Thursday, August 4, 2011

Lining up the pigeon wing with the taxi door

Has everything been photographed before? Not necessarily, but a lot of new work falls easily into pre-established patterns. Martin Parr's photographic clichés which made the rounds last spring listed several promising categories.

Now Dana Hoey has taken that idea one step further and in a more encyclopedic direction, modeling her list of conventions after Flaubert’s Dictionary of Received Ideas.


I think it's well informed and witty. Most refreshingly her list is written with a healthy dose of snarkiness, a quality sometimes lacking in contemporary criticism. Excerpts can be seen here.

(B is on hiatus until next week.)

2 comments:

Jeremy K said...

The title of this post describes your work precisely and much of in-Public for that matter.

Blake Andrews said...

There is some truth in that. Would you prefer the pigeon be out of the frame, or walking nearby, or smashed inside the door? Options to consider.