Roger Eberhard’s Faux-Familiarity & Standard Suffocations
“The utter faux-familiarity of these rooms, from the plastic painting on the wall to the synthetic bed spread made from all manner of recycled and threaded nylon from fish net stockings to actual fish netting makes one queasy”
Daniel Shea Distribution
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 […]
Victor Sira Europass
Notes for a Ritual of Photography Gone Extinct Victor Sira, in his exhibition catalog/new book Europass, published by his publishing house, bookdummypress, examines a common theme in travel photography. The book is based on a series of trips the Venezuelan artist took in Europe from 2001 to 2006, which coincided with the shift from the […]
Nan Goldin – This Will Not End Well at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan
Nan Goldin, This Will Not End Well, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan 11.10.2025 – 15.02.2026 By Anna Zimm & Sophie Zimm — There aren’t many exhibitions that would make me travel to another city, but in mid-October Nan Goldin’s This Will Not End Well opened at the Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan—an exhibition my sister Sophie and I […]
Settings of a Life: Mark Ruwedel’s Message from the Exterior
‘While Ruwedel’s concise framing draws attention to the resemblance between one house and the next, it also compels us to reflect on the singular defeats that they portray, each one a small chip out of the American dream.’
Nobuyoshi Araki The Banquet (Shokuji)
Full Article on Patreon “The Banquet is a different affair built around the same context of mourning. Instead of pictures of himself or his deceased wife, Araki presents a catalog of their last meals together. The images are shot with a close-up ring flash and a short lens to give a microphotographic feel […]
Eloïse Labarbe-Lafon – Motel 42
Motel 42 (Leaf, 2024) is another testament to the never-ending slew of American road trip books. However, in Eloïse Labarbe-Lafon’s book, you can’t see much of America outside of the cigarette-stained roadside motel rooms she and her lover Adrien have occupied. You can read about the places they visited in the back of the book, […]
Revelations: Hysterical Re-Invention of the Body Hammer
So goes the hysterical re-invention of hysteria by Javier Viver
Martin Kollar: The Post-Soviet Cinematic Detail
“As we ponder the future fugue states of Europe, the diplomatic inadequacy of the New West and Russia, questions arise”
Gareth McConnell Window
I have mentioned several projects in the past here that use the window as a mechanism for photographic discourse. There are quite a few mentions of the window as a source for inspiration; perhaps the most well-known is eminent curator John Szarkowski’s discourse about mirrors and windows, and the difference between how an artist […]
Julien Langendorff Spell Rider
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 […]
2224 Kolkata: Plums Deep In Corpse Fat
“I mean corpse fat and soap, I remember the nazis doing something like that…is that why the women wash their clothes in it while the naked children, with their distended bellies, watch?”
Siam’s Guy: A Beautifully Unread Language
“If you are a fan of Thai psychedelic music from the 60’s the design of this book alone will be enough for you.”
Trent Parke – Monument
Ruptures and Raptures It is hard to know where to start writing about a book with such ominous tendencies at its heart. Monuments by Trent Parke, published by Stanley/Barker in 2023 and its third printing in spring 2024, has a doomsday proximity to it. It is hard to explain why I feel this […]
Yasuhiro Ishimoto – Lines and Bodies
The gift of Japanese photography is that it feels like a never-ending field of exploration. It is a wide field of study, and if one invests in the material created in Japan from around 1958 forward, the returns are plentiful. Having put off embracing the canon of Japanese photography for most of my career […]
Curran Hatleberg Blood Green
I do not know that much about Hatleberg’s work. I did get a copy of his last book, River’s Dream, as I had missed out on Lost Coast, his first book with eminent American publishers TBW Books. My surface reading of River’s Dream suggested a post-Soth investigation of American topography. I was reminded of Doug Dubois, Alec Soth, Kristine […]
Lorenzo Castore – Fièvre
Fièvre by Lorenzo Castore is a slight wormhole of a photobook. One starts appreciating it through one side of the vacuum and comes out the other side, thinking through it differently. That is not to suggest that it is not consistent; it is. With Castore, I am accustomed to the romantic nature of his photographs. […]
Lua Ribeira Agony in the Garden
Agony in the Garden. Parables. Metaphors. Incisive mythology within the realms of the contemporary political landscape of Europe in the 2020s. To reduce Lua Ribeira’s work to any single motif is an exercise in futility. Instead, the analysis must stem from the aggregate means of its parts. Of course, one cannot simply resign the work […]
Brad Rimmer: Nature Boy, Dispossession and the Art of Fire
“The teens of the group had mentioned amongst themselves that Marie Kondo was probably part of the seemingly insidious discussion. Was the dispossession that the man raged about relegated to clutter or to economics? And…why should we/I/You concern ourselves with considerations of obscene boredom when the beds were allegedly burning? Not much fun in this […]
One Wall a Web: An Interview with Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa
“I think I was working in places like those for quite a while before I knew why I was working in them. I don’t have a car or a driver’s license, so I navigated Virginia on my bicycle or on foot the majority of the time.”
Real Nazis: Trauma is the Trigger, but When?
“It is also to remind people that the condition of “evil” or trauma exists only in the post-event and that we do not recognize, as Arendt mentions, the force of its implication while it is being formulated”
Rodrigo Valenzuela – New Works For a Post-Workers World
Rodrigo Valenzuela has been producing incredible work for the past couple of years. I was lucky enough to get a copy of his last book, Journeyman, published by Mousse Publishing. It was my introduction to the Chilean-American’s work, and from that point, we managed to have an extensive conversation about his work for Nearest Truth. […]
Pieter Hugo – Californian Wildflowers
I am incredibly biased as I write this. I share a close connection with the artist Pieter Hugo through our Nearest Truth workshop programming. Although it might seem counterintuitive to the points I will raise subsequently, I have had a chance to hear Pieter talk about his work in detail, with all the challenging […]
Tomaso Clavarino Padanistan
The full 2100 Word essay with 11 photographs on Tomaso Clavarino‘s Padanistan published by Studio Faganel and Guest Editions can be found here. Thank you for your support. Summary Text below “My suggestion is that this is a vital book. I am not sure if it is a bit regional in scope. One […]