Photography in the ICU: condition stable

I was going to mention at the end of my 'wrong altar' piece, in parentheses: photographers seem to search out the cliche.

I'm seriously disappointed in almost all the 'art' photography I see. Take your pick among slice-of-life kids with guns and needles, blank-faced rich kids in a waking coma, empty landscapes that seem determined not to evoke an emotion (verboten in the 'postmodern' art world; emotion is seen as 'naive'; authenticity a hopelessly outdated concept. Admittedly the challenge of authenticity is greater than ever but no one wants to step up to the plate; I think that's what's missing from today's art), hypermarchés from ceiling height with every single item on sale, people at a nightclub, dreamlike tableaus from some alt-Hollywood, people from 'marginal' communities in full frontal (do you really want to copy television?), pseudo-pornography determined not to turn people on but to be taken 'seriously'... the list goes on.

I'm sure you know who/what I'm talking about. The problem in each seems to be the same: photographers tend not to put forth their own vision, but rather what they think an audience will respond to. It's a bit of a crowd-pleasing element that I don't think belongs there. Is it because they are insecure about an art form that basically requires only that you point and shoot? If so, they are missing the point (no pun intended, please); with such an immediate capture, the demand of this form is immediacy, not the opposite. The demand is for intuition, spirited emotion (define it how you will), daring, engagement with life, not thoughts about it; Zen.

This I think is the province, the challenge of photography, but those who really engage with it don't seem to have a chance in the big galleries; as if staging a shot were a sign of seriousness. Like, I have a camera too buddy. I shoot pictures out an' about, what of it? Is it a failure of the curators, gallery owners, not to be able to discern to good, the genius, from the bad, the random? The charge on the gate-keepers is pretty hefty, admittedly. I would not want to sift through the many thousands of photographs taken on the fly purporting to be the ultimate, the transcendent, etc. But the state of photography pretty well encapsulates the sad state of the art world today; an eschewing of the 'authentic' in favor of, well, you call it: the proper bourgeois aesthetic distance, the jaded search for a more elegant perversity, enough irony to keep 'reality' at a safe distance hahaha. Okay I'll stop.

Whatever happened to the practice of finding, as the Buddhists would put it, the 'jewel in the manure'? Where is the visual equivalent of the Blues, as a universal language, not limited to Americans or to any class, race, or category? Where are the Zen photographers? They're out there, but they're not going to make anybody any money. They're too good. As with so many things...

If you think I've missed something/someone, let me know. I know I've taken a really harsh view of photography but I see the same thing (almost) every time. I'd be happy to be proved wrong.