The Last Francis Bacon Interview – On Violence, Meat and Photography
“We are born with a scream; we come into life with a scream, and maybe love is a mosquito net between the fear of living and the fear of death.” Excerpts from Francis Bacon: I Painted to be Loved Interview by Francis Giacobetti conducted on February 1992, published in The Art Newspaper, no. 137, […]
The Pain of Loss is a Mother, Fucker – Peter Watkins’ “The Unforgetting”
@ Peter Watkins You tow the loss like the Rock of Gibraltar around your neck hoping it doesn’t pull your body to the black emptiness at the bottom of the ocean. At times you struggle against the algae and various plankton that want a piece of you to feed on while you gasp for […]
Tony Oursler’s ‘template/variant/friend/stranger’ at Lisson Gallery
VIE, 2014 Wood, mounted photo print, monitors and media player 262 x 192 x 58 cm The pantomime of big brother and the historical imperative to map individuality of the face for data usage comes at a time when our rights towards privacy and state sponsored collecting of data become a Orwellian theatre of […]
Jim Goldberg Follows a Stranger (2014)
Video by Jim Goldberg and Brandon Tauszik Produced by Sprinkle Lab Courtesy of the artist and Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York Eric William Carroll: Chicken (Inspired by Jim Goldberg) “Choose a person, preferably a stranger, to make a portrait of. After securing their permission, begin photographing them. Ask them to try a few poses, move the […]
Larry Sultan on Ambiguity and Refraining from Narrative that is ‘Too Well Formed’
@ The Estate of Larry Sultan “That [Ambiguity] is really important to me. Part of the difficulty facing photographers is that almost any subject matter has accumulated a representational history, so to find a new discursive space, a space to wander around those subject matters, is a real challenge. If I know too much, if […]
The Symbols of Life and Decay Woven to My Hand: The Haunting of Cyril Costilhes ‘Grand Circle Diego’
@ Cyril Costilhes The insect in my mind breathes in and it wheezes out. I remember who I was when I walked across the same floor so many years ago to grab a different glass of water, which has since shattered. By Brad Feuerhelm, ASX, February 2015 I walk across the room […]
Challenging State Power and the Passivity of Citizens in ‘Covert Operations’
Nucelear Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility, Cherenkov Radiation, Hanford Site, U.S. Department of Energy, Southeastern Washington State, 2005/2007 @ Taryn Simon and courtesy Gagosian Gallery “Whatever our personal weaknesses may be, the nobility of our craft will always be rooted in two commitments, difficult to maintain; the refusal to lie about what one knows and […]
Alec Soth’s ‘Songbook’ at Sean Kelly Gallery
Near Kaaterskill Falls, 2012 © Alec Soth, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York “One of the biggest statements in Songbook is Soth’s decision to work solely in black and white. The pictures evoke old press photography: large format, black and white, with a strong flash.” By Shahrzad Kamel, February 2015 Following the critical acclaim for Alec Soth’s […]