Form was deified as an agent of abstraction or condemned through its excess and the word formalism became an expletive. The content was praised as an expression of sensibility or blamed as an extraartistic charge and an emotional undoing of the abstract element of the form. From the s on the attempt to popularize the artistic favored and exacerbated these distortions. Let this observation not be characterized as artistic snobbery. Better to see it as a minor rebuke to the general tendency to create a broad and uniform market through the a neologism that by ironic coincidence refers through its Latin root to both Media and mediocrity.
The approach to art however beyond the e-commerce photo editing knowledge it presupposes requires on the part of the receiver a strong desire to communicate and at the same time an acceptance of its mysteries and the difficult albeit charming paths to enjoy them without exposing them. However widespread popularization combined with the illusory content democratization of the time measures success by reaching the largest possible audience. The codes of reading art therefore in order to reach this public had to be transformed from abstract or technical requiring education intuition and above all acceptance of doubt to concrete measurable and articulate which simply exploit the diffuse common places.
Photography which also marked the last decades with its presence crossed the official threshold of art despite the obvious hesitation expressed by all the actors of the artistic world a hesitation which easily gave way to an excessive enthusiasm as soon as some realized that this medium had the best conditions to serve populism. This game involved not only those who with full awareness selfishly shape the opinions of others but also those who with sincere naivety discovered easy answers to so many questions which they did not want to accept as unanswered. And among the theoreticians and teachers gallerists and critics but unfortunately also creators.