my overall impression
I started off reading the introduction about the artist and this was said about her: “Life-giving as well as critical, she embraced the mortality that we all are faced with upon birth, knowing that each impulse would instantly atrophy unless it was fixed by an image.”
I saw several pictures that interested me. Mostly, it was just a sort of simplicity about it. I feel like pictures help the whole “oh, you should’ve been there” problem. And, unlike my many friends who call themselves “picture whores”, clamoring to be in every picture, this is a different kind of picture-taking. The pictures are sort of action shots, in that they tell a story and make me wonder where those people were headed, were from, are now.
At first when the pictures said “Model”, i thought that’s what it was until I realized that it was the artist’s last name (I initially thought it was spelled “Modell”). But it was interesting because each person of focus is essentially, a model. I liked one picture by Diane Arbus called woman with pearl necklace and earring, NYC 1967. It was of a lady’s face, front and center. Her lips were tightly closed with a fierce look and wrinkles beginning on her face. I thought to myself, “now here’s a lady with a story”. At first she looked unapproachable, but then she began to look like an interesting person to encounter.
Then there was the photograph taken by Bruce Weber, Count and Countess Balthus, Gstaad, Switzerland, 1997. This woman was also well aged, with her head leaning on the older man’s. The man held her hand with a kind of closeness, a fondness. And he was wearing a cross around his neck. Rereading my descriptions make me realize how many times, words are just simply inadequate. We come across interesting people all the time. We see things in a certain lighting or a certain way and think wouldn’t it be nice to share this with someone.
I then wandered into a corner of the exhibit with a photograph called Transylvanian Woods by Sylvia Plachy. This one picture was priced at $1500! It was just unbelievable to me. But the picture was awesome. It was of these birch trees in a misty setting with leaves covering the earth. It set the kind of mood that people write songs about. It made me think of the movie Bedazzled, where the man was so sensitive he looked at a sunset and began to sob. It set the kind of mood that can make you tear.
Then there were various other photographs of Coney Island, Louis Armstrong, of running feet in business attire. In a sense, it does call of interpretation. On the other hand, it just asks to be looked at, doesn’t need to be carefully studied. And to each on-looker, it means something different.