SNAP THE SNAPSHOT AESTHETIC AGAIN
via Michael Fried
Surprise the world &
in a light[n]ing flash
fix the conjunction
going out / clicking
without even looking.
Barry Alpert / Silver Spring, MD US / 1-28-09 (12:48 PM)
Since the focus of the conversation with Michael Fried at the National Gallery of Art this
past Sunday was on his new book which treats the "absorbed" photography which
emerged all over the world after the decline of what he termed "street photography", I
was a bit surprised that the language I was able to work with reformulated the earlier
aesthetic in a poetic manner. Fried has published four books of poetry, as well as
numerous volumes of art history after starting out at age 18 as an art critic mentored by
Clement Greenberg. Here's a text with the same title which I posted to The Snapshot
Project quite some time ago. I'm currently enjoying the unconscious explosive linkage
between the two.
SNAP THE SNAPSHOT AESTHETIC
You say of the snapshot on the market:
Is it like anything?
Eventually engaging everyone
seems at odds with its pristine
instant film and the photobooth
walls adorned at every turn.
A snapshot of a partition one week:
Is it like anything not taken?
A couple of A Bathing Ape staff on one knee.
A random, non-conceived, & hasty familiarity
transforms them with precise technical smoulder.
All somehow make maddening sense.
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