More books for your Xmas list

Okay, I promise not to do too many of these "Best Books/Movies/Photographers of 2007" etc. But that said, 5B4 - which has shown itself to be one of the most interesting photo book review sources - has his fairly extensive list of the books of 2007.

He has a "Best Of" and an "Also Ran" category as well as "Favourites" and "Best Historical Books". There are also a number of what I would describe as sleepers in there as well.

And because it's late and I'm nursing two sick wee ones I'm going to be cheeky and borrow a couple of the marvelous page spread images he does for each book he looks at.

He includes John Gossage's Putting Back the Wall which he hasn't actually reviewed yet and which is in the mail to me as I write and which I am awaiting with some anticipation (I have a feeling it may be my pick of the year)

Another is Taryn Simon's An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar as well as On Duty by Arnold Odermatt and I Am A Real Photographer by Keith Arnatt

All in all plenty to put on your last minute Xmas list

Purpose

(Brigitte Lustenberger)

Mrs. Deane linked to this online French magazine Purpose. I hadn't seen it before, but after having a good look through, I can pretty much say that if there was a paper version I'd be getting my subscription in pronto.

(Isabelle Hayeur)

I'm not that keen on a lot of online "mags" (does anyone still call them ezines?) - they either aren't done very well, they don't last very long, or the poor design and editing is the reason they are on the internet and not on paper. But this one does it pretty well - there's quite a lot of Flash stuff - but it's not too obtrusive - though pages were a little slow to load for me. But I also like the idea of the custom soundtrack for each issue (at least you have something to listen too while it loads - and it's not the ubiquitous euro-techno that so many photogs seem to favour on their websites - thank god).

(Francoise Huguier)

Anyway, I went back through a few of the past editions as well as the current one, and there's some pretty good stuff - a lot of it European and which isn't seen so much on this side of the Pond. Lots to mine.

(Laurent Gueneau)

(Yves Arcand)

DIY Panoramic Camera

Now, I've always fancied trying out a "real' panoramic camera (i.e. a swing lens design, not one of those 6cmx17cm or 4"x10" etc slices of larger format - which seems a bit pointless to me).

I've often been tempted by the idea of a fully functioning Cirkut camera and the little Kodak "shoebox" Panoramic cameras with their velvet bellows look fun - though more realistically a Noblex would be the better route to take - if cost wasn't an issue...

So, when I saw a recent post on the Streetphoto list about a DIY Panoramic Camera I had to take a look - but boy oh boy, I'm not sure I'm up to taking this on in my garage. Sure, i go an A in Metalwork at school, but this beastie looks like it would be great on your shelf along with one of those big old bronze diving helmets.


Sure, it looks cool, but in the end I think I'd rather save up for the Noblex. Mind you, if you could upscale it to take 10" aero roll film that might be another matter... But if anyone decides to tackle the project, let me know how it goes!

Fulvio Bortolozzo revisited

Earlier in the year I posted about Fulvio Bortolozzo. Today, Mrs. Deane linked to an interview with him on a new blog called Hippolyte Bayard (though I'm assuming the early inventor/practitioner of the medium and person who first invented and used the term "photography" isn't actually still around writing a blog...).





It's an interesting interview, and I also saw Bortolozzo has revamped his site with some new and interesting work.

Scene di passaggio (Soap Opera) has been greatly expanded since I last looked, but there is other work there as well.

The interview is in Italian, but luckily there is an English translation that follows:

"...Then I discovered in the Agorà Bookshop, in Turin, a book that really overwhelmed me: Kodachrome by Luigi Ghirri. Since then, even if slowly, I grew a need to focus all my energies on a personal research in photography...

...Yes, indeed the first period of Ghirri – Paesaggi di cartone, Topografia Iconografia, Atlante, for example— showed me the path to abandon the seduction for the pure form. He made me realise that form, even if fundamental, must also be ‘necessary’, a mean and not an end. The real end is always the idea becoming a vision, the stream of consciousness ignited by perception. The peculiar power of photography became then to my eyes that of transferring, dislocating perceptions over bi-dimensional surfaces which could become, by that single fact, thoughts over things, over life. A fantastic form of observation and knowledge...

.. (HB)Regarding Basilico, you made an interesting remark on the risks of placing our own grid (or more grids) over every place we intend to photograph, opposed to try to be ‘crossed’ by places, merging our own vision with the diversity of every place. You made Shift:Bari in 2006. Did you have the chance to see Basilico’s work Bari0607?

(FB) I only saw like thirty images on the Internet, not enough to have a clear idea. I’d only say one thing about the differences in our respective approach towards the same places. I was already thinking about this while I was working on Olimpia in areas where he was working himself for the public commission that led to the exhibition Six for Turin.

Given for granted that Basilico is an indispensable reference for anyone who deals with urban landscape in Italy and that I got many useful suggestions by studying his work, I still believe our paths diverge right on the issue of the relationship with the urban space.

I think Basilico sees a town through the filter of a strong architectural knowledge, derived from Enlightenment and from modernism, constantly trying to find a reconciling order, even if only hypothetically.

For what concerns me, space is not only urban, it is first of all something holding potential perceptions: it is a scene. My aim is to personally experience the perceptive possibilities of a place and to try to bring them to space and time through an object, which is photography, which even if it might scatter most part, is able to keep a veritable trace.

My remark on the ‘visual grid’ that you mention is to be read in connection with another aspect of Basilico’s work: the repetition of a series of choices of composition, without substantial variations, applied to different contexts. A sort of universal and independent grid that, I think, holds a real risk of self-referentially." More here

More on re-photographing: Iconic Moments of the Twentieth Century

In a follow up to discussion on the Richard prince post, Struan Gray linked to this body of work: Iconic Moments of the Twentieth Century .

I like the somewhat subversive use of humour. A couple of tatsers (click the little forward > arrow there to view):

"The series of photographs entitled The Iconic Moments of the 20th Century emerged in the processual work with the pensioners in a home for the elderly in Glasgow emanates the same impression. A group of aged volunteers pose in their everyday outfits and in their daily environment (the vicinity of the Home) to re-enact the scenes from well-known newspaper photographs taken from history books and encyclopaedias. The images in question depict ‘historical moments’ that took place in their lifetime: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at the Yalta Conference during the World War II, the Napalm Attack and the killing a Vietcong from the Vietnam War, or the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald, which was depicted live on a TV programme. Each of these images represents an immediately recognisable cultural leitmotif of its époque, the representation that overshadows the event it documents."

(P.S. - on Prince's work - and his comments on thinking the original adverts didn't really have an author - as copy photographs of 2D artwork aren't generally protected by copyright, his photographs could very well be in the Public Domain... something to think about...)

If the Copy Is an Artwork, Then What’s the Original?

(Jim Krantz)

Interesting little piece in the NY Times about Richard Prince's high priced appropriations of Marlboro Man ads etc into his conceptual photography and his show at the Guggenheim.

Mind you, this isn't exactly news, or something new within the photography and art world - think everything from Warhol's soup cans to Sherry Levine's rephotographed Evans' to Misrach's Playboy and painting re-photographs and more. And what tends to happen in discussions following on from this is a number of photographers getting all up in arms about the unethical ( and/or illegal) misappropriation of images - which gets a bit boring after a while (though perhaps the courtesy of a credit??).

(Richard Prince)

I should add that Prince's photography has never really done it for me, though I can see his appeal. And as an afterthought, it would be fun to see him do this with some of your typical national Geographic stereotype photographs....

"Since the late 1970s, when Richard Prince became known as a pioneer of appropriation art — photographing other photographs, usually from magazine ads, then enlarging and exhibiting them in galleries — the question has always hovered just outside the frames: What do the photographers who took the original pictures think of these pictures of their pictures, apotheosized into art but without their names anywhere in sight?

Recently a successful commercial photographer from Chicago named Jim Krantz was in New York and paid a quick visit to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, where Mr. Prince is having a well-regarded 30-year retrospective that continues through Jan. 9.

But even before Mr. Krantz entered the museum’s spiral, he was stopped short by an image on a poster outside advertising the show, a rough-hewn close-up of a cowboy’s hat and outstretched arm. Mr. Krantz knew it quite well. He had shot it in the late 1990s on a ranch in the small town of Albany, Tex., for a Marlboro advertisement. “Like anyone who knows his work,” Mr. Krantz said of his picture in a telephone interview, “it’s like seeing yourself in a mirror.” He did not investigate much further to see if any other photos hanging in the museum might be his own, but said of his visit that day, “When I left, I didn’t know if I should be proud, or if I looked like an idiot.”...

...But with the exhibition now up at the Guggenheim — and the posters using his image on sale for $9.95 — he said he simply wanted viewers to know that “there are actually people behind these images, and I’m one of them.” “I’m not a mean person, and I’m not a vindictive person,” he said. “I just want some recognition, and I want some understanding.”...

...Mr. Krantz said he considered his ad work distinctive, not simply the kind of anonymous commercial imagery that he feels Mr. Prince considers it to be. “People hire me to do big American brands to help elevate their images to these kinds of iconic images,” he said.

He has considered trying to correspond with Mr. Prince to complain more directly but said he felt it would probably do no good. “At this point it’s been done, and it’s out there,” he said. “My whole issue with this, truly, is attribution and recognition. It’s an unusual thing to see an artist who doesn’t create his own work, and I don’t understand the frenzy around it.”

He added: “If I italicized ‘Moby-Dick,’ then would it be my book? I don’t know. But I don’t think so.” ... More here

And a final comment: "Mr. Prince declined to comment for this article, saying in an e-mail message only, “I never associated advertisements with having an author.”" :-)

Channelling Atget...

Julian Thomas posted this picture of his on his blog The Bartender Never Gets Killed and said of it:

"Every time I walk past this it makes my skin creep…"; Which immediately caught my attention (although the picture itself had already done that very directly)

Ed Nixon left a pertinent comment about it saying:

"This is it in a nutshell: the rest of the world (as typified in my experience by my friends, family and acquaintances) would never think of or credit the idea of making a photo because it makes their skin creep. Formal qualities aside — which they will probably not even see because of the spasmodic glaze that comes into the eye in reaction to the ‘ugly’ subject. And so the viewership (awful word) seems stuck back in the conceptual 20s, 30s to 50s with images of textured rocks, trees, mountains and sand dunes. (Nothing wrong with those images, by the way.) You look through the pages of a glossy periodical dedicated to fine art (and definitely analog) black and white photography for example, the ones where the advertisers are galleries and well heeled art photographers, and you see a collection of variations based on, say, three images or image stereotypes — rocks, trees and shores (with more rocks mutes by blurry water.)

What to do? It’s not like folks are dying to have their precious preconceptions and biases challenged. Or falling over themselves to become informed about what has been going on over the past 40 or so years. But maybe I’m misguided; maybe it really is all and only about the light; content is just glue."

BTW, Julian still seems to be working on his various "Exotics" and "Minimal Pairs"

Terrazo: Views of Mexico City by Pablo Lopez

I came across this work by Mexican photographer Pablo Lopez via The Exposure Project.

Lopez's body of work Terrazo: Views of Mexico is currently on view at the Sasha Wolf Gallery:

"At first glance, many of Pablo Lopez's 40x40" photographs of Mexico City and its surroundings are near abstractions of color and form. The images are an attempt to examine the city's historic landscape as well as reinterpret the relationship that people have to the ever-expanding urban environment. the interplay between man and his surroundings, both natural and developed, serves as a foundation here in all of Lopez's current work. By maintaining a distance the photographs of the Terrazo series afford each viewer the chance to see this scene with minimal political context and to discard many preconceived notions concerning this expansive metropolis."

I really like this work.

The Best Photography Books 0f 2007

Shane Lavalette has a link to Martin Parr's picks of the Best photography books of 2007 in The Times. Parr has some interesting and thought provoking choices. His best of the year seems to be Hackney Flowers by Stephen Gill.

Anyway, you can check out Parr's choices at the link above, but in the meantime, I though I would list my own (probably idiosyncratic) choices for good photobooks from this year. A few even coincide with Parr's...

So, in no particular order (followed by a link to earlier posts on the books):

1. Accommodating Nature - Frank Gohlke (Post)

2. The Day to Day Life of Albert Hastings - KayLyn Deveny (Post)

3. Present Tense - Jo Ann Verburg (Post)

4. A Shimmer of Possibility - Paul Graham (Post - and a very good review here)

5 Obvious & Ordinary - America 2006 (Post)

6. Gabriele Basilico - Work Book: 1969-2006. (Post)

7. Hackney Flowers - Stephen Gill (Post)

I must admit, Hackney Flowers is definitely up there on my choice in the top three or four. I'll leave Parr to review his choice for book of the year:

"The new whiz-kid of British documentary, Stephen Gill, has turned to publishing his own books. And what a treat he has produced in Hackney Flowers, my favourite photography book of the year. Hackney doesn’t sound the most promising territory for a photography project, but this is Gill’s fourth book on his neighbourhood area. He has collected various discarded photos found in the local flea market and combined these with some of his own images interspersed with ones of pressed flowers and berries, also derived from Hackney. The combination of these elements is most surreal. I particularly loved a picture of a tip truck superimposed with flower petals falling out of the truck like debris: the combination is so simple and effective that it sings off the page. Gill has the uncanny knack of finding juxtapositions that defy belief. This may be hard to find – it’s a limited edition – but it can be admired and ordered from www.stephengill.co.uk"

There is also one book which I got this year, but which was published some times ago, but it remains one of the best books I've seen this year: The Romance Industry by John Gossage

Lastly, I have one book yet to see before I make my final decision on my book of the year. I'll let you know once it arrives and I've taken a look...

Jon Feinstein

I first encountered Jon Feinstein through his involvement as a curator with the Humble Arts Foundation and also their invitation to include my work in one of their shows.

He emailed me the other day to let me know he had put up a website with his work on it

Now, as regular readers will know and not exactly enamoured with the current contemporary style of deadpan portraiture (for reasons I'm still not entirely clear about... and there was a time when I was actually quite drawn to it). Jon's site opens up with a series of portraits - Family & Friends - which are good, very good, but I was more than happy to find his other projects, especially Weeds - I really like his use of colour and of the naturally occurring forms among the tangles:

"Growing up in NYC, my perceptions of "nature" were limited to city parks and the brief experiences at summer camp in semi-rural Connecticut. This body of work investigates the mystery of the natural world and tries to makes sense of its tangles and obscurities from the perspective of an outsider looking in"

Small Signs is also very good:

And yet I know what will probably get picked up on in the the blogs and reviews... the portraiture - Family & Friends and The Wholesalers. And good as it is, I think his other projects are in many ways more distinctive - and yet it wouldn't suprise me at all if it ends up being less noticed (prove me wrong oh ye critics and curators!).

Kertesz Polaroids - the book

I missed this when I was writing yesterdays post, but ilachina(?) pointed out in a comment that a book of Kertesz's polaroids has just been published as well - "Andre Kertesz:The Polaroids" . Going by the exhibition, it could be a nice Xmas buy...

Andre Kertesz Polaroids

A good few of the Modernist masters seem to have turned their hand to the polaroid at one point or other.


Andre Kertesz nearly always seems to have had a genuine affection for what he photographed, which I think is one of the things which separates him from so many other photographers.


The Stephen Daiter Gallery in Chicago currently has an exhibition of Kertesz's delightful pictures:

André Kertész: Elizabeth and Me

"Taken in Kertész's apartment just north of New York's Washington Square, many of these photographs were shot either from his window or in the windowsill. We see a fertile mind at work, combining personal objects into striking still lifes set against cityscape backgrounds, reflected and transformed in glass surfaces. These photographs are a testament to the genious of the photographer's eye as manifested in the simple Polaroid."


Via wood_s_lot