I don't like Avedon's work

[DREW WILEY]

Then what are we critics of critics? - the looters after the fire?

 

[Milpool]

What a pearl of wisdom.

 

[Don_ih]

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...."

That's super. But this is a discussion and, for some, a bit of an investigation and an opportunity to try to understand something. If you're just reading everyone else's comments with an eye to disagreement or agreement, with no possibility of changing your own opinion, then that quote applies to you. For some, conversations provide learning opportunities and a chance to focus on and think about something they normally wouldn't.

 

[Arthurwg]

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

If you're a New Yorker, the west starts at the Hudson River.

 

[Vaughn]

If you're a New Yorker, the west starts at the Hudson River.

And in CA, one needs to get almost a hundred miles up the highway (Hwy 101) from San Fran before getting to northern CA.
And up to Redding on Hwy 5 (160 miles north of Sacramento) before getting out of central CA

I appreciate Avedon's work...like or dislike has little bearing on that.

 

[BradS]

I lived in LA in the 1980's and early 1990's - In LA, when traveling north on the 101, Northern California was considered to be everything North (well, actually West at that point) of Glen Annie road just outside of Santa Barbara.

 

[warden]

One of the benefits of this thread is that it has encouraged me to dig out my copy of Avedon Fashion (which I see is worth now double what I paid for it, one of my few successful investments) and pay more attention to it. In addition to underscoring his incredible talents as a fashion photographer, it reminds me of a binding truism: we all suffer with light leaks. The book shares his contact sheets and just like me his cameras are shit.

 

[Vaughn]

I lived in LA in the 1980's and early 1990's - In LA, when traveling north on the 101, Northern California was considered to be everything North (well, actually West at that point) of Glen Annie road just outside of Santa Barbara.

Only those in SoCal think that (I grew up in SoCal). People in SF just wish it...

 

[DREW WILEY]

The border between LA and California is at the top of the "Grapevine" - the freeway pass just south of Bakersfield. But Bakersfield itself isn't part of California either; it's a colony of West Texas, and has plenty of oil wells to prove it, along with some of the worst air quality in the country. But there's sure a lot of beautiful country less an hour away, either east or west.

 

[christophern]

Well it's interesting to have a OK Corral showdown once in awhile. And as fer "fightin words", I'll bring along my hired gunslinger, Andre Kertesz, who famously (or infamously) called Avedon, "an advertising photographer, a zero". Kertesz had no reason to be jealous. He could have simply stopped funding the museum involved, and built one of his own. He was wealthy enough. With me, it's more just that I find Avedon's images obnoxious and generally pretentious. According to his own words, he seem to have been tongue in cheek on purpose at times, especially with respect to the over-the-top fashion trends of the 60's, which he obviously found interesting as overt subjects, but in a cynical manner. I stand by my comments that he never was in the West, at least mentally. He brought nervous brash Noi Yoik along with him.

Manipulated tricks per his sitters. Reminds me of how Karsh suddenly snatched the cigar out of Winston Churchill's mouth in order to make him glower. I have no Avedon books. Sick enough of him as it is. I might be willing to join any modern art museum society which has zero work by either Avedon or Warhol in it; both have become overbearingly tedious "must have" commodities by now.

Thanks, Pieter, for a little more insight into the trick in play with the Royal Couple. They might have resented the outcome, but Ex-King Edward could have been hanged for his Nazi sympathies if he hadn't been de facto exiled to the Bahamas first. I never could figure out what Wallis Simpson's appeal was; just a social butterfly, it seems.

Wearing down one's sitters was nothing new. Julia Cameron's guests dreaded her sessions. But her prints were in an entire class above anything Avedon ever produced via modern commercial labs, despite being pre-Raphaelite inspired as the trend of the day went.

Drew, just to chime-in briefly to kind of agree with you about Avedon .. I mean — with the possible exception of much of his early fashion work — if I could assign a single word to describe the type of portraits he seemed to've sought to create (or perhaps better said, the way he seemed to want his subects to appear), the word would be "grotesque'. It's uncanny how he strived so hard to present the bad -- if not worse -- side of certain subjects. That said, I completely understand how this strain of images could be attractive to some collectors and appreciators. For example, many people love licorice; calf's liver; blood sausage; okra; bitter foods; super-hot chilis, etc ... I don't. Obviously, that doesn't make those foods "bad"; their just foods I don't like! (To be clear, I don't "dislike" Avedon ... but many of his images are just "meh" for me. One great exception -- and, as I said, part of his early fashion work -- is his magnificent "Dovima with Elephants" (taken about a mile from where I live, by the way!)

 

[Don_ih]

if I could assign a single word to describe the type of portraits he seemed to've sought to create (or perhaps better said, the way he seemed he wanted his subects to appear), that word would be "grotesque'.

And some examples would be?

 

[nikos79]

Avedon knows what good photography is. Sadly his own photography is not

 

[GregY]

We need a thread "photographers i love to hate"...or not. I'm sure Richard Avedon won't be alone...

 

[Don_ih]

We need a thread "photographers i love to hate"...or not. I'm sure Richard Avedon won't be alone...

Apparently, he'd have Ansel Adams to hang out with.

 

[nikos79]

Apparently, he'd have Ansel Adams to hang out with.

I am crying laughing

 

[nikos79]

We need a thread "photographers i love to hate"...or not. I'm sure Richard Avedon won't be alone...

Well I can assure you there are many names there

 

[David Brown]

I haven't read but about a third of this thread, but I think I get the gist ...

So, I hope I am not repeating something already published, but a good portion of The American West will be up at the Amon Carter in Fort Worth starting in May.

Richard Avedon at the Carter

Celebrating 40 years of Richard Avedon’s In the American West, the Carter is presenting 40 works from the series accompanied by behind-the-scenes archival material of Avedon’s acclaimed portraits.

www.cartermuseum.org

Living in DFW, I had seen this work many times. The Carter occasionally has one or two (or 10) of the portraits hanging. Without judgment, I've always said that they are the most beautiful prints of not so beautiful people.

And, we must remember in this discussion, this work was commishioned!

PS: Years ago, I saw a retrospective show spanning his entire career at the Corcoran in DC. Hundreds of prints from the 6x6 days through to the life size prints! Not all of it was appealing, but the body of work was staggering!

 

[Arthurwg]

One of the benefits of this thread is that it has encouraged me to dig out my copy of Avedon Fashion (which I see is worth now double what I paid for it, one of my few successful investments) and pay more attention to it. In addition to underscoring his incredible talents as a fashion photographer, it reminds me of a binding truism: we all suffer with light leaks. The book shares his contact sheets and just like me his cameras are shit.

Even Ansel had light leaks with his Hasselblad.

 

[BradS]

I haven't read but about a third of this thread, but I think I get the gist ...

So, I hope I am not repeating something already published, but a good portion of The American West will be up at the Amon Carter in Fort Worth starting in May.

Richard Avedon at the Carter

Celebrating 40 years of Richard Avedon’s In the American West, the Carter is presenting 40 works from the series accompanied by behind-the-scenes archival material of Avedon’s acclaimed portraits.

www.cartermuseum.org

Living in DFW, I had seen this work many times. The Carter occasionally has one or two (or 10) of the portraits hanging. Without judgment, I've always said that they are the most beautiful prints of not so beautiful people.

And, we must remember in this discussion, this work was commissioned!

PS: Years ago, I saw a retrospective show spanning his entire career at the Corcoran in DC. Hundreds of prints from the 6x6 days through to the life size prints! Not all of it was appealing, but the body of work was staggering!

Well, that looks pretty interesting. I think I may make the trip. Thanks.

 

[GregY]

I haven't read but about a third of this thread, but I think I get the gist ...

So, I hope I am not repeating something already published, but a good portion of The American West will be up at the Amon Carter in Fort Worth starting in May.

Richard Avedon at the Carter

Celebrating 40 years of Richard Avedon’s In the American West, the Carter is presenting 40 works from the series accompanied by behind-the-scenes archival material of Avedon’s acclaimed portraits.

www.cartermuseum.org

Living in DFW, I had seen this work many times. The Carter occasionally has one or two (or 10) of the portraits hanging. Without judgment, I've always said that they are the most beautiful prints of not so beautiful people.

And, we must remember in this discussion, this work was commishioned!

PS: Years ago, I saw a retrospective show spanning his entire career at the Corcoran in DC. Hundreds of prints from the 6x6 days through to the life size prints! Not all of it was appealing, but the body of work was staggering!

I seem to have bad timing, I make it a point to go to Fort Worth every time I'm in Austin....to visit the Amon Carter Museum and Leddy Brothers, my favourite boot place. I was just there in Nov..... I've never managed to hit it when they were showing parts of In The American West...

 

[Don_ih]

we must remember in this discussion, this work was commishioned!

Yes, but did the result match what they thought they were going to get?

 

[David Brown]

I seem to have bad timing, I make it a point to go to Fort Worth every time I'm in Austin....to visit the Amon Carter Museum and Leddy Brothers, my favourite boot place. I was just there in Nov..... I've never managed to hit it when they were showing parts of In The American West...

Check their website from time to time.

 

[David Brown]

Yes, but did the result match what they thought they were going to get?

Based on much of his other work (that is stylistically the same), and how proud the Carter is of the holdings, I would think probably.

 

[Nokton48]

'The Sixties' - Charlie Rose

Photographer Richard Avedon and writer Doon Arbus on their book, "The Sixties."

charlierose.com

I have this book. I think it's worth having.

 

[Taylor Nankervis]

I concede that Avedon's work wasn't very well like when he had an exhibition here in Australia.
Many of the images are confronting and bordering on vulgarity, particularly those documenting Andy Warhol and his "Superstars", among others. Most of the portraiture was contrived and hackneyed — amateurish might not be a stretch to say; I would not even consider it art, but each to his own. Wolfgang Siever's engaging exhibition on the other hand was something that received wide acclaim, from critics of his own era and more recent.