When you think you have seen the model-to-photographer genre wear itself thin, along comes Matilde SøesRasmussen to challenge, deepen, and extract gold from the topic by putting together her second intriguing photobook, which deals with modelling. Søes Rasmussen ’s first book, Unprofessional, published by Disko Bay, was a grand slam that, through her point-and-shoot aesthetic, detailed […]
You have to admire the rise of Bharat Sikka’s career over the last decade. I have had the opportunity to speak with him several times, both about his practice and his interest in book-making. One of the exciting things about Bharat is that he has been working for a long time, but it wasn’t until […]
It is hard to deny the strange feeling of sharing a room with one of your loved ones who has passed on. The implicit silence is an acknowledgement of toil’s end, though at the time, the personal trauma overtakes this thought in the mind of the living. It casts small echoes. Of course, there is […]
Place de la République is a central meeting point in Paris. Several underground metro lines stop at its station, and its wide-open square is a gathering place for many people, particularly younger people. When you first enter the square, there is a flurry of activity, but it never feels overly crowded. Suppose you […]
She’s posing for consumer products now and thenFor every camera, she gives the best she canI think I saw her on the cover of a magazineNow she’s a big success, I want to meet her again -Kraftwerk, via Big Black Of course, I know nothing about modelling. Still, I can assume that there is a […]
With Dana’s work, one cannot help but be mesmerized by her ability to capture people in situ. Her career has been broadly defined by her portrait work, both commercially and for her own personal subjectivity. Whereas having a career built on poraiture no doubt inspires a healthy relationship with the craft of photography, there […]
The cyanotype is a very flexible process developed from water. One paints or layers ferric ammonium oxalate and potassium ferricyanide on a substrate, usually paper, but also fabric. One then exposes a negative or an object to direct sunlight. After a test has been made, the print is washed in water, revealing a beautiful Prussian […]
If ever the premise of a body of work was betrayed by its execution, this is that work. I should clarify that this statement is not intended as a pejorative, but rather to note that the simplicity of the means in Shea’s initial premise is a bit of a false lead. It starts with a […]
Whether it is a proponent of exoticism and all that it entails — both fascinating and ethically dubious — photography has, at its core, an ability to reveal. It can reveal that which is shuttered, hidden, and usually unobservable. In the case of the colonial camera, much of this fascination with otherness leads to the […]
Julien Langendorff, Spell Rider The roots of cosmic occultism stretch back as far in time as humans have been able to communicate. There is a hermetic order to the universe that has bewildered and engaged the species, giving license to conjecture, theory, and spiritual whim that exceed what lies before our faces. It is a […]
Reflecting on the motif of painting with a title. One of the soft critiques I have of the book is that, despite its holistic considerations and the fundamental declarations of artist and publisher working closely together to create a special object, the title leaves something less than imaginable. It is somewhat self-referential regarding the artist’s […]
There is a small number of essential photobooks that explore the concept of artistic process/practice and performance. Most recently, I have found myself thumbing through Joseph Beuys: Coyote, by Caroline Tisdall (Schirmer/Mosel, 1976), which features photographs of Beuys’ legendary 1974 performance, I Like America and America Likes Me. The performance, arguably Beuys’ most well-known, next to How to […]