Posts from the “Books” Category

Sergio Purtell: Love’s Labour

Posted on August 10, 2020

In 1973, at the tender age of 18, Sergio Purtell fled his hometown of Santiago, Chile, for the United States. The decision came after General Augusto Pinochet and Admiral José Merino lead a coup d’état, killing the democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende.

Once situated in his new home, Purtell began studying photography, going on to receive a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and an MFA from Yale. “Photography had the ability to sustain time itself – it was to be discovered not constructed,” Purtell says. “One could use one’s intuition to drive one’s motivation. Suddenly the world started to make sense to me.”

In the summer of 1979, Purtell decided to make a pilgrimage to Europe to discover the birthplace of Western art, an annual practice he would continue well into the mid-’80s. He purchased a Eurail pass to travel the continent at length, staying in seedy motels, visiting local cafes, beaches and bars, and amassing a glorious archive of his adventures, just published in the new book Love’s Labour (Stanley/Barker).

Read the Full Story at Huck

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Huck, Photography

Tyler Mitchell and Ryan McGinley in Conversation

Posted on July 27, 2020

*Untitled (Sosa with Orange Hula Hoop), 2019. Photography by Tyler Mitchell.*

The American photographers Tyler Mitchell and Ryan McGinley have risen to global acclaim for their dream-like imagery of youth and possibility. Their photographs are mesmerising meditations on a utopian state of bliss, offering the understanding that liberation from all that constrains us is not only possible but a fundamental necessity of existence. It is a viewpoint that led both artists to prominence at the outset of their careers: in 2018, Mitchell, then 23, was the first Black photographer to shoot the cover of American Vogue; 15 years earlier, McGinley, then 25, became the youngest artist to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The July 28 publication of I Can Make You Feel Good, Mitchell’s debut monograph, is an intimate and powerful vision of Black utopia, bathed in the rich sun-soaked light which has become the photographer’s signature. It stands alongside The Kids Are Alright (2002), McGinley’s first handmade book, which captured the exploits of the artists, skaters, and graffiti writers populating New York’s downtown scene at the turn of the millennium, in an ongoing conversation about the power of beauty, freedom, and truth.

On a Friday in July, McGinley met with Mitchell in his Brooklyn home to discuss the joys of coming of age as skaters, artists, and authors in the new millennium.

Read the Full Story at AnOther

*Untitled (Boys of Walthamstow) 2018. Photography by Tyler Mitchell.*

Categories: AnOther, Art, Books, Photography

Gaechter+Clahsen: Fünf Finger Föhn Frisur

Posted on November 20, 2019

Long before the Internet made nearly everything instantly accessible, beauty salons used photography to advertise and promote the styles of the day. Part headshot, part beauty photo, these photographs fell squarely into the realm of commercial photography.

Utilizing studio lighting and a basic backdrop, women became mannequins in the truest sense of the word. Here they modeled hairdos, their faces made up with “natural cosmetics” and their shoulders bare — nothing to distract the viewer from the focus: hair, hair, hair!

The photographs often hung in windows until they discolored from exposure to the sun, or were framed and hung indoors where they could be protected. Customers often tore them from magazines and brought them in to suggest the look they wanted to go for, then brought them home and carefully them to mirrors so that they could painstakingly achieve this look on their own.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Photography

Show Me the Picture: The Story of Jim Marshall

Posted on November 14, 2019

Johnny Cash off the bus at Folsom State Prison, Folsom, California, 1968 Photography by Jim Marshall, taken from Jim Marshall: Show Me the Picture by Amelia Davis, published by Chronicle Books 2019

In March 1984, Michelle Margetts, a 19-year-old journalism student at San Francisco State University, met Jim Marshall (1936-2010) at a bar in downtown San Francisco, to interview him for a ‘Where Are They Now?’ assignment. Marshall, who had famously shot Johnny Cash flipping the bird during his historic 1969 performance at San Quentin State Prison and Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, was, in the words of Annie Leibovitz, “the rock ‘n’ roll photographer”.

But Marshall, then 45, was down on his luck after being arrested on a gun bust in 1983 and doing work release to avoid prison time. “When I met him I found him hideous: a malevolent gnome,” Margetts recalls of the man who would become a short-term boyfriend and lifelong friend. Given the opportunity to talk, Marshall poured out his heart, revealing the deep vulnerabilities that lay beneath his gruff exterior. Then, just before it was to be published, Marshall sabotaged the entire thing and the story disappeared.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Restaurant in Harlem, New York City, 1963 Photography by Jim Marshall, taken from Jim Marshall: Show Me the Picture by Amelia Davis, published by Chronicle Books 2019

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, AnOther Man, Art, Books, Music, Photography

Hugh Holland: Silver. Skate. Seventies.

Posted on October 30, 2019

Silver Skater, Del Mar Racetrack in San Diego county, 1975 Photography by Hugh Holland, from Silver. Skate. Seventies. published by Chronicle Chroma 2019

In the summer of 1975, Hugh Holland noticed something – teenage boys on skateboards were cropping up all across Los Angeles. Holland, then in his early thirties, was fascinated by these daring young men, who surfed drainage ditches on new-fangled urethane wheels which allowed them to transform a novelty toy into a tool that combined artistry and athleticism.

Holland took up photography just as the skaters were inventing a brand new sport on the streets of Los Angeles. As fate would have it, a drought hit the city in 1976 and all the backyard pools were drained, beckoning this small band of innovative outcasts to transform the barren landscape into a creative laboratory for their newfound pastime.

Over a period of three years, Holland amassed thousands of images of the emerging scene, documenting the skaters and the atmosphere, crafting a vivid portrait of rebellious youth living their best lives under the Southern Californian sun. Now, in the new exhibition Silver. Skate. Seventies., and accompanying book published by Chronicle Books, Holland presents never-before-seen black and white photographs from his archive. Here, he reflects on the importance of DIY culture, sport and art, and the rewards of doing something you love.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Night Pier Rider, Huntington Beach, 1975 Photography by Hugh Holland, from Silver. Skate. Seventies. published by Chronicle Chroma 2019

Solo Scott at Kenter Canyon Elementary in Brentwood, Los Angeles, 1976 Photography by Hugh Holland, from Silver. Skate. Seventies. published by Chronicle Chroma 2019

Categories: 1970s, AnOther Man, Art, Books, Photography

KK Ottesen: Activist – Portraits of Courage

Posted on October 28, 2019

Angela Davis © KK Ottesen

Never let it be said that one person can’t change the world. That is the central tenet of KK Ottesen’s new book, Activist: Portraits of Courage(Chronicle Books). From Angela Davis, Tarana Burke and Gabrielle Giffords to Bernie Sanders, Edward Snowden, and Avram Finkelstein, Ottesen profiles 40 American activists who have dedicated their lives to the fight for human rights.

“They say leaders are born; I think they are made,” Dolores Huerta, labour leader and civil rights activist tells Ottesen in the book. “People choose to be activists, choose to be leaders. Anybody can do it, but you have to make the decision. And you have to sacrifice the most precious resource that you have, which is your time.”

Activism is not a one-time action, but a mindset – a commitment to the ongoing struggle against oppression, exploitation and injustice that has fired up mass global movements today from Hong Kong to Chile. “I think it’s important to realise that ‘there are no final victories,’ as Dr. Harry Edwards put it,” Ottesen says.

Read the Full Story at Huck

Harry Edwards © KK Ottesen

Categories: Art, Books, Huck, Photography

Elinor Carucci: Midlife

Posted on October 24, 2019

Winter, 2016. © Elinor Carucci

Popular culture purports midlife is the provenance of men — the time where he gauges his mortality by trading in the mini-van for a sports car, leaving his wife of 20 years for a younger model. But what of the middle-aged woman? What happens to her? It seems she often just disappears from the narrative altogether.

But behind closed doors, whispers occur, stories of “the change” or something far worse. Midlife, for women, has been treated like a curse, as internal and external signs of aging have been used to erase women, keeping their struggles largely hidden from view. Midlife (The Monacelli Press) by Israeli-American photographer Elinor Carucci breaks this unfortunate history.

“I didn’t set out to make Midlife; it dawned on me at some point that I am creating it,” says Carucci, who worked on the project for seven years. She began by making works she saw as different series – photographs of her mother and daughter, her father and son, herself and husband, as well as poignant photographs of abstract paintings she made with her own blood.

Read the Full Story at The Luupe

Elinor Carucci. Hair Dye, 2016.

Categories: Art, Books, Photography, The Luupe, Women

Hal Fischer: The Gay Seventies

Posted on October 23, 2019

Between 1977 and 1979, American artist Hal Fischer created Gay Semiotics, a landmark series of photo-text works providing a pioneering analysis of gay historical vernacular as it unfolded on the streets of San Francisco’s Castro and Haight-Asbury districts.

Inspired by the work of August Sander, Fischer made a series of street black and white portraits of gay archetypes accompanied by text that deftly deconstructed the symbols of the era’s quintessential looks such as Natural, Classical, Jock, Hippie, Urbane, Forties Trash, Western, Leather, Dominance, and Submission – along with detailed descriptions of signifiers like keys, earrings, handkerchiefs, leather apparel, gag mask, amyl nitrate, and other bondage devices.

In advance of the publication of The Gay Seventies, Fischer looks back on one of the first conceptual works to bring the structuralism and linguistics to photography and reflects on the nature of gay semiotics today.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Categories: 1970s, AnOther Man, Art, Books, Photography

Hunter S. Thompson: Hell’s Angels – The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs

Posted on October 18, 2019

This is the tale of two gangs and their literary henchmen who pen history to sway the hearts and minds of the public, building their careers along the way. When a budding journalist named Hunter S, Thompson discovered the Hell’s Angels had been falsely accused of criminal activity in 1964, he decided to use the press just as the government had done, this time flipping the script and championing the notorious outlaws in a 1965 essay titled “The Motorcycle Gangs: Losers and Outsiders” for The Nation.

Thompson went full throttle, embracing the spirit of New Journalism filling the air, painting a vivid scene of the reviled scourge as iconoclastic American anti-heroes for a modern world. “Like Genghis Khan on an iron horse, a monster steed with a fiery anus, flat out through the eye of a beer can and up your daughter’s leg with no quarter asked and non given; show the squares some class, give em a whiff of those kicks they’ll never know…Ah, these righteous dudes, they love to screw it on,” Thompson wrote with aplomb.

The story took the world by storm. Within a month, book offers were rolling in and Thompson seized the day, spending the following year embedded in the San Francisco and Oakland chapters. Birney Jarvis, a former member, made the introduction, giving Thompson credibility no other reporter ever had — and the Angels opened up to him, sincere in their desire to be understood and known.

Read the Full Story at Jacques Marie Mage

Categories: 1960s, Books, Jacques Marie Mage

Jessica Lange: Highway 61

Posted on October 15, 2019

At the age of 18, Jessica Lange boarded a Greyhound Bus outside the Tulip Shop in her hometown of Cloquet, Minnesota, and headed south down Highway 61 on her way to Europe and beyond. The year was 1967, and the winds of change were in the air. A new America taking shape, as fellow Minnesotan Bob Dylan foresaw on his seminal 1965 album, Highway 61 Revisited, the very first album Lange ever bought.

For Lange, the historic 2,575 kilometre interstate highway that runs from the Canadian border down to New Orleans, is a plumb line through her life – a marker of where she has been, who she was, and who she has become, as well as a testament to the changes that have shaped the United States over the past 70 years.

In the new monograph, Highway 61, Lange takes us along for a ride, creating a timeless portrait of America that evokes the work of Robert Frank. A quiet, careful observation of the human condition, Lange’s photographs reveal a sense of solidarity among the working class, recognising that they built this country from the ground up. She visits motels, roadside fruit stands, local bars, vintage diners, amusement parks, farms, private homes, markets, and sometimes just walks the streets as one of the people, rather than Hollywood royalty.

Read the Full Story at AnOther

Categories: AnOther, Art, Books, Photography

Miguel Rio Branco: Maldicidade

Posted on October 15, 2019

Miguel Rio Branco. Preto e rosa com bandeira, 1988-1992-2012

Miguel Rio Branco. Preto e rosa com bandeira, 1988-1992-2012

Cities are unnatural; they are purely man-made constructions of artifice masquerading as civilization that reinforce hegemonic conditioning of behavior and thought. Being adaptable, by nature, we are easily led to believe that the triumph of nature is our birthright despite all evidence that it is our death sentence.

The concentration of people inside a landscape of concrete, steel beams, and glass combined with the decimation of native flora and fauna leads to a curious result. Wo/man is never so lonely as being lost in the crowd, consumed by the shadow of fear — fear of missing out. Everywhere it seems, the illusion of success holds a promise that escapes their grasp: of beauty and joy, of status and wealth.

Here, city dwellers are locked inside a false binary, desperate to believe the illusions they are fed by pop culture and social media. They strive for the impossible, climbing to the top of the short ladder only to learn there’s nothing there; or they find themselves pushed to the bottom of it, excluded from the opportunity to learn that this is nothing more than an illusion.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Miguel Rio Branco. Sombras barrocas de Havana, 1994-2019

Categories: Art, Books, Exhibitions, Feature Shoot, Photography