so-soSontag‘s book of critical essays concerning photography, whether it should be considered a fine art, its historical relationship to painting, the illusory and distancing qualities of a photo, the widespread public acceptance of the photographer chronicling the private, debates as to what should be photographed, as well as the consequences of a modern world obsessed with “capturing reality” even if a definition of “reality” will never be reached.
so-soAnd around and around we go! 😵💫 When the book started with a chapter about whitescapes, an apparent critique of minimalist architecture/interior design, I thought maybe we were going to consider individual colours, how people historically have reacted to them, how they might arouse fear, disgust, phobia, as much as praise, from an art-focused, rather than psychological basis. 1/?
pickInteresting series of essays on the darker histories of beautiful things-silk, marble, make up, perfume, and more. The author is a confessed lover and collector of beautiful objects. For each chapter Kelleher shares a history of an item along with her own thoughts on the nature of desire, beauty, consumption, and the ethics of how these valued items came to be. This book is for folks that are fascinated by deep dives into the minutiae of stuff.
I kinda love his take.
pickI think the thing that is most interesting but also most upsetting about this book is that it was written in 1995 but is still so relevant. Obviously hooks is brilliant, but it means that the state of discourse around art, race, and gender has really not progressed much in the past 30 years.
