"Everybody who does anything for the public can be criticized. There's always someone who doesn't like it"
About this Quote
Cunningham’s line lands like a calm shutter click: crisp, unsentimental, and completely uninterested in your approval. It’s a photographer’s realism applied to reputation. Put work into the world, and you don’t just invite attention; you invite friction. Criticism isn’t proof you failed. It’s proof you showed up where other people can see you.
The subtext is a refusal of the fantasy that public-facing art can be universally “liked” if you just get it right. Cunningham worked through eras when a woman with a camera wasn’t just making images; she was claiming authority. Her portraits and botanicals weren’t soft ornaments, and her modernist eye didn’t bend to polite taste. In that context, “There’s always someone who doesn’t like it” reads less like reassurance and more like armor: a way to keep making work without letting the hecklers rewrite your aesthetic.
The intent isn’t to dismiss critique as meaningless; it’s to demote it from judge to weather. Some criticism is useful, some is noise, and the mere existence of disapproval doesn’t automatically confer insight. Cunningham’s point is that public response is a scatterplot, not a verdict.
What makes the quote work is its blunt egalitarianism. “Everybody who does anything” collapses fame, craft, activism, and art into the same condition: visibility. If you want the public, you take the public - including the part that balks, nitpicks, or resents you for daring to be seen.
The subtext is a refusal of the fantasy that public-facing art can be universally “liked” if you just get it right. Cunningham worked through eras when a woman with a camera wasn’t just making images; she was claiming authority. Her portraits and botanicals weren’t soft ornaments, and her modernist eye didn’t bend to polite taste. In that context, “There’s always someone who doesn’t like it” reads less like reassurance and more like armor: a way to keep making work without letting the hecklers rewrite your aesthetic.
The intent isn’t to dismiss critique as meaningless; it’s to demote it from judge to weather. Some criticism is useful, some is noise, and the mere existence of disapproval doesn’t automatically confer insight. Cunningham’s point is that public response is a scatterplot, not a verdict.
What makes the quote work is its blunt egalitarianism. “Everybody who does anything” collapses fame, craft, activism, and art into the same condition: visibility. If you want the public, you take the public - including the part that balks, nitpicks, or resents you for daring to be seen.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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