Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The photography of art works is, in some ways, one of the most
subservient of all photographic genres. Art photography is an
area in which the creative license and instinct of the
photographer is sublimated in favor of obtaining an accurate,
complete and informative view of the art object being
photographed. Yet, under certain circumstances, the genre of
art photography can become one of the most imaginative and
flexible within the photographic medium. The photographs
contained in this book, which record the street art of an
explosive yet desolate Latin ghetto, illustrate the degree of
imagination, in terms of choice and decision making, that can
be brought to the genre.
Nor are the lower East Side paintings unique in terms of their
temporary nature, for artists of past and present have
frequently created works destined for a short-lived existence
including, for example, the painted designs that decorated the
facades of some Venetian palaces of the seicento as well as
wall works by contemporary conceptual and Minimalist artists
created for the life of the installation.
On the other hand many of the artists responsible for the wall
murals seem to have recognized, in numerous instances, a
relationship between urban landscape and painted illusion.
This is not to suggest that the artists have been able to
control in any way, the ambience, or surrounding landscape.
Rather they reveal an awareness of its reality, its special
identification and strengths and weaknesses. In such instances
factual images of the urban landscape have been visually
incorporated within the painted murals, thus inviting the
facts of the landscape into the illusory world of the painted
mural. In one spectacular example, cars parked in front of a
flashy Caribbean view are brought into the Caribbean locale.
In this case we have an interesting situation in that the
photographer has recognized the added interest the parked cars
bring to the veduta. Yet the artist surely must have been
aware of the fact of his mural alongside a parking lot, and
there are indications that the artist allowed this fact to
influence his choice of images and their placement.
The painters of the murals are politically naive. They are not
professional and as a rule they do not possess serious
technical expertise in terms of painting, draughtsmanship of
principles of composition, except on a relatively elementary
level. As works viewed individually they may appear
unimportant or excessively casual. Pocock explains that, taken
individually, some of the murals photographed: "... do not
hold up as well as they do in a group. In this case the whole
is greater than the sum of the parts."
Gregory Battcock
Venice, 1980
Notes:
1. This and all other quotations are from a recorded
discussion between the photographer and the author in New York
City on August 17, 1980.
2. From an unpublished paper by Sr. Therese Benedict McGuire.
1980.