Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1914 (Heft 47))

WHAT 291 MEANS TO ME

It is often most difficult to write about the very things which mean
most to us and I have long deferred writing what “291” means to me
because of my consciousness of the inadequacy of anything I might say to
express why or how I have benefited from my association of seven years
with “291.”
“291,” in spite of its reputation to the contrary, makes no propaganda.
It teaches nothing, for the professorial attitude is contrary to its spirit. It
is made up of heterogeneous elements, representing conflicting and irrecon-
cilable points of view with all of which no one man could ever agree. It
holds exhibitions but it is not an art gallery. Exhibitions are to “291” what
illustrations are to a book, and who could claim knowledge of the contents of
a book from a glance at or even a study of its illustrations? As I recall the
heated discussions around the lunch table, which is as much a part of “291 ”
as the little exhibition room; my sometimes passive listening, and often
violent opposition; the exhibitions which irritated as often as they satisfied
me; the articles in Camera Work which I often delighted in picking to pieces;
I stop and ask myself “What did I receive from ‘291’ that is of value to me?”
Why do I return day after day to discussions when I know I will never bring
my opponent to my point of view nor will he convert me to his ? Why do I
study and analyze works which I would not care to own? Why do I approve
of the exhibition of works which irritate me beyond measure? What has
“291” given me? I can find but one thing which it has given me: “Op-
portunity/’ The priceless treasures which I got from “291” I went and
took, for there is no policeman at the door of “291,” there are no patents, no
copyrights. Any passerby may enter and dump his intellectual baggage,
good, bad or indifferent in the common heap; and anybody may take what
he pleases from the common stock and make it his own. Nothing is labeled,
nothing is classified. You must rely on your own judgment to discern what
is of value to you, and whether you receive much or little or nothing depends
not on what is offered to you but on what you appropriate. Nobody will
raise a cry of “stop thief” because each one knows that whatever anyone
takes he takes because he really wants it and will endeavor to make it bear
interest and all will participate in the return. For, strange to say, no miser
has ever been attracted to “291” and, without anything being said or done
to discountenance any individual’s presence, those who aim at “cornering”
an intellectual commodity do not seem to feel at home at “291.” What we
can take at “291” will enrich us without making anybody the poorer for it.
What we give will take nothing from our stores.

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