At the same time as seeking out images by Andrew Moore I came across an interesting interview with him on Conscientious (http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/a_conversation_with_andrew_moore/). Toward the end Moore and Colberg start talking about Contemporary photography and some of the areas I've been reading about in "The photograph as contemporary art". In particular they discuss the potential "coldness", or lack of emotion on current photography.
A lot of what Moore says really helped tie things together for me. I'm just going to replay what he said here:
There is a current belief that objective photography (ala the Dusseldorf or German school), is the best way to deal with our complex and contradictory world and intuitive and lyrical approach is more nostalgic, romantic (?) and out of step with contemporary life and challenges.
The German school look outwardly, in a distilled manner, through category and types. As opposed to inward looking, constructed setups of recent American photography - tableaux. However, even though tableau (re)uses romantic themes, it often plays with them in an ironic sense so actually becomes quite cold itself.
Moore trys to combine these in a "conceptual realism".
"I believe that if contemporary photographers are to cast off the “coldness” of both conceptualism and the typological, they have to keep their eyes on the physical world about them, and at the same time see it as a manifestation of something much larger and mythological." Andrew Moore
I think this really comes across in his work. Which isn't staged, or distant, but neither is it playfully romantic or journalistic.
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