Thursday, February 14, 2013

"An Unfinished Woman"

One of the greatest difficulties I find with reviewing art is having to cover work that I don't ardently love. What do you say of someone's work when they're evidently sincere, and committed to a vision, but little connection has been made to my subjective tastes? One approach that I found is to answer that sincerity without snark, and with equal commitment to one's own capacities as a writer. I try to discern without falsely waxing rhapsodic, what the images might have meant to the maker. I'm grateful to Catharine Carter, and her art, for teaching me this.

"In our era of digital cameras, artists like Carter strain to escape that technology’s clinical means of representation. They prefer to transact in allegory, raising questions as opposed to presenting truths. In times wherein our agency is so constrained, where our ability to effect change in our lives and those around us is so thoroughly hindered, to say that the world needs less of this inclination would be churlish. " full text: here

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