My copy of ‘Aperture 199′ arrived a while back, and while I glanced through it, the review by Andy Grundberg of the work of Robert Bergman didn’t greatly attract my attention, largely because I thought the photographs printed with it were not of any great interest. But a piece by Joerg Colberg in Conscientious has (as so often) attracted my attention, and he links to a feature on Aperture’s Exposures blog, Right on Time by David Levi Strauss in which he attacks Grundberg – and gets a reply – now with a link to the review.
It’s a spat that perhaps doesn’t interest me too greatly, but has led me to think more about Bergman. Perhaps the best place to start is with this piece on Real Clear Arts by Judith H. Dobrzynski which links to her piece in Wall St Journal with 11 photographs. There are also a few different images on Dazed. You can also see these pictures possibly a little larger at the US National Gallery of Art, which also has a 15 minute conversation between senior curator Sarah Greenough and Bergman, as well as a singularly uninformative list of pictures in their collection which are not available on line!
I’d actually love it if I thought that someone who had photographed for almost 60 of his 65 years before being ‘discovered’ was a great unsung genius – hope for the rest of us ageing photographers – but unfortunately I don’t think so on the evidence I’ve seen.
And do take a look at Aperture magazine. I can assure you there are more interesting things in it than this review.