Where The Heart Is

Ver arte en una postal en venta en una gasolinera de Indiana era algo complicado en 1950. Ahora no nos lo parece. De hecho, gracias a este libro que compré en San Francisco me he dado cuenta de la cantidad de "obras de arte" que andan circulando por el mundo en forma de postal.
La colección recopilada en este volumen (hay otro llamado "Boring Postcards") está compuesta por postales de Estados unidos. Lugares desolados, parkings, centros comerciales, moteles, autopistas, dinners, gasolineras. Todo estaba ahi, antes de convertirse en toda una corriente fotográfica exportada a todo el planeta.

Sin escuela de Düsseldorf, sin Stephen Shore, sin nadie que les dijera que eso que hacían era arte, nos encontramos con fotógrafos que estaban retratando sus "lugares comunes" en preciosas fotografías de la "nada", transformándola en "todo".

Shore hizo una serie de postales en 1972 imitando al 100% el estilo de estos desconocidos fotógrafos. Esa serie le condujo a una evolución lógica en la obsesión por el detalle, la composición y el dominio del motivo a fotografiar. Y el resultado fue un momento cumbre en la fotografía en color y en el mundo del Arte.

Pero viendo estas postales, estas fotos "no artísticas", me doy cuenta de que, aunque la Fotografía no hubiese sido aceptada como ARTE (respetadísimos profesores de Arte piensan que no debe serlo), ésta habría crecido al margen de las grandes artes. Y también me doy cuenta de que habría dado igual, porque su magia brillaría de cualquier modo.

Postcards without Art:

Seeing art in a postcard on sale at a gas station in Indiana during the 50's was not easy. Now it doesn't seem so difficult. In fact, thanks to this book I bought in San Francisco, I've realised how many "works of art" are circulating over the world in the form of post cards.
The collection shown in this book (there's another one called plainly "Boring Postcards") it's composed by postcards from the USA. Empty places, parking lots, shopping malls, motels, highways, dinners, gas stations.
Everything was there, before becoming such a strong photographic theme all over the art world.

Without Düsseldorf Art School, without Stephen Shore, without anybody telling them that what they were doing was art, through these pages, we come across photographers that were picturing their "common places" in beautiful pictures of "nothing" turning it into "everything".

Shore made a series of postcards in 1972, 100% imitating this unknown photographers style. That drove him to a logic development in his obsession for detail, composition and control over the subject of his photography. And the result was a crucial point in color photography and in the Art world as we know it.

But seeing these pictures, these "non-artistic" photographs, I realise that, even if photography hadn't been accepted as Art (some highly respected art teachers still don't think it should be), it would have grown anyway, away from the main arts. And I also realise, that it wouldn't have mattered, because its magic would have shined anyway.