There's little of what Susan Sontag, referring to photojournalism's relationship to war, called "the photography of conscience." There's no Goya, nothing wrenching or ravishing. Mumford obviously cares about the troops, but his drawings have an academic, bleached-out detachment. The work is attentive but not insightful, detailed but not affecting. You never get the feeling he's examined the moral ambiguity of war, the guilt, adrenaline rush, deprivation, or self-gratification of it. The pictures are proficient but impersonal.

Saltz said what I said 2 years ago about Mumf's bland style and being on the wrong side of the war. So, why did Jerry wait till Mumford was an institutional inevitability?
- tom moody 9-27-2005 3:11 am [add a comment]