Do!

Snap out of this funk I have been in for the past two months. I’ve been pondering Jörg Colberg’s Article “Now What?” for 2 months now. In the meantime, these discussions on what went wrong in Photoland and what we should do to communicate better, vanished rapidly in the rear-view mirror while America is galloping into fascism. All these discussions now feel pretty vain. Communicating is not the point.  We are all shell-shocked. Watching the News is like watching a car-crash. You know it is awful to watch and yet you cannot take your eyes off of it. We lust for blood and downfall.

There is not much you can do. If you’re into social awareness, then please, for heaven’s sake, go on. If not, then please don’t start now. There is no time to waste with educational approaches to photography. There is no way you can make a photo to change the world. If anything, the past weeks have shown that there is suddenly a “Us” and a “Them”, although we cannot really be sure that the demarcation lines of these wars have been drawn correctly and the fights we’re suddenly pushed into leads to anything else but tears and destruction. There is a sense of impending doom. And everything you say can be twisted, the ground beneath our feet is shifting and the heavens are toppling.

And Now What? Just go on. Nothing has changed.

 

I have much confidence in you and even though you are tormenting yourself, the work you do is very good. Try to do some BAD work — the worst you can think of and see what happens but mainly relax and let everything go to hell — you are not responsible for the world — you are only responsible for your work — so DO IT. And don’t think that your work has to conform to any preconceived form, idea or flavor. It can be anything you want it to be. But if life would be easier for you if you stopped working — then stop. Don’t punish yourself. However, I think that it is so deeply engrained in you that it would be easier to

DO

— Sol LeWitt to Eva Hesse

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