After so many trips to Fort Worth over the last 8 years, it is pretty hard for me to discover something new, although only recently did I realized that just because I have visited everything, that does not equate with having written about it for this blog! One of these days, or better said, over the course of the next couple of years, I will fill in the holes in the Fort Worth section of the blog.
Fort Worth is a city worth a visit! From the Historic Stockyards and everything cowboy and cowgirl to world class museums, a fantastic zoo and botanical garden – Fort Worth is not on the tourist circuit but not for lack of places to see and things to do. It is also home to so many fantastic restaurants that if you went there just to eat – you wouldn’t be disappointed!
As I mentioned above, I have been travelling to Forth Worth for the last 8 years. My son spent 5 years at TCU and then moved back to Fort Worth to live. My most recent trip, the occasion for which was his wedding) I had a little free time to go back to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and take in a couple of special exhibitions.
The exhibition that drew me was called “Like Father, Like Son” and featured the photography of Edward Weston and his son, Brett Weston.
Edward Weston lived from 1886 to 1958 and most of the photos on display date from the 1930s. His artistic philosophy was to capture “…the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself.”
Son Brett (one of four sons who all became photographers) “…records the world and, at the same time, transforms it into a symphony of light, form and texture.” Brett (1911-1993) is represented by images mostly from the 1960s.
The exhibition was not curated in the way I thought the title suggested. All of the father’s images were presented first and then all of the son’s. From the “Like Father, Like Son” title I thought we would be looking at father and son side by side, comparing similar themes and similar artistic treatments. That was not the case. It looked more like two separate exhibitions.
Which is not to say that I found it uninteresting!
I was drawn more to Brett Weston’s work. Especially looking at his images, I had to read the captions to discover whether what I saw was what the artist intended. Often I had to study the photo to understand what it was, marveling at the fact that the photo demanded that it be studied. Both father and son raise important questions about scale. What is detail? What does the detail look like seen in macro? If I could say anything significant about this exhibition it would be to list the questions about art, artists and perception that overwhelmed me all out of proportion to the limited number of images displayed. Edward’s work had similarities for me to the work of Jack Delano that I saw recently at the Ponce Museum of Art in Puerto Rico. Similarities include depression era, gritty, contrast, sense of things not beautiful, but interesting. All of which makes me wonder about the concept of “taste” and “what’s in” in photography at their time? What do we regard as art in our time?
My favorites by Brett Weston were “Broken Glass” and “Dunes, Baja, California.” From Edward Weston’s work I especially liked “Clouds at Oceano” and “Juniper, Lake Tenata.”
jetsytravels 