“By definition art is not propaganda; the goal is not to excite people to action but to help them find a sense of wholeness and thereby a sense of calm.” Excerpt from a 2014 Hasselblad Award chat transcript Question: Congratulations! You have been taking pictures of the American West for four decades now. Why […]
The Rhine II, 1999 There is something very straightforward about Andreas Gursky’s photographs. It is as though he holds up a peopled landscape or a building or a workplace for our inspection, saying simply, ‘here it is’. The Iron Cage of Boredom By Julian Stallabrass There is something very straightforward about Andreas Gursky’s photographs. […]
39, WEST WALL, SMICOA, 333 MCCORMICK, COSTA MESA © LEWIS BALTZ, IP 39, FROM THE SERIES “NEW INDUSTRIAL PARKS, NEAR IRVINE, CALIFORNIA”, 1974; STEIDL Interview (excerpt) with Lewis Baltz Conducted by Matt Witkovsky At Baltz’s home in Paris, France. 2009 November 15-17 MR. BALTZ: You aspire to making something – at least at the time, […]
Elizabeth and Dora Mae Tengle, Hale County, Alabama, 1936 “‘Visual impact’ may not mean much to anybody. I could point it out though. I mean it’s a quality that something has or does not have.” Walker Evans interviewed (excerpt) by Paul Cummings for Smithsonian, NYC, Oct-Dec, 1971 PAUL CUMMINGS: Could you describe in some […]
Photography: Mark Bakker Editor: Bart van den Broek Sound Recording: Erik Leek Soundmix: Hugo Dijkstal Production: Willemijn Cerutti Production VPRO: Karin Vermeulen Commissioning Editor VPRO: Barbara Truyen Producer: Frank van den Engel Written en Directed By: Simone de Vries © 2009 Zeppers Film en TV / VPRO This film was produced with support from Dutch […]
‘Chiro’ from Sentimental Journey @ Araki In many ways, “Sentimental Journey 1972-1992” is quintessential Araki. It is a documentary of his marriage life with his wife Aoki Yoko till the day she lost her fight to ovarian cancer in 1990. By Zhuang Wubin, epSITE and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, 2004 Nobuyoshi Araki, or Tensai […]
There is something of satyriasis, or Don Juanism, the male equivalent of nymphomania, in Mollino’s work, as if they were undertaken compulsively, and perhaps without joy, as part of a doomed project to reach an unattainable ideal: the tragic desire to keep thousands of women in an empty house. By Owen Campbell Carlo Mollino was […]
The photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto has visited to the Museum four times in the past four decades to shoot his “Dioramas” series, which focuses on habitat displays to explore the distinction between the real and the fictive. What initially surprised Sugimoto about the series was that his photos looked utterly real–as if he were photographing on […]
The current exhibition of Fondation Beyeler’s collection presents important new acquisitions, including works by the German artist Wolfgang Tillmans. Tillmans was the first photographer to win the Turner Prize (in 2000). In this interview, Wolfgang Tillmans talks about the works on display (among others: Ostgut Freischwimmer, right and Ostgut Freischwimmer, links; Munuwata Sky; Transit of […]
still image from Impaled @ Larry Clark Educating Larry Clark By Philippa Hawker, originally published in The Age, September 2007 The Destricted project was, in many ways, an invitation to go too far – to test boundaries and to step outside them. It’s a feature film made up of seven short works by seven […]
Liz, 1965 @ Andy Warhol Estate A few minutes after we arrived, the silver door to the Factory opened and Andy Warhol stepped in to offer us an inanimate handshake. Inside Andy Warhol By Sterling McIlhenny and Peter Ray The following interview with Andy Warhol appeared in the men’s magazine, Cavalier, in 1966. To conduct […]
Doris Ulmann (1882-1934) was born and educated in New York City. A graduate of the school of the Ethical Culture Society, a socially liberal organization that championed individual worth regardless of ethnic background or economic condition. In the late 1920’s Ulmann made trips each summer to document the rural people of the South, particularly […]