Fresh Air

when Sarkowski first encountered the photo, he said:

“It is a picture of a hard-faced old woman, looking out of the handsome oval window of the expensive automobile with her hand to her face as though the smell of the street was offending her,

Later, when Sarkowski saw the title, Funeral Cortege, End of an Era in a Small Valley Town, California (1938), the author of the article relates, "he realized that the fancy car belonged to an undertaker, and the expression he took for haughtiness was grief."

I wonder if the scroll as symbol played a part that informed the young Szarkowski's first impression. I can deeply appreciate this photo without caption but in context of the MoMA show, I can also appreciate where they are coming from

I heard somewhere that the young Szarkowski was only 11 when he first saw the picture, and may have formed his initial impression then.

 

If I buy Picasso's musing that ...

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

... maybe Szarkowski was right the first time!

 

My hope for the exhibit is that its effect will be to open up as many possibilities about captions and words as it is to make a point.

I agree sam.

My hope for the exhibit is that its effect will be to open up as many possibilities about captions and words as it is to make a point

Museum shows can be very affective eye openers.

Museum shows can be very affective eye openers.

You are to spelling what ee cummings was to capitalization, wringing out subtlety with a single letter.

from your mouth to all my spelling teachers who wanted to wring my neck with frustrations

At a Beethoven concert I went to this morning, a local music scholar introduced the first of three string quartets by marveling at the opening chord, a diminished 7th, a dissonant introduction. He reminded us that today, this is not terribly unusual but in Beethoven's time it was shocking. The musicians played and held the chord for us, the speaker went on to talk more about the quartet, and then we were treated to a great performance.

 

It struck me that his discussion put me in a frame of mind to listen somewhat innocently and I adopted, just a little and without really thinking about it, the mindset of an early 19th-century listener. (Of course, my cell phone was turned off at the time!)

 

Later I thought about this thread and info that accompanies art and came to realize this was a case where the info was actually able to strip away some stuff in order to get us to listen with less sophistication than a 21st-century ear might otherwise do. Accompanying info might just be subtractive in some situations and can bring us (some of us!) closer to the art itself by helping to release us from contemporary assumptions or approaches.

 

I'm happy to have the benefit of the history of music following Beethoven and finely-crafted instruments with a more modern sound. But there is a sense in which knowing the contexts of the original performances can create a more rather than less one-to-one relationship to the music as composed and originally performed, where my more up-to-date self can get out of the way.

I think its interesting that Sarkowski didn't recognize it was a hearse.

...

This is by way of introducing the curatorial theme of the exhibit: Lange's pictures require verbal commentary to be read legibly.

...

 

IMHO, this is high-minded chutzpah. If you have to explain it to me, I am not interested.

 

For me, the photo is never about the context. It is what it says right here right now.

 

W

For me, the photo is never about the context. It is what it says right here right now.

I regret to inform you, in as low-minded and chutzpah-free manner as possible, that "right here right now" IS A CONTEXT!

I'll also add that pretending no other context but the present moment exists with which to view a photo removes the historical value of photos from the equation. Not being able to see in some photos the historical story they tell, to me, would be a case of self-induced blindness. Perfectly acceptable if someone wants to impose such limits on themselves, but not a choice I'd make.

I regret to inform you, in as low-minded and chutzpah-free manner as possible, that "right here right now" IS A CONTEXT!

 

It is not the context of THE photograph.

It is not the context of THE photograph.

Right, it's the context to which you've limited it.