“The Poetry of Protest” our show in the Gallery of Art and Design at the University of Central Missouri of large prints of photographs from rallies, protests, marches, and demonstrations opened on September 26th. We left an open notebook with blank pages and pencils on a podium next to the exhibit title wall. We get comments.

The photos are absolutely amazing but I don’t believe they show all sides of American protests. They may be a little biased. Great shots though!

Well, okay. We appreciate the praise. This is an exhibit in an art gallery. As we’ve said before: “A gallery exhibit is not a vehicle for the ‘all opposing views are equal’ mantra in some circles of old media.”

How did we get to the point as a culture that the arguably false premise in old media that all opposing views are equal and must be aired equally is the expected norm for everything? Well, of course, question everything. But sometimes a stupid idea is just a stupid idea and it’s not worth equal consideration or weight in anyone’s book.

We covered what we covered, photographed what we photographed. We selected images based on a number of criteria (and so did the gallery director) – relevance, quality, aesthetics. A massive number of images were considered, but weren’t printed. Some images made it to print, but weren’t brought to the gallery. Some of the prints brought to the gallery were not displayed. In one case we forgot to pack one of the very large prints with the others (that’s easier than you think when you’re delivering close to seventy prints) – it never made it to the gallery.

It would be impossible to cover and “show all sides of American protest”. Again, some protests were so minimal or obscure and there was no public notice. We’re not omniscient, nor do we claim to be. Sometimes we covered other protests but we failed to get any “good” images. That could mean something as mundane as poor focus or unredeemable composition in the images. Like people who fish we sometimes talk about the ones that got away.

There is the matter of saturation. In case anyone hasn’t noticed there are a lot people protesting a lot of things. Again, as we said before: “Right wingnuts in America now have everything they’ve ever wanted – they control the Presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court. For the most part they’re not in the streets protesting in any significant numbers…”

All art is biased.

Previously:

The Poetry of Protest (September 9, 2017)

In the gallery (September 21, 2017)

In the gallery – part 2 (September 23, 2017)

In the gallery – part 3 (September 26, 2017)

In the gallery – comments (September 30, 2017)

In the gallery – comments – part 2 (October 3, 2017)

In the gallery – comments – part 3 (October 4, 2017)