Thursday, May 10, 2018

Hi Jörg

So take a gander at Jörg Colberg's latest, which is playing very well with the "woke" art community, right over here: "Picturesque Photography" and then look me in the eye and tell me that our friend isn't reading my blog. So, hi Jörg, glad you can find some ideas here you can use.

It would play a lot better if his indictment didn't apply pretty much just as well to him as it does to lots of other people. Much of the tripe he's praised roundly in the last few months falls under exactly the same aegis.

As a nice young woman I spoke to on Wednesday said, "It's like Orientalism, but for the midwest" and while Jörg may be slightly less guilty of it than some, he's certainly guilty.


  1. [Looks Molitor in eye]: Nah, this is all just Cultural Studies 101. White Guilt turned inside out and gazing in on itself...

    I wonder what he makes of Roger Ballen?


    1. He's actually written a fair bit on Ballen, but I can't really discern a coherent opinion.

      for example.

    2. Hmm, reading that, I think you'll find it must have been written by another person of the same name... This "Jörg Colberg" thinks "As is always the case with art, it’s up to its intended audience to make the most of it."


    3. Is this joke about The Illiad and The Odyssey in fact and old and widely known one:

      "Pshaw, no, they were not written by Homer, but by a completely different fellow. Also named Homer."

      or is this a "my weird family's private joke" thing?

  2. I couldn't help but note the irony when he wrote this about reporters: "[Y]ou go with a fixed idea in mind, and you then process what you encounter against the context of your own ideas and expectations."

    That's because, in my experience, the same is also true for most critics, and him more so than many others.