Amy Arbus fine photographer

Sun Jun 27 07:36:11 2004

Wait a minute.  "...elephant dung smeared on paintings..."  Maybe you should take the time to actually look at Chris Ofili's work.  Well, why don't we give him the Mapplethorpe treatment, and be done with him?  He is a Brit of West African heritage.  Elephants and their dung have a deep meaning to those folks, especially since the elephants are endangered to the point of extinction.  As are they, subsumed by a culture they are part of and made extinct by.  Why not take a look at the work itself and think about it in a meaningful, contextual way, instead of blowing it off in FoxNewsNewYorkPost fashion?

Stephanie Chernikowski <stephaniecher@earthlink.net> wrote:

>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: globe@zipcon.net
>Sent: Jun 26, 2004 6:48 PM
>To: austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net, Jon Ford <jonmfordster@hotmail.com>
>Subject: Re: Amy Arbus fine second-rate photographer
>
>is Diane Arbus considered a great photographer because of 
>her skill or because she chose to photograph freaks?  If the latter then does 
>tht mean greatness is freaky and unpleasant?  In some other age beauty and 
>symnetry were considerd great but now is considered mediocre.
>
>
>don't get me wrong, i am a fan of diane arbus. that being said, i think what you say is often true. there is a real tendency to go for scandalous in the arts. if you can create a scandal, you get recognition, hence elephant dung smeared on paintings. much is just lethally boring, badly executed, infantile. 
>
>both mapplethorpe and arbus were groundbreaking in their choice of subjects as well as highly skilled artists w/a vision. love them for their courage, as i love michael moore for his. avedon and penn focused on beauty, as did mapplethorpe, but they transcend pretty. people who imitate mapplethorpe by taking pictures of flowers all too often just embarass themselves by comparison.
>
>big is another ticket to being called "art." just cuz a photo is huge does not mean it is good, but it is frequently a ticket to being taken seriously. 
>
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