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From: Al G
Date: 30 Apr 2004
Time: 04:25:23 -0500
Remote Name: 216.192.5.7
Spiny - trekked through the work of the artists you mentioned since I was unfamiliar with all of them except the first and last. I like Braques earlier period. Had no idea Picasso got so creative. Yet for me, none of their work comes close to Arnos. There is something there in his work I cannot yet define. Something that expands what is possible and how humans are defined. Some call to action, something that prompts action, that reshapes perspectives. It is almost as if the photos softly say "if this is possible, what else might be possible?" Maybe it is the way he visually transcends the usual rules of reality and our place in it. Maybe it is the universal accessibility of the images and the immediate impact and openness of the images (as opposed to Yeats insider allusions). But somehow his work has it and the others you cited seem visually flat aka not-consciousness-reforming in comparison. (Darned if I know what it is, though . . ). . . . . .Maybe it is an outsider view but Maplethorpe and Picasso (the only two names I knew) seem to have bent (dare I say it) "artistic rules" but not ones of human consciousness. Cubism and impressionism may have rocked the traditional art worlds concepts and both challenged and expanded the definition of what is art. Maybe they brought into play subtle ideas that slowly seeped into the culture and were ripe for their time. But like the picture of earth floating in space, Arnos photos have the feel of an immediate stretching of consciousness, of opening up possibilities without needing words to explain what cubism was and its place in history or the controversy Maplethorpes raised. Hmmm. This may take some thinking about. So what about the Midwest makes for limitations? al