The Social Mosaic Attempted: The Photographs of August Sander (2004)

 Social class stands before us in all its detail and specificity.   By Clare Hurley, December, 2004 “People of the Twentieth Century”: August Sander’s Photographic Portrait of Germany, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May 25—September 19, 2004 A selection of 150 photographs from August Sander’s People of the Twentieth Century [Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts] […]

Andreas Gursky – ‘From a World’s Spirit’s Eye View’ (2007)

As soon as the technique is available, Gursky proceeds to the digital manipulation of the image. By Stefan Beyst INTRODUCTION After the big retrospective in the MoMA 2001, a new big show in the Munich ‘Haus der Kunst’ is dedicated to the photographer whose ’99 cent II Diptychon’ (1999) has recently been auctioned at Sotheby’s […]

Andreas Gursky: “New York Stock Exchange” (1991)

  Executed in 1991, Andreas Gursky’s New York Stock Exchange is one of the earliest examples and, at the time, largest of Andreas Gursky’s seminal series of photographs of global stock exchanges which he continues to this day. The original inspiration and philosophy for the series derived from the stock market collapses of the late […]

JOACHIM SCHMID: “Joachim Schmid” (2002)

From Photogenic Drafts, 1991 By Stephen Bull, Essay included in Vigovisións. Colección fotográfica do Concello de Vigo, Vigo 2003 Joachim Schmid is a thief and a liar. For twenty years Schmid has been taking other peoples’ photographs and using them for his own purposes. He has even gone so far as to falsely claim that […]

Photography in Düsseldorf

Photography in Düsseldorf By Douglas Eklund Bernd and Hilla Becher began their collaborative project in 1959 (and were married shortly thereafter), at a time when German photography was mired in the same collective paralysis as the culture at large. The most prominent photographer at that time was Otto Steinert, whose Subjective Photography movement attempted to […]

Gil Blank and Thomas Ruff Discuss ‘Portraits’ (2004)

“In a way I wanted to blot out any traces or information about the person in front of the camera. I also wanted to indicate that the viewer is not face-to-face with a real person.”   Gil Blank with Thomas Ruff, originally published in Influence Magazine, Issue 2, 2004 Gil Blank: Many of the portraits […]

Michael Schmidt: “Thoughts About My Way of Working” (1979)

By Michael Schmidt, Camera Magazine #3, March, 1979 Photography was invented to enable us to portray reality with complete precision to the last detail. There is no other medium – apart from media which derive from the invention of photography (e.g. film and television) – which is in a position to document reality exactly as […]

ASX.TV: Florian Maier-Aichen “Infrared Landscapes”

Episode #108: Florian Maier-Aichen likens his use of infrared film to an in-between state, discussing photography’s role in picturing the American West and its ability to confound past and present. Alternately romantic, cerebral, and unearthly, Florian Maier-Aichen’s digitally altered photographs are closer to the realm of drawing and fiction than documentation. He embraces difficult techniques, […]

Frank Horvat with Helmut Newton (1986)

“This is why I continue accepting commissions, even though economically I don’t have to. Because making money gives me a kick, but also because 1 think it’s important for me to have the discipline, to work for somebody within a given frame. At least from time to time.” – Helmut Newton Frank Horvat with Helmut […]