Two Interpretations of Thomas Struth's "Crosby Street, New York, Soho"

Thomas Struth, Crosby Street, New York, Soho (1978)

Robert B. Pippin, in his Philosophy by Other Means (2021), approaches art as a form of thought. He calls his approach “philosophical criticism.” He says the task of philosophical criticism is to illuminate the “philosophical issue” at the heart of the artwork. In theory, this is an interesting approach. Surely, there’s a thinking process involved in the creation of art. One of criticism’s tasks is to track it. But in Pippin’s hands, the approach doesn’t clarify; it occludes. 

The problem is that his own thinking is blinkered by an odd notion. He thinks that the “defeat of theatricality” is “central to establishing the work, any pictorial work in modernity, as an artwork.” I say “odd” because the question of whether a work is theatrical or anti-theatrical seems such a minor consideration. Much more important, in my view, is the work’s style – the way it makes thought visible. 

Take Thomas Struth’s brilliant “Crosby Street, New York, Soho” (1978), for example. Pippin uses it to illustrate his point about how a sense of meaningfulness in art is “opened by the still, mute, eerie absences in the objects depicted.” Fair enough. But bear in mind that “absences in the objects” (italicized by Pippin for emphasis) is, in Pippin’s view, a loaded phrase. It’s one of the indices of anti-theatricality.  

I like Struth’s photo. Why? It has nothing to do with anti-theatricality – at least I don’t think it does. It has to do with pattern, texture, all those subtle shades of grimy gray, and the white light of early morning glinting in the chrome and glass of that parked car. It’s a beautiful picture! But for Struth’s inspiration, it would’ve passed unnoticed. 

In his book, Pippin says that value resides in whether an artwork can be said to reveal “a kind of truth.” Okay. But, for me, value also resides in enjoying the aesthetic aspects of the work.