I don't like Avedon's work

DREW WILEY · Mar 7, 2025

I could never be Avedon. Only Avedon could really be Avedon. I can't force my way into people's faces at all, and have only done portraiture with either express respectful permission or comparably respectful paid commission. Nor could Avedon ever be me; I don't even care about commercial success. I don't want to be tied to it, or to hung up seeking fame either. That would be a distraction. I want to live my visual experiences far more than market them. Each one can take their own best path. Trying to mimic someone else's work is exactly that, just mimicry.

BradS · Mar 7, 2025

Richard Man said:
The issue though is that are these valid academic criticism, or Internet pile-on?

Either way, they are just opinions. I'll not answer for the opinions of others (nor for anybody else's factual errors) but will point out that, to the extent that academic criticism is essentially expressing one's opinion and since opinions are neither true nor false (pretty much by definition) it doesn't really make sense to asses their validity.

A few posts earlier in this thread, I did compare Avedon's American West to Arbus' photos of freaks and one could examine that comparison in more depth and certainly, that is the stuff of academic criticism. One may disagree with the opinion, or think it too harshly stated but that doesn't make it invalid. I might even be persuaded to change my opinion and that is the beauty and value of discussions like this. For, how can we learn if not by discovering other ideas and new points of view?

BrianShaw · Mar 7, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
I could never be Avedon. Only Avedon could really be Avedon. I can't force my way into people's faces at all, and have only done portraiture with either express respectful permission or comparably respectful paid commission. Nor could Avedon ever be me; I don't even care about commercial success. I don't want to be tied to it, or to hung up seeking fame either. That would be a distraction. I want to live my visual experiences far more than market them. Each one can take their own best path. Trying to mimic someone else's work is exactly that, just mimicry.

That’s a fantastic artist’s statement, DREW. You should copyright it!

Richard Man · Mar 7, 2025

BradS said:
A few posts earlier in this thread, I did compare Avedon's American West to Arbus' photos of freaks and one could examine that comparison in more depth and certainly, that is the stuff of academic criticism. One may disagree with the opinion, or think it too harshly stated but that doesn't make it invalid. I might even be persuaded to change my opinion and that is the beauty and value of discussions like this. For, how can we learn if not by discovering other ideas and new points of view?

For your statement to be a good discussion, I'd like to see a deeper analysis why you think Avedon's American West is like "photos of freaks", and a response to the photo comparisons of Carter and Friedlander to the AW photos.

Are they "freaks" because of the subject or their expressions? Or are you saying Avedon approached the series as-if he's photographing freaks, or freaks to the NYC gentiles? Or are you saying something else?

BradS · Mar 7, 2025

Richard Man said:
For your statement to be a good discussion, I'd like to see a deeper analysis why you think Avedon's American West is like "photos of freaks", and a response to the photo comparisons of Carter and Friedlander to the AW photos.

Are they "freaks" because of the subject or their expressions? Or are you saying Avedon approached the series as-if he's photographing freaks, or freaks to the NYC gentiles? Or are you saying something else?

Good question. Thanks.

The short answer is that the comparison is not about the subjects - either individually or collectively but about the artists' approach to their subjects. Again, in short, I don't feel that either Arbus or Avedon has shown any compassion for their subjects (and to be clear, w.r.t. Avedon, I'm only concerned with the body of work, "In The American West"). The comparison is about the way I feel when encountering the work. Both works feel unkind, exploitive, insincere.

And this discomfort I have with his treatment of the subjects is really just an illustration of my main irritation related to Avedon and "In the American West". To be clear, I have no truck with the photos themselves - they are pretty good, and I have no issue with Avedon the photographer, the very successful New fashion photographer. My issue, the burr in my sleeve, the sand in my shorts is with a New York Fashion Photographer, born and raised and lived his entire life in New York (probably mostly NYC), who makes millions doing fashion and advertising photography in New York City ... My issue is him making this body of work and calling it, "In The American West". I can elaborate on this but it gets long winded, personal, possibly angry and probably pretty boring for folks who also have no concept of the American West ... but the interested reader can go back and re-read the posts I've already made here and, I think, get the gist of it.

Don_ih · Mar 7, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
When he came to Yosemite he produced a few interesting pictures; but they only told me about Friedlander himself, and nothing about the place. He was superimposing instead of observing, with a kind of artsy objective in mind.

To be fair, I'd rather see Friedlander's photos of anything than seeing the thing itself, being interested in how he sees things. That's part of what makes a photographer an artist. If you take a photo that's like looking out a window, you may as well be a window and not an artist at all. I want to see the interpretation and the invention.

And I'm not sure you have much of an accurate idea of Friedlander.

I'm pretty much agreeing with what Richard has been saying so far, here. But I see the points Brad makes as quite valid. But, Brad, I don't know that they fairly apply. Avedon called his work In The American Went - not The American West. I think he may not have even wanted to pretend to be leaving his own sensibility behind. I think he was probably painfully aware of his own limitations.

@Rob Skeoch has a great series of rodeo riders that's similar to the Avedon portraits. He's not a rodeo rider himself - does he need to be?

As for this whole "go out and do it" bs argument, it's not something everyone can or will ever want to do. That has no relevance to viewing, appreciating, or critiquing the work. Seriously, go carve a statue of David. Go paint the Sistine Chapel, go make a new version of Citizen Kane. Get real.

BrianShaw · Mar 7, 2025

Im still perplexed about what creates the feeling or knowledge that Avedon did not respect his subjects. Was he abusive to them in any way or speak ill of them? What was exploitive or insincere?

To my eye it appears that he respected each as an individual in a nonjudgmental way.

DREW WILEY · Mar 7, 2025

Who says a photo has to be like looking out a window? A great photographer is more like a semi-silvered mirror, in which one discovers both the subject outside, and the photographer inside, at the same time. But when I mostly just the photographer on both sides, that annoys me; I don't like self-promotion in a picture.

I got a bunch of people on a different forum rattled when I stated that Avedon never was in the West. He seemingly surrounded himself with his own portable NYC mentality wherever he went. Arbus surrounded herself with her personal torment, and that is reflected in her subjects, and it all certainly ended badly. We are all psychological mirrors in one manner or another.

But I get awfully tired of that NYC mentality which presumes it holds title to best pontificating this stuff. Maybe that works in relation to their own culture, but certainly not in the West. I take an 8x10 of an eloquently illuminated wide empty hillside with old bulldozed trails zig-zagged across it, and fascinating broken down old fences, and I see the poignant autobiography of generations of ranchers who lived on that very land and loved it, whose own deeply-wrought emotions would now otherwise be totally forgotten. Some urban art critic type might look at the same thing and see just another "rocks and trees" picture, whose disdain for the kind of sight, and preference for the racey and catchy, just equates to their own cultural illiteracy.

That's another reason I don't like showing rich content images in web fashion; most of the emotional impact and not only image detail gets lost in translation. There has to be a certain feel in a print, and not just a subject.

GregY · Mar 8, 2025

BrianShaw said:
Im still perplexed about what creates the feeling or knowledge that Avedon did not respect his subjects. Was he abusive to them in any way or speak ill of them? What was exploitive or insincere?

To my eye it appears that he respected each as an individual in a nonjudgmental way.

I agree, it becomes clear in Laura Wilson's book, that Avedon did make lasting connections with some of his subjects.
As for the project it was afterall commissioned by the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth..... they chose Avedon.
With regard to how he portrayed the subjects:

"From his Web site, richardavedon.com "I've worked out of a series of no's. No to exquisite light, no to apparent compositions, no to the seduction of poses r narrative. And all these no's force me to the "yes." I have a white background. I have the person I'm interested in and the thing that happens between us."

GregY · Mar 8, 2025

Especially from several California commentors, the criticism is not directed at the photographs, but at the photographer from N York.....in the vein of "what does Avedon know about the West"
IMO those at the Amon Carter Museum (a fine museum i might add) got their money's worth out of the project as it continues to draw commentary.
A controversial body of work? You bet. As Tim McLaughlin commented "
"Avedon was clear that the project was not journalism or reportage. It was his opinion and it was no more an objective truth about the west than John Wayne might be"

Richard Man · Mar 8, 2025

I emigrated to NYC when I was 13, so there's a soft spot for me there. Indeed my family is still in there and I will visit NYC briefly in a couple weeks.

But I have been a Californian for 30+ years now. There is certain romanticism in CA that is definitively un-New York.

I do have to reiterate what Don said, it's called "In the American West", not "The American West". He knows what he's doing.

Don_ih · Mar 8, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
Who says a photo has to be like looking out a window?

Not me. But you implied that Avedon's presence is too great in his photos. I don't think it's any greater than your description of the landscape photo. You move the camera and wait for the light to be how you want it. He set up the camera and waited for the subject to look how he wanted. Everything you said about the landscape - all you see in it - is not actually there. It's how you understand the landscape.

BrianShaw said:
To my eye it appears that he respected each as an individual in a nonjudgmental way.

I agree. I think he was working with a portrait style that made all his subjects equal.

BradS · Mar 8, 2025

Don_ih said:
...
I'm pretty much agreeing with what Richard has been saying so far, here. But I see the points Brad makes as quite valid. But, Brad, I don't know that they fairly apply. Avedon called his work In The American Went - not The American West. I think he may not have even wanted to pretend to be leaving his own sensibility behind. I think he was probably painfully aware of his own limitations.

Richard Man said:
...
I do have to reiterate what Don said, it's called "In the American West", not "The American West". He knows what he's doing.

I don't see the significance of the distinction and considering that seven of the states associated with the work as mentioned by the Amon Carter Museum are not even in the American West, calling the work, "In the America West" seems specious or just plain ignorant ... and Iowa? Iowa doesn't even border on the American West! Iowa has about as much in common with the American West as upstate New York has. Are they (Avedon and the Amon Carter) really that clueless?

...
Avedon spent the next six years, from 1979 to 1984, traveling to 189 towns in 17 states—Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming—and even up into Canada.

Although undeniably a significant body of work, it doesn't appear to have any connection at all to the American West. It might have been more appropriately called "Americans Outside of NYC", or "Struggling Americans", or "Rural, Working Class Americans".

BrianShaw · Mar 8, 2025

Ah, I now see. Perhaps they intended West to mean left of the Mississippi. River, that is.

DREW WILEY · Mar 8, 2025

To the mentality of some, the West is apparently anything beyond New York city limits, or anywhere you have to drive instead of taking a cab. In Colonial times, it could have been the other side of the Appalachians, the "frontier".

Don_ih · Mar 8, 2025

BrianShaw said:
Ah, I now see. Perhaps they intended West to mean left of the Mississippi. River, that is.

That's what most of the world understands the American West to be.

Don_ih · Mar 8, 2025

Although I think, from the original New England point of view, anything from the Louisiana Purchase and beyond is "west".

BrianShaw · Mar 8, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
To the mentality of some, the West is apparently anything beyond New York city limits, or anywhere you have to drive instead of taking a cab. In Colonial times, it could have been the other side of the Appalachians, the "frontier".

When I was a Bostonian, The West was anything on the other side of Route 128. And New York City wasn’t even acknowledged as being a real place.

DREW WILEY · Mar 8, 2025

Flying over the country for the first time, for me the West ended at the Rocky Mountain front around Denver, etc. From there on, nearly everything was flat and farmed until a little wrinkle in the topography way down there - the Appalachians. It was quite a shock. When my sister moved to Virginia due to here husband's career, the neighbors asked if they wanted to drive to the mountains that weekend to see the trees. My sister looked around, and with the Appalachians in sight, asked "what mountains?" That kinda offended folks; but from where we came, those look like a row of gopher mounds.

jeffreyg · Mar 8, 2025

Just decided to take a look at my pristine first edition copy of In The American West to see for myself. I happened to notice that only two images were of persons in a west coast state. That was California and one of those was the beekeeper. The text rather clearly describes how the book project came about and how he decided to make the photographs and present the subjects whoever they were.
In a brief search and see that my book is worth around $400. I guess it was a good buy.

warden · Mar 8, 2025

GregY said:
"From his Web site, richardavedon.com "I've worked out of a series of no's. No to exquisite light, no to apparent compositions, no to the seduction of poses r narrative. And all these no's force me to the "yes." I have a white background. I have the person I'm interested in and the thing that happens between us."

Great quote. Creativity thrives within boundaries.

Don_ih · Mar 8, 2025

jeffreyg said:
I guess it was a good buy.

That does seem to be the case. Worth more than my first edition of Freed's Police Work. Probably printed better, too.

Richard Man · Mar 8, 2025

Yes, that is correct. American West as in west of Philly. It's like a book called "Photographs of the Orient", ha ha.

GregY · Mar 8, 2025

This Ernest Hemingway quote I saw today seemed as if it was appropriate to this thread.
"Critics, are men who watch a battle from a high place and then come down and shoot the survivors...."

Richard Man · Mar 8, 2025

GregY said:
This Ernest Hemingway quote I saw today seemed as if it was appropriate to this thread.
"Critics, are men who watch a battle from a high place and then come down and shoot the survivors...."

Love it. Thanks.

I don't like Avedon's work

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