Lee Friedlander: The Desert Seen

In his timeless images of the desert seen, Friedlander leaves nothing to chance. To the critic from Berea, Kentucky, look again, and keep looking again and again.


A step beyond the "modern" movement, without being "post-"   March 23, 1999
 2 out of 5 found this review helpful

There was a shift during the early decades of the 20th century in photography. This shift ushered in "modern photography". In the world of landscapes, this modern bent was expressed conservatively in the early "ultimate expression" typified by Ansel Adams. Folks like the Westons (esp. Edward and Brett) took some of that a step further.

Friedlander has taken things into a new realm, without becoming a post-modern landscape photographer, in the process. Sure, there is a sum-is-greater-than-the-parts quality to his work -- and that carries over into this, for him new, realm. But where at first glance one might not note masterpieces on the kind modern photography has produced, closer inspection reveals brilliantly hidden agendas lying just below the surface of key prints in this collection.

The joy of this work comes from being able to approach it from both directions -- as a whole, and as unique parts. In the realm of "as a whole," one finds an implicit argument for a kind of printing too-long-out-of-vogue. There is a pricision of technique here that is umistakable. Also beyond question: The technique is nothing if not reminiscient of the kinds of early-modern aesthetics one finds in, for example, the work of Paul Strand from the late teens.

The result? Freidlander not only celebrates photography and the ability to capture and create something from the world. He also brings out the abstract insights that form and feeling draw forth in a fashion analogous -- to use his own analogy -- to the best of improvisational music. In improv, as in this work, there is the feeling that while some portions would appear grand on their own, and other portions would appear less so -- the whole, on the other hand, appears to be even greater than the best of its parts.

And it is, for many of us, the celebration of the greatness of "the whole" that we find in the world's best art that makes that art great.


I already wrote a review / where is it ?   September 15, 1998
 1 out of 11 found this review helpful

Do you only put on positive reviews ? This book was awful and I think people should know about it. My review was not pornographic or offensive in any way - where is it ?