into his categories of Good, Bad and Indifferent. He never specifies which are which, nor has he ever presented an extended statement on layout which would make interpretation of his statistics possible. When he comes to speak more specifically to images, he tends to the other extreme of over-conciseness. (“The photographs, which show wild areas near towns, are all sharp. For me, the one on page 73 is extremely beautiful.”) [Note: This was David Vestal, writing at that time for <\/em>Popular Photography. \u2014 A. D. C.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Another babbles in embarrassing veneration of his idols or, alternately, concocts snappy two-word epithets which he attaches to large lists of photographers whose work often shares no ostensible similarity, neither stylistic nor contentual. The intent of this labelling (which might be paraphrased as “Dynamic Obsolescence vs. Morbid Introspection”) would seem to be the division of the photography community into armed and antagonistic camps. He uses his categories judgmentally, to separate those artists whose sensibilities he appreciates from those he dislikes. The latter are lumped together and dismissed en masse, without their individual crimes ever being specified \u2014 a form of aesthetic Stalinism. [Note: This was Louis Stettner, writing at that time for <\/em>Camera 35. \u2014 A. D. C.]<\/em><\/p>\n

That such taste-mongering passes for photography criticism is bad enough. Most of what is published under that guise deals even less extensively with the imagery and its messages, concentrating instead on the photographer’s choices of equipment and materials, as though a photograph were a demonstration of the lens employed in its making rather than a description of its maker’s vision of the world.<\/p>\n

\"ADC<\/a>

ADC with Sadakichi Hartmann’s hat, New York, May 15, 2015 (a). Photo \u00a9 2015 by Anna Lung.<\/p><\/div>\n

This is photography criticism’s actual “tradition,” its working definition of itself. The consequences of this genre of pseudo-criticism have been little short of disastrous. It has disseminated widely a totally counterproductive definition of photography criticism; the necessary contradiction thereof drains off time and energy which could be much better spent in other ways. It has discredited the large-circulation magazines as serious critical organs, and has rendered them almost entirely useless by establishing an atmosphere of inanity and irrelevance which absorbs almost any work presented in that context. And it has grossly deluded and miseducated a large segment of the potential audience for serious photography and serious photography criticism by centering attention on equipment and technique rather than on image, idea and content.<\/p>\n

This misdirected audience is the second of the interlocking hurdles directly ahead. Most of its members are camera owners. Although possession of two hundred dollars’ worth of toe shoes and leotards doesn’t, as we all know, make you a dancer, these people have been propagandized by the hardware industry, by the photo magazines, and by our consumerist culture into believing that their ownership of cameras makes them photographers. And, although it has long been recognized in regard to the other media that the biases and jealousies endemic to being a performer within a medium tend to vitiate any performer’s usefulness as a critic of his peers, these amateurs have been led to believe that no one outside the medium should say anything at all about photographs.<\/p>\n

\"Speed<\/a>

Speed Graphic 4×5 camera, circa 1940<\/p><\/div>\n

I find many indicators of this audience’s vision of my role as critic in the correspondence I receive. I can count on a regular flow of letters asking me which single-lens reflex in the $300-$350 price range I would recommend. Others want my darkroom secrets, or the address of my favorite color-processing house. One gentleman actually named me his last hope in his search for a new case for a camera two decades old. His hope was dashed, needless to say, but you can be sure that Judith Crist and Clive Barnes and Barbara Rose receive no missives along equivalent lines, for there are not equivalent lines in their media.<\/p>\n

It is evident from such correspondence that a sizeable portion of my readership assumes me to be a practicing photographer, and one cognizant of and interested in all the latest hardware innovations. It is also evident that they feel entitled to demand that I function as a consumer guide to photographic merchandise \u2014 this despite the fact that in six years of writing I have given no indication whatsoever that this is an area of my critical concern or expertise.<\/p>\n

That I am not a photographer is a fact which distresses another element of my readership. “Why don’t you get a photographer<\/em> to review photography” (italics theirs) is a complaint often received by my editors. I find it is elicited most dependably when I disregard a photographer’s craft competence and instead discuss the mediocrity of his\/her imagery. For example, in a piece of mine on Yousuf Karsh which appeared recently in Popular Photography<\/em>, two simple statements \u2014 that Karsh’s work has evidenced no growth or change in several decades, and that his much-vaunted style appears to be a trap from which he is incapable of escaping even momentarily \u2014 generated a barrage of violently indignant letters. The main objections seemed to be that I was arguing with success and that, because I couldn’t produce such work myself, I had no right to comment on its inadequacies. One correspondent informed me that I was unworthy to kiss the ground on which Karsh walks; another transcribed his anger onto toilet paper.<\/p>\n

\"Kodak<\/a>All this is comical, to be sure, and would be exclusively so if it represented what might be considered the lunatic fringe of the photography audience. Regrettably, however, it is instead emblematic of widely held beliefs and deeply cherished attitudes common to much of the audience for photography. Many people are simply not accustomed to considering photographs as anything other than craft exercises or displays of technical virtuosity; discussions of how or what a photograph communicates appear to discomfit them hugely.<\/p>\n

That such a situation exists, and has existed for so long, is attributable primarily to the lack of a functional vocabulary for the criticism of photography. The language currently applied to photographs as distinct from other kinds of images is derived entirely from the jargon of technique; it is a form of shop talk which pertains to the manufacturing of photographs as objects rather than to their workings or effects as images. In essence, it deals not with the creative\/intellectual problems of the photographer as artist and communicator, but with the practical difficulties faced by the photographer as craftsman. For any consideration of the former, one must fall back on the terminologies of the other graphic arts or traditional aesthetics, which are occasionally useful in approaching certain sorts of photographic imagery but bear absolutely no relationship to others and which fail to come to grips with some of the unique and essential qualities of any photograph, such as its facticity, its temporality, and its equivocal relation to what Edward Weston called “the thing itself.”<\/p>\n

The development of such a vocabulary is as necessary to the evolution of vital photography criticism as is the creation of vehicles for critical writing and the education\/reeducation of what Minor White calls a “creative audience.” The sources for such a vocabulary will doubtless be diverse, including such disciplines as psychology, sociology, and structural linguistics. These, at any rate, are some of the areas into which I and others concerned with the absence of a vocabulary are currently nosing around for useful tools and constructs. Wherever the terminology eventually comes from, it must now be found, organized, and shared. Without a common language we all \u2014 photographic image-makers, critics, and audience alike \u2014 are doomed to remain strangers to each other, disconnected components of a generator with the capacity to enlighten us and illuminate our world.<\/p>\n

(Part 1<\/a> I 2)<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

\"A.<\/a>Special offer:<\/strong> If you want me to either continue pursuing a particular subject or give you a break and (for one post) write on a topic \u2014 my choice \u2014 other than the current main story, make a donation of $50 via the PayPal widget below<\/strong>, indicating your preference in a note accompanying your donation. I’ll credit you as that new post’s sponsor, and link to a website of your choosing. Include\u00a0 a note with your snail-mail address (or email it to me separately<\/a>) for a free signed copy of my 1995 book <\/em>Critical Focus!<\/em><\/p>\n

[donateplus]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The language currently applied to photographs as distinct from other kinds of images is derived entirely from the jargon of technique; it is a form of shop talk which pertains to the manufacturing of photographs as objects rather than to their workings or effects as images. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1025,17,18,945],"tags":[1030,1210,1208,1206,1207,921],"class_list":["post-28465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-archives","category-personal-history","category-photo-education","category-photo-history","tag-aperture","tag-camera-35","tag-david-vestal","tag-louis-stettner","tag-minor-white","tag-popular-photography","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}