Is Thomas Hawk a First-Rate Jerk?
Written by Edward ChampionPosted on August 12, 2008
Filed Under Blogging, Free Speech, Photography, hawk-thomas
Thomas Hawk is at it again. But this time, he’s determined to smear a man’s reputation based on his own decidedly subjective account.
For those who haven’t followed Hawk’s blog, Hawk is a San Francisco photographer who campaigns against institutions wishing to ban photography. If a building or a museum won’t let him shoot a photo, he blogs about it. He uploads photos of those who wouldn’t let him snap shots, and fires back shots with impunity.
He’s been doing this for some time. Sifting through Hawk’s blog, Hawk’s unalienable right to take photos are often more frequent than the photos.
Now Hawk’s target is the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Or rather a man named Blint. Hawk was taking photos under an open photographic policy. There was an altercation. He was kicked out. It’s clobbering time. Hawk initially called Simon Blint, its Director of Visual Relations, “a first rate asshole” and published a photo of Blint. He later replaced “asshole” with “jerk.”
As someone who has had to persuade a few folks with chips on their shoulders that my podcasting equipment isn’t intended for terrorist purposes, I can sympathize with Hawk to some extent. While most proprietors I’ve encountered in my podcasting adventures have been friendly and permitted me to conduct an interview (some of them becoming so fascinated with the conversation that they’ve asked for the URL), there have been a few petulant managers who have remained hostile to the idea of a room or a table being used for unanticipated purposes. They have made unreasonable efforts to eject me. But I have not named these names. After all, maybe the manager was having a bad day. Maybe the manager has been screamed at by somebody else and the manager is taking this out on me. At the end of the day, I figure that the podcasts will trump these inconveniences. But in a few cases, reason (and bountiful tips) has won out, and I’ve returned to the establishment for another interview.
What troubles me about the Hawk contretemps is how Hawk and his acolytes are so willing to crucify Blint when Hawk hasn’t once suggested that his own conduct may have been one of the reasons that things escalated this far. Unlike monologuist Mike Daisey, who showed real class in trying to contact the individuals who walked out of his show and poured water on his notes, Hawk hasn’t even tried to open up a broader debate by directly contacting SFMOMA. To give you some sense of the outcry, a commenter at the SFist writes, “If Blint read this SFist article, he just soiled his pants and will be out of a job by Monday,” taking apparent glee in this shitstorm.
This is not a case where the offense comes from a third party. This is a situation in which we have only Hawk’s word to go by. But what of Blint himself? It’s not as if Blint has a high-traffic Web page or runs a major newspaper outlet in which he can respond to Hawk’s charges. Does he even have an online presence? Is this really a fair battle? Many have remarked upon this incident, but nobody has thought to contact Blint to get his side of the story.
If Blint had a history of banning photographers from SFMOMA when the museum keeps an open policy towards photography, then I might be one of the first people in line to criticize his actions. If there was video of the exchange presenting unimpeachable evidence that Blint was out of line, then I’d be more inclined to cite this as another example of free speech being muzzled in a post-9/11 age. But this is only one incident, perhaps poorly handled by both men. And the broader debate about artistic expression has been lost in the skirmish.
Hawk’s blunt words about Blint seem unreasonable to me. It makes the blog medium look bad. Hawk is unwilling to suggest that he may have been wrong, and his undiplomatic efforts here suggest that he is more interested in being a half-baked martyr than an activist. Hawk was just as autocratic in his grievances as Blint was in kicking Hawk out of the museum. And it makes bloggers look like the first-rate assholes that the mainstream media continues to portray them as. In an age when Jason Fortuny humiliates people by invading their privacy, there are vital questions that must be asked.
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
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Actually, Mr. Hawks’ account of this incident has the ring of truth. I’ve had one interaction with Mr. Blint (not as a photographer) and it was not pleasant. It was a small thing: I had a complaint about a guard, who had treated me rudely in one of the galleries above, and Mr. Blint just blew me off in the most blatant and condescending way. It actually made me feel worse than the interaction I was complaining about. He was just arrogant. It was plain he didn’t take me seriously and wanted me to leave, which to me seems like pretty lame manners, not to mention poor customer service. The net effect was to make me avoid him on subsequent visits. My experience was small, and consists of one brief incident, but for me it’s perfectly believable that Mr. Blint might lose it in spectacular fashion were his authority challenged.
Just to clarify: I think you’re right about the implications here. Hawks’ response to his perceived mistreatment — to blog about it and cause a huge public stink without first approaching museum management with a regular complaint — is clearly immature and attention-seeking, and it does give bloggers a bad name. These are not the standards to which we aspire.
Big Cry BABY!
I think this kind of thing he does (posting pictures of people who ask him to stop taking pictures) will do absolutely nothing to further his cause, and may in fact lead to the opposite. Inviting the wrath of the internet down on someone’s head is a really immature and obnoxious thing to do. Especially because you have no idea who is going to go out and do really awful annoying things in the name of “justice”.
Thank you for posting on this, Ed. Since you are a guy who doesn’t mince words and sometimes pisses people off, I was curious to see where you would come down on this.
[...] Thomas Hawk for taking pix, even though the museum has an open photo policy. It’s a story of he said, he said, so it’s difficult to know what, exactly, went down. (See Hawk’s follow-up here.) For the [...]
I’m a photographer and don’t like the sensationalist way thay thos incident has been reported on Toms blog.
I think the biggest issue is that “Thomas” (ironically not his real name) chooses to name people that he feels are in the wrong. Trial without jury.
If he really wanted to further the cause of photographers the article would have been about the Museum’s policy being unclear or something along those lines… and may have resulted in a less guarded response from the SFMOMA.
I hope the SFMOMA continue to allow photography – but wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t… people like Tom don’t know where to draw the line.
“Hawk hasn’t even tried to open up a broader debate by directly contacting SFMOMA.”
Well from the attitude he allegedly received from Blint, who didn’t want to discuss or see the photo’s why would Tom think he would receive any different attitude from the other management.
It’s like the police investigating the police, it simply doesn’t work. And from the official MOMA response it’s quite clear they simply have closed ranks and espoused that Blint was right because they say so. I doubt they reven reviewed the situation.
How about some CCTV footage from MOMA to clear it up.. probably wouldn’t be favorable for them so they wont release that.
[...] children candy and snatched it away while snapping an image. Thomas Hawk, who is better known for blogging about museums that forbid indoor photography, wrote she is a “Sick Woman Who Should Be [...]
Thomas Hawk is a talentless douchebag. He could use a good ass-kicking.