Marks of Indifference #2 (Sidewalk), 2006
© Mark Wyse

Mark Wyse (who I interviewed back in October) has an interesting piece up on Words Without Pictures entitled Too Drunk to Fuck (On the Anxiety of Photography).

You may want to take a quick peek at this post of mine and then read the essay.

loooking at a box of Emmet Gowin photographs in the Fogg’s Study Room

On Friday, I made a quick stop into Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum to visit a friend working in the Study Room and take a peek at some work from the collection. This is a great resource to know about if you live in Boston. What better way to learn about art history than to see some amazing work up close and personal?

I was thrilled to flip through a portfolio of photographs by Emmet Gowin and hold one of my favorites. I noticed, in the distance, a girl sketching from a Diane Arbus print. This is my kind of place. I’m hoping that I can find time to visit regularly; once I was there, I wished I could stay forever.

Their hours are rather strict, though. It’s open to the public Tuesday through Friday from 2 to 4:45pm or by appointment. Browse the collection (of approximately 60,000 prints, 13,000 drawings, and 70,500 photographs and negatives) online here.

Note: gum-chewing is not allowed in the Study Room.

© Gil Blank

If you’re in Boston tonight, you must stop by for the opening reception (6-8pm) of Gil Blank’s show at LaMontagne Gallery. If you miss the opening, the show remains up until March 29th.

Also, on March 1st at 4pm, Blank will be in conversation with Caroline A. Jones (director of the History, Theory and Criticism Program and Professor of Art History at MIT) about “the viability of image making practices in contemporary culture.” Mark your calendars.

LaMontagne Gallery
555 East 2nd Street
South Boston, MA

L: Porsche, 2007 R: Rücken, 2008 (from “How Can We Be So Different?”)
© Nicola Kast

I just updated Nicola Kast’s website with some new photographs from her series exploring German identity, tentatively titled How Can We Be So Different?. Very intriguing work. You may find it interesting to know that Nicola studied with Collier Schorr while at SVA.

See more of her work here.

© Marco Pietracupa

According to Christian (yes, he’s blogging vicariously through me), Marco Pietracupa’s fashion photography is like Juergen Teller minus famous naked people.

Pretty much. Take a look if you like Teller.

Untitled, 2006 (from “Hearts of Darkness”)
© Sandy Volz

Untitled, 2006 (from “Hearts of Darkness”)
© Sandy Volz

German photographer Sandy Volz recently had some interesting work entitled Hearts of Darkness in an exhibition at Bremen School of Art, where she is a student of Peter Bialobrzeski’s.

See more from the series here.

[thanks James]

Beautiful Moments (Detail), 2007
© Anne Collier

Nicola referred me to the work of Anne Collier. Looking at her photographs, you may think of the approach of such photographers as Roe Ethridge or Christopher Williams. Interesting.

Girl in Fairground Caravan, 1926-1932
© August Sander

Oh Comely
by Jeff Mangum (of Neutral Milk Hotel)

Oh comely
I will be with you when you lose your breath
Chasing the only meaningful memory you thought you had left
With some pretty bright and bubbly terrible scene
That was doing her thing on your chest
But oh comely
It isn’t as pretty as you’d like to guess
In your memory you’re drunk on your automy
It doesn’t mean anything at all
Oh comely
All of your friends are all letting you blow
Bristling and ugly
Bursting with fruits falling out from the holes
Of some pretty bright and bubbly friend
You could need to say comforting things in your ear
But oh comely
There isn’t such one friend that you could find here
Standing next to me
He’s only my enemy
I’ll crush him with everything I own
Say what you want to say
Hang for your hollow ways
Moving your mouth to pull out all your miracles aimed for me

Your father made fetuses
With flesh licking ladies
While you and your mother
Were asleep in the trailer park
Thunderous sparks from the dark of the stadiums
The music and medicine you needed for comforting
So make all your fat fleshy fingers to moving
And pluck all your silly strings
And bend all your notes for me
Soft silly music is meaningful magical
The movements were beautiful
All in your ovaries
All of them milking with green fleshy flowers
While powerful pistons were sugary sweet machines
Smelling of semen all under the garden
Was all you were needing when you still believed in me
Say what your want to say
Hang for your hollow ways
Moving your mouth to pull out all your miracles aimed for me

And I know they buried her body with others
Her sister and mother and 500 families
And will she remember me 50 years later
I wished I could save her in some sort of time machine
Know all your enemies
We know who our enemies are

Goldaline my dear
We will fold and freeze together
Far away from here
There is sun and spring and green forever
But now we move to feel
For ourselves inside some stranger’s stomach
Place your body here
Let your skin begin to blend itself with mine

Ústí nad Labem, June, 2002 (from “Czech Eden”)
© Matthew Monteith

Brooklyn-based photographer Matthew Monteith graduated from the MFA program at Yale in 2004 and has since released a book of photographs from the Czech Republic entitled Czech Eden (Aperture, 2007), one of my favorite monographs from last year. I want to thank Matthew for taking the time to talk with me about this project and what led up to it. The following conversation (text only) can also be viewed as a printer-friendly PDF.

Read the rest of this entry »

Untitled, 2008 (from “Latvia”)
© Phillip Aumann

I’d be curious to see more from Phillip Aumann’s Latvia series.