Bill Owens: “American Photography and the American Dream” (excerpt) (1991)

The people in Owen’s book Suburbia, are still under the “spell” of the American Dream. They live in California suburban communities where, according to Owens, “everyone… lives ‘the good life’, which means having attractive homes, high paying jobs, swimming pools and shiny cars.”   By James Guimond, excerpt from American Photography and the American Dream, […]

Lee Friedlander Puts Your Selfies to Shame

  “At first, my presence in my photos was fascinating and disturbing. But as time passed and I was more a part of other ideas in my photos, I was able to add a giggle to those feelings.” – Lee Friedlander Lee Friedlander: Self Portrait Museum of Modern Art EXPLORE ALL LEE FRIEDLANDER ON ASX […]

About Irving Klaw – “An Interview with Paula Klaw” (1980)

By Gloria Leonard, originally published in High Society,  October 1980 In an exclusive interview with Paula Klaw, Gloria uncovers the fascinating birth of commercial bondage photography in the U.S. The surprising private life of Betty Page, the all-time favorite bondage model, is revealed as well as the story of the government’s relentless efforts to stamp […]

DAIDO MORIYAMA: “BYE BYE PHOTOGRAPHY” (1972)

Bye Bye Photography. The photographer’s third book: a masterpiece of Japanese photography, and the book that best illustrates the conceptual ideals and vision of the Provoke photographers. Here Moriyama pushes the boundaries of the medium: assembling images from a variety of sources, placing them in a tumultuous and discordant anti-sequence, and assaulting the viewer with […]

An Interview with Andy Warhol – “Modern Myths” (excerpt) (1981)

Jean-Micheal Basquiat This excerpt is from an interview with Andy Warhol, conducted in Warhol’s Factory in 1981, that was originally published in Arts Magazine (October 1981). Barry Blinderman: As a portraitist, what do you feel is most important to express? Andy Warhol: I always try to make the person look good. It’s easier if you […]

David Moore: “Pictures from the Real World” (2013)

David Moore: Colour Photographs 1987-­88 Pictures From The Real World Essay by David Chandler If the chemically charged 1960s brought new constellations of colour to the drab austerity of post‐war Britain, then British documentary photography remained that period’s more sober shadow: resolutely black and white and firmly rooted in a past, it was the serious, […]

John Szarkowski On Robert Frank’s Book ‘The Americans'” (1986)

I saw it I suppose very shortly after it was published, when I was still working as a photographer myself, and it was, frankly, shocking. I sensed the power in it, and the authority about it but there was much about it that I didn’t like… The Americans was received with mixed critical reaction. Not […]

Willem de Kooning – “Fire Damaged Studio Footage” (1966)

“Fire damaged footage of De Kooning in his East Hampton studio mid August of 1966. The history of the footage: De Kooning, was a close friend of mine and of the poet Frank O’Hara. A month before this footage was shot , O’Hara was killed by a car on Fire Island, Me and O’Hara had […]

David Goldblatt: “Particulars” (1975)

“I seem to have an innate propensity which has been fed by life experiences and heightened by the kind of hyper-awareness that photography sometimes enables and demands…”   “My first awareness of a bodily particular that I can recall was of the bulges made by the flattened flesh of my inner thighs as I sat […]