December 21

3401-Blakesley-Hall-CT--photo-wall-for-carter

Land of Excess is very interested in this online real estate listing photo because it presents, in deadpan fashion, wittingly or not, an almost unprecedented accumulation of conventions in home decor, and a whole lot more, in just one photo. Our founder is experiencing a little bit of difficulty, separating this “take” on a room from other sorts of photographs of this kind of room which she might have seen in other contexts –this seems right up there on the edge to her, almost Arbus-like. The striving represented by the deliberations that went into this room seem so sweet and understandable that we feel kind of yucky even noticing. Switching gears here, we think that somehow this picture might not have such pathos TO US if the whole tableaux were, say, from and situated in the 18th century–would this same sort of… decor-nirvana [?] [or whatever it is we are seeing here-- would you like to help us define it?] be recognizable to us now if it were from centuries before???? If enlightened curators in centuries hence present reproductions of the interiors of middle-class houses (as opposed to those of the upper class as seems the custom now) in museums such as the Metropolitan, will those centuries-hence viewers be able to parse this type of…decor-nirvana[?]? We feel we have much more to say about this photo but we realize that we have been going on a bit.