Tag: Lu Guang

Garbage-Art in the Times, and the Real China

Nadav Kander is the darling of photo-editors at the New York Times, which is currently devoting a whole issue front-to-back of the New York Times Magazine to “Obama’s People,” a long, long, long series of trendy snapshots by the egregious Mr. Kander, and as usual his photos impart a sense of “formalness and unease,” because “formalness and unease” is Nadav Kander’s gimmick.  

For example, Kander has imbued his photo of Valerie Jarrett with the signature “formalness” of surrounding her with a big empty frame, and his signature “unease” is introduced by super-saturating her magenta suit and de-saturating her face.  

Valerie Jarrett

And so what? “Formalness and unease” would be a more appropriate attitude around the Obama White House than Obama’s repulsive self-righteousness, but in Kander’s snapshots it’s nothing but aesthetic posturing, and most of his subjects are perfectly relaxed and informal.

And so what again? As Jay Leno once said, politics is show-business for ugly people, and although the ultra-telegenic Mr. Obama has made a career out of contravening that principle, there probably isn’t much that anybody could show in posed portraits of “Obama’s people,” and…

This diary is just a pointless rant!