72. The Critic Problem: Why Great Art Resists Easy Explanations

We open with a letter — Rilke's first letter to a young poet, written in 1903 — and the question at the center of it: must I write? Not do I want to, not is it going well, but must I. We talk about what it means to look outward for reassurance while making something, how that search for validation reshapes work before it's even finished, and what happens when you're writing toward an external voice instead of your own.

That leads us into a broader conversation about photography as a practice of finding things rather than making them — and what that distinction reveals about why certain work holds and other work doesn't. We walk through what it means to stand in front of a print by Eggleston or Crewdson or Deana Lawson, what a body of work asks of the people presenting it, and what gets lost when criticism becomes a form of signaling rather than a genuine attempt to see. We end somewhere near solitude: the argument that if you've found the thing you need to do, everything else is secondary — and that's been true since at least 1903. -Ai

Transcript

Morning Pod And Quick Reset

SPEAKER_01 0:13

I have seven topics. You've got a couple ideas. We don't think of them all. I just got us a list. I just figured today. Early morning. We don't normally pod early morning. Especially on a Monday. I think this is the first Monday. First Monday. Morning pod. Um and then we both got a bunch of shit to do. So I say we just uh jump on in. You know, start us with the quote and then I can give you this one. And I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Well, I've kind of if we talk about the exhibit, I'd rather lead into it maybe with this. Okay. So if yours is not like like super specific to photography.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

This is kind of related to to that. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Um it's all related though, right, Alex?

SPEAKER_01 0:56

So this is uh Rainier, uh Maria Rilke and um Reinier. How do you the German? Like you gotta really lean into it, right? It's can it's um Camus. You gotta really lean into the German names. But Rilke is a um is a poet at the turn of the 20th century. Okay. And um this is a a little collection of letters, and it's it's called Letters to a Young Poet. And um the first this is the first letter. Um and it's dated uh Paris, 17th February, 1903.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Uh this is a letter he wrote to someone, correspondence or he?

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Correspondence, so yeah, he's replying to a letter. Replying to the letter, he and this is this is from a younger, like uh presumably younger poet. He's like 25 in this anyway, so it's funny, but he only lived to like 51, um, as people did in the late. I think he I think he lived to probably 51 or 52. I think he was born in like 1875, maybe. Wow. So he's yeah, what 20. Yeah, if he's born in 1875, he's about 28 years old here.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Yep.

Must I Write Going Inward

Validation And Creative Risk

SPEAKER_01 2:06

27. Um, anyways, uh I'm just gonna read a passage. I'm not gonna read the whole letter. The letters are phenomenal, and he's I mean, if you've read any of his poetry or any of his novels or anything, like which I have never heard of him, so yeah, and I would I would highly recommend checking it out, or maybe you can. I I mean I can always just let you borrow this and you can get a measure of like if you like it, but it's very just expansive and um beautiful writing. Um he says, but he's talking about um being a critic here because the gentleman who was corresponding with sent him some verse and was essentially like, hey, um, like what do you think? Yeah, and I think this is a really interesting and and um from my perspective, agreeable response. And then he actually does get into providing critique in a useful sense, yeah. But I'll just jump in. The reason that this has been top of mind was um I don't know, I've just been thinking about like the role of the critic a little bit lately, um and how much emphasis we put on it, and then also just um how disconnected it can be. I I don't know, I was very frustrated when we left um the photography exhibition just because of the like and I mean this isn't like there they're they weren't being like critical or anything, but it was just a very like one-sided, very narrow-minded perspective on all of this like amazing work. Yeah. And it really, in my mind, did a really big like large disservice to the work. I'm like, it's your job to go around and promote this work, and you're just not doing not doing a good job was I guess the the takeaway in my mind. I just yeah, I just didn't think and these were like the the the curator of the collection or whatever. Um and yeah, I guess I had this top of mind kind of going into that, and so I revisited it on um I guess Saturday morning or yeah, whatever. Um, the the letter that reached out to him was very um personal and like very open. So I like his immediate response is your letter only reached me a few days ago. Let me thank you for the great and endearing trust it shows. Um there is little more I can do. I cannot go into the nature of your verses, for any critical intention is too remote for me. There's nothing less apt to touch a work of art than critical words. All we end up with there is more or less felicitous misunderstandings. Things are not all graspable and sayable, as on the whole we are led to believe. Most events are unsayable, occur in a space that no word has ever penetrated, and most unsayable of all are works of art, mysterious existences whose life endures alongside ours, which passes away. And then um the next is having begun with this preliminary remark, all I will go on to say is that your verses have no identity of their own, though they do have tacit and concealed hints of something personal. I feel that most clearly in the last poem, My Soul. There something individual is trying to come into words to find its manner. And in the lovely poem to Leopardi, perhaps a kind of affinity with this great and solitary man develops. Still, the poems are not yet anything in themselves, nothing self-sufficient, not even the last one to Leopardi. The kind letter you wrote accompanying them does not make me fail, does not fail to make many of these shortcomings I sense in your reading in reading your verses explicable. Without for all that being able to give them a name, without for all that being able to give them a name. You ask whether your verses are good, you ask me that, you have asked others before. You send them to magazines, you compare them with other poems, and now you worry when certain ev editors turn your efforts down. Now, since you have allowed me to offer you advice, let me ask you to give all of that up. You are looking to the outside, and above all and that above all you should not be doing now. Nobody can advise sorry for my terrible reading, this is my uh morning brain. This is my morning brain here at full effect. One one coffee brain. You I'm just gonna reread that because I think that's an important little thing. You're looking to the outside, and that above all, you should not be doing now. Nobody can advise you or help you. Nobody. There's only one way. Go into yourself, examine the reason that bid you to write. Check whether it reaches its roots into the deepest region of your heart. Admit to yourself whether you would die if it should be denied you to write. This, above all, ask yourself in your night's quietest hour, must I write? Dig down into yourself for a deep answer. And if it should be affirmative, if it is given to you to respond to this serious question with a loud and simple I must, then construct your life according to this necessity. Your life writes into its most inconsequential and slightest hour must become a sign and witness of this urge. Then approach nature, then try, like the first human being, to say what you see and experience in love and lose. Don't write love poems. Avoid at first those forms which are too familiar and habitual. They are the hardest, for you need great maturity and strength to produce something of your own in a domain where good and sometimes brilliant examples have been handed down to us in abundance. I'm just gonna keep reading the whole letter at this point, but yeah, I think that's um we we really just sweeping statement here, but I think just yeah, my observation, or at least my personal experience is we tend to look outward um for mostly for reassurance. Like we're just hoping for reassurance, like this is good, right? Is this good? Do you like this? And um we kind of lose a bit of ourselves in that because we live in a world at the time where I I think most people are always gonna be willing to give an opinion. People love giving an opinion. And uh usually, especially for creating something meaningful or attempting to create something meaningful, that is a solitary work. You kind of have to go inside to to do that. So I I don't know, I've just been thinking about the critic in that context lately. Yeah. And um yeah, I mean that was top of mind and maybe led to some of the frustrated response or reaction from from our um our evening the other day, but I really enjoyed the photographs.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Yeah. Um, as did I. And I just I'm trying to think uh before we go into that a little bit more. I just wanted to think about a few of the things that were said in the letter that struck me. You know, and this is me reading between the lines, not necessarily of the writer of the letter, but the writer of the original letter. And like he's pointing out, you know, you're looking to these external things, uh, editors and other people, me. Um and you know, this is just pure speculation, but just you know, it's it's it's it's the feeling that I get is um what I have to imagine when anyone embarks on a risky endeavor. Um, obviously if if it's it makes it makes me concerned that the that the writer is like choosing a uh choosing a craft and focused on the rewards that that craft might bring if you do good work. Um whether it's being published good work, yeah. The the money that you would get from it, the recognition, you know, all of the all of these the these these results that some people yearn for when they set out to do something um a little bit more from a a cerebral place than a instinctive place. And I I mean I don't know anything about the guy who wrote the letter to this man, but um to be so caught up in submitting your work and getting published, I have to imagine that validation is really um creating maybe some inner inner turmoil that puts this person in a position to seek out all these external places uh validating him. And it, you know, again, I think that people people in that position struggle all the time. And I don't know if it's necessarily the root cause of that is someone chose to be a writer versus someone, you know, has no choice. It just pours out of them and they just make the work, you know. Um I've certainly felt uh times where the stuff that I'm doing has nothing to do with external validation, how many views I get, if someone accepts me for this or publishes me or gives me money for this or that, but then other times where I'm very conscious of that and in a sort of insecure place where I want to get all this stuff out and and get the validation or sort of like, am I on the right track with this risky endeavor that I'm taking on? Um, so I can make other people in my life feel complicated.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Like writing to a different, like an external voice, I guess. Yeah, you're you're using that as a guide, or not writing, but you're creating whatever you're doing towards that voice rather than your own voice. Right. Yeah. Do you notice the conflict ever? Like, is there like is your voice present? Does that voice drown yours out?

Screenwriting Versus Commercial Pressure

SPEAKER_02 12:34

What's your experience? Yeah, I mean, you know, you just look at the screenwriting pursuit and it's sort of like, well, there's this thing I want to write that I, you know, I feel deeply that I'm that I'm connected to, but it's not commercial enough. So how do I shape my work to be accepted by readers at agencies um to get, you know, um good reviews on the blacklist website for my manager to to you know think is a viable thing that they can invest their time in on speculation to uh to get purchased. So it kind of um and and you know, this is uh uh pursuing screenwriting is very risky, but it's what's very risky about it is if you pursue it with that mentality rather than the mentality I think that is starting from your well, he's just writing, writing, you know, writing um without any without those things in mind. And he's calling this young man out uh on it and um very tactfully though. Yeah, yeah, very respectfully, I think.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Yeah, diplomatic and I think it's probably the best advice that you could give anybody who's trying to do something, yeah. Like in a creative endeavor or creative field. Because I mean, and I we've talked about this before, and we've both have experiences with people who are critical about work or something, or they think that they are yeah. Like Yeah. I I we'll have to this isn't the episode, I think, to get into like the importance of the critic, but we should definitely think about that a little bit and maybe talk about it a little more.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

Yeah, I I I uh yeah, the uh an episode on criticism would be interesting to especially if we could bring, you know, we didn't just sort of arrive at it in the moment and there was it'd be cool to bring in somebody who is a crit.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

That's tough because you do risk. Obviously, if that's all you do, then you're probably gonna see that as a very like it's not gonna help it's not gonna be helpful for us to get in and be like, critics suck. Yeah. And then they're like, Well, I've devoted, you know, a decade of my life or two decades of my life to this. Right. This is why it's super important. Like you're never gonna shift that understanding. Yeah, we're never gonna synthesize that. Maybe we do, but it's probably not. So maybe that's not as useful. But yeah, it would be cool to see that perspective. Like, because I I I even me, like I think that there is some value to a critic.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

In sorting what's good, what's bad. Uh I mean good and bad, but like what is informed or what is like drawing on what has been done. Like the critic's job is almost to in a sense understand what's come before and not place in in like some kind of linear order, but just to maybe see a little bit clearly some of the conversations that might not be um may have not been the intention, but are there with the work and how it kind of communicates with us as a species.

When Criticism Actually Helps

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Well, I think another interesting aspect of you know, a critic, obviously, you know, like you we tend to think of the sort of um uh you know, the movie critic, you know, is sort of like the most sort of immediately thought of thought of person who provides criticism as uh a vocation. Uh I I was just thinking of um, you know, different situations where someone, you know, a mentor mentee, you know, a mentor is in some ways, maybe they shouldn't, but in some ways critical, you know, uh you have an aspiring chef and they're in that person's kitchen to learn what to do, and they are given the opportunity to create their own dish. And that chef maybe you know, destructively or constructively gives critical feedback on that. Um and not to say that that's the same thing as someone who, you know, cr criticiz you know, is a critic for movies or art or whatever, um, as a job, but there's um there's a usefulness, I think, in certain situations, to criticism for someone who is um making things and putting them out there, uh, and especially in a mentor-mentee relationship. And I, you know, I know the difference between a director releasing a film and a critic criticizing it, and someone in a position of um authority uh helping uh a student essentially learn how to execute a craft and have better judgment or taste or whatever. But it is all over the place, and we definitely levied, and I try to always be have you know a more constructive point of view. You know, this is what I was hoping for, this is what I felt it was, um, this is how I felt about it. Um there's not a really strong point to all this, and I'm and and which is funny because that's one of the issues we had with the the talk, or at least I had with the talk before the um before the um the exhibition.

Opening Night At The Jocelyn

SPEAKER_01 18:15

It just seemed more concerned with itself than, or like they seemed more concerned with their image that they were projecting to a crowd of people than actually one you came in with a hyper focused, like this is what this work represents to us, and you're just almost stripping away ambiguo like any kind of ambiguity gets stripped away because you're immediately trying to contextualize through your vision of the world. Yeah. And I don't think that's very helpful with photography, and photography is really interesting, and one thing they got close to and they didn't really talk about is like photography is an interesting medium, more so than a lot, because you do kind of have two distinct parallels. You have documentary photography, which is essentially propaganda. Um, but I mean, and I don't mean that in like an offensive way, but do you mean like like what you would see in Life magazine, that kind of thing? Yeah, yeah, and like that the history of photography is made up of and I mean I guess you could do this with a lot of different things because you could be like, oh well, film is like there's a lot of Hollywood films or genre films and things like that, but photography is interesting though because it is so it is so you yeah, you have that documentary history and then you do have a bit more of like an expressionistic like art artistic side, and sometimes those things cross over and sometimes they don't. Um but I mean orienting everything around the idea of like photography helps us find fact just seems like a really narrow and like kind of unthoughtful perspective on a gallery of work where and they're like showing photos and commenting on the compositions, and it just seemed like they were more interested in having it. It's like you get called on in class, and you're just like, I just have to answer. Yeah, so the teacher will go to somebody else, yeah, rather than being thoughtful about like, oh well, this is a rectangle and it's in the large format because large format, and yeah, there's like a clear, not real understanding of what large format is, but like there's a couple of words that you can throw in there to make it seem like you know what you're talking about. I don't know, that was my experience. Maybe I'm being really negative, and I tend to be a little negative on things like this. Yeah, sometimes I tend to just be a negative person, but um well, I I mean, we just I my last talk at the Jocelyn or the Jocelyn was uh Alex Soth. And it was just the complete opposite. Yeah, it was just thoughtful and interesting the whole time. And there were like three or four different moments where and like a 30-minute talk where I'm just like, oh man, I haven't looked at that that way. That's interesting. Or like, oh man, and there's just like this selflessness that he kind of exudes where he's just like, I'm just in the same boat, like I'm just figuring these things out just like you are, and like approaching his own work as if he was a stranger, but willing to give the context on it, but then being like, and here's some things I've just been thinking about. I'm just like, man, I relate to that so much more than I relate to like somebody trying to I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

Well, just to just give a little bit of context for the audience if they're uh if they're swimming a little bit, we went to the opening night of an exhibition at the Jocelyn Art Museum here in Omaha that Alex and I and uh and a few others attended, but he and I in particular were very excited about it because. They don't often have a lot of photography at the Jocelyn. It's mostly painting, sculpture, abstract art, that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

And they have had photography, but in very small amounts. Usually it's like of a series. Like there was a Union Pacific series on the railroad, which is really cool. But it was they were Polaroid photographs. That Polaroid series. Yeah, the Polaroids. Um and they have um some Medrucher, or they did have some Medrucher. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

So we paid for the opening exhibit, and it included a opening conversation between the assistant curator of 20th century art and the gentleman who was the curator for the museum who held this collection, the Carter, the Carter Museum. Um, no relation to Alex. And um Uncle Joe. We went into the theater at the Jocelyn and, you know, they sat down and had a slideshow and discussed the exhibit and the photographs there within. Alex has given his feelings on it.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Yeah, I was gonna say I don't want to psych up all the oxygen on this.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Like so I had a hard time getting to sort of like a next level of constructive criticism beyond just focusing on to me what felt like something that was not well prepared. Yeah. And, you know, I'm all for, you know, me and Alex sitting down, kind of the premise of what we do is like we don't come in with um we don't come in with a topic. It would be interesting to do an episode like that where we really had like, you know, and we've had some where both you and I read the same thing. We have passages that we've highlighted, like we know we want to discuss it, but we haven't like made a slideshow, like each of us, and and like had talking, not talking points, but questions we wanted to ask, or points we wanted to hit on the artist's background, or the the technical um things that went into making the photograph, the context of the photograph, whatever. And so I just felt like it was and and this is not you know me having any personal things against the the the two presenters. Um it's an art form in itself and a craft in itself to lead a talk before the launch of an exhibit at a museum. I just felt like it was the like the slideshow, like, yep, the text and the graphics and the pictures, like there was some work in here, but that there wasn't enough preparation between the two of them about what they wanted to talk about and to think critically themselves about how to talk about the work, and especially not from a deeply subjective point of view or sort of a declarative empirical point of view, like this is what this photo means, or and they didn't do a lot of that, but there was one photo you and I were struggling with.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

They did a little for sure. Yeah, that where it was sort of like this is us being critics of their I think the the thing for me is I just I'm just upset about paying fifteen dollars to to listen to them. Because I you always call it unlocking the gate. Yeah. Like you that's the the whole point of a pre exhibition talk. If you're gonna like if you're gonna take it back to like a first principle perspective, the entire point from my point of view, which obviously take that into context, but you want to get people excited to go see the photographs, not because you're dying at the talk and you're just like let me go see. Maybe that was the tactic, and if so, they totally achieved it. So yeah, kudos.

Why The Pre Talk Fell Flat

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Um because you yeah, Alex and I, they a lot of the people in the audience were able to go through the exhibit before the talk, and I purposely didn't want to look at them because I was really excited about and had um somewhat lofty expectations of what the talk would do to just open the exhibition, unlock the work and give you a f a couple of things to look at or to see or to think about, not just I mean, the most surface level nonsense that you can come up with. And so because I was, you know, having come from you know theater training and all that, and I I am not like the most perfect public speaker, you know. I obviously in my YouTube videos, there's many that are scripted. I use a teleprompter, I have the benefit of that. Um, I have done some presentations um online to an audience um for other organizations where I have a slideshow and I'm talking about stuff. I've done live streams where I'm talking about like a prepared thing. And I'm not sitting here saying like I set the set the bar and I have a gold standard, but I'm like, I sit there and go, this has to be you know, communicating um the things that I think are most interesting or compelling about what the material is, something that engages the audience. Um, you know, so I'm really focused on the craft of people coming to listen to what I have to say. Um and so because I have done these before, and again, they're not perfect. I'm not like I, you know, I'm not like the master of these things, but I feel like they were it was so far below even what I do on a live stream on YouTube about a video editing software. Yeah. And I felt like, and this is before I knew that like the legends of photography in the 20th century and 21st century were gonna be there. I did not know Alex Soth had a photograph in there. I didn't know Gary Winnegrand, Gregory Crudson, um, Robert Freud, Robert Adams, Gordon Parks. Um, I didn't know that those photos were in there, but I knew there were gonna be some special work in there. And so I just was I was I just felt it didn't match what was the power of William Eglinton being shown. Yeah, William Egleston. I got to look at a William Egleston print. Like I'm sitting there like, holy shit. Yeah, and I you know, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

I I I yeah, I mean, I guess like I think the real frustration on my part is just and I'm not frustrated, like like I we made a donation to the museum. Uh yeah. That's fine. Yeah, and I think you know, you speak with you vote with your dollar or whatever is the is the term that gets thrown around. Yeah, hey, more photography, please. Like yes, that too, yeah. This is great. We we like exhibits like this, please do more. Um, so I'm not upset. I mean, I would have liked my time. Like I would have, I mean, you know, it's not the worst thing ever, but I just, you know, I try to not waste time on something.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Try to find something good from every conversation. But sometimes there's just things where people are so guarded or the situation is so off that it's really gonna be hard to get an authentic takeaway.

SPEAKER_02 29:27

Well, and I and I feel like That's my critique. I I get that we, you know, it's very it's it's it's a struggle for public speaking. It's um, you know, we we tend to have, you know, I imagine with um uh the woman who led the talk that she has a lot on her plate. I'm not trying to make excuses, but I get all the pressures and the things going on. Um but I felt like I was just watching two people manage a slightly prepared presentation poorly um and struggling to like like I just felt like I was watching people manage the the str the the the obstacle of just conducting a uh a talk and it and and anything that they they thought they were going into of any substance, they couldn't get past the level of just managing a competent talk. Yeah, it didn't so if they tried to say something with a little bit more depth or articulation about this or that, and and I have a feeling that this gentleman knows what large format photography is, but he was so they were so busy managing just doing the talk.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Yeah, like you couldn't I'm not I'm not like attacking, yeah. I mean, anyways, I I I don't think it's super useful to continue to be critical. I'd rather get to that.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

What do you think of the actual I I just want to make sure that that that my the focus of my criticism is articulated. Yours was more on what was said, and mine was more on the execution. Um and I I just yeah want to see more preparation and I just yeah, give me a better experience.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Just pay Alex Soth another however many thousand dollars to get back in there and I missed it. Let him open the exhibition.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

I was out of town for that one, which sucks.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

I mean, it just goes to show though, like it's not about how prepared you are or what it's just kind of more I think you're gonna give more value or more you're gonna if if you make a gaff on stage and it is you know, or or you somebody asks a question or you you get into a situation and you're just like I'm not really familiar with that, or like I'm having a hard time kind of like that. Happens, that happens to humans. Sometimes you're just like, like, I know what that is, but I'm not at familiar enough to really get into detail about it. You can just say that, yeah, and then move on. Right. But if you're willing to risk kind of some authentic, here's like my thinking, but then put that into the context that it is just your thinking, I think that's a lot more interesting than some prepared, you know, really poorly done elevator pitch about some things, and you try to like squeeze some obscure knowledge or terms into that aren't even that obscure, but maybe to a general audience, and yeah, I don't know, it just felt very performative, and I it's not what I wanted from the work, but getting into the work, what do you yeah, what do you think? I mean, I don't have a lot of comments, but it's pretty I mean, I was just and they did a great job, like I didn't pay too much attention to something Audrey and I talked about um driving home. Just did you notice anything like specific with the curation? Um, and I didn't really notice any like maybe there was a theme or something that I missed or how it was curated, but I didn't really but yeah, it was just nice. I mean, it was nice, they did a a good job.

What Photography Can Be

SPEAKER_02 33:09

It wasn't like no, I well, and I think that's sometimes the difficulty of a collection. I don't well balanced, yeah. I don't know that the people who you know, the Carter family or whoever it was that put this collection together, you know, like I have to imagine it's sort of like a combination of what's actually available to obtain under the umbrella of 20th century photographers that are, you know, everything from just William Eggleston out with a camera photographing something or Gary Winnegrand to um Gregory Cruson having an entire team of people stage a photograph to someone who's on assignment for Life magazine, um and it you know is like photographing something gun, yeah. Yeah, very specific, you know, versus something he discovered.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Do you think that um they're they're definitely not sending the I I'm not familiar with the Carter collection, like I haven't been to the Carter Museum in Texas or anything like that, but I would think they're definitely not touring their like most prized prints or things like that, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Yeah, I don't know, yeah. Hard hard to know, and I don't know how many how if this was the whole collection, if it was just a sample of it, what the you know decisions went into of um which ones to pick, which ones to not certainly wasn't because they did say that the collection was like the largest, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

I think one of they said one of the largest collections of of uh photography in the world, I think is what they said. Not just American, I think they said like all photography. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

So so um uh so there's you know a lot of those variables that play in sort of assessing the collection. Um, you know, did that family collect things based on what they liked, how it fit with the rest of the collection, all these very you know, variables uh go into it. But you know, my first layer of reaction was just holy shit, there's an Eggleston, holy shit, there's a Wintigran, you know, like I'm just kind of going through that first run and processing these photographers that I've you know looked at their books, watched videos on them, you know, all of that stuff, watched documentaries, uh, and just sort of processing the names, like who's in here and who isn't, um, a little bit of processing technical things, which you know, cameras were used, the print quality, you know, all that stuff. Um, and then try, you know, knowing that I, you know, would walk another lap and sort of process everything a little bit more from what was actually in the photograph. Um, and then uh and then knowing that I would come back probably multiple times, even though it's ten bucks a pop if we want to go back and see it. So that's what I also figured.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

I was like, uh, paid like five bucks for this talk. It's not too bad. Right. Whatever.

Seeing Famous Prints Up Close

SPEAKER_02 36:14

So it was worth it for just to see the theater in use. Yeah, which was crazy. I like to not know this entire massive room was even in the museum, um, and then get to experience that was pretty incredible. So yeah, I think the the sort of starstruck aspect of it was like the biggest thing that hit me. Um and then uh and then going through and actually taking in the photos. Um the ones that struck me that I wasn't expecting the Gregory Crudson really hit because it's a massive print, I mean, and beautifully detailed and and all that. And while that type of photography is not my personal preference, it I was yeah, yeah, very deeply affected by it. And I wasn't expecting that. Um and then yeah, that one large portrait of the two black women in their home. Yeah, that was crazy. Crazy good, yeah. Yeah, and then Alex Soath had a photograph there as well, which was a massive print um a portrait. Yeah, so so that's my sort of bumbling through a star-struck person who's just sort of like going, wow, like a print that William Eggleston had made or made is like I can look at it and be two inches away from it if I want to. Pretty powerful.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

We um one thing that we noticed, yeah, there wasn't like Walker Evans, there wasn't any Walker Evans. Um Alfred Stieglitz, I don't think. No Stephen Shore. Yeah, no, yeah. Um you said uh uh Joel Meyerowitz. Joel Meyerowitz. Just in like notable, much talked about 20th century photographers, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Why am I blanking on the gentleman from Vancouver color photography, 50s and 60s? I I can't I was just what looking through his book too, and I'm probably blanking on his name.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

Um with the like barbershop photo color.

SPEAKER_02 38:18

Um it just blows me away that it can just be a complete void around somebody's name. Somebody's just like what do they they call it ghost screen? Yeah, just yeah. And that's not I'm not pointing these out to say that there was disappointment. Um I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

And I'm I mean, I'm sure they have some of these works in the actual collection.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

Helen Levitt didn't see anything, you know. Um uh so yeah, they may have works in those collections, and if they did, like let's go to Dallas Fort Worth and check this out.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Cause um Well, I'm sure that uh the Dallas collection is probably I'm sure they have a permanent exhibition, yeah, likely, and then they tour like this is definitely yeah, their B work, their C work, especially if it's making it to Omaha.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

And I think seeing an exhibit like this, you know, the thing that I'm excited about as far as the Jocelyn goes is how does this pave the way for more exhibitions? And personally, a exhibition that I would prefer is one that's dedicated to a single artist. You know, I certainly like, you know, I'm interested in the idea of a curator sort of compiling multiple photographs from various artists, but it is a little bit subjective to me when that happens. Um, and obviously if an artist has a gallery, it's subjective as well. But I like the subjectivity of the artist rather than the curator. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Um, personally, I don't dislike a curator's subjectivity, but um well, a curator is always somewhat involved in the meaning, and obviously there's like geographical constraints. Collaboration.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

But so I I would hope that you know, and we had Alex Alex Soth had a small exhibition at the Jocelyn, but I really would like to see, to be completely honest, I would love to see a single artist in the area that was dedicated to this exhibition. If not, if it was a you know, someone with really prolific work, that entire Yeah, you'd have to have you have to have a lot of work to that entire wing, or if two artists, you know, there's there's there's two that they they have, um, one on one side, one on the other. Um, but I do think that the Jostla needs to incorporate photography more, and that's very much a um self, selfish um uh hope of mine.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Um well some museums have just photography almost like just a section of gallery walled off where it's just this is photography. Yeah. And there's always, I mean, obviously, we're talking like pretty massive museums here, but I think that's a interesting idea. I think it's probably worth yeah. I mean, if if you're gonna run an art museum in the 21st century, like and the Johnson likes to like appear to be very like forward-looking and progressive, and but um I mean I think I think it's more done with respecting the form. So yeah, like have film involved. Yeah. Like have um photography. Yeah. Like just because you have like some VR projection or something does not make you a progressive museum.

SPEAKER_03 41:34

Right.

The Photographers Missing From The Walls

SPEAKER_01 41:35

Uh if you're not representing photography and like film and these other art forms very prominently. Yeah. Um I think yeah, some sometimes you you see museums trying to look forward to like what's next, and not even realize, like, oh wait, we have two like very important genres of art that are just being completely overlooked here. Yeah. Because obviously you're gonna have paintings if you're if you're a museum, like you're gonna have paintings and you're gonna have sculpture, um, and you're gonna have, you know, various, okay, this is fifteenth century, this is you know, 19th century, 20th century. Yeah. Uh this is, you know, realism at uh expressionism. Exactly. But you're it yeah. If you're overlooking two really significant mediums of art, it's like, uh. Yeah. Because I yeah, I mean, I like you you go to a museum, like I remember at um maybe it was the Met, and I think they had just like Jacques Tati playing over on uh in a section of the gallery, and it was just playing his films on like three different projectors constantly, just publicly.

SPEAKER_02 42:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Not like you have to go into a theater and sit down, and then there was like a Warhol film playing, and I'm just like this is really cool seeing this. And then yeah, there's photography, and it's right there with all of the other work. Yeah. It's not like, oh, this is and then some of them have their own sections, but yeah, I just think that's a you're putting it on the same playing field as the other, the other work. And and I'm not saying that Jocelyn do this. Obviously, they have photography in their primary exhibition. And like you have some films being projected and things like that, but well, and I just feel like we might leave a little on the table. I'd like to see more.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

I think what I'd like to see more of, too, is um you know, they even talked about it in the talk ahead of time, right? They talked about the famous first exhibit of William Eggleston's guide with Sarkovsky and him working together to bring these his photographs into an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. And, you know, obviously, like sort of the legend that it's become now is that critics panned it, they thought the photographs. Like were boring and mundane, and you know, and I'm sure there's a few in there that were you know understood.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

I like how that was another thing that kind of got me when they were talking about the Egglestons photos. They were like, and he he's significant, and obviously we know that this is a significant part of Eggleston, like they're like, He's significant because he did color photography, yeah. And then you could even they even got on like a thing on the stage where they were like, but it's funny though, it's kind of weird because there were other people that did color photography before Eggleston. And I'm like, Yeah, like of course there were, and it's not even like Eggson did like the best color photography, but like look at the work, like spend time with the work, and like yeah, there's a lot more to an Eggleston photograph than yeah, this is a color photograph. And I just thought it was a really I don't know, I was a little frustrating. Yeah, no, I talked about it.

SPEAKER_02 44:57

I'm also an Eggleston fanboy, so but what I what I love about that exhibit was Sarkovsky sees something in this work that you know the the the art world doesn't see or understand or maybe isn't even ready for, but he's pushing it forward because he sees how powerful and impactful the work is. And I think what I would really like to see from the Jocelyn is that kind of um curation. Not you know, MoMA put a painter or a photographer in there and then the art world went crazy, it went to San Francisco and London, and here's a really we're talking about three years.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

One of the greatest curators of photography in absolutely yeah, for sure.

Making Space For Photo And Film

SPEAKER_02 45:50

But to me, even if at one museum in one location, yeah. Yeah, I understand though. But the the in the the the to take that point of view in how you're gonna exhibit work at the Jocelyn rather than what I worry, and I do not think this is necessarily the case, but what I worry is once it's sort of proven that it's um accepted by the art world and audiences have heard it in the zeitgeist enough that they're gonna want to come check it out, that it's less risky, it's sort of proven that people are interested in it. Um, I want to see them find an artist that the the curator sees something like Sarkovsky did in Egliston's work and they champion that work and champion the Jocelyn to be the place that exhibits it.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

And I just worry that museums I mean it's it's kind of like you you know, you can levy the same critique on a lot of like universities, but I I worry that the Jocelyn is too and the people that they have making these curating decisions are too blinded by like a set of social beliefs that it's preventing them from like presenting work without some kind of uh like a social justification. And the I get that just from reading the little placettes um and you walk around and you're just like just like present the f like talk about the form. Right. Like talk about the obviously the relationship to history, and obviously like like when you're getting into documentary photography and you have civil rights era photography, there is a social aspect to the work that can't be ignored. There's a context that needs to be uh brought there or like illuminated, yeah. Yeah, and but I just that's what kind of and this this is not just true of the Jocelyn, this is true of a lot of of these institutions. It's just stop like uh respect art. Yeah, like there's a difference between art and your you know, narrow or what historically will be proven as narrow um you know social point of view.

SPEAKER_02 48:11

Right. And do you feel like it's it's almost like there's a a whether it's conscious or not, a feeling of responsibility to bring work into the Jocelyn that is like progressive in our 100%.

SPEAKER_01 48:26

Yeah, well it it's not I don't even know if it's I mean, yes, I think they like doing that, but I mean also I think people go to see that. Yeah. People like that. But art museums are not art museums shouldn't be propaganda pieces for some curators narrow-minded, you know, whatever. And there shouldn't be a conflict that arises because it's placed onto the work. The conflict should arise because the work is doing its work. Yeah. Like if if the work is good, then you don't need a placket for somebody to start to find the appreciation. Like, that's what we should be teaching. That's a better society. That's a more understanding society, that's a more empathetic society, that's a more engaging and intelligent society. If you're engaging with artwork on the side of uh what do I appreciate about the form? What can I gain from the historical context? And then, oh, this is doing this work on me. Yeah. And maybe that was the artist's intent, maybe it wasn't the artist's intent, but like these are the ideas that I'm getting from this. And then when I play with them, this is not some lazy, like chat GPT generated sound intelligent placket that completely you know puzzle pieces the work into a very little like square hole.

SPEAKER_02 49:55

Yeah.

Eggleston And Risky Curation

SPEAKER_01 49:56

I don't know. That's that's my frustration with it. And it just it uh there's museums in New York that do this too. Sure. Um but there are museums in the world that understand that that's not the point of art. And I'm you know, I think that that is and again, I'm I'm making this critique like it's something new. Like museums have been doing this for 150 years, like 200 years, however long there's been museums, there's been perspectives. But I just wish that you know, in my in my perfect world, you you have curators that are asking themselves the question of like, how can I present this to not like okay, this is how it works on me. Now maybe we remove some of that and just let like how can I get that to work on the yeah, on who who the viewers are. I mean, yeah, we just we uh we've like lost some ability to look at art and to treat art as uh something to you know learn from and I don't know. Maybe that and maybe that's a lazy critique. Yeah. I don't know. I just that's what frustrates me with the Jocelyn is you go and you read a placket and they're they're just like here's this that you know you can i if if you were to lay these out and be like, what year is this from? I'll be like, oh, that was probably from 2018 to 2023 or something, and or 2022 to 2025. It's just so obviously like zeitgeist brain. Yeah. And like very narrow, and it's just reactive and unintelligent. I'm just like, come on. Like we're dealing with works of art that should, you know, stretch themselves out of uh, you know, beyond centuries. Right.

SPEAKER_02 51:54

Let's not yeah, let's not time stamp it with the with our specific going to the stuff with you. I you know, I I process things, you know, um on such a surface level often that I don't even get to where I I have that um takeaway. Um so that's that's really helpful. I'll be excited to go back through and and and and take your criticism to mine, which is funny because I just avoided the plaque, I just don't read them anymore. Yeah. I I actually I I I find myself not reading them, not necessarily because I'm I because I have concerns about the content, but I I I just like trying to look at the the the photograph as um uh as purely as possible.

SPEAKER_01 52:55

Beginner mind. Yeah. Well, and I I like I I want to get into this all later, but I you you said the crude sin really spoke to you. It's interesting. And that was the one that Aaron liked too.

Plaques Politics And Letting Art Breathe

SPEAKER_02 53:05

Um what yeah, what do you think was I I I think it was probably just again, I have sort of cinema brain allegiances. He's super cinematic in his and so you know I can see that it, you know, like this is not naturally occurring light, yeah. You know, all of that stuff. And I like almost want to be as someone who's I'm pretty sure he doesn't use flashy though. I'm pretty sure he uses like, no, he uses yeah, cinema lighting. Yeah, he uh I don't know if I and I have watched his documentary about how he makes these photographs, and I mean I was like blown away by what all of the resources that went into literally one click of the shutter. Yeah. And he's not like, oh let's let's uh you know, like he's not firing it off multiple, yeah. He's like everything is like broad to this moment, waiting for the light. Um, there was one photograph he took where they had to wait for this baby to fall asleep on the mother, um, and they had to figure out all these different ways to induce it to sleep. Um, and I think spoiler alert, they like heated the room up, they just got it really warm in there, and the baby finally fell asleep. Yeah, and he got his photo. But I think it was just a combination of I knew it, I spotted it from across the room. I'm like, holy shit, they got a crude sense in here. And you know, my brain is like, you know, I want to obviously favor my street photography, um, uh street photographers, uh, because that's what I am most interested in right now. But as I stood in front of the crude sin, you know, again, a combination of the size of the print, um the quality of the print, all of that stuff, I just found myself completely disappearing into it. Yeah, it was both a sort of a technical dissection, but then an emotional um surrender to it, if you will. Yeah. And um, I was just very moved by it.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

The the big I love the big prints. Yeah, it's my favorite thing. Yeah, I it's really tough because it's not really financially feasible, but yeah, I just I think every photo should be huge. I just I mean some of them don't work in that regard, but the the massive photos are just like I and maybe that is a little bit of the cinematic background too, but yeah, you can almost step into them and I I think it's interesting because it it acts almost like a painting, yeah. Where that's what's unique about a really massive painting is you're there and you can kind of get into it and see all of these little micro scenes, but then you're you're also aware though of the whole thing. Like if you were to try to convey it in a sequence of photographs just of these little portions, then you're sequencing it. Or if you're putting it on film, you're there's a narrative to it now. You've got this time element that's in, and when you're just there, it's just you get to look. It's just a very human experience to get to see this massive, you know, tableau of all of these different things and just selective attention, selective, but you're aware of the whole at all times.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

Well, I think with his photograph, the thing that struck me too is just the fact that it's staged and I know it's staged, yet it's still so moving. You know, I you're just completely aware of just like a film.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

You know, I know the dramatic elements that went into this, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:38

And you know, the you know, the direction for the young girl. So it's a a young girl sitting on a swing on a swing set, and you know, what looks like powerful sunlight, even though it's a um dusk setting, um, but a source light that's really illuminating her. And then who I assume is her mother is in a trailer, a tra uh a mobile home uh that's a little dilapidated. She's in the window that's looking out to the girl at the swing set, and she's very dramatically lit and all that. Um, but just the idea that this young girl had to sit in the swing and look and posture herself a certain way. And with Gregory, I mean, he's like my okay, take your arm, put your hand on it. Like it's very like your fingers are separated, keep them together, like every little tiny detail, and that you could still capture something that has an element of realism in the sense of the emotional landscape of the photo, yeah. Um, rather than the what your brain does to say, what light could possibly be shining on her at this hour? The sky is dark, everything looks like dusk, but light doesn't look that color at that time of day, but this also doesn't look like you know, um uh man-made light. I want to come in, dad. Um yeah, so and there were other large prints. Alex was a very large print portrait. Um, the two black women in their home was a large print. Both of those were more vertical orientation, where Greg's was more to traditional cinema, you know, um, a wider, larger format.

SPEAKER_01 58:21

And that was probably my favorite. Yeah, the two women that was Deanna Lawson. Yeah. And um Barbara and Mother 2017 printed 2021 inkjet.

Crewdson And The Power Of Scale

SPEAKER_02 58:38

Yeah. A portrait, you know, it was it was, you know, uh you know, I assume stay right there. I want to take your photo, you know, maybe some source lighting or something was involved. Definitely if there was definitely a strobe, yeah. And uh yeah, it was just really, really a great photo.

SPEAKER_01 58:55

Yeah, yeah, that was uh fun to just kind of sit with that one and all the little details. I don't know. That's my kind of that's my kind of it's definitely where my taste is, just those little big details and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:11

So and it may it was inspiring for me because I I I am wanting to do more um sort of in the moment portraits, and while she may have had some some lighting that she brought in, you know, I'm not quite there where I'm gonna do that necessarily, but I just want to sort of like develop the craft of actually like being with a person to the point where you ask if you can take their photograph on thinking what that's like.

SPEAKER_01 59:36

Like the all the stuff in that photograph is really interesting, and you're you're in situations all the time where you can just absolutely really get into somebody's stuff and just be like, hey, stand here. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:47

There's uh a YouTube channel where this young man takes does portraits of artists in their New York lofts, and he does videos of them as well. And uh his channel's doing very well. I started watching it when he was he just started, and uh you know, the videos are really um responding with people. Um and I think while I'm interested in a little bit at least to start not having um uh uh sort of an appointment, you know, and and this is not me saying there's a negative about that, but he's actually like these artists are either reaching out to him or he's connecting with them, they set this all up. He goes and films, he asks him questions, he takes photographs, it's a session in a sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:30

Like a quid pro crow, too. Like he like you're I'm sure he's big enough at this point. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:37

Right. And they yeah, and he can send the videos that he's made and they can watch it and know that you know they want, especially because many of them are moving out of their lofts, they can't afford it anymore, or they're older, that sort of thing. But I'm really excited about trying to photograph people just after meeting them for the first time, you know, especially if it's in a home that's full of stuff, or you know, it's outside or whatever. And I might bring like an on-camera flash or a flash that I can hold off to the side to get a little bit of of a of a key light on someone if it the lighting conditions are a little difficult, that sort of thing. But yeah, I'm I'm very excited about playing around with that. And so this exhibit with the portraits that it had was um inspiring to keep on that track. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:28

I um one, I definitely think you should yeah, explore that more. Yeah, yeah. Um but no, I I I think I'd like to go see it again too. Yeah, it's gonna be here till August. So I'll probably go see it at some point, maybe not in the next like month or two, but definitely see it for a little while. There's also several talks and things like that that I think we might we might enjoy going to. The one in July I'm gonna go to with uh as long as it's not now well. This is like the actual photographer is gonna be there. So I think I think these will be much better. Yeah, yeah. Um so you had a particular thing. Yeah. We have some ideas here um to talk about. We could. I mean, so we're at an hour 15. We're probably at like 58 minutes. Because we did we did start start and then we had a technical difficulty. So we sure did.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:22

Um I have a quote, but I I was struck by another one that he had, but I'll read this one for now. This is Saul Lighter, um, Forever Saul Lighter, um, which I think was a book made.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:32

Is that just like a compilation of work?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:34

Yeah, from from his foundation that was set up after his passing in 2013, I believe. And so they're going through his massive body of work, especially the great majority of it that was unpublished or hadn't been seen. And then this book is a compilation of that, but it also includes many quotations from him, um, from I think the conversations that were had by the documentarian who made the the film, um, which I'm totally blanking on the title.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:06

What is it, like 10 pieces of life advice or 10 10 the film was what the heck was the name of that film?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:16

Something with time in the title? I can't uh man, I am like not remembering names and whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:25

It's been years since I've watched that that you're talking about the documentary, right?

Deana Lawson And Portrait Ambition

Saul Leiter On Finding Things

SPEAKER_02 1:03:28

Yeah, from 2013. I think it came out in 2013. Um I have it, I I bought it for a digital copy of it. In no great hurry. In no great hurry 13 Lessons in Life with Sol Lighter. That's right. 13, yeah. Uh so this is one of his quotes. Um, and this relates to the exhibition as well, and just the work that I think both of you, both you and I do, but this struck me, and I'll explain why briefly. When I did photography, I wasn't thinking of painting. Photography is about finding things, and painting is different, it's about making something. And in the context of the exhibition, you know, like the Gregory Cootson, right? Like I'm I'm a little bit um not as interested in that. Uh certainly I'm not about to tackle the massive budgets you would need and the lighting and all that stuff to do that type of photo, that level of photography. Obviously, I could do it with the lights that I have, do something on a smaller scale. Oh, that freaked me out. Um But he, you know, really made that photograph essentially from scratch, got out of the location, found the thing. Probably, you know, I'm looking at the pieces and I'm like, God, did they put that little thing over by under the window? Was that there, or did they bring it in, you know, every little detail. Um, did someone mold the lawn two days earlier because Greg wanted the grass to be a certain height in the photo? I mean, and if you think I'm being crazy, watch this documentary because this guy is down to every last tiny little detail, and it's incredible how it all comes together. And with me going on, you know, fixating on finding all these hidden treasures and bringing them to the shop or selling them on eBay or keeping them for my own collection, there's definitely a parallel, I think, and sort of the uh fixation between doing that, but then also going out with a camera and trying to find a moment. Um, and him articulating this really kind of brought that home as to why I really enjoy I want to say street photography because I do this in rural places or or uh even um uh you know more fully natural places of state park or a national park, like look observing everything around me and trying to find something, just like I do at an estate sale, observing everything in the whole place to try to find an item. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Uh and so that little detail struck me. I don't have a big profound thing to go uh rabbit hole to go down about that, but I just I never thought about. Documentary photography in the context of trying to find something. And even going back to when I was writing screenplays, you know, literally observing everything, everything two people were doing when they were talking to each other, how this person walked, uh, to mine all of it, to find something in it that could be jotted down on a piece of paper and then used for a character, used for a detail in a screenplay, um, a uh a dynamic between two people. Uh and that's and what I love about the photography aspect is it's all of that all at once. It's the observation, seeing it either happen or it developing, taking the photograph. And while, yes, some editing's gonna happen and all that, but you essentially have the finished work immediately. Um, and all of that combined is like it just kind of um kind of wraps up in a little bow how I feel about it, and it makes me sort of like see what I'm doing. Like I see why I'm doing this versus I don't know why I'm interested in this. I'm not quite sure. There's something about it that interests me and I like it, and and I'm not sure why. Something about photography for him was about finding things like just yeah, you're able to kind of deconstruct it and immediately put it it, it it place it anywhere. Yeah, and it sort of creates like I no longer have to wonder why I'm interested in this, and now I could just go do it. I get it now. Um, and that that's really yeah, I get it, I get it. Inside joke, sorry. Yeah, I stop right there. I get it. I get it. I see what we're doing. I get it. So yeah, that that and that's what I that's part of what fueled the real excitement, you know, and putting it in the group text and all that stuff to go is I want to go see the work that other people made from going out and finding things.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:08

The Gordon Parks of the the kid with the smoking the cigarette and the glass just perfectly lit. That one was crazy. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:16

And that was uh a photograph photographs from a a an uh an edition of Life magazine. Um and there were several more, there were a couple more in the exhibit or one more in the exhibit, but then many in the actual layout of the magazine. But yeah, that one was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:34

Do you think we reached a point where photography became so ubiquitous with new the newspaper or like the the document? Yeah, that we almost lost some of the ability, like that that became the expectation. Like, so what happens a lot in cultures, somebody will take something and they'll almost they'll carry a misunderstanding or like a reduction of the the concept or the the form. And usually misunderstandings are um well one, they're organic usually, they're not like nefarious. And usually a misunderstanding contains like a kernel of the truth or the truth of the original idea, but it's a little more digestible. And I I almost wonder, yeah, if in American culture, like you reach a point where the photograph is viewed as, oh, this has to be it some kind of document of an idea, right? Rather than and present that idea rather than an exploration of space through a lens, which is all it actually is, because of how ubiquitous it was with the newspaper or with the culture.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:53

I I do think so. And I think that um uh I that's part of why I really appreciate Saul's book is that he just has these very it's it's sort of like he would take it and be like, No, it's not as complicated as that. It's it's just simple. It's it's yeah, you know, he just he says in this one, I did things because I liked doing it. When I'm asked why did why did you do certain things? Because I liked it. Yeah, yeah. You know, he's not sitting there going, Oh yeah, see the woman with the red umbrella there? If I take a photograph on a long lens and I do some compression and I do this, that's gonna communicate this idea, you know, all this.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:30

And this is what it's representing, and this is how it's da-da-da-da-da. And it's like, okay, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:35

Or or I was in the moment. I have a feeling about culture, and I want to tell people that feeling and get them to feel how I feel about it.

When Photos Become Just Documents

SPEAKER_01 1:10:45

Yeah, or just not even get them to feel. It's not not not even that like not even that didactic. It's more just I want you to like here is my vision. Like take a second, see through my vision, maybe you'll gain some kind of empathetic exp. And not even that that empathetic side is the is the outcome. The only outcome is here's my picture. Like, look at it. Right. That's pretty much it. Like everything else is just interpretation to that moment.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:19

Well, and again, that's that's for me the draw of street photography or documents.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:24

It's not even here's my picture, it's here's picture.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:26

Yeah, here's a picture of something I like, you know, is is you don't have a lot of time to process, you just sort of see something happening and you don't and everybody sees different things or everything everybody keys in on a different thing. Right. And and and you just respond to something that strikes you in uh almost on the subconscious plane. It's an instinctive plane. You you you see something developing, uh, and especially if your skills are honed, you know, you're fast, you have your you know, technical things dialed in, you know, you know, you you've you've put in the reps to be able to grab that stuff instantaneously. It's it's again, it's just an instinctive process. And, you know, no doubt, even if a photographer looks at the work after the fact, um, like what they shot for the day, you know, they might be able to sort of go to find something interesting about a through line or a spine to it or something. But even then, it's probably ascribing more meaning to it than is necessary because it was made ideally, maybe not ideally, but it was made likely out of um out of instinct or intuition.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:38

Well, and I I love it when a photographer curates the work in a way where like maybe they are playing with ideas. Yeah. Um, I mean, like Eggleston's guide was curated in a way which I don't think is wholly foreign to the actual, you know, my like no matter what, you are carrying a set of ideas, beliefs, thoughts, experiences, and like intuitions w whenever you're doing anything. You trace back through these episodes and kind of see what it's a little different here because we're talking about something, but that's gonna come through in the work, and a good curator is gonna key in on that a little bit and be like, okay, let me try to get as close to the experience of the artist in the making as I can. But also, it's like once that work is in the world, and we've talked about this before, it's in the world. Yeah, it is not theirs to interpret, it's not the artist to interpret, it is the audiences, and each individual audience member, it is their interpretation. Yeah, and there's no like like like if you were to be like, I think this when I see this photo, there's no, oh, that's not right, because not even the artist actually didn't have that interpretation. The artist was thinking this. It's like, yeah, no, that's you're immediately just completely playing a different game there. Like the whatever you think is about the like that's right, it's an object at that point. It's just an object that you interact with in space, if if it's a print or whatever, a digital object. It doesn't matter, it's it's your perception at that point. There is no intent.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:11

And maybe that's difficult for people, you know, uh, just to sort of like have what have the how they feel about it.

Interpretation Belongs To The Viewer

SPEAKER_01 1:14:20

I don't know if there's something where like we want the answer, like, well, you know, and well, we think there's an answer to everything, and we love justification of our of our idea. And we we don't want to be embarrassed. I don't want to I don't want to look stupid. Yeah, because I don't know what this is about. I don't know how I should feel. Spoiler alert, there is no answer to that. Right. And if somebody's giving you that, then they actually probably I mean, in my opinion, like the they're the ones that look silly. Yeah. Because they're trying to prescribe some rigid structure on something that by its nature resists rigidity.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:59

So yeah. Or there, you know, the the idea that the that uh an interpretation of uh a piece of work is another opportunity for signaling um or communicating you know the what it is that you feel is important about yourself that the world must know through um the deployment of your opinion or your criticism or your interpretation of things.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:32

It's interesting because I think that gets into something too. A lot of contemporary art does that. And I think that work will only be interesting as time passes, almost as like an ironic reference to like the work is almost only going to be important as like a funny, like tongue-in-cheek. Like, look at this, look at how silly this was. Like, I I just don't see that work being taken seriously over like it's hard to take the self seriously over a long period of time.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:08

Yeah. Just period, just as an idea. And so if you're creating work that's based around that, it's like almost like yes, you'll have to reference this period in time, uh like as a as a curator, as a you know, as someone who sorts or like attempts the completely impossible and kind of absurd task of sequencing you know, pieces of work, but you're gonna have to use something here, and you already see like this idea of like trying to have my like contemporary work. And yeah, I mean I th I just think that again, it's just my my outlook, but yeah, I think you'll start to look at that as like, oh man, that is just the significance of the work is how silly it was. And right now it's not silly, you can't really say that about it because it's too serious, like oh well that's that person is giving their but over the time the self starts to degrade. And yeah, I think yeah, I don't know.

Criticism As Currency And Signaling

SPEAKER_02 1:17:14

I think if there's one thing that I enjoy about consuming some criticism, especially from critics. Hopefully that's better. Air conditioning. Yeah. Especially from crit- Oh, that's right, you got an email. That's what that is. Oh, especially from critics who I appreciate their point of view. Just like if I watch like BTS of a Scorsese film and uh or Scorse that Scorsese's giving about in another film, you know, they can sometimes illuminate elements of the cinematic experience of that film or the storytelling or the technical uh execution that I'm not aware of. And when they point it out, even if I don't adopt their feelings about it perfectly, it creates an awareness that lets me then develop how I feel about it even more. And so some of my favorite critics It's enriching. Yeah, are just sort of like uh uh yeah, but people who can add a perspective to the film and the storytelling, both from an executed, you know, ex execution technical perspective to just uh an emotional um perspective that makes me see it in a way where I can agree or disagree, but then maybe see something more than I saw originally. And that's part of why I like going to these exhibits with you guys, even though we're not there going, what do you think about this? How does this make you feel? You know, it I it's just like going to a movie. I want to go to this stuff with you guys because I want us all to take it in and then we talk about it. Yeah, go to dinner and talk about it. You know, but like we just talked about the crude scene, you know. Um and we talked about the winnegran. Yeah. So when you give your and again, you're not being critical of it necessarily, but you're just pointing out how it makes you feel, what you see, what you don't see, all that stuff. Um, and the critic is a little bit going, you know, taking things uh a little bit further, you know, grading it A plus, you know, two stars, three two thumbs up, whatever. Which is a completely ridiculous But I have found myself um sometimes uh this the b the the bad exam the sort of the worst example of me consuming criticism is sort of um that that uh scene uh from Goodwill Hunting. I don't know if you've seen that movie where Matt Damon's character confronts the the kind of the douchebag guy at the bar who he calls out for just reciting something that he read in a book. Yeah. And you know, that that I sometimes might selfishly go, oh, I really liked Owen Gleberman's point of view and his write-up on you know whatever movie, and I'm gonna sort of repackage it so that when I'm sitting around with other people who I respect and look up to and want feelings of validation from them, I'm gonna sort of repurpose that criticism as my own uh or that perspective as my own to signal that I'm intelligent and I can think, you know, uh have a have have a reaction to a film that's on much deeper layers than just oh wow, there's a Gary Winegrad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:24

I don't think it's like I don't think there's an issue with the shorthand. I I think the the issue like repackaging is a shorthand, is but I I think the issue arises when you get it, like you said the word signaling. Yeah, yeah. I think that's where the issue is present.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:41

And that definitely happens when someone like me um has bouts of insecurity or uh moments where I'm desiring uh sort of that high school popularity, like you just want to or you just want people to think highly of you. Yeah, you know, I'm susceptible to that sometimes, and I might find in a situation like that where we're um thinking, you know, uh um trying to speak deeply about a movie or whatever where I I might hijack someone's someone's point that they made that I thought was cogent and interesting and repurpose it as my own. So I think that's where where uh consumers of criticism can uh take some missteps because that that's not the point.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:31

I always I agree. I think Yeah, I mean criticism has become a it's become a marketplace or it's become a yeah, you're trading in opinions, you're trading in like currency is are these sets of works you hold or whatever. Um, and that creates a consumption around ideas or kinds of like oh I'm gonna watch all of these films because I need to consume them so I can say I watch them. Right. Um are you getting anything out of them? No. Or maybe, like maybe, yeah, just by being exposed. Like, so it's not necessarily a bad thing, but I just the intention is interesting to me. Um, another thing, and we don't have to spend too much time on this, we didn't get to any of the things, which is funny, so we'll just save them for later.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:16

Save it for the next one.

Negativity And Taking Up Oxygen

SPEAKER_01 1:22:17

Um but uh an interesting thing is I I found like we left the other night and I was doing like some little self-reflection after. I'm just like I I kind of feel like one, I get kind of negative in those situations, and then I also feel like I I kind of suck up oxygen with like my opinion. Like I'm just like, oh, like this is how I feel, and it's like I want to try to be more conscious of like you don't like nobody else needs to feel this way, yeah. But like I do, yeah, I don't know. I was I was having a hard time with that, kind of that. Um I don't one, I don't like sucking up all the oxygen, and then also just the negativity of the whole thing, but then also, yeah, if I sit through something and I'm like this was complete nonsense. Part of me feels a little bit compelled. I mean, I obviously I'm not gonna say it to I guess I'm saying it on this podcast. Yeah. Um, but that's more me saying it to you. Like, I'm gonna communicate that to like obviously like Audrey and I talked about it on the car, on the car ride back. I'm gonna communicate those feelings. Um I don't want to just crush things though, or just like be negative about things for the purpose of being negative, or I don't want that to be the takeaway, so I think I need to work on how I handle myself in those situations a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:46

Something that I do in those situations is I just kind of go, this is making me feel this way. Yeah. What what is doing it? And I I think I I try to sit there and go. I wonder what's going on with these two human beings up here that that their lives have arrived at this moment. At least for me, yeah, I'm disappointed in how this is being presented. Yeah. And I almost feel like I'm watching it as like a a piece of work, you know, like uh like an exhibit, you know. Like what are all the contributing factors that like what was going on in her day? This she even said this was the first time I've done this. Yeah did this gentleman like just get off a plane an hour ago and showed up, you know. And it's not about like making excuses necessarily for it, but it's about like what are the the interesting human elements that have led to what I felt overall was um uh uh an execution of a presentation that I I struggled with.

Omaha Standards Preparation And Attention

SPEAKER_01 1:25:16

I just I will I want like she was probably my age. Yeah. And so that's like that is firmly in the next generation. Like that is what will carry the museum forward over the next 30 years, right? Um and I just I wish I I think part of what frustrates me so much is I just see the same bullshit, like the same mistakes that and you know it could be successful, but it's like like the same things that make Omaha, yeah, it's fine. It's not that special in most people's minds. And it's not like it is uh inherently more special here or anything like that, but like the things that make us seem average are the things that we do averagely, all right. You know, we and like that is just that's a prime example, and it's just it it hurts me to see like a younger generation kind of continuing in that tradition, yeah, rather than being like, you know, you have an opportunity to lead a thing, get up there and really kind of carry it. And so it gets me like excited about, you know, like the work Eli's doing or stuff like that, where yeah, you're taking a community that might not be completely literate or aware with some of these things and you're pushing it, but you're pushing it in like a really hands-off kind of way. You're being really thoughtful about it. And that stuff excites me, not stuff where you're like pumped about, oh man, we're going moving forward, like we're pushing and making, you know, trying to do better than what came before, yeah. Better. But yeah, and that was just like completely just oh we're not doing anything here, we're going backwards. Well, and I I think I've had just the way we're framing everything is inherently wrong. And if we keep going in this direction, either we're gonna figure out that it's a dead end or you're just gonna get so far that it becomes the reality. And I don't know. I just think that's it.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:23

No, I I agree. And I think that you know, um I think that that is something that I love about loved about living in Los Angeles and being on the coast. I often felt way out of my league around people that were not doing things averagely. Yeah. Yeah. They were dedicated with their like they were either obsessed with the thing that they were doing, they understood the stakes, they they had a goal. In their life that was so powerful that they knew that nothing but their best effort was warranted and they could give their all in those situations. I mean, you you're around everybody from A-list musicians in my in my background to um uh executives on studio lots, all these people where you're like, holy shit, like I I have phoned in a lot of my efforts in the past and some where I haven't, and that has gotten me in front in front of or around these people, and you have to bring it if you want to even Yeah, there's there's a huge misconception that like oh, if you you like it's easy to take a worldview that people just get into positions by like whatever, like politics or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:46

It's like no, when you see people that are executing at a extremely high level, I mean I'm sure yes, there's plenty of people who make it into positions because of politics, but there's also plenty of people who execute at an extremely high level. And they are where they are because of yeah. I mean, obviously there's other factors involved. Yeah. It's luck and there's timing and there's you know, connections and things like that. But there's some people you look at and you're like, yeah, not surprised. Yeah. Makes sense. And then it but it that motivates you, that pushes you. It's like the rising tide lifts all boats. And that's what I want to see with Omaha. Right. Because that's where, you know, that's where right now it's it's oh, I can't wait to get out of here. If you're young, it's like I can't wait to get out of here and go somewhere where I can actually do something. And I mean, I get that, you know, with connections and things like that, but it's also just the mindset. Like we have a really antiquated mindset.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:48

And I fall victim to maybe not the antiquated mindset, but I fall victim to doing things averagely all the time. And you could argue, you know, my lack of uh the success that I wish I had for myself or progress on this front or that front, or move giving up on screenwriting and moving into the production company, transitioning from that into this other thing, and then kind of doing, you know, that it's it's um you know, that that that it's that it that an aspect of that is present in me versus some of my peers who came out of acting school or film school or whatever and are and are doing things at a level that I had hoped that I would be doing things. So I I don't want to make it seem like, first of all, if you live in Omaha, you're just an average person.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:36

Yeah. Um well, I mean, it obviously that's not obviously there's plenty of talent in Omaha. It's just more so just the thought.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:46

Yeah. The intentionality, the the the depth of of preparation, of uh understanding of craft, of execution, all of that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:55

Like and the expectation level. Yeah. It's just not yeah, very high. And that's fine. I'm not saying you need to live in a place that's like hyper focused on success. That's not what I'm talking about. Obviously, I don't even I don't even really prescribe to that I idea of like success, but I think doing anything you do, you should try to do it well. And if you're not doing it well, you better have a damn good reason as to why it's not worth there's plenty of things that aren't aren't worth a lot of effort. Yeah, plenty of shit problems that you just have to get by and figure out the easiest and least, you know, strenuous way to get past that problem. Yeah. But if if you've identified something that's worth doing, do it as best you can. Right. And it's not gonna be the best you're ever gonna be able to do it, most likely. The best. Again, these terms are just like the best isn't a thing. That's not that's not real. There is no best. It's just, you know, are you like the crude son? Yeah. Just thinking through everything. Everything, you know, like are you being thoughtful to that level where you're thinking you're sitting down and you're saying, I'm gonna spend eight hours thinking through every last detail. I'm gonna spend 25 hours, I'm gonna spend a hundred hours. He's probably spending like hundreds of hours per photograph thinking through every detail. I mean, building they build sets.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:21

I mean, it's just it's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:23

Now, like it seems like I look around a lot and there is the like yeah, I spent 35 minutes thinking about this. That's a lot of time. 35 minutes is a lot of time. Yeah, that's like that's an hour block of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:36

Or uh when you're on the street with a camera and you're like, oh, I see this kid, and there's the thick guy holding all the balloons, eh? Fuck it. It's too hard it's too far to go over and try to get it. I don't want to get that, yeah. Yeah, fuck it. Yeah, it's just easier now to.

Solitude As The Real Work

SPEAKER_01 1:32:48

Yeah. You know, this stuff like are you yeah, are you letting yourself and I mean look, I I raise that critique on myself too, but it's just that's how you you know do better than what what came before. Again, better is like kind of a non-existent or very like vapor term, but that's how you do that. You just attention, right? And we we have less of that than we've ever had as a as a society, as a culture.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:23

And this goes back to the letter you read. I think the response to the letter that the author received was you are caring too much about these other things. Oh, he it's really interesting. You need to focus on the work and stop writing something and sending it off.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:44

Well, and this is what he talks, he talks about solidarity. Yeah. Like you need to be in solitude. Like you must, like if you if you ask yourself, you know, I said, ask yourself, do you want to write? And I mean, obviously he's using writing, he's a writer, he does, he's a poet and a and a novelist. If you want to write, if you said yes, I want to do that, then your biggest job is curating your thoughts and feelings and interpretation and turning that into words. And so yeah, that's your burden. Right. Your burden is that you don't get to be, you don't get to do whatever. You know, and I mean obviously these are you can be like, well, there's actually no real thing, like burden or anything, like obviously not. Or I mean maybe not obviously, but in my opinion, yeah, probably not. There is no like I'm meant to write, right, or like my destiny is write or being a writer. But if if that is what you like, you ask yourself, like, oh, I need to do this. If you have this urge to write or to take photographs or to whatever, like then stupid shit is not important, like it's secondary stuff is secondary at that point. And he's uh I mean he he's a really big proponent of yeah, solitude, you know. You need to go into yourself, and it's lonely and it sucks. He's like, that's kind of the point. Yep, that's where the good stuff comes from. It's like, and there's so much that you could be doing, and this was in 1903. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously, there's a lot more you can be doing now. It's like kind of up to you. We all get a relative amount of time here, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:29

It had been a golden afternoon, and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer experience.