"Marks of Indifference"

I found Jeff Wall's essay particularly intriguing primarily because I invested so much time rereading it in order to understood his argument.  His writing is convoluted to the point that it makes reading his essay frustrating and his style is overly verbose, obscuring his message.  I am still unsure of what he was arguing  in his essay despite repeated efforts at clarification.  And yet, his writing presents such a comprehensive look at relations among art, photography, aesthetics and different movements that I could not completely disregard this essay.

Wall writes so compellingly that it seems impossible to argue with his assertions.  I find it particularly difficult to analyze because he makes me, as a reader, feel uninformed about photography therefore lacking the knowledge to critique his writing.   

Despite being a difficult a reading, it was full of interesting information about photography and how it has transformed over the years.  I was particularly interested in his discussion of abstract art photography as a rejection of depiction.  While it makes sense that abstract art does not strive to depict anything, it seems counter-intuitive to have abstract art photography because the essence of photography is to capture something real.  I thought this was especially interesting in light of our discussions about straight photography and documentary photography as depictions of "real life."  The rejection of this type of photography seemed to convince Wall that photography was finally an art form.