Sometimes my mind blocks things out automatically for me, I guess to protect me- otherwise I'd rapidly overload from the perpetual insanity this world delivers on a daily basis from every source and orifice imaginable. Occasionally however, it means I don't get to notice, reflect and possibly even savor that bit of insanity that went by so under appreciated. Such was the case with Will Steacy's essay on old paper money- which my eyes' saw, but my mind immediately negated... until Noah Beil thankfully brought it to my attention once again. Only then did the neurons properly commence into its full reality mode of disbelief. How did something of such outright negligible aesthetics get featured in both a leading art photo blog and NPR? I remember seeing better macro lens test shots of paper money in Pop Photo during the seventies! The mind reeled- I could clearly see why it had gone into rapid defense disposal mode.
Photo: Will Steacy
So I looked into this Will Steacy character to see what manner of images this man had created up until this visual travesty, and they were... very good ones! And so the neurons misfired anew, as I viewed various essays containing top notch, quality photography: portraits, landscapes, still lifes. I guess just as every dog may have its day, every pedigree can lay down its own true stinker. Granted, that doesn't particularly explain why some would actually reward the latter...
Photo: Will Steacy
2 comments:
I feel like i've been goaded into making a cynical comment and saying this falls in the realm of a "white person's problem" (meme) ; its raison d'etre would fall flat to a parent in somalia who's child died because it starved but "we" USA donates a hundred million, a just-in-time electron transmission from one bank to another, after taking care of our own "crisis" ...i "get it" ; Grants consternation, Jackson's sincerity, Lincon's nobility - a comment on humanity, portraits a-la the new topographic approach, nifty and ponderous for its own sake a dash of ironic, instead of kitch..............
Wow! Must admit I can't quite get past the basic images themselves (of the greenbacks in question) to take 'em to any other level whatsoever. So unlike his other work...
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