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Phillip Maisel
Aug 30, 2010
The multiple exposures in Phillip Maisel’s A More Open Place were produced by flipping through Facebook photo albums, with a camera pointed at the computer screen.
Donna J. Wan
Aug 26, 2010
Donna J. Wan’s recent photography is centered on landscapes, with Promised Lands being my favourite.
Estan Cabigas
Aug 23, 2010
It’s quite surprising that you don’t see church services held in actual malls more often - like those shown by Estan Cabigas in The New Cathedrals.
Aaron Vincent Elkaim
Aug 17, 2010
Aaron Vincent Elkaim’s Jewish Morocco looks at remnants of the formerly large Jewish community in Morocco.
Contemporary European Photography
Alessandro Imbriaco
Aug 5, 2010
I’ve been to Italy three times, but I’ve never seen the parts that look like those portrayed by Alessandro Imbriaco.
Articles
Contemporary German Photography
Jörn Vanhöfen
Sep 2, 2010 – Jörn Vanhöfen’s Detroit (pdf) is still work in progress, and I’m looking forward to seeing the final result. I do like the presentation in the pdf quite a bit.
Kristen Sykes
Sep 1, 2010 – “Last year I began a series of paint-by-numbers entitled Southern Sensations. Each of the images began as a photograph, from which I removed all color, shading, and most of the intricate detail in favor of black lines, negative space and numbers which correspond to the colors that were present. It was a long and drawn out process that basically reduced my original photographs into line drawings on watercolor paper, which would have taken me years to make otherwise.” - Kristen Sykes
MAS Context - Issue 7
Sep 1, 2010 – Earlier this year, MAS Studio’s Iker Gil emailed me to ask whether I would be willing to write an essay about photography and information for an issue of MAS Context. You’d imagine that’s straightforward, but the more I thought about it the fuzzier it got. In the end, I decided to try to throw a curveball, writing mostly about photography and meaning - meaning, of course, being directly related to the information in a photograph (or so we think). The issue of MAS Context is now online, beautifully designed, and you can download a pdf copy here.
A few thoughts on Kikuji Kawada’s The Map
Aug 31, 2010 – I decided to compile my thoughts about Kikuji Kawada’s The Map into a post and share them. You can find the piece here.
Invisible Borders
Aug 31, 2010 – “Invisible borders is a photographic project that is organised and executed annually by as many as 10 Nigerian photographers. The project is trans African in its orientation, and sees participating artists collectively taking road trips across Africa to explore and participate in various photographic events , festivals and exhibitions. The emphasis is primarily on the individual and collective journey of the participating artists who during, the momentary stops in capital cities; create photographic works that often reflect their individual approach to engaging with the populace as well as local artists and art practioners.”
Jonathan Levitt
Aug 31, 2010 – There are quite a few images in Jonathan Levitt’s wake to songbirds wake to crows, which might make things a bit overwhelming. Regardless, the project is well worth the visit.
Review: Es hat sich alles einfach so ergeben by Saskia Schüler
Aug 27, 2010 – First things first: That’s not the cover of Saskia Schüler’s Es hat sich alles einfach so ergeben [Things just happened that way]. Turns out finding the actual cover larger than postage-stamp size online is… errrr… impossible - as is finding a website for the artist other than this one, which in terms of making the work look terrible is a resounding success. Oh, and this isn’t even photography. Given I got that out of the way, I might as well talk about the book. (more)
Review: Destroy This Memory by Richard Misrach
Aug 27, 2010 – Five years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Almost 2,000 people lost their lives, with an estimated property damage of the order of 90 billion US$ (this is where I found these numbers - just so you have an idea how much money that is, it ‘s about ten billion US$ less than what is currently being spent every year in Afghanistan to prop up that country’s corrupt regime, see this news report). While most Americans were lucky enough to be outside of the hurricane’s zone of impact, it still managed to send powerful shock waves across the country. During the first days people watched in horror - on live TV - as New Orleans was flooded, people were fighting for their lives, and no help was in sight. Later, scores of books with images from the immediate aftermath were published, to try to reveal the extent of what had happened. (more)
Contemporary German Photography
Nico Baumgarten
Aug 25, 2010 – The story of Detroit is well known, the story of East German cities hemorrhaging people less so. Nico Baumgarten’s the time has come, get me out of here portrays Dessau, in the 1920s the city of the Bauhaus.
Entering the world of photobook publishing
Aug 24, 2010 – Last December, I talked a bit about photobooks. As much as I love photobooks, what bothers me is that they’re all so similar: “You have an intro […] plus a bunch of images, usually one per page, so as you flip the pages you get one photo after the other […]. That’s it!” Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, especially if you look at how sequencing the images is used to create a narrative. But does it really have to be that way? (more)
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Conscientious Extended
Longer articles and interviews about fine-art photography and extended interviews with its leading practitioners.
A few thoughts on Kikuji Kawada’s The Map
Earlier this Summer, I was teaching two classes on the history of the photobook. The second week, class was moved outside a couple of times for a more informal gathering. On one such occasion, I noticed that my mouth opened, and I heard myself state that Kikuji Kawada’s The Map (Chizu) surely was the best photobook ever made. That made no sense to me! It is not that I don’t like The Map (Chizu). But the claim that one thing - whatever it might be - is the best such thing ever made truly doesn’t make much sense, at last for me (if you don’t belive me, try one of those “world’s best coffee” places in New York City - that’ll teach you!). Not surprisingly, the part of my brain that was not involved in the talking felt a bit as if my utterance had in fact come out of the part of my body I was sitting on. Needless to say, in a class that covered 150 years of photobook history you can’t easily get away with claims about “the best photobook ever made”. So when pressed, I elaborated on why The Map truly is a stellar book. Just as before, I was surprised about the stuff I heard myself say, and pleasantly so, if I may add. Son of a gun, I thought, that’s actually kind of interesting. (more)
By Joerg Colberg | Aug 31, 2010