Two Moons

Sarah Moon.Beth Moon.

First, they aren’t the same person. Not the same work. Not the same method. They do seem, in some ways, to talk to the same meaning.

Sarah Moon(born Marielle Warin; 1941) is a French photographer.Initially a model, she turned to fashion photography in the 1970s. Since 1985, she has concentrated on gallery and film work. https://www.michaelhoppengallery.com/artists/29-sarah-moon/overview/


“By using the longest lasting photographic process, I hope to speak about survival, not only of man and nature’s but to photography’s survival as well. For each print I mix ground platinum and palladium metals, making a tincture that is hand-coated onto heavy watercolor paper and exposed to light. There are many steps involved in creating the final print and these are as important to me as the capturing of the image,” said (Beth) Moon. A platinum print can last for centuries, drawing on the common theme of time and survival, pairing photographic subject and process.

https://bethmoon.com

How do they overlap? Subject choice. Sure, but how many subjects for the camera are there. What isn’t a prior link. How they are treated? Maybe more-so this. The sensation within me. Yep. that has it, even though that is the least transferable to you. My sensation is a limited exchange system to share.

Being able to find work, to find something to point at is one part of making work. More important to the making is being able to describe it. To translate it is a necessary part of transforming. Absorbing work may mean you don’t have to make anything similar. You don’t need to duplicate the work. That is what the Moons are for me. I don’t have to do this work, nor anything like them. These are sufficient. I can even avoid their process notes, notions, goals, ambitions. Two reasons: I don’t want to do them; I don’t have to do them.

Do I have a preference? Yes. I much prefer Sarah Moon to Beth Moon. They way they think is clear, is different to each other. Sarah talks about the experience of making pictures; the world of camera and subject. Beth Moon spends her words on technique of printing; she is about overcoming process limitations. Her world uses the world of things, but done to make something more permanent than them. Beth converts; Sarah conveys.

note: What Shall We Tell…

afterimage, 1984. Mary Warner Marien: What Shall We Tell the Children?

Two among many histories of photography.

  • Helmut and Alison Gernsheim
  • Beaumont and Nancy Newhall
  • Freund: La Photographic en France
  • Taft: Photography and the American Scene
  • Eder: Technical History
  • Potonniee: History of the Discovery of Photography
  • Newhall: Photography – a short critical history. The History of Photography
  • Rosenblum: A World History of Photography
  • Kahmen: Photographie als Kunst (’73)
  • Scharf: Painting and Photography (’68)
  • Keller: The Myth of Art Photography: A Sociological Analysis (’84)
  • Benjamin, Buzin, Arnheim, Kracauer, Barthes, Berger, Sontag, Krauss, Crimp, Jameson

Guides to Other Land

as we divide, we find ourselves in groups gathered behind different dead. This can be illustrated with tales of two deaths – who notices, how, why.

Some deaths are noticed widely – even by those who did not know the person. Who you notice in death, who makes an absence also made a presence in your life; made a contribution to you even though they may not have known you, acknowledged you while they lived. These people are likely your guides – your markers.

We can know a group by noting who they notice even more than what they talk about. In major matters of life the ends of are the points observed and commemorated. Deaths are noted with encomiums – some sincere, some superstitiously just noted with RIP.

Simultaneous “worlds” of photography operate with relative autonomy. Sociologists and communications researchers studying photography have revealed distinctive spheres of activity in which work routines, photographic styles and evaluative standards differ sharply (Becker 1982; Chalfen 1980; Christopherson 1974a and 1974b; Musello 1980; Phillips 1982; Rosenblum 1978; Schwartz 1983)

Robert Frank  (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) 

On the day Robert Frank died, much of the artworld was publishing obits, showing photos of gatherings at his New York studio. As social networks sprouted tributes ranging from selfies to full scale ZZZ the other world talked of lens standards and standardized images.

Film Forum topics 9.9.2019

Bruce Barlow (June 9, 2019)

They get as far as a Workshop. Characteristically they don’t notice the death of their other online counterparts.

The artworld notices one another — the Snobby Hobby notices the price of cameras.