I don’t know if the curators consciously set up the emotional impact of the exhibit as it is presented. The birthdates of the artists could also have been a deciding factor Degas was born in 1834, Forain in 1852, and Toulouse-Lautrec in 1864).

However, the exhibit was consciously aimed at providing Degas’ dancers and not his social criticism and Forain’s social criticism, particularly of the dancers. Both artists did work with other subjects.

I do think that exhibits are a form of artistic expression and the curators then must be considered artists.

I looked at the museum web site and couldn’t find anything giving a clue as to what the curators might have been aiming for. Do you think their message was the one you so strongly received? It certainly makes a very nice reading of the exhibit.

I was recently thinking of a certain parallel between photographers and conceptual artists working with readymade objects à la Duchamp. Namely, photographers are usually working with something they find in the world, trying to present it in some way they find interesting or significant. One could think of curators similarly selecting and arranging works to bring out an idea or concept. Perhaps we should consider this one artistic mode, as Karl once suggested for art dealers.

(I’ll have a look at fixing the comment problems a little later.)

In a museum, through the center hall, I walked by pictures of Woodland Artists with striking colors and bold lines to an inside room where I viewed with Russell Chatham’s oil painting, mute colors, subtle lines. The two exhibitions were in jarring contrast.

Within the Russell Chatham exhibition, there was no recognizable organization of the oil painting. But, perhaps, I missed it because I mostly used most of the little time that I had to photograph the frames of his pictures.

The most common organization of artwork appears to be by subject. Taro Yamasaki, for example, list three main topics on his website: documentary, people and travertine architecture. Under documentary, subtopics range from Children of War- Nicaragua/Bosnia, Inside Jackson Prison to Wild Horses. The question is to what extent he organized the photos within a subtopic.

Recently, we thought about organizing Steve’s Winter Water pictures.

My suggested organization was different from Steve’s vision. This makes me think that organizing creative work into a story is much more difficult in the arts than in science where I was used to spinning stories for a manuscript or for a poster – why this molecule may be of significance to embryonic development/neurological disease, the chemistry of the molecule, its cellular or subcellular expression, some experimental manipulations followed by a hypothesis of what the real function (s) of this molecule may be.

As an embryonic artist, I am now organizing some photos for my website and I am musing where I am heading with future exploits regarding different subjects, my emotions, my abilities.

I will continue ruminating on your fertile questions.

I apologize for the way the home page looks when it’s initially logged into. I think the problem is something I did, but I can’t find it or make any changes the bring it back to its original conformations. Steve is our resident guru and will have to help me sort when he gets back to town.

I will be thinking about your questions as I will be on the road for a day or so.