- Tierney GearonYesterday
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This remarkable image is a double exposure from Tierney Gearon's new exhibition opening tonight at Phillips de Pury & Company in London. One of 40 new works each printed at 40 x 50 inches, the entire series titled "Explosure", is comprised of combined images where the compositions and themes act in counterpoint to each other. It's difficult to follow the image above with anything better, so to see a selection of other images click here.
- A Good BrowseJanuary 5
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There's nothing like a good browse through a bookstore and this weekend I found myself passing by Rizzoli on West 57th Street where they not only have a terrific photo section on the second floor, but one that's laid out horizontally so you can see a long line of covers rather than spines. First stop, however, was downstairs where Kelly Klein's latest opus, "Horse" was displayed on an impressive pedestal. Yet another oversize book, it is nonetheless admirably edited and printed and full of surprises like the above Herb Ritts picture of Pee-Wee Herman. I'd forgotten how funny Ritts (and Pee-Wee) could be and this picture is a rarity in that it's a set-up that's nevertheless still funny. (I have a thing about how unfunny most set-up pictures of comedians tend to be.) The funniest pictures are usually the most spontaneous accidents imaginable.
If any one has a larger j-peg of the above picture please e-mail it to me at info@danzigerprojects.com.
- Top Ten #1 – The Obama EffectJanuary 2
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Shepard Fairey
With no great sense of originality, I am pleased to put not just Barack Obama, but “the Obama effect” at the top of my list of the 10 things that culturally enriched my life in 2008. The outpouring of support from the visual and creative community was predictable in all but its intensity and effectiveness, the victory as unpredictable as it was imaginative.
We have become so used to artists raising the banner of protest that it will take an unusual revision of the natural order for art to begin to realign itself with the positive, but what an interesting process that could be! I’m not suggesting artists give up their right to challenge any issues they feel the need to confront, but let’s pull ourselves together and not apart.
A prescient reader suggested Shepard Fairey, who created the lasting visual image of the campaign with his series of graphic exhortations - HOPE, VOTE, PROGRESS, etc. - be the top of the list. I have been thinking about this for a while, and I am a huge fan of Fairey’s work, but as you will see from the link to
- Top Ten #2 – Annie Leibovitz: At WorkJanuary 1
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Annie Leibovitz's new book "At Work" was perhaps the stealth photo event of the year. Primarily a text rather than a picture book, it is nonetheless one of the most interesting photography books of the year, taking us behind the scenes to reveal not so much the technical aspects of a shoot, but the mental and physical preparations before and the psychological and strategic footwork during the taking of many of her most famous images.
Seamlessly interviewed and edited out of Leibovitz by the skilled editor, Sharon Delano, the book is a smooth and engrossing read from start to finish that entertains with all manner of autobiographical stories from Leibovitz's student days to the present, as well as her almost awestruck perspective and stories about other famous photographers.
There is an interesting selection of photographs - a mixture of iconic images and more obscure ones - and it's surprising to see how well they work printed smaller than postcard size. Much credit is obviously also due to the printers.
For anyone looking for lighting tips this isn't necessarily the book (although Leibovitz does provide a t
- Top Ten #3 – Paul Fusco's RFK RediscoveredDecember 31 2008
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In terms of something I was personally involved in, the opportunity to work with Paul Fusco on rediscovering, editing and exhibiting photographs from his RFK Funeral Train series was one of the highlights of my entire gallery career.
I've written a number of times about the pictures (just enter Fusco on this blog's search box) so I won't repeat myself, but to give you a sense of the depth and quality of the work, here are just ten out of the nearly 2,000 images we had to choose from that didn't make the cut of the final 20 selected for the master set. (Simply choosing these ten out of the 50 or so that were under final consideration was heartbreakingly hard.) However, many of the unseen images can now be found in Aperture's newly released book.
Excuse the poor quality of these reproductions, but the images are of the original 35mm kodachrome slides shot in low-resolution off a Library of Congress lightbox.
