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] […]
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 […]
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 […]
“The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.” Ezra Pound By Russell Ferguson Wolfgang Tillmans has consistently pushed back against whatever perceptions of his work seem most current. If he is thought of as a casual, snapshot photographer, he produces a book of formal portraits. If he is […]
“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 […]
U-ni-ty merges two artistic traditions, treating photography both as a medium for describing personal experience and as a vast, impersonal resource created by the mass media. In its entirety, the exhibition explores the emotional weight of history, the power of ideological symbols, and the relationship of the individual to the body politic. Michael Schmidt’s first […]
David Hockney smoking, Bridlington, 2008 If one is properly exposed to it and assuming that one has an “eye” for these things, Juergen Teller’s “aesthetic” becomes very recognizable. Not quite so much as to harm the effectiveness but much. Yes, in his case, this is a good thing. If pressed for a brief description, one […]
Loretta Lux: New Work (2004) Afterimage, March-April, 2004 by Jill Conner When the digital camera was introduced in the 1990s, it was predicted to displace the technique of modern photography as well as its practice. By translating light into codified data stored within a random access chip, digital technology radically changed processing habits. Photoshop […]
Thomas Ruff talks to Philip Pocock (1993) Philip Pocock: Unlike the Neue Sachlichkeit of Sander or Renger-Patzsch, there is a clear crisis of belief in the objectivity of your medium in your work. True or false? Thomas Ruff: It’s both. It’s true and false. They also used the camera as an instrument to take pictures. […]
By Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, writer and curator Much has been made of the absence of people from Candida Höfer’s photographs. How the empty halls, silent lobbies and unpeopled rooms might set us dreaming uneasily of a world bereft of human beings. How these vacated interiors, which she has been photographing assiduously since the late […]