Attractions…Addictions…and other Kodak Moments
After having spent many years creating series of work, I decided that I wanted to do something different, hence this grouping of images which have in common a certain quirkiness that reflects my personal view of the world.
Donald Woodman
How the westerner returns to the east and brings his western aesthetic with him
Donald Woodman hopes to tweak his audiences and have them believe that the works in Attractions…Addictions…and other Kodak Moments are just light, humorous images. But ultimately this assertion is difficult to believe. For nearly 40 years, he has been photographing in New Mexico and became known for working with serial images: of therapy, rodeo scenes, the Holocaust, and western landscapes that contrast the natural beauty of the region with signs of development and exploitation. As he says, “I hate to be pigeon-holed and confined to earlier series of images.”
Woodman’s photographs are open to multiple interpretations, and their meanings depend in part on attitudes that viewers bring to the imagery. Woodman offers an entree into aspects of this socially complex—and visually alluring— non-eastern world. These are still political works, but their content reflects the rich contradictions of modern life.
Joseph Traugott
Curator of Twentieth Century Art
New Mexico Museum of Art
