America's Cool Modernism

In the Jazz Age of the ‘roaring’ 20s, and the ensuing Great Depression of the 30s, many American artists expressed their uncertainty about the rapid modernisation and urbanisation of their country by producing work that had a cool, controlled detachment and a smooth, precise finish.

This exhibition was an interesting walk close to the boundary between representation and abstraction. There were two main themes: pushing the representational towards abstraction, with varying degrees of success, and urban landscapes devoid of humans.

I've been thinking for quite a while about what 'abstract' is, given the human tendency for pareidolia (perceiving a familiar pattern, often a face, where none exists. Or, to put it the other way round, the very limited visual information an artist needs to give for the viewer to see something representational. A good example from this exhibition was Jacob Lawrence's Housing conditions).

I think that creating a genuine abstract is especially difficult in photography where it's harder than in drawing or painting to remove the detail that encourages recognition. I was engaged by Paul Strand, though.

I continue to experiment.

..........

We've had no rain for 6½ weeks now. The Met Office promised some on Friday two weeks ago but it vanished from the forecast two days before. Then we were promised some last Friday but it likewise disappeared. I don't know what it is about Fridays but we were promised some this evening and at 7pm it was still in the forecast. As we sat outside, a drop. Another. We ran round putting away the things that needed to stay dry (hammock, tools, bags of pulled weeds) and putting out as many receptacles as we could to collect rain: buckets, bowls, and an old metal dustbin under our neighbour's broken gutter that leaks waterfalls into our garden. We even opened the lid of our landfill bin as it was fortuitously emptied this morning. Just as we'd got everything out, it poured. What a fantastic smell of parched earth breathing!