It's not that Pete's landscape work isn't good enough -- it's that his **category** isn't good enough. His individual ability and talent, I think, are irrelevant to museums as they are now run. I would be interested to know when the last time that somebody saw, in a major art museum (as opposed to a dedicated photography venue) a one-man/one woman show of contemporary straight landscape work that isn't skeptical, sarcastic, political, sneering or deliberately ugly...in other words, a show of really gorgeous landscape images, that are simply presented as that.
I don't even argue that this should be routinely shown everywhere -- but it should routinely be shown *somewhere,* and it isn't.
I'll add a personal story, and I swear to God, it's true. I've collected photographs for years. When I started, I didn't know exactly what direction I wanted to go in, and so I came up with a bunch of different stuff. One that I bought, just because I liked it at the time, was a well-known 1942 photograph by Arnold Newman of Piet Modrian in his studio. This was "printed later," which cuts the value, but not the quality of the image, is a beautifully printed silver print, signed by Newman. Over the years, though,it came to not fit in the collection I was developing. A year or so ago, I was at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, looking at a photo show from the mid-20th century, including a Newman print of a different subject. I'm a member of the museum's patron circle, and I was thinking, maybe they could use the Newman print. So I went to the information desk and had them call up the photo department (which is hidden some place in the back) and I was switched to a secretary, and I asked her if the museum would like the print. She went off some place and came back a minute or so later and said, "No...not really."
All right. When it comes to museums, things are tough for everybody.
JC