Comments on: Friday Poem

By: chuck shacochis

chuck shacochis — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:18:29 +0000

Alec, Thanks for the info. Good luck with your book printing by the way, I can’t wait to see it.

By: Alec Soth

Alec Soth — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:11:51 +0000

Chuck, I'm as excited as you are to see 'A Shimmer of Possibility.' Paul is one of my heroes and I was fortunate enough to have dinner with him the other day. His book hasn't been printed yet, but he is on deck. I'm sure it will be one of the best publications of the year. Tim Atherton has some good info on Graham here.

By: chuck shacochis

chuck shacochis — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:28:15 +0000

Hey Alec – Thinking of photography and poetry reminded me of a blurb I read about Paul Graham’s new book series “A Shimmer of Possibility”. The writer used the words “filmic haikus” to describe his new books. I’m sure you have probably seen the book(s) there at Steidl. His approach to this series, being influenced by the short stories of Chekov, makes me very curious to see how these images work within their multiple book structure. Have you seen them?

By: alec soth - blog » Blog Archive » Teenage Lust

alec soth - blog » Blog Archive » Teenage Lust — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:33:14 +0000

[...] This weekend I went to the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin to see a show that included the work of Larry Clark. After recent discussions on this blog (here and here) it was interesting to see Clark’s pictures from Teenage Lust. He shows a girl who is tripping on acid being raped, male hustlers, a brother with an erection tying up his sister in bed. Clark was in his thirties and early forties when he produced this work. In several pictures we see him naked with the teens. It is disturbing stuff. But seeing it in the safe confines of a museum, I somehow find all of this ‘acceptable.’ Again, it comes down to context. If I saw Teenage Lust in the waiting room of my kid’s doctor, yeah, I’d have a big problem. I’d also be troubled if Clark’s pictures were turned into ads. Remember those banned Calvin Klein spots from the 90’s. (Watch them here). Yeesh. [...]

By: alec soth - blog » Blog Archive » Documenta, children, sexuality, Barnes & Noble

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 05:40:57 +0000

[...] alec soth – blog photographica, miscellanea, etcetera « Friday Poem [...]

By: Ian

Ian — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 02:29:58 +0000

I don’t know…for me, Williams in that passage seems to be saying that the poet (or “artist” in the broader sense) should allow himself to think or feel anything, regardless of ethical considerations, but also to subject those thoughts to the judgment of his own conscience, which prevents sins of the heart from becoming sins of the hand. He does gives the caveat that conscience comes into play.

Is photographing a nubile young girl (or looking at that photograph) the same as desiring her sexually, or even acting on that desire? Are technically good photographs of attractive people necessarily good art? Is controversial art necessarily good art? Are morals simply consensus? Who’s to judge?

Ceci n’est pas une pipe.

By: Zoltán

Zoltán — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:09:33 +0000

Sturges pictures aren´t pictures about childhood, they are not pictures about nakedness in childhood, they are pictures about children with some sexual attraction. There is a taboo in society about children being objects of sexual desire, and I am happy about this taboo. It is not about morals, but about protecting children. Probably Sturges pictures don´t do any harm, for the children agreed to take part in this project, and whoever is watching these photographs never will touch the photographed children. There are not many known photographers whose work I simply don´t like, but Jock Sturges work I simply dont like.

By: Vinegar Tom

Vinegar Tom — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:35:47 +0000

I recently bought a DVD of the wonderful French film Diabolo Menthe on Ebay, not really noticing its prominent description as a “coming of age” film (sure enough, that’s what it is, and a small masterpiece of its kind). “Imagine my horror”, as they say, when I received the film and read the enclosed catalogue of other “coming of age” films available from the same supplier. Basically, underage/teen sex of a fairly grubby kind.

That Diane Kurys’ film might be pigeonholed and marketed alongside films of near-paedophile interest seemed ironic, until (scarily) I considered how closely the police monitor the supply and purchase of child pornography via the Web… In UK courts a distinction between “sins of the heart and sins of the hand” may be hard to maintain as Pete Townsend and, today, the actor Chris Langham have discovered.

By: m_napper

m_napper — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:38:09 +0000

Beautiful poem…..wouldn’t have meant much to me (or would have meant soemthing different) twenty years ago. Now I know. As far as Sturge’s work goes, yes, beautiful, but perhaps we share the same reticent thing about his work. Maybe it’s too easy. Certainly insanely well-crafted, but I’m not sure I learn anything from it, either about the subject, the photographer, or myself.
And photography that straight-forward (both formally and conceptually) closes the door to enchantment for me. And enchantment (at least for me) is of primary importance in art.

By: Pelle Cass

Pelle Cass — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:24:06 +0000

I think that Williams, from a creator’s perspective, is absolutely right. We are after truth, not varnish. Photographers too need the absolute freedom to view their consciousness, warts and all, as a “laboratory,” in Williams’s word. This view permits JS’s work, clearly. But is JS’s work interesting? Not if you agree with Williams that it’s an “inner awereness” of one’s “ethical consciousness” that makes the revealing of base emotions interesting.