[whistlerbrk]

I disagree, I think that tl;dr was spot on. Frankly, the article's authors position is classic and arrogant imho. They define what art is and hold it to that standard, ignoring that Stanton himself was simply building a project (a photography blog turned storytelling blog as he and the article puts it).

I'd ask the author - How is this any different from an exhibit at a museum? Because I see essentially the same thing when I go: people standing in front of something, taking it in, taking a photo of it (yuck), moving to the next piece and repeating.

The New Yorker tends to have this classicist view of the world, that's their angle and I understand it and the place for it, I just don't like it when it is used for to paint this cynical view of a disposable consumptive world.

Hope that wasn't a rant (and it was not directed at you, I know you're trying to frame the authors position as well which I'm rallying against).

[l33tbro]

Isn't the answer to your museum question is in the article? The author values the ambiguity of an image, rather than having it pre-packaged to a and consumable concept that the "story" gives it.

I don't really get his beef, to be quite honest. To me the true crime (albeit a minor infraction) of HONY is that it's not much more than a Gotham-based localization of the much more interesting and long-standing Colors publication, publishing since the 90s