It was hard to find the juice to write anything at all today, much less the article I’d planned, which will feature the best work I saw at PhotoNOLA back in December.
That one gets pushed to next week, I’m afraid, as I just don’t have it in me.
So I went for a walk up the hill, (on the only sunny day we’ve had in ages,) and conjured a new idea.
Me, brain-fried on a sunny Thursday. (Unfortunately, it’s gray again today.)
This week, we’re going to do something unexpected, and deliver what is now the 3rd Annual Advice column.
Hooray!
It began on a whim, two years ago, as the global pandemic lockdowns were setting in, and I had a powerful intuition the world was about to go to shit.
(Got that one right, unfortunately.)
With all the news media attention about hoarding, empty toilet paper shelves, and the newfound suggestion that humans should keep 6 feet apart, I had a compulsion to chime in.
My first advice article got quoted in the Santa Fe New Mexican, a proper newspaper, so I guess my instincts were solid.
I did it last year as well, so now we’re back again, as the world begins to open in earnest, even though the virus is still alive and kicking.
(Photographer J A Mortram reported to me, this morning, that the UK virus numbers are basically the highest they’ve been, though we’re in a temporary lull here in the US.)
But I don’t want to write about Covid today, nor to “advise” you on how to handle it.
Rather, it’s time to take stock of the world, and consider how to act in a new reality that is much, much crazier than the one that existed in November 2019.
My brain is fried because I haven’t been sleeping well, the last week and a half.
(Since I got back from California.)
We had another horse die while I was away, (of colic,) so I came home to a stressed out 9-year-old daughter, who needed a lot of consoling.
Then I wrote that monster of a column, which was both a weight off my shoulders, and a massive mental burden to accomplish.
But then things got even stranger.
By Friday afternoon, a narcissistic, mean-spirited neighbor accosted me over dog drama, and eventually screamed at Amelie, just as she got off the school bus, for an incident that happened while she was still riding down the hill from school.
It was batshit crazy, but I kept my cool, never raised my voice, and stuck with logic, which kept the conflagration from turning even nastier.
(Or physical. You can’t put your hands on anyone and get away with it, unless you’re a super-famous, rich movie star.)
The next day, I was so tired I couldn’t even make it past the porch, and just sat on the couch, drooling on myself, watching the excellent Netflix show “Top Boy,” Season 2.
(Shockingly, I haven’t started calling everyone “Fam” yet, or saying “Innit” all the time, but as Curly famously said, the day ain’t over yet.)
Courtesy of AllPoetry.com.
Finally, by afternoon, I had just enough physical juice to walk the 100 yards down to the stream.
My plan was to listen to the water, rub a bit on the back of my neck, bask in the quiet for a minute or two, then go back to my couch to feel sorry for myself.
(I was staying off Twitter, as the NFT article had gone photo-world-viral, and I knew battling trolls, and/or basking in compliments, would not be good for my soul.)
When I was nearly to the stream-front, I heard voices, which is not rare, as sound travels really far in our box canyon.
But as I got closer, I saw there were two people between me and the water, and they should definitely not be there.
Trespassers.
What the fuck?
Immediately, though, I recognized two neighborhood kids with whom we sometimes play basketball.
(One used to bully my son in elementary school, but somehow we moved past it.)
They were uncle and nephew to each other, though one is only 17, (and a Dad already,) and he once pelted his 11-year-old nephew with a rock, for no particular reason, opening a huge gash over his eye.
(Like I’ve always said, life in the Wild West is no joke.)
In the past, I’d have lost my shit to see the boys there, especially as they were in the process of destroying a set of tree stumps that surrounds a fire pit, but this time, that’s just not the way it went.
(I credit my return to martial arts training, as oddly, learning to fight makes you much less likely to ever be in one. The mental discipline and emotional control one learns is powerful.)
Rather than yelling at them, or escalating the situation, I began with a simple question:
Did something bad happen to you guys today?
Though they come from a difficult background, they’re both good kids, and we’re kind of friends, so rather than assuming malicious intent, I figured someone dumped on them, and lacking healthy outlets for their anger, they’d ended up on my land, taking it out on my tree stumps.
Turns out, I was correct.
A random drunk guy had shown up on their road, in a big pickup truck, and done donuts in their yard, before throwing beer bottles at their trailer, one of which broke a window.
The boys had been home alone, were scared, angry and freaked out, and ended up at my place, beating on some rotten old wood.
Of course I didn’t call the cops, or threaten them in any way, and by the end of our make-shift, 30 minute therapy session, I’d given them my cell phone number, so they always had someone in the neighborhood to call if a random asshole showed up again.
(I was clear not to include me in family disputes, or dial my digits at 3am. Both conditions were quickly accepted.)
And what is my point in sharing this story, exactly?
Like I said, this is a stream-of-consciousness advice column.
As I told those boys, I’m here to help.
The last two years have been so stressful, and awful, with Bad Guys like Putin and Trump getting away with all their awful deeds.
People on social media are now claiming that Russians aren’t human, and some Facebook troll actually had the gall to call me a “Grump Old White Man.”
(As Wayne and Garth used to say, “As if!”)
The homicide rate is up in America, the roads are super-dangerous, and anti-social, narcissistic behavior has been normalized to the point that a super-rich, über-famous actor actually thought he could assault another famous person, on global television, and get away with it!
(Seems his calculations were correct.)
I’ve been warning you since last summer that people were “this” close to snapping, and resorting to violence, and it seems I was right.
(It gives me no pleasure to say that, though.)
So here’s where the “How To Safely Navigate 2022” advice comes in.
Please, people, chill the fuck out!
Remember to belly breathe.
Take more walks.
Appreciate your loved ones.
Watch more funny movies, so you can laugh.
Invest heavily in your self-care.
(And seriously consider studying a martial art. It’s good for self-defense and self-control, obviously, but many of the ancient arts are also rooted in philosophy, be it Zen Buddhism or Taoism, so you might learn a thing or two about the world as well.)
As artists, we’re trained to delve into the Zeitgeist, and go against the grain.
So if it seems OK for people to lose their shit these days, try the opposite.
Keep it together.
Be your best self.
And rather than assuming people are out to get you, maybe set your default to giving others the benefit of the doubt. Because 99% of the time, someone is having a really bad day, (due to the crazy, war-torn world,) and they’re just taking it out on you.
Try to be the bigger person, and worry less about your pride.
I know this sounds trite, or easier said than done, but I’m telling you, the combination of patience, compassion, empathy, emotional control and understanding is powerful medicine.
And we can’t just sit around and watch the world burn.
We have to do something about it.
In this case, I’m recommending you work hard to self-improve, as if we all do that, (or some of us, anyway,) the world will literally be a healthier place.
See you next week, when we’ll get back to the photography criticism and whatnot.
(Lyrics quoted from memory, b/c that horrible fucking song stuck in my head.)
Gaslighting is such a great word.
(Perfect for the 2020’s.)
Having fallen prey to the tactic in the past, I empathize with others who do.
If you’re not familiar with the term, (or have heard it, but don’t know exactly what it means,) the gist is, when a person or a group challenges your proper understanding of reality, so deeply, so aggressively, that eventually you begin to question your own sanity.
For example, imagine you are in a blue elevator with three strangers.
All of a sudden, the lights go out, and the car freezes.
You’re stuck.
The group begins to converse, and at some point, one of the other people mentions the elevator is red.
No one disagrees, but you don’t think much of it, and of course the subject quickly changes.
But you’re stuck in there for hours, and over time, it keeps coming up.
The room is red, they all say.
Over and over again.
At first, you’re sure what you saw: the walls were painted Dodger blue.
Dodger blue color sample, courtesy of crispedge.com
Eventually, as they all agreed, again and again, that you’re actually in a red elevator, your confidence begins to wane.
Are you POSITIVE you’re in a blue elevator?
Since they’re all so sure of themselves, isn’t it possible, at least remotely, that your memory is inaccurate, and the walls are actually Candy-apple red?
Slowly, their bluster begins to erode your knowledge of what you saw.
Like the drip, drip of a leaky faucet, you begin to question yourself, and by the time the lights come back on, you’re actually convinced they were right, and you were wrong.
And so a blue elevator becomes red in your mind, because you have no counter-factual information available, (beyond your own recollections,) and an entire group of people is challenging your conception of reality.
Like I said, what could be more 2020’s than that?
When Putin declares war against a Jewish president, and accuses him of being a Nazi?
Courtesy of the Detroit Jewish News
Or a guy you went to High School with starts blowing up your phone, promising to make you rich, in what seems like a scam, but he’s just so damn confident, with slick answers to all of your concerns, that eventually, you begin to believe him?
Am I finally writing that long-promised article about NFTs?
You bet I am.
Buckle up.
Like the bonkers, stream-of-consciousness Bill Joel song I quoted at the outset, I’m writing this article in a manner echoing the batshit crazy world of photo NFTs, in which it’s hard to know what to believe, (or whom,) because everyone is so sure they’re right, even though they’re shouting opposite arguments simultaneously.
I have to admit, I’ve been dreading writing this article.
If I could go back in time to September 2021, tell myself to let it all drop, and plug my ears with tissue paper, like Larry David, I would.
(If any of you has a functioning time machine, please email or DM me. I’m happy to pay a hefty sum.)
Courtesy of backtothefuture.fandom.com
Alas, I don’t think it’s an option.
And as I’ve been teasing this article for months, and promised Rob I’d “land the plane” this week, it’s time to put up or shut up.
But what if I’ve spent this many months reporting, interviewing artists, reading articles, thinking deep thoughts, and still don’t know what the fuck is going on?
Well, I guess I’d have to write it like that, wouldn’t I?
It must have been the Spring of 2021, (about a year ago,) that I first started noticing some NFT info popping up on my Twitter feed.
I kept seeing the name Justin Aversano, who was making a project about twins, but that was as much as I absorbed.
Then I heard my colleague Kris Graves was getting in on the game, with Justin, and that made an impression.
In May, Noah Kalina, an artist I knew of, but didn’t know, asked to see some work on Twitter, for a potential collaboration with Crytpo.com, so I sent him a link to a project of mine, and while he liked the work, he didn’t end up doing anything with those guys, so the idea dropped.
According to all I’ve since learned, March-May of 2021 was ancient, for the NFT world, the equivalent of a Mesopotamian society.
Those earliest NFTs might as well be Sumerian statues, with the massive mono-brow, given how fast things seem to move within this subculture.
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
I guess my attitude was always, I’ll sit on the sidelines until this becomes a thing, and then I’ll check in with my buddies, who’ll catch me up, and get me in the game.
Was that the right mentality?
Hard to say, but I’m reporting it as it happened.
By Fall, I’d begun to hear this was officially a thing, and some photographers were making real money, so I decided to tap up my network.
Strangely, some people I knew well, and with whom I’d collaborated before, (or done favors,) ghosted me, hard.
That never happens, so it made me curious.
Why would people who were normally cool with me all of a sudden tuck their heads?
What were they afraid of?
Or perhaps the better question was, what were they protecting?
Stranger still, in that same time-frame, a guy I went to High School with, (and was friends with on Facebook,) with whom I had not spoken in almost 30 years, reached out to see if I was interested in joining the NFT world.
He wanted to “onboard,” me, and began sending me information, via every available digital channel: text, FB, email, IG, and Twitter.
It was the full-court-press, with texts coming in first thing in the morning, late at night, all weekend long, and it was intense, to say the least.
All of my instincts told me things were fishy, that I was not about to make $2 million, and never have to work again.
That simply posting my archive images on an NFT platform would not solve all my problems, and make me rich and famous beyond my wildest dreams.
We all know the old saying: anything that seems too good to be true is too good to be true.
But I kept discussing it with my wife, and we both agreed even a small chance of life-changing money meant I should keep an open mind, and see where it went.
My new NFT cheerleader certainly knew some of the key players, and told me about the large sums of money he was spending, so on the surface it seemed legit, but then again, there were so many articles out there calling this crypto world a scam, a pyramid scheme, a multi-level-marketing program gone global.
Each day, I found myself wondering, WTF?, but kept at it, trying to learn more.
Eventually, this High School colleague and I considered going into business together, to create a platform to sell NFTs, because it seemed like the sales-platforms were where the real money was.
(Obviously, I didn’t go that route in the end.)
Many people have now heard of Quantum, (which recently drew $7.5 million in VC funding,) the trendiest NFT-gallery-company, and I was able to interview founders Justin Aversano and Kris Graves during my reporting phase.
Assembly is another, and I’m sure there are more out there.
From what I could gather, these money-making-orgs were founded based on a collab between some photo-world players, and crypto-money-people.
That seemed to be the key.
Then I learned how the platforms were interconnected with DAOs, which were (more or less,) unlicensed companies that in some ways, via fractionalized ownership of risky assets, behaved like the collateralized debt obligations and subprime lenders that crashed the global economy during the Great Recession.
That may happen to other people, but it doesn’t happen to me, so I really wondered how it seemed like everyone was gaslighting everyone?
Before you read any further, I want to state, right here, right now, that I don’t consider this a takedown piece.
I have no beef with the NFT community, which has been kind and generous to me, and certainly don’t feel I side with the haters, who mostly complain about the electricity use, the general sketchiness of cryptocurrency, and likelihood that people will get scammed out of money they can’t afford to lose.
(I’ve wondered for months now, why are electric cars seen as good, and eco, but electric art is automatically bad?)
Over the course of my reporting, I spoke with a group of NFT artists who truly love their new community, and the opportunities it affords.
I learned about artists who were trying to innovate with the blockchain, which, as best as I can describe, seems to be decentralized collection of servers around the world that hosts an official, crypto-protected, transparent, inter-connected, permanent digital ledger that cannot be manipulated, once it’s in place.
(Each “block” of data is connected to the next, and immutable.)
Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, whom I first discovered on Noah Kalina’s Twitter feed, set out to use NFTs to fund, (and has since succeeded,) an honest-to-goodness expedition, at sea off the southern tip of South America, so she and her scientist colleagues can share open source knowledge about Climate Change with the world.
The photos are beautiful, the project is ambitious, (called “Behold the Ocean,”) and of all the people I’ve interviewed as a journalist over the years, she was about as impressive an artist as I’ve ever “met.” (We spoke on Zoom, as she is based in Switzerland.)
All images from “Behold the Ocean”
Akosua, who goes by Ava Silvery on Twitter, told me about an artist with the pseudonym Patricia El, who was working on a project, “In This Land,” trying to document and digitally map Bedouin communities in the West Bank that were disappearing, as Israeli settlements continued to expand.
Again, massively ambitious, political, and fascinating.
It was also far cry from the capitalistic land grab I kept hearing about, where people were getting rich, and only a sucker would stay on the sidelines.
He’s the genius, sci-fi, futurist writer whose ideas were brought to life by subsequent coders.
Google Earth, Second Life, the Metaverse… these were ideas plucked by others from his influential book “Snow Crash.”
And “Cryptonomicon,” as its title suggests, more or less invented the concept of cryptocurrency in 1999.
He theorized about “money,” disconnected from governments, or even the tangible world, which could cross borders at the speed of light, never need to be exchanged, and accumulate value, like any other currency.
I’m sure you’ve heard of Bitcoin, but there are many other digital currency offerings, like Solana, and Ethereum, which is the main one used to create NFTs.
When I was first contacted by that trader-dude, 1 Eth was going for $3000ish dollars, and during the months of our conversations, it flew up to around $4800.
I was watching it rise each day, yet couldn’t shake the thought this whole world seemed unsustainable.
(If it were really that great, why were so many people trying that hard to constantly recruit a new batch of players?)
As you may know, the markets took a tumble recently, with Ethereum trading as low as $2411, and as of today, (I’m writing on Thursday,) 1 Eth = $3117.
Given how many people were using the term Crypto Bubble in late 2021, I guess we could say it’s popped.
How does one make, or “mint,” an NFT?
Well, it costs Ethereum to do so, so you have to convert your dollars (or Euros, Pesos, or Yen,) into Eth via a digital platform like Crypto.com or Coinbase.
That gets you in the game, like a gambler buying chips at a casino.
But in order to “mint” your work on a site like OpenSea, (which was likened to Ebay to me more than once,) or Foundation, (which is invitation only,) you need to create a digital wallet, with a service like Metamask or Rainbow, which operates as a connection point between your digital currency and the sales platforms.
The platforms take a cut if your work sells, (everyone takes a cut,) but you also have to pay to mint things, which are called “gas fees.”
Those float, and at one point, were as high as $200-ish per NFT minted, which was when I got concerned people would lose money on the venture by minting collections of work that would not sell.
Still, the artists I interviewed were over-the-moon to have discovered the NFT world, even if they weren’t yet selling work.
And the love and joy were genuine, for sure.
Frankly, I didn’t speak to one person who was unhappy with the situation, and only Richard Renaldi expressed any skepticism at all, but he was the one who came out furthest ahead.
(Except for Kris and Justin, who by all accounts have made a shit ton of money.)
(Which quickly became the NFT community’s social media platform of choice, along with Discord.)
Danielle Ezzo, From the series and collection, “If Not Here, Then Where?”
I hadn’t heard of any of them before I saw their Twitter handles pop up a few times, in relation to the DAOs, so I followed them, requested interviews, and they were gracious.
But when we first spoke, none of them had “gotten rich,” or sold much work at all. (Mickey even reported in November she’d sold the most work to her IRL handyman in New Zealand, as he was about to go into crypto full time.)
Each of them has since had their career advance in cool ways, via the NFT community, and I know Mickey has begun to sell work, though I’m not sure about the other two.
LOCO from the Volume collection on FoundationTIME #1,TIME #2, TIME #3 from the Library of Obsolescence collection on OpenSea
The big takeaway from speaking with all three artists was that the NFT world, which had developed around Discord and Twitter, had introduced them to an entirely new group of friends, colleagues, and opportunities.
Danielle now writes and does Twitter Space interviews for a platform, Mickey has been featured on a billboard, and Chavi just co-founded an NFT platform called Nemo, which aims to raise money by selling NFTs of environmental projects, to help support the collapsing coral reefs.
BLOOD displayed on a billboard in Los Angeles through The Billboard Creative + Obscura. Exhibition curated by Mona Kuhn and Alejandro Cartagena
They were all genuine, honest, cool, hard-working artists, yet for them, greed, and get-rich-quick schemes, had nothing to do with their interest in that world at all.
Chavi Lujan photo NFT’s
(Chavi and Danielle also told me they’d been interested in crypto for a while, before the NFTs came along, and Mickey was a long-time arts professional in the US, before moving to NZ.)
Still, though, I had at least some concerns.
Mickey, for instance, told me she was “working” for free for Obscura DAO, (working was my term, not hers,) but had then been awarded a “commission,” for which the DAO only selected other artists who’d been volunteering for their cause.
That reeked of nepotism to me, and inside baseball, and I said so at the time, so again, this is not necessarily a negative thing.
(Especially as I’m not the only one to express reservations about DAOs.)
Maybe it’s time to dive into that for a second.
DAO stands for decentralized autonomous organization.
It’s basically an unlicensed LLC, or an unregistered company, and they’re meant to be idealistic, like communes.
People buy in, or are gifted “tokens,” and then they get to vote on how the DAO operates.
RAW DAO was the first to come across my radar screen, as I spoke to Justin Aversano the day after a “party bid” bought one of his NFTs for several million dollars, via fractionalized ownership, and he offered that as seed money for RAW DAO, which would buy more art, to hold, like a mutual fund, and the entire DAO would profit as the NFTs appreciated in value.
Of course, just buying NFTs from the chosen artists should by itself raise the value of their work, much as IRL galleries help “support” museum shows for their artists, so they can increase prices.
I should also mention NFTs are based upon the idea of a “smart contract,” and one of the main selling points is supposed to be that the artist gets 10% royalties on future sales, which is obviously a pro-artist move.
But I kept thinking, only the tiniest fraction of artists ever has a resale market, so how does that help, unless the entire endeavor is meant as a bit of a trading scheme?
Even now, I’m not sure if a collector buys an actual .jpg file with their NFT purchase, or a link to where the file resides on the blockchain, so even after all this time, the process is still obtuse to me.
And I’m not alone.
Just this morning, Rob, who actually bought a few NFTs to see how the system works, and support artists, was Tweeting about the seemingly shady situation surrounding a set of August Sander NFTs, which went to market via Fellowship Trust, despite not being sanctioned by the copyright holder.
People bought and sold things they did not have a right to own, and then the files were removed from OpenSea.
So all the NFT skeptics, (and there are many,) are having a field day, as it seems to prove their fears of massive scammery going on.
Was it?
Honestly, I don’t know, but my erstwhile colleague, Alejandro Cartagena, who founded Obscura DAO, is in the thick of the controversy, and I’d been wondering about the validity of the DAO business model for months, so I was not surprised to hear this outcome.
Even Kris Graves, one of the official godfathers of the NFT world, expressed concern about them to me, saying in February, on the record,
“Someone asked me to be in a DAO, months ago, right when Quantum was starting, and I was like, it does not make sense for me to put myself in this kind of… even if they don’t consider it a risk, I do. I mean, it’s run by someone who doesn’t live in the country. They’re controlling a bunch of other peoples’ money that was given to them on spec. And then they’re going to have to give pieces to the people that they… the system is a circle. There has to be more rules in place for me to even think about being a part of any those things.”
Really, who knows what the fuck is going on?
Well, this is the longest article I’ve written in 10.5 years of doing this column.
Am I surprised?
Not in the least.
I’ve been absorbing information for months now, waiting to have a word-baby, and here it is.
(15 lbs, 11 oz.)
But what have I learned, really?
Maybe I should circle back to Noah Kalina, who did an awesome interview with me in December.
He reported he’d sold nearly $120,000 in NFTs in a year, from his series “Lumberland,” yet he did it the old-fashioned way.
Noah worked at it, promoted it hard, put in the effort, tried not to be obnoxious, (the NFT world is famous for overkill,) developed relationships with people at Foundation, b/c he had some old-school digital street cred, and treated it like selling any other form of his art.
All images from “Lumberland”
Unlike the Quantum platform, which was selling out whomever’s work they offered, sometimes in seconds, Noah did it by pushing the rock up the hill each day, committing to the process, and making it work for him.
He has always created photographs in serial form, and the images make sense to collectors, so they buy them.
And that’s where I landed, in the end.
If people want to offer something for sale, and other people want to buy it, what’s the harm?
Eco-wise, there are so many larger issues to worry about, and carbon offsets are available.
If artists are making friends, rather than money, or building careers, that is awesome.
If younger collectors want digital files, rather than prints, so what?
The world changes.
Always.
And if some things look shady, or nepotistic, they probably are.
Most of the artists I interviewed agreed there would be bad actors in the system.
Scams too.
Because digital life is ultimately just another manifestation of actual life.
And there are plenty of assholes out there.
Right?
{Ed note: I’d like to thank all the people who shared info with me over the last six months. Much obliged!}
The belief we should be reduced to our race, religion, gender identification, sexual orientation, or even nation of origin seems to come back around, every so often, and occupy the intellectual high ground of American culture.
Personally, I think the advent of identity politics, in the 70’s and 80’s, is one of the best things to ever happen to this country. (And if you’d like to extrapolate beyond our borders, feel free.)
From the 2021 vantage, that it was ever acceptable for all the jobs, all the opportunities, all the press coverage, and all the $$$$ to go to “White Christian Men Only” is laughable, tragic, and most definitely hard to comprehend.
(It’s beyond WTF.)
So the people who fought that, and made space for women, people of color, and those of other genders, religions and sexual preferences, they did us all a solid.
We should, and hopefully do, honor their efforts, which most certainly required sacrifice.
But when I matriculated to Pratt for grad school in 2002, those ideas, particularly as structured by the French Post-Modern theorists Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, were back en vogue, and dominated much of the campus discourse.
Jacques Derrida, courtesy of the Freedom from Religion FoundationMichel Foucault, courtesy of Brittannica
At the time, I’d arrived with a digital project I’d shot in Mexico the previous summer, only to learn there was no existing Digital Photography program at the Graduate level.
Literally nothing.
Teotihuacan, Mexico, 2002
So I was forced to pull bits of knowledge from a variety of departments, including digital art, undergrad photo, graphic design, computer science, and even printmaking.
There I was, seeing the new digital reality, and none of my fellow photographers wanted to talk about it.
I took an Art History class, with the brilliant Marsha Morton, which had the boring title of “The Beginnings of Abstraction,” and it was so dynamic, I still get chills thinking about it.
She had meticulously reconstructed the personal, cultural, and geo-political history of artists like Picasso, Braque, Malevich, Kandinsky, O’Keefe, and others, and taught us the intellectual backstory that led to such a radical change in art.
Kazmir Malevich Suprematist painting, 1915, courtesy of Clemens Toussaint/Heirs of Kazimir Malevich
The basic premise was, at the turn of the 20th Century, with the invention of the automobile, airplane, mechanized warfare, the theory of relativity, these changes were so seismic, from 19th Century life, they led to an entirely new world.
I sat in class, at the beginning of the 21st Century, and it was clear such things were happening again.
Just the internet alone, 9/11, and cell-phone-technology, made life almost unrecognizable from the 80’s and 90’s.
So I’d ask, “If life is this different, and our problems are so new, why are we turning to a 30 year old philosophy to explain what the fuck is going on in the world?”
It was less about people battling over race and class, and more the construct that every single sentence anyone says, (or writes,) is so loaded with cultural/identity baggage, that every utterance can be deconstructed, and rendered meaningless.
I wondered what would happen if and when such ideas migrated from the left wing to the right?
(Now we know.)
At one point, in a History of Digital Art class, I proposed a paper theorizing about the impending reality-shift, once images and videos could no longer be trusted, presaging the world of Deep-fakes. (I’d recently read William Gibson’s amazing “Pattern Recognition,” and like many before me, got my big idea from a sci-fi genius.)
The professor couldn’t fathom such a thing happening, nor why it might be important, so she denied my paper idea, and I wrote about Jackson Pollock, Carl Jung, and the Collective Unconscious instead. (Meaning, the part of the human psyche we all share.)
After Marsha’s class, I went around quoting Kandinsky, talking about how art was driven by “Inner Necessity,” and I still use that phrase with my students today.
In 2021, identity politics are of paramount concern again, and over the last month or so, I can not count how many people have wanted to talk to me about it, always confidentially.
(Off-the-record, just-between-us, please don’t quote me, that sort of thing.)
I believe efforts to increase diversity and inclusivity in the arts, in culture, and in our society, are insanely important, and to be commended.
If you’ve been reading this column for 10 years, (or even 5,) you’ll know I’ve always been an “ally,” standing up for disenfranchised people, owning my privilege, reporting on what’s going on out there, learning about and then practicing outreach, and generally trying to be a good dude.
At the onset of the #MeToo movement, I began alternating male and female book artists each week, for a year, and put a submission disclaimer at the end of each book review, soliciting books from artists of color, and female artists, so we could maintain a balanced program.
And still, someone came at me recently, accusing me of having never, not even once, reviewed a book by an artist of color.
It was easily disproven, but still, I responded politely, offered to have dialogue, and respected the other person’s opinion.
(Because in 2021, antagonizing anyone who’s that wound-up never seems to work out well.)
But the reason everyone wants to talk to me about this, (secretly,) is there seems to be a fervor for downgrading or degrading straight White male artists, which feels like it’s bordering on vengeance more than reason.
(Or at least, the idea that such people no longer “deserve” opportunities has become conventional wisdom.)
I’ve compared it to something my people, the Jews, have done, as the Israelis got a country due to 6 million dead in the Holocaust, but then become occupiers and racists of the highest order. (Denying basic human rights to Palestinians, and Israeli citizens of Arab descent.)
Hell, a few years ago, I even tried to re-brand myself as Jewish-American, rather than be known as a White Guy, but it doesn’t seem to have stuck.
As usual, I’m working up to a point, so please bear with me, as this has been on my mind lately, and I always try to find (and share) the nuance in difficult situations.
(While others have their heads hiding behind parapets.)
So allow me to reiterate: it is inherently good that so many people are now going out of their way to cultivate opportunities and support for, to honor and respect BIPOC artists.
All good.
But maybe, just maybe, the world will be a better place if we take some advice from Jesus, and the Golden Rule?
Is that such a radical concept?
I know this article might be controversial.
I get it.
So let’s give it some context.
Just last week, I went to Albuquerque to see two museum exhibitions, and speak to my friend Jim Stone’s Intermediate Photo Class at UNM.
As soon as I got to the city, I headed to the excellent, criminally underrated Albuquerque Museum, (in Old Town,) the site of the exhibition that launched my art career in 2008.
The Albuquerque Museum
(Though that’s not why I love the place. It’s a genuinely great institution.)
I met up with Adrian Gomez, the arts and culture editor of the Albuquerque Journal, as we’d hit it off when he interviewed me for an article about my work last year.
Adrian Gomez at the ABQ Museum
Adrian and I come from very different backgrounds, and had never spoken before the interview, yet we vibed immediately, and stayed in touch via IG DM’s, and the occasional text.
Though we’re both of the same gender, and love art, we had little in common, beyond a shared sense of morals/ethics, a believe in respecting others, and perhaps an artsy-hipster-energy that is less common in Northern New Mexico than you might think.
We were there to see “Another World, the Transcendental Painting Group,” a show that has unfortunately since closed, which featured Transcendental Paintings by a NM based art movement in the not-quite-mid 20th Century.
Founded by Raymond Jonson, who was also a leading arts educator at UNM, the group made mostly, (but not entirely) abstract paintings that used color theory, and shapes and forms, to communicate spiritual energy. And the exhibition featured work by Jonson, Emil Bisttram, Agnes Pelton, Lawren Harris, Florence Miller Pierce, Horace Pierce, Robert Gribbroek, William Lumpkins, Dane Rudhyar, Stuart Walker, and Ed Garman.
These paintings, which were heavily influenced by the early abstractionists like Kandinsky, Malevich, O’Keefe, and Arthur Wesley Dow, (who taught O’Keefe at Pratt,) were about mining the aforementioned Collective Unconscious, and the ineffable, mystical powers that exist all around us, but are never seen.
They tried to use art to tap into a universality of experience, and of the Universe itself, things often undervalued when we reduce people to their differences, at the expense of any sense of a larger shared understanding.
Adrian was knowledgeable about art, obviously, and we, the two critics, walked around the huge galleries slowly, feeling each painting, and discussing what we thought was going on.
(Including a running joke about how much opium some of them must have been smoking.)
It was clear some paintings, done in very consistent color palettes, filled with cool blues, lavenders, and such, were soothing, and made us feel relaxed and good.
Those tended to have everything line up together, value wise, with respect to color theory.
Then, images that had jarring colors mixed in, or which were based more on oranges, mustards, and ochres, were less pleasing to the eye, less soothing to the body, but they engaged the mind, as the artists were introducing juxtaposition, or dislocation, which makes you think.
There were female artists included, but if I had to guess, all the artists were White.
Adrian shared stories and insights with me, as we walked, and as that is often my job, it felt wonderful to listen and learn, rather than teach and pontificate.
(As I do here each week.)
As soon as we left the gallery, we walked into an education room, which was designed to engage children and citizens, and it was another example of why IRL museums are so vital to our sanity and quality of life.
We walked around the museum some more, and Adrian dropped knowledge bombs, like the fact that NM was once known as the Sunshine State, on its license plates, before rebranding as the Land of Enchantment, as the richer, more populous Florida took the Sunshine State as its own.
Then, as we left the building, we inevitably walked by the famous bronze sculptural installation of La Jornada, about which I wrote during the riot phase of 2020.
Someone was actually shot in the street, right near this piece of art, because some activists were trying to tear down the statue of Don Juan de Oñate, who violently colonized New Mexico, and a right-wing-psycho gunned a man down. (As a creepy, armed militia stood by.)
The installation is over the top, as the artists Betty Sabo and Sonny Rivera created a full wagon-train, with conquistadors, cows, and colonists, and it is life-like, and educational, as nearby plaques include the family names of those who came from Spain. (Some of whom were hidden Jews, fleeing the Spanish Inquisition.)
The spot where the Oñate once stood
Adrian and I discussed how complicated the situation was, with Spanish New Mexicans traditionally revering their history, and the Native Americans viewing the same events as tragedy and genocide.
As such, after the riot, they hacked out the statue of Oñate, but left the rest of the art piece, and the bronze-man is now locked-away inside the museum. (Though there are apparently still discussions as to whether to remove the entire installation.)
We compared that type of decision with the subsequent removal of Confederate statues that honored men who fought to preserve slavery in the South.
Men who fought to break up America.
The conquistadors, by contrast, were just like the Protestant English Pilgrims.
The English, Dutch, French, and Spanish carved up this country, wreaked havoc, and killed millions of Native Americans. (Or American Indians, to use the term again popular in the NYT.)
It is the shared history of this country, a society built upon blood, yet as Adrian said, “If they hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t exist.”
And neither would I.
If America had not been colonized, my ancestors would still have been in Europe in the mid-20th-Century, and would all have been gassed, shot or burned alive by Adolph Hitler and the Nazis.
America has created evil in this world, and I have personally written about the injustice of the American Conquest, and the history of slavery, more times in this column than I can remember.
But as an artist, and a critic, I wasn’t so sure that cleaving off Oñate from the rest of a piece of history was entirely the right move.
I understand why others feel that way.
But people getting shot over art makes me think of the Taliban.
Or the Cultural Revolution in China.
Is that really the best we can do?
It was time to move on, so I drove through some California-style-gentrification, and the first California-style-sidewalk-tent I’ve seen in Albuquerque, and got to UNM in time to meet Jim Stone for lunch.
There were big, white tents set up on campus, where musicians practiced violin, or students studied outside, as concessions to our current Covid reality.
It was great to be back at my alma mater, (Post-Bac 1997-99,) and after a nice teriyaki chicken lunch outside the Student Union, I chatted up Jim’s class for an hour.
Jim Stone, outside the UNM Student Union
All five students were either Native American, Hispanic, or female, (or some combination thereof,) and their teacher was a bearded White guy. (Who was named SPE honored educator in 2016.)
We talked about how hard it was for them, having their entire first year online, and they treated me with so much respect, as I did them.
Jim asked me to talk about the festival circuit, and portfolio review industry, as the non-profit organizations that run them offer the opportunity for community, education, and camaraderie after students leave the University nest.
I empathized with the students, and shared my knowledge and passion with kindness, and it felt wonderful to be back in a classroom in 2021.
I try to find nuance in things, as Jews are reputed to “run the world,” yet we’ve been attacked, killed and discriminated against for Millennia.
Growing up, it was implied we should hide our “Jewishness,” for fear of being persecuted, so I don’t really identify as a “person in power.”
But I grew up with some privilege, as I’ve admitted here before, and have always tried to use my platform to support others.
Which I will continue to do.
And starting with my next book review, I’ll re-institute our call for submissions by artists of color, and female photographers.
Not b/c someone suggested I was racist, (when I identify as Woke,) but because outreach is vital.
And just so we’re clear, I previously removed the submission info because I have nearly a year’s waiting list for review, and it seemed unethical to call for books, knowing I’d have to make people wait so long. (Though I do tell that to any artist who looks me up on his/her/their own.)
As my time in ABQ wound down, but before I headed to the Asian market for some groceries, I went to the UNM Art Museum, which recently re-opened after being closed for more than a year during the pandemic.
Though it’s known for its brilliant photography collection, begun by former professor Beaumont Newhall, (who founded the photo department at MoMA in New York,) there was a painting exhibition by Raymond Jonson, who as I said was a big deal on campus back in the mid-20th-Century.
Raymond Jonson Self-Portrait
I saw more of his paintings in one day than I had in my lifetime, yet this exhibition, decontextualized from the larger Transcendental movement, was less satisfying than the one at the ABQ Museum.
Fortunately, while the other exhibition has closed, this show will be up for a while, and the museum is free, so I highly recommend you check it out if you’re passing through NM. (Or if you live here.)
While the vibe at the ABQ Museum was ethereal, this was squarely in the trippy, strange territory. (I called it super-funky to Mary Statzer, who curated the exhibit, and she found that term on-point.)
The bulk of the exhibition was built around triptychs and mini-series, and feels spectral, or like Aliens were just around the corner, and maybe that’s just right for New Mexico in 2021.
In an alcove, separate from the rest of the work, were portraits, which were pretty phenomenal, so Raymond Jonson, (of Iowa, having done a stint in Chicago,) was clearly a talented dude.
But one portrait from 1919, of a prominent actress, Miriam Kiper, rubbed me the wrong way.
Her name was Jewish, her nose was exaggerated, as were her eyes, and hands. It seemed to be touching on Anti-Semitic tropes, and I felt bad inside.
(In 10 years of writing this column, I’m pretty sure I’ve never made that accusation before.)
I know such ideas were more acceptable back then, or perhaps Raymond Jonson was not even aware of his “implicit bias.”
Still, it never occurred to me to complain, or protest.
To demand the museum remove the painting.
Or destroy it.
Others are more comfortable with censorship, or the belief that if they get offended, the perpetrator of such offense is bad, or the enemy.
Worthy of punishment.
I understand ideas go in and out of fashion, and you will NEVER find me defending Robert E. Lee, or Donald J. Trump.
But maybe, just maybe, we can all walk back from this current, contentious ledge together?
America, as we know, is broken.
And perhaps it’s time we stop waiting for someone else to fix it?
Maybe it’s time to pull on our work gloves, cut each other a bit of slack, and do the heavy lifting ourselves?
I’ve been thinking about this column for a long time now.
(Six months, maybe eight.)
I even wrote it once, but then decided not to publish, as it didn’t feel right at the time.
Thankfully, today is the day, due to some unforeseen coincidence, or divine intervention, depending on your perspective.
It began two days ago, when I was scrolling through Instagram, and came across a photo of a very attractive, naked young woman, getting into a swimming pool. (Or something like that, it was a quick look.)
The image reminded me of something out of Playboy in the 80’s, and I was stupefied for a moment.
Doesn’t Instagram have rules against this sort of thing, I wondered?
I scrolled back to the photo, and clicked on the person’s profile, and lo and behold, there was an entire set of similar images.
Very pretty young women, naked, and shot in color by a white, male photographer who appeared to be in his 30’s or 40’s.
It didn’t conform to the stereotype of the leering, older man shooting black and white photos of nude women standing below big rocks, or leaning on trees suggestively.
No, this was more modern than that, and really, I couldn’t help wonder how this was deemed appropriate in #2020?
For all the media buzz around the shift in power dynamics, and the need to respect the perspectives of women and People of Color, it seemed so out of touch with contemporary reality.
So I did a Facebook post about it, without naming the artist, (as I’m not now, though I did reach out to him for comment, but he declined,) and not surprisingly the feedback was voluminous and fierce.
One artist, who does thoughtful nude work in black and white, suggested there was more nuance than simply deeming the entire practice off-limits, but in general, the tenor of the conversation was one of frustration, shock, not-shocked-at-all-but-angry, and cynicism.
How could any artist working today, one formed by the reality of the 21st Century, think it was OK to shoot pin-up soft-core porn and see it as art?
Much less post it on a public platform like Instagram?
So I went to his website, and there is a section for nudes, and a blog post about the ethics, that was written many years ago.
This was no random experiment, or so it would seem.
And speaking of random, and the potential of chance, part of why I waited so long to re-write this column was that I couldn’t find one of the two books I’m going to feature.
I had it once, decided not to review it, tried to review it with this companion book, and then it disappeared.
(My wife is known in our home for moving things around a few times a year.)
I wanted to write this column, and felt bad about losing the book, but I simply could not find it, no matter how many times I searched for the spine on my book shelves.
And then… on the same day I saw that Instagram image, I found myself looking down at a little Indonesian chest, upon which my wife had set a small pile of novels.
I noticed a book at the bottom, and it had one of those spines in which you can see the book binding, but there was no information at all.
Could it be, I wondered?
What are the chances?
Sure enough, I reached down in hope, and picked up Jordanna Kalman’s “Little Romances,” published by Daylight in 2019.
Hallelujah!
Eureka!
Fuck yeah!
We were in business, because it meant I could bring this column out in the perfect week.
The other book we’ll look at, “A Piece of Dust in the Great Sea of Matter,” was self-published by Melissa Borman in 2019, and both women wrote to me directly last year to see if I’d review their books.
These didn’t just show up in the mail because some PR Agent somewhere hoped I might cover them.
They chose me, and so I gave the books consideration, but each time, it didn’t feel quite right.
In each case, the taste level felt a touch off from what I like.
They were edgy, but not quite enough. Poetic, but in a heavy-handed way.
Imperfect, but not like an intentional extra thread on a Navajo rug.
(I subjected them to my “Goldilocks” standards, and they came up wanting.)
But then, I read an OP-Ed in the NYT by Brit Marling, the writer, director, and actor, (who starred in the Batshit-crazy Netflix series “The OA,”) and it got me thinking.
She discussed the idea that the Hero’s journey, basically the base-level operating code of all storytelling, was totally male-centric.
Which I get.
Thousands of years of men telling stories about men doing manly things.
So I asked myself, is my taste so male-centric, (given that I’m a man,) that I might occasionally have a blind spot to overtly female-centric work?
Even though I’m a feminist, and show female artists all the time?
I wrote this in a column, but as I said above, it wasn’t the right column for the right day, so I set it aside. (And promptly lost Jordanna’s book.)
At the time, I remember thinking the books were sensitive in a way that didn’t resonate with me. And as my parents used that as a pejorative term, to attack me, (“You’re too sensitive,”) I couldn’t get myself to figure out these books.
Eventually, I began to wonder, what if I’m not meant to get them, entirely?
What if by subverting the traditional, male-centric way of telling stories, or creating artistic narratives, there is that 5% that is designed for women?
If that were true, wouldn’t that be OK?
Or more than OK?
Maybe it’s even subversive?
So here we are.
It’s #2020, and white guys are still taking pictures of hot naked chicks, and posting them out and proud on a public platform.
Let’s get on with the subversion.
“Little Romances” features a series of images of nude pictures of the artist, (and her young daughter,) that were made by the artist herself.
Jordanna Kalman is taking back her own right to share her body, in her own way, on her own terms, because she wants to, and because she can.
Due to our long-standing policy against showing work considered NSFW, I’m going to limit how much I show of the full nudes. Even though, as I write this, I’m wondering how many people are even at “work” in the traditional sense?
There are images which are printed, and treated as sculptures, or covered with flowers, and then re-photographed.
They are well made, thoughtful, and dreamy, and I like them, but normally I want to love something.
Between the risk of showing a young naked child, and the hyper-poetic aesthetic, I still see why they’re not quite right, in my opinion.
But in this case, I don’t think my opinion is the ultimate arbiter, and the book has cleared my biggest threshold of making me want to write about it.
Melissa Borman’s book is similar in many ways.
She photographs women, in color, in relationship to the landscape. There is no nudity to speak of, but they scream “feminine” like a drum circle filled with Oprah Winfrey, Gwenyth Paltrow, and a class full of women’s studies majors at Smith.
I joke, (which is itself a risk in a column like this,) but the pictures will show you what I mean.
Interspersed are snippets of poetry by Sylvia Plath, and a set of graphic images that suggest the cosmos, (which are also depicted on the cover.)
With respect to empowerment, and creativity, and taking back the narrative, this book is pretty awesome, and of the moment.
I know what I’d do differently, if I were shooting these pictures, but again, the entire point is that I’m not.
These are photographs of women, by a woman, and on some level, it is pretty rad that I’m not the target audience.
They’re certainly accomplished, and smart, and I like the way the book was made.
As with Jordanna’s book, this makes me want to write.
It makes me want to punch someone in the nose, if that person thinks the objectification of women in the media is not a problem.
My 8 year old daughter grabs her belly, pressing together any extra fat, every time I tell her she has a beautiful, healthy body.
She’s 8, and already has body issues, because of the world we live in. (Maybe she’s watching too many perfect teens on Netflix?)
Regardless, I’m glad these issues are finally getting addressed, and that some attempt at balancing power is being made in the wider world.
For all the times I’ve written the equivalent of “Can’t we all just get along?,” once in a while, it’s important to also say, when the world isn’t fair, people need to do something about it.
If you’d like to submit a book for potential review, please contact me directly at jonathanblaustein@gmail.com. We are particularly interested in books by women, and artists of color, so we may maintain a balanced program.
Personally, I don’t. And I wrote as much a few weeks ago, when I claimed I’m not racist.
Given all the supposedly controversial things I write here, I’ve expected someone to come after me, at some point, and pull something out of context.
And it may yet happen.
But I also believe that some people, (frankly a lot of people,) don’t hate and disrespect others based solely on the color of their skin, or their ethnicity.
(And I’ve written about the evils of structural racism many times.)
If you’ve been reading all along, you know I’m happy to admit my failings, and have chronicled my own privileged youth, so I try to keep it real for you each week.
Hell, I even called out the NYT for building a super-diverse room, at their annual portfolio review, but encouraging conditions where each racial/ethnic group stuck to its own.
What’s the point of that?
Maybe it’s because I’m a “bohemian artsy type,” but for me, few things are more pleasurable than hanging out with people from different parts of the world, or different cultures.
As I wrote last week, when we come together, it creates an energy that is as addictive as it is infectious. Of course, the one thing that can get in the way is one’s political philosophy, because while I try to treat each person with respect, that falls apart when we’re talking about people who don’t respect others.
(Like all the Texans and Arizonans who won’t value other people’s health by wearing masks or social distancing in their home states, and then come to New Mexico and disregard our public health ordinances. Fuck those guys!)
I’m on this rant for two reasons, which will hopefully become obvious before this column is done.
First off, I came across a story on Twitter yesterday, where the actress Jenny Slate left a Netflix show, “Big Mouth” because she had been hired and paid to be the voice actress for a character who was half Black, and half Jewish-American.
Truth: I’d never seen the show, and typically find Jenny Slate to be annoying every time I’ve seen her on screen.
I’m literally not a fan.
But her mea culpa letter on Instagram felt like something from a Maoist re-education camp, in which she wrote:
“I reasoned with myself that it was permissible for me to play “Missy” because her mom is Jewish and White- as am I. But “Missy” is also Black, and Black characters on an animated show should be played by Black people. I acknowledge how my original reasoning was flawed, that it existed as an example of white privilege and unjust allowances made within a system of societal white supremacy, and that in me playing “Missy,” I was engaging in an act of erasure of Black people.”
Cultural Revolution propaganda poster
Have we gotten to the point where an actress accepting a job a few years ago, in which the character is 50% her ethnicity, means she was complicit in “the erasure of Black people”?
I’m having a hard time with that one, even though it’s obvious now that such jobs need to go to Black people.
Couldn’t she have stepped down gracefully, doing the right thing in letting Black actors voice Black characters, without the massive and awkward public apology?
Especially because I watched an egregious act of racism on Top Chef All Stars this week, yet I found no mention of it anywhere in the media.
My wife and I were bingeing the series, right before the finale, and came upon an episode where the chefs were pitching concepts for a restaurant, with the top 2 chosen for the traditional “Restaurant Wars” episode.
One chef, Eric Adjepong, a Ghanian-American, pitched a restaurant called “Middle Passage,” which was in honor of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Food from Eric Adjepong’s website
The judges passed.
Another chef, white-guy Kevin Gillespie, from Georgia, pitched a concept called “Country Captain,” which promised “Plantation” food, and he WAS chosen.
Primarily because his main dish, the eponymous Country Captain, was the first American version of chicken curry, as the necessary spices were brought over in the 19th Century.
Eric Adjepong was actually the chef who was eliminated that week, and one reason, (beyond his food not being good enough,) was that the judges called his concept confused, because he wanted his restaurant to have both fine dining quality food and causal service.
They could not comprehend such an idea.
One judge, former Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard, from Chicago, actually said to him that it sounded like he didn’t want his service to be “uppity.”
UPPITY!
To recap: Top Chef supported a concept about Plantation food, with spices brought over along with the slave trade, and cut one of only two African-American contestants, while using the word “uppity” while chopping the Black guy, and rewarding a chef who has a restaurant literally called “Gunshow.”
(As in, the only places where Americans can buy guns without background checks.)
Say what you will about Jenny Slate, but I checked out “Big Mouth” this morning for a minute, to see if she had done the voice acting equivalent of “blackface,” but she had not.
(It was kind of a nerd voice.)
How does one group of actors self-excoriate, when the other act of racism isn’t even in the public consciousness?
Maybe because systemic racism is so systemic that most people don’t know or care that it’s there until mass protest movements form?
(And because legitimate, self-aware artists can sometimes get caught up in a wave of shame.)
Jenny Slate, and Nick Kroll, who created “Big Mouth,” are both Jewish-Americans, and “our” group has been the victim of hatred for Millennia. (Nick Kroll also issued a public apology.)
Frankly, I think it’s time all the rational, cool people unite against our common enemy, Donald J Trump, (and his maskless hordes,) and make sure to vote the asshole out, no matter what!
Part 2: The Good Stuff
I swear, today, my goal was to write about the amazing art I saw at the Rijksmuseum, back in Amsterdam in February.
I was lucky enough to get press access, in the only free hour I had, and was there for the brilliant, inspirational Caravaggio/Bernini exhibition.
As I’d learned about art in Rome, back in 1997, of course these two are among my favorite artists of all time.
Proper geniuses.
The best of the best.
Then, getting to roam through the Rembrandts and the Frans Hals paintings, and the Vermeers as well…
I saw so much great shit.
And I want to show it to you in a nice set of images.
But I also remember walking through Amsterdam, and overhearing a tour guide instructing his followers in a bit of the city’s history.
The reason all those great paintings exist is that the Dutch had the Western World’s first middle class, due to their Republic in the 17th Century, because of all their global raiding.
And they took part in the slave trade too!
They colonized like motherfuckers, from Indonesia to South America to my hometown of Holmdel, New Jersey.
The Dutch, these days, are the most progressive, cool, open-minded people out there.
But it’s mostly because their ancestors were a bunch of resource-and-people stealing assholes 400 years ago.
And most of the great art, through the Millenia, was made in service of money and power.
I’ve taught art history, and I’ll tell you, almost all the good old shit is basically religious and/or political propaganda.
The spoils of war are what we worship.
How do we reconcile that?
I’m not sure we can.
But if anyone starts trying the burn down the museums, and the paintings, I’ll pull out my martial arts and try to defend our collective history.
(Or at least, I tell myself I will.)
Because art is about creation, and it’s one of the few things we can hold up against centuries of destruction, and death, and feel good about.
Maybe if the museums, (at least in America,) which are supported by billionaires and oligarchs, were themselves less a part of the structural racism problem, we’d already be living in a better country?
A scene that’s all too familiar in the world of magazines went down on the TechCrunch blog a couple days ago (here):
In an email to our sales team, the agency said:
“We found this on your site today, obviously not a good thing for AMEX or for ZYNC branding.
“Are you able to take this down from your site? If so, please do as ASAP.”
“If you are not able to monitor this more closely, we unfortunately will not be able to run with TechCrunch in the future.”
Unfortunately, this kind of thing has been happening for a long time now and this sad state of journalism can be summed up by this transcript from a talk that future-of-journalism guru Clay Shirky gave at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy
I think the first thing to recognize about the commercial structures of the newspaper industry is that it is not enough for newspapers to run at a profit to reverse the current threat and change. If next year they all started throwing off 30 percent free cash flow again, that would not yet reverse the change, because there were other characteristics of the commercial environment as well.
The first of them was that advertisers were forced to overpay for the services they received, because there weren’t many alternatives for reaching people with display ads — or especially things like coupons. And because they overpaid, the newspapers essentially had the kind of speculative investment capital to do long-range, high-risk work. So it isn’t enough to be commercial; you have to be commercial at a level above what some theoretical market would bare.
My friend Bob Spinrad — who recently passed away, but who ran Xerox PARC, the Palo Alto Research Center, for a while — said, “The only institutions that do R&D are either institutions that are monopolies or wrongly believe that they are.” Xerox is an example of an institution that wrongly believed it was a monopoly and was willing to fund the invention of Ethernet and laptops and the graphic user interface and all the rest of it that we take for granted now. IBM, AT&T — the list of commercial entities that believed that they were monopolies, and during the time that they were monopolies could take this philosophy of overinvesting in speculative work is large. But when the commercial inputs to that kind of R&D work, the R&D work ends as well.
The second characteristic of the happy state of the 20th-century newspapering was that the advertisers were not only overcharged, they were underserved. Not only did they have to deliver more money to the newspapers than they would have wanted, they didn’t even get to say: “And don’t report on my industry, please.” There was a time when Ford went to The New York Times during the rollover stories and said, “You know, if you keep going on this, we may just pull all Ford ads in The New York Times.” To which the Times said, “Okay.” And the ability to do that — to say essentially to the advertiser, “Where else are you going to go?” — was a big part of what kept newspapers from suffering from commercial capture. It worked better for bigger papers than smaller papers, but that bulwark of guest commercial capture was a feature of the 20th century commercial market. Neither of those, neither the overpaying or the underserving, is true in the current market any longer, because media is now created by demand rather than supply — which is to say the next web page is printed when someone wants it to be printed, not printed and stored in a warehouse in advance if someone who may want it. Turned out that when you have an advertising market that balances supply and demand efficiently, the price plummets. And so for a long time, people could say analog dollars to digital dimes as if — well, when do we get the digital dimes? The answer may be never. The answer may be that we are seeing advertising priced at its real value for the first time in history, and that value is a tiny fraction of what we had gotten used to.
Last month Vanity Fair had a web exclusive on a fascinating story over a disputed model release. The ultra-hip band Vampire Weekend, who perform their concerts in Ivy League-style getups, seemed to have stumbled upon the perfect image for their new album Contra. Months before the debut on January 12th this year, a photograph of the ultimate prepster: blond hair, blue eyes, popped collar, made its way around the internet linking to a site called, I Think Ur a Contra. When the album finally dropped the picture was the cover and became an integral part of the bands website and tour.
How they acquired the Polaroid is where this story gets fascinating. According to the band they bought it off New York photographer and filmmaker Tod Brody for $5000. He says that he took the photo in the summer of 1983 during a casting session for a television commercial. But, Vanity Fair has an interview with the model, Ann Kirsten Kennis, who alleges that the photograph was instead taken by her mother and somehow picked up by Brody. According to VF she has a similar looking Polaroid of she and her sister framed in her house. Ann, apparently tired of seeing her picture plastered all over the place filed a $2 million misappropriation-of-image lawsuit in LA against Vampire Weekend, Tod Brody, and the band’s London-based label, XL Recordings.
But, here’s where it gets real interesting. According the Vanity Fair:
“If the Contra case does go to trial, the outcome could hinge on a key document: a model release form that appears to be dated July 30, 2009. (The date is crossed out and re-written.) The form is from Vampire Weekend Inc. to someone named “Kirsten Johnsen” (spelled “Johnson” elsewhere on the form), who signed her permission for the band to use her image for a fee of $1. The form contains no mention of Brody, but it does include an address named in the suit as Brody’s residence. No release form from the 1980s has yet been presented in court.”
To me this is a clear example of a photographer providing a model release where one didn’t exist and having it blow up in his face. $5000 bucks in the pocket from an old casting picture that nobody will notice… To make matters worse, there is an entire website dedicated to uncovering Tod Brody as a fraud: http://www.todbrodyfraudblog.com. This is not looking good for Tod. My guess is that this thing will be settled out of court and we will never know what really went down. What’s interesting to me this idea that companies are somehow responsible to fact check a release that’s given to them. I’m sure there’s some legal precedent that could be established if this goes to trial or maybe it already exists. Either way it’s a fascinating story to read.
I’m surprised they didn’t mention homeland security as a reason for this new ban. That seems to be a de facto reason these days to prevent photographers from taking pictures of stuff.
Discarted a blog written by “photographers & concerned citizens living in Los Angeles. / With the goal to shoot photographs freely in public spaces wherever, whenever, of whoever. / And a desire to get the word out, educate and engage,” has video posted of an encounter with two LA County Sheriff deputies inside the Hollywood and Western Metro Station. MSNBC is reporting (here) that Shawn, the man who took the video says his constitutional rights were violated and he’s posted phone numbers and emails on the Discarted site to rally complaints against the deputies (here).
I love the idea that a group of photographer rights activists will go out and make sure the police understand the law. These Sheriff Deputies not only fail they try to intimidate the photographer by threatening to make his life miserable if they were to place him on a FBI watch list. They also try to review the images he’s taken but can’t because he’s shooting film.
The Sheriff initially tells the photographer what he is doing is against MTA rules (here).
Photography Guidelines
* Only permissible in public areas, proof of fare required in marked fare required areas (station platforms of all rail stations and the Metro Orange Line)
* No commercial photography without prior authorization and consent from Metro
* Hand held equipment only, no tripods are permitted
* No photography inside moving trains for privacy and safety reasons
* No flash photography, especially into oncoming transit vehicles (rail or bus)
* Photography must not interfere with passenger safety or movement at any time
The Centre for Documentary Practice invites you to logon and join the world’s first online journalism and documentary conference on October 15th 2009, starting 12:01am (GMT) (That’s 8PM EST).
Speakers include Paul Fusco, Ed Kashi, Jodi Bieber, Marcus Bleasdale, Shahidul Alam, Gary Knight, Robin Hammond, Adam Ferguson, Travis Beard, Michael Coyne, Masaru Goto, Jack Picone, Megan Lewis, and more to be confirmed.
On October 15th we will connect an international community of documentary practitioners and journalists for one day, to share stories, to stimulate discussion and debate about our discipline, and to inspire each other to continue the fight for justice.
Grayson and Mike at Outside Magazine asked me to write an essay for their photography issue and we settled on the topic of photo manipulation. It’s certainly a hot button issue these days not only because of how easy it’s gotten to make realistic fakes but also because it’s gotten easier to publicly debate it and uncover forgeries that are passed off as real. I personally think we’ve reached the point where media organizations need to air out and in most cases simply create guidelines for what they believe is acceptable. Additionally they need to start informing their readers on the where’s, why’s and how’s of these policies. As many astute observers of media have pointed out, transparency in journalism will be a critical part of how media works in the future and the credibility of brands will hang on our belief that their intention is delivering some version of the truth.
You can read the full essay I wrote (here) and a response from Ed Freeman (here) but I wanted to discuss the conclusion I arrived at after interviewing dozens of people for the story. Photos that are faked are intrinsically tied to photos that are real. They draw much of their power from the public’s belief that photos never lie. Of course all of us know “the camera always lies” and the second you pick a lens or a place to stand you’re influencing the reality of the picture in some way. But, we can’t escape that the public still wants to believe in a photograph’s ability to tell the truth. So, people who take images that appear to be truthful but are really altered beyond reality are at some level destroying this bond.
What amounts to a forgery in photography is incredibly subjective and grey. And, like I said above I think it’s up to the media organizations to define and their audience to accept or reject. And really anything is possible now, so the “old darkroom techniques” aren’t really good anymore for guidelines. I believe very strongly that the intentions of whatever is done to the image, whether it is to represent what actually happened in front of the camera or to make what happened seem better than it actually was, help define what’s acceptable. One way organizations are starting to do that is to require photographers to submit RAW files to compare the finished images with (or what about just shooting film).
It seems helpful when thinking about this to look at writing because the same techniques that writers use to take research, raw dialogue and observation and then turn that into a story is no different than what photographers need to do when approaching a subject. So, why don’t we have fiction and non-fiction photography (I think photo-illustrations are different)? And why do we mix non-fiction stories with fiction photography. This seems like part of the solution and something other people have been indicating is a problem with the NY Times Magazine, because they appear to want it both ways. But, let’s be honest with ourselves writers stretch the boundary of non-fiction to it’s breaking point all the time. So, again it’s up to the publication to become more transparent about their guidelines and to not start blaming contributors when the readers show up with torches.
I think the place where I found this practice of photo fakery most troubling was in wildlife photography. Photographers in that genre will simply tack a “fine art” sign to their back and claim exemption from any need to replicate reality. The problem with this is that they more than anyone are benefiting from the public’s misguided belief that all pictures are real. My first interview for the piece was with Art Wolfe who way back in 1994 ignited a firestorm when he published a wildlife book entitled Migrations where a third of the images were fakes. Art was careful to point out that he didn’t misrepresent natural history and he called the pictures photo-illustrations. This was similar to a response I kept hearing from Steve Bloom when I tried to pin him down about a charge many people made to me that his wildlife images are mostly composites and extreme digital enhancements. Steve gave me incredibly evasive email answers in the vein of what Edgar Martins had to say about his dust up with the NY Times Magazine. Why can’t we just be honest and say “I did it because I wanted to make my photos look better than anyone elses”
And look, I’m not claiming I’m any sort of knight-riding-a-white-stallion either I’m just saying it’s time to start policing ourselves (starting with magazines) or else we’ll end up like the fashion industry and congress will soon be considering anti-photoshopping laws (I used to wish each month there was such a law when the owner’s of both magazines I worked at insisted we heinously paint the sky blue on the cover).
When people see an amazing photograph for the first time they usually ask, “is it real?” The answer should be yes.
I’ve been wondering—are the ethical requirements really the same for a personal blog as they are for a magazine? I’ve accepted a camera on extended loan lately for the the first time in my career, too. That is something that is common enough industry-wide, but that I’ve never done before myself. A new thing.
And then there are junkets. Junkets are a common perk in business. Once, when I was an editor, I was offered a particularly dazzling one. To publicize a name-change, a manufacturer offered a flight to Paris for a big dinner at a fancy restaurant—I forget which one, now, but my memory is that the name was world-famous—and then on to a Mediterranean country for a corporate presentation followed by three days at an idyllic resort. Boy, was I ever tempted. I really, really wanted to go. Turned it down.
I count the ethical lapse in product reviews as one of the many small cuts that contribute to the overall demise of magazines as authoritative, trusted, must-read sources of information. The rise of product reviews as a great source of advertising income for magazines ultimately led to the advertisers controlling the outcome of the reviews (along with all kinds of content you wouldn’t suspect they would have influence over). It’s a double edged sword because you either keep the advertising and lose reader trust or you lose the advertising and keep your readers happy. Everyone has tried to have it both ways for too long.
It would be sad to see the only place where unvarnished reviews exist is at the online point of sale because you really have to wade through a lot of comments from people with different agendas and of course the PR and marketing are working the back channels here as well. Ideally I think that just as Mike Johnston has done here trusted reviewers will emerge as they post and continually update a code of ethics of some sort and give disclosures within the reviews they write.
I’m not familiar with how assignments are made at the NY Times Magazine, but it looks like this policy is a part of the contract photographers sign when they start working with “The Times.” This memo just went out (presumably in response to the Edgar Martins fiasco) to remind everyone to only submit unaltered images. Except of course portraits, fashion and still life, natch.
Here’s the memo:
TO: ALL FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHERS
This is a reminder of The Times’s policies on digital manipulation or other alteration of photos.
As you know, under the contract you signed for The Times, you warrant that any photo submitted for publication “will be original and unaltered (unless it is a photo illustration, pre-approved by your editor and fully disclosed in caption information materials).”
The Times takes this obligation very seriously; the integrity of photographs and other material we publish goes to the heart of our credibility as a news organization. The prohibition on unauthorized alteration of photos applies to all sections of the paper, the Magazine and the Web site.
This passage from the newsroom’s “Guidelines on Our Integrity” explains our rules in more detail: Photography and Images. Images in our pages, in the paper or on the Web, that purport to depict reality must be genuine in every way. No people or objects may be added, rearranged, reversed, distorted or removed from a scene (except for the recognized practice of cropping to omit extraneous outer portions). Adjustments of color or gray scale should be limited to those minimally necessary for clear and accurate reproduction, analogous to the “burning” and “dodging” that formerly took place in darkroom processing of images. Pictures of news situations must not be posed.
In some sections, and in magazines, where a photograph is used to serve the same purposes as a commissioned drawing or painting – as an illustration of an idea or situation or as a demonstration of how a device works, etc. – it must always be clearly labeled as a photo illustration. This does not apply to portraits or still-lifes (photos of food, shoes, etc.), but it does apply to other kinds of shots in which we have artificially arranged people or things, as well as to collages, montages, and photographs that have been digitally altered.
If you have any questions about what is permissible under the rules, please consult the assigning editor.
Sincerely,
[Redacted]
Deputy Managing Editor
The New York Times Newspaper
Division of The New York Times Company
Photographer Kevin Brusie sent me a link to this amazing organization (he started the Maine chapter last year):
“Flashes of Hope is a non-profit organization dedicated to creating powerful, uplifting portraits of children fighting cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.”
It’s all staffed by volunteer professional photographers and a donation (here) goes towards processing and framing of the portraits for the family. What a wonderful gift.
The New York Times commissioned Portuguese photographer Edgar Martins to travel around the United States and take photographs of abandoned construction projects left in the wake of the housing and securities market collapse. They pulled the online piece (here) after questions were raised over on Metafilter (here). Initially everyone was happily debating the economy and then suddenly someone commented “I call bullshit on this not being photoshopped” and everyone suddenly started debating the veracity of the images.
The NY Times policy on digital alteration was recently discussed by Michele McNally in their Talk To The Newsroom column (here). Their ethical guidelines state that “Images in our pages, in the paper or on the Web, that purport to depict reality must be genuine in every way” anything that’s altered must be labeled a photo-illustration except of course “this does not apply to portraits or still-lifes.”
So, the Metafilter crowd started taking the Edgar Martins pictures and mirroring one side of them to show that he had simply done that and then added anomalies in so it’s not a perfect match (here and here). In an interview on Art Most Fierce (here) Edgar states “When I photograph I don’t do any post production to the images, either in the darkroom or digitally, because it erodes the process. So I respect the essence of these spaces.”
I’m going to speculate that he wasn’t liking the pictures he made on assignment and that the mirror images are not that far off from the real thing so he decided to create something a little more pleasing to his eye. Only Edgar knows the truth, but people who build houses can tell you this kind of symmetry is highly improbable.
Over the course of reading Chris Anderson’s new book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” for a review, The Virginia Quarterly Review discovers passages lifted from Wikipedia (here). The real irony here is that you wouldn’t be allowed to write for Wired if you ever used Wikipedia as a primary source.
It appears that Mexico has its very own Mark Seliger… well, they have a photographer who bought Mark’s Physiognomy book and tried to knock-off many of the setups for Mexican television company Televisa’s book featuring their on-air talent. The photos were taken by Gabriel Saavedra.
This blogger (here) broke the story several months ago.
Obviously simply copying an idea and setup doesn’t come close to making a picture work but it’s interesting to see how difficult it is in the comparison. The rigid attention to detail in Mark’s work really comes out here.
Last month 
