Paying tribute to the tenth anniversary of 9/11, MoMA PS1 presents September 11, a group exhibit that explores the far-reaching consequences of the attacks on the World Trade Center. Inspired by the dearth of representation in the cultural discourse of the attacks, Peter Eleey, who is the head curator at MoMA PS1, has assembled 71 works by artists dead and alive including Diane Arbus, William Eggleston, Christo, and John Lennon and Yoko Ono, a selection that avoids images of the event itself or art made in direct response it.
Some of the work is more direct, like Ellsworth Kelly’s collage Ground Zero, which shows a mocked up page of The New York Times with a green geometrical shape over a picture of Ground Zero. Other pieces were created before the attacks, like Alex Katz’s 10:00 AM, which shows a serene body water with a reflection that now appears haunting. “I’m interested in how we read things into these images,” Eleey has said about how 9/11 has influenced the way we see our environment. “After the attacks, we continued to see the towers everywhere.” Click through to see some of the works in the show.
The concept of the Mastergram Tumblr is simple: “Remarkable photos made better (or worse) using Instagram.” Yet, just the loaded byline alone sends disgruntled shudders up the spines of photography purists while iPhone enthusiasts get giddy with anticipation. There you have it. Celebrated shots by Cindy Sherman, William Eggleston, Robert Mapplethorpe, and more, fed through smoothing, brightening, tinting Instagram effects — the very same technology that makes your most banal shots all pretty and special.
Photographer Andrew Emond investigates: “If the Instagram effect can make mundane images appear to be works of art, what happens when we apply the same filters to images that have historically been held in high regard? Is the imagery degraded or enhanced as a result? Does the effect add a new layer of meaning to the photo? Perhaps these are questions best left resolved by the viewer.” View the manipulated imagery below and see how Nan Goldin’s faded, blue-less bruise makes you feel.
Although color photography has been around nearly as long as the medium of photography itself, most photographers made black-and-white film and paper the go-to-products for fine art photography until the late-1960s and early-1970s. Stephen Shore, Joel Meyerowitz, and William Eggleston were among the first wave of photographers to explore the saturated colors of new processes available in their time. While Shore and Meyerowitz shot street scenes and still lifes with large format cameras, Eggleston pursued his everyday subjects with a 35mm camera and set the medium of fire with a controversial survey show of his dye-transfer prints at the Museum of Modern Art in 1976.
A controversial pioneer of color photography, William Eggleston makes the fleeting and the everyday worthy of our attention.
Influential to both photographers and filmmakers, Eggleston possesses a painter’s eye for pure colors and complex compositions. From a tricycle on a suburban Memphis street to a mixed drink being savored on a plane passing through the clouds, the artist transforms mundane moments into visual poetry.
Further fanning the flames of anticipation surrounding their recently-bumped-up forthcoming album, Spoon has released the cover art for Transference, which is due out January 19, 2010 in the US. Finally. The photograph itself is one from 1970 taken in Mississippi by renowned photographer William Eggleston, a photographer accustomed to having his work featured on an album cover or two. It was originally published in Eggleston’s Guide back in 1976.
It’s lovely and it makes us a bit nostalgic for other great album art that came out of the gallery world as opposed to a record company’s art department.
If you’ve been to any arty parties recently, especially of the contemporary photo variety, chances are you’ve run into Amani Olu. Nattily dressed, attired in giant glasses, and typically surrounded by a coterie of friends, artists, and Brooklyn cultural savants, Olu has professed his desire to become a tastemaker in contemporary photography by curating independent exhibitions, running a gallery, and publishing collector’s guides. His latest curatorial work by amani olu projects is collected in After Color, a new exhibition at Bose Pacia gallery in Chelsea. Read More »
The preponderance of landscape photography exhibitions invading our nations’ museums got us thinking about the vast tradition of American landscape photography. By and large, landscape photographers — working in tandem with a team of painters and writers — have accounted for our popular understanding of what America looks like. Back in the 19th century, Timothy O’Sullivan introduced Americans to the sweeping vistas of the Southwest with his survey images, in the ’30s WPA photographers Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange documented the trials and travails of blighted farmers in the great plains, and in the ’70s William Eggleston threw his hat in the mix with his whiskey soaked images of the South.
For all of the iconic images of the United States and their seemingly quaint regionalism, how easy is it to tell where a photograph was taken? Take our quiz to find out.
When having rats is a good thing – A Liverpool pub featuring one of BANKSY’s giant rat murals from 2004 is on the market for £495,000. Experts value the building at closer to a million pounds thanks to the image’s size and age. [The Mirror]
We hope you’re not eating a burger – DAMIEN HIRST art directs a gruesome new video for British rock band THE HOURS that stars SIENNA MILLER, a mutilated cow and a boatload of blood. Ew. [NME]
He’s come a long way, baby – Next week New York’s Whitney Museum hosts a WILLIAM EGGLESTON retrospective; his museum debut in 1976 was called “the most hated show of the year,” but as he made color photography legit as fine art, we’ll cut him a break. [Time]
Cheaper than a footlong at Subway – The JACKSON POLLOCK painting featured in WHO THE $#%& IS JACKSON POLLOCK is for sale at a gallery in Toronto with an asking price of 5 million dollars. That’s $4,999,995 than the owner paid for it in a thrift store. [CBC]
Gehry goes all grave digger – An Iraeli court has approved L.A.’s Simon Wiesenthal Center’s plans to put up a FRANK GEHRY-designed Museum of Tolerance on the grounds of a Muslim cemetery. Double ew. [LAT]
