(embiggenable) • iPhone
(embiggenable) • iPhone
(embiggenable) • iPhone
(embiggenable) • iPhone
A FEW YEARS SHY OF 50 YEARS AGO-4 YEARS TO BE EXACT-a memo was issued to picture makers that things had changed:
“A turning point in the history of photography, the 1975 exhibition New Topographics signal[s] a radical shift away from traditional depictions of landscape. Pictures of transcendent natural vistas [have given] way to unromanticized views of stark industrial landscapes, suburban sprawl, and everyday scenes not usually given a second glance.”
Quite obviously, the bulk of “serious” picture makers never got the memo. Aided by the addition of Photoshop (and the like) to their kit, they are pounding out romanticized, over color saturated, HDR, art sauce slathered, natural world caricatures by the garbage truck load. And the general picture viewing public sees these picture as the bee’s knees, re: the depiction of the beauty of nature. To which I would opine that every pot has a lid.
On the other hand, for few years shy of 50 years (4 to be exact) , those picture makers-myself included-who got the memo have been pounding out unromanticized views of stark industrial landscapes, suburban sprawl, and everyday scenes not usually given a second glance-the so-called New Topographcs- by the pickup truck load. The Fine Art World (and me) has tended to think that’s just fine.
All of which leaves me wondering, will there be a new memo coming down the shute?
FYI, I am off on a short getaway-Fri-Sun-to attend the Notre Dame v Georgia Tech football game in South Bend, Indiana. I am getting away by train-sleeping car roomette-to and fro. Looking forward to visiting the outstanding Notre Dame Museum of Art. My traveling companion is my teenage grandson Hugo. The trip itself is a long-desired re-enactment of my train trips (as a kid) to South Bend with my father to see ND games and visit the Studebaker Museum-my dad was a Studebaker Man.