9. Form

Abstraction is so common place, so acceptable, so easy. It is hard to believe that it was ever shocking, or inaccessible to the masses. It sprung out of the Avant-garde's desire to move away from pictorial representation. In the 1950's if you didn't get abstraction, you weren't part of the "in-crowd".

Artists have gone onto to shock in so many more dramatic ways - Mapplethorpe's bullwhip or Hirst's bisected animals to name a few. So who cares about abstraction expression? It's so passe that it has become kitsch. Call me nostalgic, but I still love it. I love it the same way my mom's generation runs to every exhibit of Impressionists paintings that comes to town.

So in the last week I have taken so many simply beautiful abstract photographs but posted none. Why? I feel they are dated, passe, too little in the age of over-the-top. Again, the critic.