What to Do with the Artist’s Class Guilt?

Navarroza's art as a response to injustice: Photographer Wig Tysmans (right) as the condemned figure (left) in Goya's famous painting.

Not Today
Wawi Navarroza
Billboard / C-print, 61 x 76 cm, editions of 5
2010

Wawi Navarroza reminds me of Duane Michals. Well, not exactly, because that would be an insult to Michals. Navarroza just reminds me of something Michals said in an interview while discussing political art. “The bar keeps getting lower and lower and lower,” he said. “All these kids are spewing out of art school photographing their dinner and then making it a 20-foot photograph.”

Michals then shared an anecdote about an exhibit by a female photographer who “wasn’t even looking through the lens.” (This reminds me of the current craze for trendy/cutesy Holgas and everything lomography.) In short, Michals found this woman and her art appalling: