Posts from the “Photography” Category

Peter van Agtmael: War in the 21st Century

Posted on March 30, 2021

*9/5/20. Protesters taunt militia members who had marched on the Breonna Taylor memorial. Louisville, Kentucky. © Peter Van Agtmael*

On January 17, 1991 a coalition of 35 nations led by the United States invaded Iraq launching the Gulf War, codenamed Operation Desert Shield — the largest military alliance since World War II. Over five weeks, the allied powers waged one of the most intense aerial bombing campaigns in military history, dropping some 85,000 tons on Iraq and broadcasting select strikes as seen from far above, creating the image of war as video game.

“As Operation Desert Storm erupted last week, there was only one unequivocal victor in the first days of war: the Cable News Network,” Variety reported on January 20, 1991. In just one month, the 10-year-old cable news service gained global prominence by live broadcasting from the frontlines into 10.8 million U.S. homes. Among those watching was future Magnum Photos member Peter van Agtmael, then a fifth grade student living with his family in Bethesda, Maryland.

“What I remember most vividly were videos showing air strikes and smart bombs filmed from the airplanes,” he says of the powerfully crafted propaganda produced by the U.S. government – a far cry from the horrific reportage witnessed during the Vietnam War. “It was about how accurate the weaponry was and avoiding civilian casualties, and to my mind, I believed it. I didn’t have any critical thinking skills at that point and I didn’t come from a politically radicalized family that was trying to puncture the myth by questioning what was going on.”

Read the Full Story at Blind

*A gardener of a small health clinic in Garmsir, Helmand. Afghanistan, 2009. © Peter Van Agtmael*

*Marines swim in an irrigation canal at their outpost south of Garmsir in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2009. © Peter Van Agtmael*

Categories: Art, Blind, Books, Photography

Alex Webb: For the Record

Posted on March 29, 2021

*Alex Webb. Gouyave, Grenada, 1979. © Alex Webb/Magnum Photo*s

The documentary photograph, both art and artifact, occupies a singular place in the historical record. It acts as testimony, bearing witness to those whose voices might otherwise go unheard, and it can be used as a form of activism to change the world.

A new exhibition, For the Record, brings together the work of some 35 photographers whose innovative approaches have redefined not just the genre but also the medium writ large. From Berenice Abbott’s Changing New York to Danny Lyon’s Bikeriders, to Larry Clark’s Tulsa, and Bruce Davidson’s Brooklyn Gang, the exhibition chronicles the role of documentary photography in shaping the way we see and think about the times in which we live.

By combining classical and contemporary approaches, the exhibition explores the ever-evolving language of photography and the ways in which it simultaneous straddles the realms of reportage and fine art. As 17th-century clergyman Thomas Fuller famously said, “Seeing is believing, but feeling is the truth” — a sentiment that captures documentary photography’s extraordinary ability to communicate the emotional impact of people, places, and events.

Read the Full Story at Huck

*Alex Webb. Port au Prince, Haiti, 1979. © Alex Webb/Magnum Photo*s

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Exhibitions, Huck, Photography

Reynaldo Rivera: Provisional Notes from a Disappeared City.

Posted on March 29, 2021

*Provisional Notes from a Disappeared City © Reynaldo Rivera*

“The only decade I feel nostalgic for is the ‘70s,” says photographer Reynaldo Rivera from his Los Angeles home. “There’s a dreamlike thing in my psyche about the ‘70s as this magical time even though I had this horrifying experience. My father kidnapped me and my sister, took us to a village in Mexico, and left there from ‘69 to ’75. It’s like an Oliver Twist story. This lady took us in and used to sing Toña la Negra songs. Music was my babysitter at a time when I would have had mother, my aunts and uncles.”

After singing a few lyrics to Toña la Negra’s bolero “Arráncame La Vida” Rivera shares the translation by text: “Rip the life from me / With your last love kiss / Tip it, take it, tale me heart / Rip me life and in case the pain hurts you / I must be from not seeing me / Because at the end, your eyes, I took with me.”

“This is what influenced me,” Rivera says. “Music opened the door that allowed me to create an environment where I’d want to take photos. Being into all this Mexican super tragic music created this baroque me, this person that’s over the top emotional. From Toña la Negra, and later Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, I sought answers that told me to take a beating and still love it!”

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Categories: 1980s, Art, Blind, Books, Photography

Iringó Demeter: She is Warm

Posted on March 26, 2021

Hailing from a tiny Transylvanian village of just 200 people, London-based photographerIringó Demeter remembers growing up surrounded by nature and animals. “It was very lonely but that pushed me to observe and question everything around me,” Demeter tells AnOther. “I relate to being an observer: looking at things as they happen, listening to them, and wondering why they are that way. A piece of grass blowing in the wind – there is so much beauty and so much quietness about it.”

Demeter’s fascination with nature serves her well in the creation of a series of female nudes brought together in the new book She Is Warm (Libraryman). Included as number 12 of the publisher’s quarterly Seasons Series, which draws inspiration from Kim Ki-duk’s seminal film Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring, the book showcases Demeter’s original perspective on the nude, one rooted in the idea that our bodies are our first home.

Over the past four years, Demeter has amassed a collection of works crafted from what could be described as “slow” photography. “I would never carry a camera,” she says. “I look at all of these things, then maybe a day or a year later I photograph a body and think back on that experience. I work with single images. I always say that if I take away one good image, I am happy. I don’t have expectations that every it has to be good – no, that’s way too much pressure. I focus on single images and when I have it, I’m like this is great!”

Read the Full Story at AnOther

Categories: AnOther, Art, Books, Photography, Women

Mary Ellen Mark: Girlhood

Posted on March 24, 2021

*Emine Dressed Up for Republic Day, Trabzon, Turkey, 1965 © Mary Ellen Mark/The Mary Ellen Mark Foundation*

“I didn’t have the happiest home life or childhood, so I think that gave me a feeling of justice and passion for people that don’t have all the breaks,” Mary Ellen Mark (1940-2015) said in 2010 on KOBRA SVT, Swedish National Television.

“I think it was important to me to be free and wander the world and not have a family,” Mary Ellen Marks added. “I think if you don’t come from a happy home, maybe you don’t want to tie yourself down. I always wanted to be completely free. Even from the time that I was like eight years, seven years old, I remember walking home from grade school thinking, When am I going to get out of here? I’ve got to be free. So the freedom was always a major thought for me, a major plan.”

That desire for freedom became the driving force in the artist’s life. Having no children of her own, Mark was able to dedicate herself wholly to the creation of an extraordinary archive of work, selections from which were recently published in the three-volume monograph, The Book of Everything (Steidl), published at the end of last year and edited by film director Martin Bell, Mark’s husband and collaborate for 30 years.

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*Amanda and her cousin Amy. Valdese, North Carolina, 1990 © Mary Ellen Mark/The Mary Ellen Mark Foundation*

*Brooke and Billy at Gibbs Senior High School prom. St. Petersburg, Florida, 1986 © Mary Ellen Mark/The Mary Ellen Mark Foundation*

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Blind, Books, Exhibitions, Photography, Women

Frankie Perez: See Me Up? It’s ‘Cause I’ve been down

Posted on March 22, 2021

From Bronx jams in the 1970s to the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, the art of breaking has come along way over the past 50 years. One of the four elements of hip hop, breaking took its name from the dancers who took to the floor to show out when the DJ would cut the breaks.

With the release of seminal hip-hop films like Wild Style and Style Wars in the early 1980s, followed by Hollywood fare like Breakin’ and Beat Street, breaking became a global phenomenon, with aspiring B-boys and B-girls doing windmills, headspins, and backspins in their freshest fits.

With the commercial success of rap music, the culture moved away from hip hop’s roots, but breaking continued to grow, becoming an underground phenomenon around the globe. New York native Frank “B-boy Frankie” Perez discovered breaking while he was living in East Elmhurst, Queens, with extended family.

Read the Full Story at Huck

Categories: Art, Huck, Music, Photography

David Goldblatt: Strange Instrument

Posted on March 16, 2021

*David Goldblatt, Richard and Marina Maponya, Dube, Soweto, 1972.*

As a Jewish man born in South Africa, David Goldblatt (1930-2018) was an insider and an outsider at the same time. Born to parents who fled Lithuania to escape persecution, Goldblatt was possessed with a profound sensitivity to the exploited and oppressed. He took up photography as a teenager and began working full time in 1963 after selling the family store following the death of his father to document South Africa at the height of apartheid.

“David Goldblatt was a very political person and believed strongly in documenting the injustices that he saw around him. But he didn’t think of what he was doing as activism and he certainly didn’t want it to be propaganda,” says Pace Gallery curator Oliver Schultz.

Reflecting on what he describes as Goldblatt’s “compassion and dispassion”, Schultz discussed how the photographer’s matter of fact approach maintains its own profound emotional force. Although straightforward in its presentation, Goldblatt’s images can be unpacked like Russian nesting dolls, offering layers of meaning aligned with the viewer’s proximity to the subject of his work.

Read the Full Story at Huck

*David Goldblatt, Couple at The Wilds. Johannesburg., 1975.*

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Africa, Art, Exhibitions, Huck, Photography

Hazel Hankin: Coney Island, Summer of 77

Posted on March 14, 2021

*Hazel Hankin. Coney Island, Summer 1977.*

Brooklyn native Hazel Hankin can still remember the thrills and chills of going to Coney Island in the 1950s as a child, revelling in the vibrant atmosphere of “America’s Playground”. Drawn to what she describes as “a world that seemed to exist outside of normal life,” as a teenager, Hankin began hanging around Coney Island after dark with friends for late-night rides on the legendary Cyclone rollercoaster.

After graduating high school at 16, Hankin began studying art at Brooklyn College where she pursued her BA, then her MFA. Originally a painter, everything changed when Hankin, who married at 20, got divorced mid-degree.

“I didn’t have a place to paint but I had a place to put a darkroom,” Hankin remembers. “I didn’t know anything about photography. I was a blank slate. I learned photography on a 2 ¼ camera and didn’t even know about different photo formats.”

Read the Full Story at Huck

Categories: 1970s, Art, Brooklyn, Huck, Photography

Harvey Stein: Then and There – Mardi Gras 1979

Posted on March 12, 2021

In January 1979, American photographer Harvey Stein quit his job at a Madison Avenue advertising agency to pursue his dream of being a photographer. After publishing his first book, Parallels: A Look at Twins, the previous fall, Stein was ready to strike out on a path all his own. To celebrate leaving the business world behind Stein and fellow photo buddies Bruce Gilden, Charles Gatewood, and Jim Colman decided to travel to New Orleans for Mardi Gras that February.

“As I recall, the shooting was non-stop, all day,” Stein says. “There was high energy everywhere. I wanted to document exuberant public behaviour, nudity, and high spirits. This was prevalent. I photographed mostly in the French Quarter – I thought that part of the city was charming, with narrow streets and small-scale buildings. Altogether it was a wonderful trip.”

Under the bright light of daytime, Stein used his Leica M-4 to create a series of black and white street photographs capturing the decadence of America’s most famous carnival. At dusk, Stein took out his Polaroid SX-70 camera to make intimate street portraits of people adorned with face paint and masks, published for the first time in the new book Then and There: Mardi Gras 1979 (Zatara Press).

Read the Full Story at Huck

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

Jim Goldberg: Fingerprint

Posted on March 11, 2021

*Jim Goldberg. Wea, Near Hollywood Boulevard. Los Angeles, California. USA. 1988-1994. © Jim Goldberg | Magnum Photos*

From 1985-1995, Jim Goldberg worked on the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco getting to know a number of homeless teens, building the relationships that would come to form the basis of Raised by Wolves, the groundbreaking monograph that redefined commonly held notions of documentary work. Weaving together photographs, handwritten notes, drawings, snapshots, found objects, and ephemera into a majestic tapestry, Goldberg crafted a brutally compelling portrait of troubled youth struggling to survive.

Through the stories of protagonists Tweeky Dave and Echo, Goldberg provided visibility, and a voice, to at-risk teens at a time when they were alternatively vilified and marginalized, or erased from most peoples’ awareness, allowing the subjects to control the narrative.

The dazzling sunshine of Southern California and noirish shadows it cast made the perfect visual backdrop for a tale of adolescent antiheroes driven from their homes, fending for themselves on the streets. “The stories that they created about themselves were based on Hollywood, rock and roll, and love stories. Their family on the street was a movie in itself. They were in Hollywood and San Francisco, too. They would flow back and forth and be the new James Deans or Johnny Rottens.”

Read the Full Story at Magnum Photos

*Jim Goldberg. Schemer and Cupcake, Near Hollywood Boulevard. Los Angeles, California. USA. 1988-1994. © Jim Goldberg | Magnum Photos*

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Magnum Photos, Photography

Mitch Epstein: Property Rights

Posted on March 11, 2021

*Ashton Clatterbuck, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania 2018, dye coupler print, © Mitch Epstein*

It wasn’t until photographer Mitch Epstein traveled to India in the 1980s that he began to understand what it means to be an American. By putting distance between himself and the United States, Epstein began to develop a deeper sense of his cultural identity. His travels to Vietnam in the early 1990s became a turning point, deepening the political dimension of his work. From that point forward, Epstein began to confront the political underbelly of American history in a series of projects made throughout the first two decades of the twenty-first century.

Although Epstein did not set out to create a trilogy, in retrospect he recognizes the thread that weaves through the cycle that began with Family Business, an intimate story about the cost of pursuing the illusory American Dream. Afterwards, Epstein expanded his perspective in a study of American Power and most recently with Property Rites, an exhibition and soon to be released book that ultimately reckons with the call to resistance on the home front.

Epstein does not consider himself an environmental photographer, but the stories he shares offer entrees into American histories that have largely been erased from view. “I don’t have a political agenda or a preconceived operandi in my head when I’m making the pictures,” Epstein says. “It’s not useful to me to be at service to the ideas I already have in my head. That’s an artistic handicap. But in the end I’m clear about the importance of taking responsibility of the work, to contextualize and position it without denying its own enigma. I’m not explaining it.”

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*Tree of Life Synagogue Memorial, Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 2018 © Mitch Epstein*

Categories: Art, Blind, Books, Exhibitions, Photography