I've just scanned/reread this whole thread, and must say that I'm impressed with the breadth of the conversation. It has stimulated me to revisit the question of the function of criticism.
I don't read Lenswork much. Friends have published in it, and another friend/neighbor is a frequent contributor. Occasionally I encounter Brooks Jensen at art openings, etc. and have participated to a limited extent in conversations, which I have enjoyed. He may not remember these incidents, because mostly I just listened, asking an occasional question to see where he'd take it, and they haven't been frequent. I do value him and Maureen as great members of the community, and really appreciate the work they do.
I do have some difficulty with ideologies, whether they be "traditional", "conceptual", or whatever. I think this comes from my active participation in a very broad range of photographic activities to the point where it has sometimes seemed that nobody can figure out who or what I am. For example, I've always been passed over for teaching gigs. Commercial programs think I'm "fine art" and in fact I was terminated from one such program because my senior colleague believed that I was leading the students astray. "Our job" he said "is to indoctrinate these young people into becoming crass commercialists like us". Fine art programs have often suspected me of being commercial. In my first stint in grad school, back in 1970, they wouldn't let me teach photography because since I had worked with Minor White, I was suspected of being "straight", where the head of the program was committed to "New Photographics"? Anyone remember that annual show? In other situations, I was blackballed because I was known to cross media boundaries away from the "traditional" medium. Once, a well known curator stayed at my house in Seattle. Looking through my portfolios, he proclaimed that I'd never get anywhere because I worked in so many different genres that - as I mentioned - nobody would be able to figure out who I am or have the ability to identify particular work as being mine. Of course he was right.
As hard as this has been for me, it is who I am, and the good side of it (for me) is that it has given me an unusual breadth in the way I see these things. I have an enormous capacity to appreciate work in many dimensions and I see no need whatever to stake a claim on one or another as the promised land. I think it is wonderful that we get to see such a variety of work. It is great that we get to see work that we may see as really stupid. Without this spectrum, what do we have, really? How can we define ourselves without having a spectrum of reference?
We are encouraged to have opinions about everything. Does this have some sort of function for us - as if without opinions, we don't exist? "I am my convictions"? I think that the critic is so often considered to be one who expresses opinions; is something good or bad? In the broader sense, such judgments are far less important than the other functions of a critic. I love to read reviews in the New Yorker, whether I'm going to read the book(s), see the art, or not, because I learn so much about what the work is, does, means, and about the context in which it lives.
One of my teachers (I've had a lot of stellar ones) admonished us to approach artwork with an essentially empty mind, in a state of "Serene, open awareness". Granted, if we look back at some of the icons of conceptual art, such as Chris Burden's installation where he was shot with a real gun in front of a gallery, it is hard to imagine much serenity, but I think the greater issue is the importance of seeing with the mind unfettered, understanding the work, and judging later. It seems to me that the rush to judgment wears us out and keeps us enslaved.
Where I personally have difficulty is in the tendency to approach complex issues with a simple, dualistic mind.
Brooks' agenda, as I understand it, is that he wants photography (defined narrowly to be what we have been calling "traditional" here) to be accepted as an art form that is just as important - and as expensive - as any other. In the context where one of these conversations took place, a barn show which a local artist used to put on as her birthday party, he pointed out that the paintings cost many times more than the photographs. The observation was correct. However, I think the issue contains a lot of dimensions that don't lend themselves to easy answers, no matter how much we may believe in one thing or another.
Thanks, jovo, good thread.