"Can Suffering Be Too Beautiful?" (Salgado review)

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Provocative review in (7/13/01 NYTimes) of Salgado's ICP show:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/13/arts/design/13KIMM.html

Comments, thoughts? Fair of reviewer to wish subjects were identified?

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-- Micah (MicahMarty@aol.com), July 13, 2001

Answers

I think the NYTimes is a little too artsy-phartsy most of the time, reading more into art than is there. Salgado's images are terrific to be sure, and he captures the human condition brilliantly. (And with an M to boot!) However, the esoteric musings of the NYTimes writer were a little much for me. Why not just say "The images moved me because..."? Instead he complains "-- They are too beautiful," and then goes on to say "The show, like the book, includes too many photographs that aren't up to his best." I don't know, maybe it's just me being tired af critics always trying to sound sophisticated and perhaps reading more into an artist's work than was originally placed there by the artist.

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), July 13, 2001.

The updated saying comes to mind: "Those who can't do, teach - and those that can't teach, become critics".

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), July 13, 2001.

I had the oportunity to visit Salgados excibition "Workers" in Mexico City few years ago, I was impresed by the quality of the expositoin, his view as a photographer has a lot do with his experiences as a economist; but what critics may disagree with his view as a documentalist-photographer is how he never losses his way of seeing, so he is not merely a documentalist but an artist, and represent things as those impress him, and reality can be diferent that´s for sure. So what´s documentalism?, and how ourown view as photographers can be part of it?.

-- r watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), July 13, 2001.

Salgado's images will outlive him. I don't think NYT's comment will outlive the paper it is written on for too long. Sometimes critics are at the artist's height and their comments help us get an additional insight on the works they comment. IMHO this is not the case.

-Iván

-- Ivan Barrientos M (ingenieria@simltda.tie.cl), July 13, 2001.


Silly me, I actually thought that Michael Kimmelman's review was on target. I think that there is a lot of "Salgado imitating Salgado" photography in "Migrations" and most of the work in "The Children" reflects its throwaway nature.

-- Robert Schneider (rolopix@yahoo.com), July 14, 2001.


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