I saw the exhibit at the SFMOMA (where it opened). I go to the SFMOMA pretty often, and the way people approached this exhibit was quite strange.
At a typical exhibit, people generally wander around, spend more or less time at different works, and ponder them at different distances. The day I saw the Ansel Adams exhibit, the crowd lined up in a neat line and walked past the images at a uniform rate and distance. It had the feel of a religious procession! I've heard Adams referred to as "Saint Ansel" but I never understood until now. Don't get me wrong; Adams was a pioneer and did a wonderful job of documenting my favorite mountain range ever (the Sierra Nevada in California). His darkroom work and artistic vision are quite inspiring to me. I'm just a little nonplussed by the cult that surrounds his landscape work. I'm not too familiar with his other work, but I can believe that it is creative and under-appreciated as Shel discusses below. --Mark Shel wrote: >I saw that exhibit, and while the prints are gorgeous, >only a small portion of Adams' work was shown, that >devoted to his better known landscape photography. >That's a poor way to show a retrospective of a man's >work. Missing completely were his portraits, his >commercial photography, the work he did with Dorothea >Lange in Richmond, CA during the war, and his architectural >work, which, in the opinion of many people, myself >included, is often far more interesting and, arguably, >more creative, than his better known landscapes. - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
