Postsecret Art

Every Sunday, I can't wait to get up and look at my favorite website, Postsecret. If you've never heard of it, the concept is simple: people anonymously send in their secrets to Frank Warren, who then posts them on the website. As of Wednesday night, Postsecret had 159 million hits. Warren has published several books filled with secrets. He also travels the country doing presentations and showing more secrets. Recently, Postsecret has started chapters in other countries.

The reason I want to feature Postsecret is because of the artistic nature of the secrets. While some are barely legible handwritting on lined notebook paper, most use strong visuals like bright colors and eye-catching images. Not only are the images powerful in the secrets, the message also stands out.

Jeff Wall

Last summer, I went to the Art Institute and saw the Jeff Wall exhibit. Personally, I loved most of the exhibit. The pictures were very large, taking up most of one of a wall. There was so much detail, you couldn't imagine the photo being any smaller. The really cool part of the pictures, though, was that they were illuminated. The pictures seemed to be displayed in front of a light box, making the details even more evident.

I think the mark of someone truly artistic is coming up with ideas that other people wouldn't think of. This was my main critical point with Wall. If I, an amateur photographer, could have taken the picture, I don't regard it very highly. There needs to be something extraordinary about the picture, or it needs to have lasting power.

Some of my favorites:

My least favorites:


And my absolute favorite:

Art or Porn?

Yesterday I blogged about my favorite photograph called "Candy Cigarette" by Sally Mann. While I was researching the history of the picture background on Sally Mann, I came across something interesting. People were claiming Sally Mann's work is "criminal garbage." Although I disagree, this still brings up the bigger picture. What is art? What differentiates it from something harmful or grotesque or even criminal? I will put the most controversial pictures below.






I want to let the viewer draw their own conclusions about the photographs. Are they art or pornography?

My Favorite Picture

Since I liked blogging so much, I thought I'd give it a try and keep it going. But obviously I don't have any more class discussions to blog about, and I want to blog about something I'm interested in. So I picked photography. Since I am not taking any photo classes this summer, I thought I'd get my fix by blogging about photos instead of taking them.

I didn't really come up with this idea on my own. I was inspired by one of my favorite newly discovered blogs, The Year in Pictures. That blog is run by James Danzinger, a Magnum photographer. In the art world, Magnum is a widely respected organization made up of the world's best photographers. If you've ever seen some of the 9/11 photos, they were probably taken by a Magnum photographer. Coincidentally, Magnum was having an annual meeting in New York at the time of the attacks, and all the photographers rushed out to capture the scene and the moments that day.

Although my analysis will be amateur, I'm going to try my best to offer quality insights about the photos. So in order test run my new idea, I thought I'd start with the basics: my favorite photograph.


It was taken by Sally Mann in 1989. The subject is a girl, probably about 10 years old, smoking a cigarette. There are so many reasons I like the photograph. For one, there is the background of the photo. Another child stands on a jungle-gym. To the right of the subject, a girl stands with her hands on her hips, as if watching the other child with caution. Then there is the subject. The pose is the first thing that strikes me. For being so young, her pose suggests she is a chic 20 year-old who smokes daily and has grown to smoke without care. Her arm across her chest suggests she is guarded, maybe even shy. But her other arm indicates her disregard toward other people's judgments. Her face, a center point of the photo, also gives the portrayal of disregard. She frowns, and her eyes seem to look right at you, as if saying "I dare you to judge me" or "I couldn't care less what you think."

Overall, the reason this photo is my favorite is because it has lasting power. When an image stays with you days after you saw it, then the artist has done their job.

A last note about the photograph:
I purposely left the title of this picture out in order for the viewer to remain objective. It's called "Candy Cigarette." If you thought Mann just happened to catch this girl smoking, you were fooled. The camera she took this with was very large and required lots of set up, another reason why she had to plan it out. (Below, a picture of Sally Mann with her camera.)

Sex Sells (Women in the Media)