Peter Culley, Free, 2007

A Letter From East Vancouver to Hammertown

Pete,

Thanks for that; I put it up on the site with full attribution. In an ideal world I would have resized it, slightly degraded the image, and seamlessly inserted it alongside its brothers and sisters in the sequence, unattributed, as a kind of silent homage. Early on I entertained ideas of making one of my own to go incognito among the others, but all my attempts ended up looking either bad or wrong, or too glaringly like "art photography." I think your piece is an art photograph that reads the good stuff in the sequence back out of "amateurism" into art photography, if that distinction makes any sense; to me, your picture is a good art photograph whose artistry consists of successfully adopting the look of the "amateur"; it performs it, or puts it on like a comfortable set of clothes.

I hope it's clear from the sequence that Free is meant for you, as a kind of long poem, or a response to your poems and photographs. I thought very hard about the distinction you drew between "art photographs" in frames and galleries, and "photography" circulating in the world. In the end, I think I come down closer to the "art" end than the "circulating in the world" end, but that is neccessarily personal, subjective, and hard to explain. Maybe it has to do with context. I wanted to make a work that was right up against that art/world margin, right on the border. What I like most about your in-the-world photographs are the little bits of context that sneak in at the edges, the sort of things that are not neccessarily part of the subject, but which somehow inform your impressions of them. The stray leaks of light, fences, surprised animals, concrete barriers, etc. You see this quality sometimes in Evan Lee's work, in E.J. Hughes' work, and quite often in Brueghel: an acceptance of the world's plenitude, of its endless proffering of subjects. How'd you put it in The Provisions? "A scattering / of minor trash / loaded and sodden..." Nothing boring, or "beneath representation." This is a truly democratic idea, maybe even a revolutionary one. No hierarchy, only successive lateral displacement, endless proliferation of Gustonesque stuff....& of course, too, the notion that some of this stuff benefits from looking with eyes that have looked at Le Va, and Andre, and Judd, and the rest. If you can sustain such close looking in a gallery, and it's so rewarding with those guys, why would anyone ever want to switch off again outside? Maybe the lesson here is that everything should be scrutinized as art, or at least as potential art. I'm rambling. Thanks again for the photograph, I was surprised; a bit moved too.

CJB
- posted by cjb @ 8:23 PM