Winogrand 1964

[ray .]

In my responses on this thread I believe I was properly reacting to the fact that a photographer I revere was being misunderstood and maligned.

 

However, I'd like to apologize for my last remark. I think I may have jumped to the conclusion that Michael was making another unfair attack. Perhaps that wasn't his intention. At any rate that particular comment of mine was out of bounds.

[steve_rowell]

There's not going to be a test, is there? ;)

[ray .]

Not having seen this particular book, I wonder if it's possible the original poster or someone else could post a few images from it?

[phill kneen]

a test?.........A TEST !!!!!!! Oh my sweet Jesus, I'm going to have to read this whole boring post.

[cd thacker]

Rob, I agree that life is too short; the little reading I've done in the field is well behind me. But in general you don't see me spouting pseudo-Marxist, radical sounding drivel (especially without having ever read him) - of the type commonly found in Stalinist and "neo-Stalinist" circles. Sorry to be so harsh, especially toward you, whose work and thoughtful opinions I admire overall. But when you discuss an artist's work on the basis of, or in terms of, his social background - well, you might just as well use instead his ethnicity or "ethnic sympathy" (the "Jewish" character of Winogrand's work; the "Jewish" influence in HCB's); it would be no less crude and ill-informed. <P>

 

If you're going to talk it, read it. If you're not going to read it, don't talk it.

[ray .]

To put it simply, and in plain language-

 

No matter what anybody says about them,

 

Henri Cartier-Bresson was(is) a great photographer.

 

Garry Winogrand was a great photographer.

 

All else is of secondary importance with regard to this subject.

[eugene_scherba]

There is nothing wrong in attributing general characteristics to classes, and talking about bourgeois. Of course, every person is different, but one cannot deny the existence of super-individual structures. This whole mass-culture phenomenon (that I despise so much) originated among petit bourgeois, and expanded after the WWII, crushing the "high" and "folk" cultures on its way. To prove this statement, try to analyze just about any TV commercial.

 

In writing this, however, I refer to structuralist critique of Barthes, rather than Marxism. It is important to remember that Marxism is a grand-narrative, fallacious from its very beginning, when Marx postulated that Hegelian dialectic is the basic law of nature, and not just a thinking process.

[nesrani]

Well, Doug, my thinking about this comes more from my acquaintance - however slight - with ideology theory, say Eagleton, Barthes and Debord. I understand that it's easy to associate all class-talk with Marxism, but that's something other people have putting on my statements. As you will have seen - I hope - from my comments, my concerns are much more about ideology and philosophy of language than about class struggle.

 

Is it worth defending my point about HCB's classism? Maybe. I always felt that his stated contempt for photography and other photographers was very much a patrician contempt for the trades, and that he built his own myth very successfully by elevating his own work into the sphere of "art" - a concept I don't have much use for, to tell the truth. Who decides what is art - that is the question, and it seems evident to me that it is genuinely a matter of social cliques. Art is primarily an economic and social activity, to my mind - as I said once before, maybe not on this forum, aesthetics may be the most bourgeois of the sciences.

 

I come from a country - England - which is deeply and poisonously class-riven, and that is one of the main reasons I went to live abroad. I think I have a right to espress my dislike for the classist aspects of the HCB legend - as seen by myself, obviously.

 

Cheers,

[eugene_scherba]

Since when did Rob Appleby become Ron Appleby???

[eugene_scherba]

LOL :-))))

[mike dixon]

I think Ron is Rob's evil-capitalist-pig-dog twin . . .

[ray .]

And the beat goes on...

 

Blah blah, blah blah .............................................

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[Troll]

I just got back from Barnes and Noble, where I went with $50 in my pocket to buy the book. Sad to say, I came home with the same $50. There's not a single image in the hundreds which I'd care to own. Much of it is devoted to Texas and California. Perhaps it seems foreign and exotic to someone from the Bronx, but Mr. Winogrand seems to be making fun of what appears to me to be normal activities of the people involved. Lots of "babes" pictures made through car windows, but not one memorable one in the bunch (remember HC-Bs wonderful shot of the Greek kid standing on his hands in the middle of nowhere?). Maybe "They're" right about monkeys and typewriters -- and Leicas.

[cd thacker]

<I>There is nothing wrong in attributing general characteristics to classes. . .</I><P>

Nor did I say there was, Eugene. And Rob. I mean, Ron. My beef is with judging an artist's work - and the artist himself - on the basis of his class background, and how that background is purportedly made manifest in his work (read "ideology"), rather than on the intrinsic values of the work itself; formalist values of high aesthetics, to be sure, but also essential human values that transcend class and the struggle of classes. This is the philistine approach of Stalinism. And in the end the essential struggle is not between classes or ideologies, but between thug-thinking philistines of whatever stripe - and those they wish to destroy, on all levels, including the physical.<P>

 

<I>my concerns are much more about ideology and philosophy of language than about class struggle.</I><P>

 

Eagleton, at least, but also much of post-modernism, would say that ideology and the philosophy of language <I>are</I> class struggle. And most of this theory is Marxian, if not Marxist. Two reasons, possibly, for why, when you speak of these things, it brings Marx to mind.<P>

 

<I>Art is primarily an economic and social activity, to my mind - as I said once before, maybe not on this forum, aesthetics may be the most bourgeois of the sciences.</I><P>

 

Art is certainly those things - but also much more. It is the highest state to which we can aspire, the reflection, and manifestation of, the impulse that brings the world into being (what Neitzsche called "will to power"). And all culture is bourgeois.

 

Eugene, I too dislike the "mass culture phenomenon" of which you speak. But I am old enough to have participated in the effort to erradicate the distinction between "high" and "low" culture. And now that it's largely happened - so they tell me - "high" culture has been all but destroyed. And I want it back.

[eugene_scherba]

<I>"And all culture is bourgeois."</I><BR><BR>

 

Nope. (As Churchill said, one ought to raise his voice if confronted with a lack of arguments :)

[nesrani]

Doug, I don't judge or condemn HCBs work on the basis his class allegiance, or his cynical (to my mind) manipulation/creation of his image - I love his work. In fact, I think Michael Bender's version of Cartier Bresson is a meretricious, crippled reduction of a body of work which has many more modes than this aphoristic "visual thinking". Where is the lyricism, the pastoral, the idyllic? Much of HCB's work has little to do with the little sermons that Michael wants to extract from it. The irony is, though, that this reduction is done in the name of values which I believe HCB himself would have ascribed to.

 

All culture is bourgeois - well that's a bit of a reach, even for a bluffer like me.

[eugene_scherba]

<I>"It [The Art] is the highest state to which we can aspire, the reflection, and manifestation of, the impulse that brings the world into being (what Neitzsche called "will to power")."</I><BR><BR>

 

Ezra Pound would have agreed with you.

[eugene_scherba]

<I>"...I think Michael Bender's version of Cartier Bresson is a meretricious, crippled reduction of a body of work which has many more modes than this aphoristic "visual thinking". Where is the lyricism, the pastoral, the idyllic? Much of HCB's work has little to do with the little sermons that Michael wants to extract from it. The irony is, though, that this reduction is done in the name of values which I believe HCB himself would have ascribed to."</I><BR><BR>

 

I entirely agree with Mr. Appleby. I love HCB as "the little surrealist photographer" (and I "hate" Rob Capa for telling Henri not to become one).

[nesrani]

Well, well, Eugene - we seem to be posting in tandem and agreeing about a number of things.

 

See, that's precisely why I dislike the whole idea of "art" - the way it always attempts to hide it's actual nature as a human activity and appeals to higher values all the time, whether scientific, or spiritual or whatever. Not very fruitful if you're interested in the pictures, IMO - or very fruitful, if what you are seeking is to validate your identity while concealing its roots.

[eugene_scherba]

ditto.

[._._z]

Ibid.

[cd thacker]

<I>Ezra Pound would have agreed with you.</I><P>

 

Then I would have agreed with Ezra Pound. Our agreement, however, if such was the case, would not have saved him from my wrath. Nor improved his poetry. Nor speeded up his thinking.<P>

 

The reason why I say all culture is bourgeois, is simply this: the organization of society with bourgeois power at its head - "bourgeois" forms the super-structure - means not only that the "bourgeois" organization of human society is the highest yet attained; but also that all culture is the outcome of, and reflection of, bourgeois values. Marx would not have disputed that his work and theories were the outcome of the bourgeois organization of society. "Proletarian" culture, or "socialist realism", were kitsch contrivances layed atop what is. And granted there is folk culture, but since this resides within the social superstructure, it gets carried along for the ride and tagged with the same brush. This is pretty standard stuff, which has been obscured by the disease that was Stalinism (and perhaps we could lay blame, as Rosa Luxemburg did, at the feet of Leninism as well - I don't really know. Or care. Marx, however, warrants close reading, if only because his project was, or might have been, the terminal degree of the European Enlightenment; and is secure in its place within the canon.) <P>

 

<I>I love HCB as "the little surrealist photographer" (and I "hate" Rob Capa for telling Henri not to become one).</I><P>

 

The reason Capa made this suggestion, as I understand it - the only reason - was so that HCB could <I>be</I> "the little surrealist photographer" - as opposed to the mannered, self-conscious pomposity he might have become had he chosen to identify himself as "artist". In order to be an artist - that is, in order to do the work - it is advisable, often, to get out from under the yoke of the term and all the baggage that goes with it. <P>

 

<I>that's precisely why I dislike the whole idea of "art" - the way it always attempts to hide it's actual nature as a human activity and appeals to

higher values all the time, whether scientific, or spiritual or whatever. </I><P>

 

Sounds like something from the mouth of Stalin. It isn't about "hiding its actual nature", but, rather, realizing that nature - realizing your own nature. Nor is it about appealing to higher values, but, rather, having them. <P>

 

Further, Rob, while your feelings about your country of origin are well taken, I would point out that if your frame of reference is always and only "class" (or "classism"), you've only succeeded in taking that "poisonous and divisive country" with you, in your efforts to move abroad.

[nesrani]

"Always and only" - I don't think so, Doug. I think you're getting a bit carried away here, to tell the truth.

 

As for higher values... remember Eckermann and Goethe, the discussion about the esoteric? Art as a path to realisation is as delusory as any other, I think - or as valid as doing the washing up punctually and well.

[robert_clark]

"Winogrand, on the other hand, was I think much more intuitive in his approach, and very interested in A) observing the process of shooting, and, B) the outcome of randomness and semi-chance, and of intentionality in differing degrees (the "semi" part). I think that he wanted to subsume his intelligence into the growing ocean of his intuition, in his work, especially in the later years. So, while "poly-narrative" serves to describe some of that work, I don't think that is, necessarily, central to W.'s intention - or that intentionality itself is central to it; rather, it is perhaps a happy outcome - the "accident" - sometimes more, sometimes less - wherein lies the delight. I think his reputation will be greatly advanced by tighter editing." - Doug Thatcher.

 

Yes (Mid-day; moment of the shortest shadow; end of the longest error; zenith of mankind; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA).

 

"The reason why I say all culture is bourgeois, is simply this: the organization of society with bourgeois power at its head - "bourgeois" forms the super-structure - means not only that the "bourgeois" organization of human society is the highest yet attained; but also that all culture is the outcome of, and reflection of, bourgeois values." - Doug Thatcher.

 

Hang on a minute where did this come from? Where has the flexibility of thinking gone? Is Islamic culture bourgeois? Is Hindu culture bourgeois? Three cheers for bourgeois culture , but let's not pretend that it is somehow universal. Other cultures have other paradigms and we do not even need to invoke cultural relativism to support this. One of the most telling aspects of this is the culture shock that one suffers in living in one of these other cultures: they do not measure or define by our cultural paradigms, (authority of the bourgeois point of view) and when you go to live in one of these 'other' places, you feel it in your guts and it can be a wrench. (I've lived in Turkey, China and now India.) Much culture in the past and still very much so now has a religious basis.

 

As to HCB and Winograd, I'm grateful that they were there, taking the photos they did, so that I can look at some of them and delight in the incidents of a past moment, accidental or contrived. Is it art? Ha, ha.

[robert_clark]

Rob,

 

I like the zen comment.