Is a "Striking" Photo a Failed Photo?

Written by Lenny Campello
Published September 03, 2004

The Chief Art Critic of the Washington Post, Blake Gopnik reviewed the Gabriel Orozco photography show at the Hirshhorn a while back.

Unfortunately, this Gopnik review only occasionally lives up to the usual high standards of his writing and lectures. Many of his observations take a much more standard, hackneyed tack. In many of his descriptions and comments on the show, Gopnik prowls the newsprint page and gives us built-in, unaltered moments of epiphany, just as common art scribes have done for about a century.

(Above paragraph is a mirror cousin of Gopnik's review).... just having fun with Blake and Lenny.

Here's another interesting insight into the mind of this brilliant critic in describing why some of Orozco's photos are not good:

"All of them are striking images, and that's what makes them fail."
So a striking image (and they are striking according to Blake because "these pictures are striking because they point back at well-established notions of what now constitutes an arty picture") is a failure as a good photograph?

Am I the only one who is confused here?

F. Lennox Campello is a widely published Washington, DC and Philadelphia based art critic, as well as an award winning artist and curator. He is also often heard on NPR and the Voice of America discussing visual art issues. Campello also reports on Mid Atlantic area art news for the TV show ArtsMedia News.
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Is a "Striking" Photo a Failed Photo?
Published: September 03, 2004
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Section: Culture
Writer: Lenny Campello
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