I wanted to open that way because betrayal is one of the great themes in art, culture, and human existence.
Yet it’s not a word we use in every-day conversation:
–Scene:
“How was your day today, honey?”
“Oh, you know, the usual. Petersen forgot to log off his copy code again, so he got blamed for the wastage.”
“That Petersen would forget his head if it weren’t attached to his body, wouldn’t ya say, honey?”
“Yeah, you betcha.”
“What else happened at work, honey?”
“Well, what else? Tyler brought ham again for lunch, which made the 50th day straight. We were counting. That was wild.”
“Oh, I can see that. Exciting, in an office-betting sort of way.”
“Yeah, right. Exactly. 50 days. (Chuckles.) What else happened? Oh yeah, sure. I betrayed Tommy, and he swore a blood oath to kill me, my children, and my children’s children.
So there’s that.”
–End Scene
I didn’t look up betrayal on the internet.
And I didn’t check a dictionary.
Betrayal is one of those words everyone just knows what it means, even if they’ve never tried to define it.
(Like its sister, revenge.)
I’d say, to betray: (verb:) to hurt or injure someone important or close to you, by some nefarious method, in a manner such as going behind someone’s back, cheating, lying, taking their stuff, selling them out, snitching, etc…
And not only people betray.
Societies and governments can too.
America was built by betraying treaties with the Indigenous inhabitants of this Continent, and betraying the boundaries of all human decency with the TransAtlantic Slave Trade.
We know this.
But the United States often betrayed its own principles, its belief in the power of Democracy, by undermining the freedom of so many people throughout Latin America, overturning elections, engineering coups, or outright invading nation after nation.
As luck would have it, we’re going to take a look at my friend Jaime Permuth’s new book, which turned up in the mail in October 2021.
“The Street Becomes,” published by Meteoro Editions in The Netherlands, has a gray cover, with cool fonts and embossed letters.
(But it doesn’t give much away.)
This is one of those books that doesn’t proffer context from the jump, but asks you to figure out things as you go.
Given that I know Jaime is from Guatemala, (though he currently lives with his wife and children in South Korea,) and I’ve looked at a lot of photo books, I put on my detective cap, and went to work.
We see a series of double-spreads, featuring gray-scale images that appear to have been digitally altered, to create a consistent aesthetic.
On the left, always what appears to be archival imagery of American Imperialist, Colonialist invasions into Latin America, though it’s hard to say where.
On the right, the images also feel historical, but maybe over a slightly larger range of history. These pictures give us a feeling of Carnival, at times, or protest, at others, but maybe they’re all joined together by themes of Latino/Hispanic/Chicano/Latinx people, in their culture, out and about, in the streets?
But where?
Sometimes, the spread-pairings are direct, and obvious.
Others, less so.
I kept turning the pages, and thought, “This really seems like a concept book. Most of these pictures are not super-awesome, by themselves, so this book is telling a story in the aggregate.
With a very particular style.”
I kept turning the pages, hoping for a bit of surprise, and then, at the end, I spotted a Maryland license plate on a parade car .
Finally, I definitively placed it in the US, and if we’re being literal, in the DMV. (DC, Maryland, Virginia.)
Then the photos were done.
For text, at the end, there’s a conversation-style-interview between Jaime and curator Olivia Cadaval.
We learn Jaime was a fellow in DC, at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum, and chose to make a book of two different groups of images from the archives, which appealed to him intuitively.
The first is of US Marine Corps invasions in Haiti and the Dominican Republic; the second came from The Latino Festival, which first began in DC in 1968, and continued for years.
Jaime also spoke of connections to his youth in Guatemala, a country still ravaged by insane violence and poverty; the long shadow of a bloody 80’s Civil War. (In large part due to US Imperialism.)
So maybe, (in the end,) it’s a concept book with a mission:
To remind us, when a society betrays its best values for its worst, bad shit can happen.
Everyone’s different, of course, but I allow experience to morph into memory, then share the stories.
Occasionally, I’ll rush to judgement, (as I did with the New-Orleans-travel-piece late last year,) but only when I know we’ll be doing more articles down the line.
As it happens, I’m going to break down the best work I saw at PhotoNOLA into two articles, but ironically, this will not be one of them.
As I’ve written many times, to encourage the creativity spirits to shine upon me, lo these 10.5 years with a weekly deadline, I’ve learned I am but her/his/their humble servant, and follow the energy where it takes me.
Today wasn’t quite the day for New Orleans.
So I promise we’ll get down to NOLA soon enough, (twice,) but today we’re going in a different direction.
Literally.
Instead of going South-East to the bayou, we’re heading due South, then due West, to drive through Arizona, all the way to the Pacific Ocean in sunny, Southern California.
(San Diego, if we’re being general. South Mission Beach, if we’re getting specific.)
Truth be told, the first vacation Jessie and I ever took together was a road-trip from Northern New Mexico to North County San Diego.
We stayed in a little, now-defunct, beach motel in Leucadia, on the North side Encinitas.
That was early ’98.
It fit our style, so we’ve been back a dozen times over the years, for vacation, or the Medium Festival of Photography. (Where I’m headed next month.)
The kids at Moonlight Beach, Encinitas, 2018
In 24 years, and all those visits, I’d never been to Mission Beach before.
Was Sea World over there, maybe?
But I trusted the internet, and found us a screaming-deal on a big condo on Airbnb, just three houses off the sand in South Mission Beach, with a private roof-deck-hot-tub.
View from the “shared” roof-deck, but I never saw another person there.
(I know that sounds like a lot, but I swear, it was super-reasonably priced.)
The rub was, I booked four of five months in advance, which was early enough, (because the condo was popular,) and we rolled the dice on Winter season, which can be rainy.
Plus, the ocean is cold then, as it is most of the year.
In July and August, the Pacific is beautiful to look at AND warm enough to swim, but it’s super-crowded, and more expensive.
(Just a heads up.)
But the massive state of Arizona sat between us and the Golden State, on our huge New Year’s Eve adventure.
We booked a hotel in Tucson, (morning of departure,) and for the first time, I can properly recommend one chain as being distinct from the others.
(Though it was a small sample size, so maybe it was just one solid hotel.)
Assuming it’d be close to the Interstate, I went with something near the airport, and found the Home2 Suites by Hilton.
Not sure which marketing firm rigged-up the concept, but consider me their target demo.
The rooms were a bit more expensive than your average joint, maybe in the $160/night range.
View from the hotel room, Tucson, the morning after a massive desert storm
But you get a very-large-suite, with a sitting room, a kitchen, and a big, two-bed sleeping space. (They separate with a well-designed curtain.)
The place had sleek, “design-y” details, and the room rate included a huge, all-you-can-eat-breakfast-buffet, filled with a surprising variety of options
(Waffles, fruit, muffins, bacon, egg & cheese tarts, fruit, cereal, coffee, you name it.)
If you’re not on a budget for two rooms for the family, (or you’re just spending a few hours to sleep, on a road-trip,) it’s great value to get one huge room, but the kicker is, breakfast for 4 costs $40-$60 at a restaurant, in these inflationary times.
So if you factor in not spending for breakfast, the hotel, (which was also immaculate,) seemed a cost-and-time-efficient option.
My other travel-hack for the two-day drive was to stock up on great New Mexican road food: carne adovada burritos from the Frontier Restaurant in ABQ.
It’s a not-large amount of shredded, long-stewed, sweet/spicy red chile pork, in a house-made flour tortilla.
Only two ingredients.
But man, the depth of flavor and complexity are insane, and they keep well in the car all day. (The Frontier sells them by the six pack.) We put the left-overs in the hotel fridge, and ate them on the way to San Diego the second day too.
For my New Mexican readers out there, I’m telling you.
This is the way to go.
Frontier Restaurant 4 out of 4 stars
But we’re not here to write about New Mexico.
(Or even Arizona, really.)
Before we made it to SoCal though, we did pull off the Interstate to see some Saguaro cactus, up close. We were miles from anywhere, in Western Arizona; the desert beauty captivating in every direction.
These Saguaro cactus trees, though, they have gravitas.
Theo unintentionally modeled his streetwear fashion, among the trees, and I remember telling myself, “Make this a memory.
Make this a memory!”
Later in the trip, Theo would intentionally model some streetwear, so we could show the photos to the Taos-based fashion designers, whom the kids had befriended in their store near the plaza. (I totally forgot until just this second, but now that it’s back on my radar screen, I’ll see what they think.)
The reason why I can so firmly recommend this part of San Diego to you, as a little spot to drop out and chill, is it’s easy to live with no cars. (Or at least, minimal exposure.)
South Mission Beach, as a little neighborhood, is actually surrounded by water on three sides.
South Mission Beach, a mostly-car-free slice of California Beach Paradise
And the residential streets, going East-West, are pedestrian only, with little sidewalks, and nothing else.
Additionally, the Strand, or boardwalk, is also car-free, just for pedestrians, scooters and bikes.
(It runs along the beachfront for miles.)
View along the Strand
So we parked our car in the garage, when we arrived in South Mission Beach, and didn’t take it out again until we left town.
While it was winter, we still walked around in T-shirts, shorts and flip flops at the hot point of each day, as the mid-60’s California sun felt like 75.
And having the place to ourselves, (more or less,) in perfect weather felt like the thanks-for-gritting-out-the-pandemic gift to our kids we hoped it would be.
We tried pizza the first night, and got a good Margherita pizza with meatballs.
I thought it was solid, if unspectacular.
The next morning, desperate to be a teenager, free and alone in a city, Theo went out to bring back some breakfast.
Not knowing it was the same owners, he ended up at the Mexican place, and got excited, ordering Carne Asada burritos with guacamole. (Something I’d told him was a staple in the local Mexican food culture.)
They were excellent, and along with the accompanying salsas, much better than anything we can get in Taos.
Unfortunately, the third time was not a charm, as we went back to Capri one too many times, and got a kind-of-dry chicken parmesan sub, and an almost-inedible Taco Pizza.
We’d chatted up the counter-guy the previous night, and because he liked us, he gave us extra meat, to be generous. But lacking nearly enough fresh tomato, or chile-heat to cut the richness, it was waaaaaaaay too much for me.
Capri Pizza and Grill 2 stars out of 4
Sara’s Mexican Food 3 stars out of 4
There is a killer restaurant corner, on the other side of the Belmont Amusement Park, that was worth writing home about.
My cousin, Daniel, who’d told us about the excellent, if expensive sports bar Guava Beach Bar and Grill, also recommended Mr. Ruriberto’s, which is quite the name.
Waiting for fish tacos at Mr. Ruriberto’s
Their fish tacos had a bit too much remoulade for my liking, but were otherwise flavorful and excellent.
The Carne Asada burrito was standout too, so I would make friends with Mr. Ruriberto, if he wanted to be my friend.
Can you imagine?
{“Hello, Jonathan. Como estas?”
“Well, hello, Mr. Ruriberto. I’m fine, thank you, how are you?”
“I too, am well, Jonathan. I have a question for you, Jonathan. Would you like to be my friend?”
“Yes, Mr. Ruriberto, I would. I would like to be your friend.”}
Mr. Ruriberto’s Taco Shop 3 stars out of 4
As to the NY Style Pizza joint next door, ZoZo’s, that place was legit.
I only felt bad we discovered it at the end of the vacation, as I would have eaten myself sick on their food for sure.
The Margherita pizza was special, alive with flavor, and the slices I spied on their mega-pie were monstrously big.
Inside the pizza place
It was also more-reasonably-priced than Capri up the street.
ZoZo’s Pizza 4 stars out of 4
I wanted to make memories on our vacation, and so we did.
I remember Jessie telling me, on the first full day there, “The cops must be brutal here, because there are no homeless people.”
She meant it mostly as a joke, but also not, if you know what I mean.
Given what I’ve seen in San Francisco, and read recently about LA, it was true, the lack of a sizable unhoused community was noticeable.
But as San Diego was known to lean conservative politically for a long time, and has a big Navy base one bay to the South, I could see how things landed where they did.
I also noticed many of those cute little side streets, (and accompanying alleyways,) weren’t very-well-lit, so it is likely the cops keep it quiet and “safe,” given how much all those condos are worth these days.
(Daniel asked how much I thought the place we were staying would run, and I guessed, “$2 million?”
“Yeah,” he replied, “that’s about right.”)
Daniel lives in a beach bungalow a few miles north, in Pacific Beach, and not only did he steer us right with Guava Beach and Mr. Ruriberto’s, but he also invited us over to his apartment, for grilled monster-burgers, with grilled zucchini sticks and potatoes.
Drinking a White Russian with Daniel
(He went to culinary school years ago, but doesn’t work in the field.)
After dinner, we took his massive rescue dog, Rudi, down to a nearby beach in the dark of night, so he’d get one last walk before bed.
The moonlight on the black Pacific Ocean made it shimmer and shake, like rustling charcoal.
Daniel drove us home, as our legs were tired from the walk North, but it’s a great reminder if you go on holiday where you have family or close friends, that can help with the memory-making as well.
(Plus with local’s tips on food, it’s like having your own personal fixer. Daniel also told us about an Ice Cream Sandwich place the kids insisted on trying, and I’m not sure it’s quite as appetizing in the photo as it was in real life.)
Walking along the waterfront makes you feel good.
(Most of us, anyway.)
The entire peninsula is barely more than 2 blocks wide, and the Bay beach has it’s own visual charm, with boats and bridges.
Walking along one morning, Jessie and I saw a family of cranes, like something out of a Chinese Landscape Painting.
Crane in the foreground
We stopped and watched for a while in the quiet, and it felt like the California Dream was still alive.
(For a steep price, as long as it doesn’t burn down, fall into the sea during an earthquake, or get subsumed in a Tsunami.)
Theo and I made a friend, Orrin, while shooting hoops at the public court at the beach.
He had his own portable music, which was a little trend we spotted on the Strand, (especially people on bikes or roller blades,) but it made for a great soundtrack.
I made a quick video of Theo taking in to the rack, just for fun.
We met up again the next day, and Orrin specifically chose this track for a longer video. (With his friend Brandon shooting as well.)
(BTW, I’ve finally added audio to the videos, and hope you like the step-up in my content-game.)
Further up the Strand from the basketball court, (and past the countless beach-volleyball-courts,) there’s a mini-amusement park, Belmont Park, with all sorts of games, food options, a huge pool, and rides as well.
On the last day, we decided to try the roller coaster, (a first for both kids,) and they let you buy tickets, by-the-ride, instead of only having to pay a steep entrance-fee, which I thought was pretty cool.
As to the roller coaster itself?
Well, Amelie was so scared, (and preferred to wear her mask,) that I couldn’t help making a quick video.
Listen to the way she reacts, when I say, “Good luck.”
The meta-commentary: “Good luck? What the fuck do you mean, good luck? This thing should be so safe, we don’t need luck. Asshole!”
She lived through that terror moment, (on camera,) and we were shocked at how they made it super-fast, with legit G-force we felt a few times.
The cars shook you around, with quick changes in speed, so you really felt it in your gut.
Surprisingly great roller coaster, for such a small one.
The Giant Dipper Roller Coaster 4 stars out of 4
Last, but not least, the photography part.
Sometimes I do a travel piece, and photography doesn’t come up.
But not today.
On the last day, just as we were driving East for home, we stopped at my friend scott b. davis’ house, and he showed off his new Radius book, “sonora,” which features his beautiful work, made over many years.
(After we did a quick studio visit. Check out all the old-school chemicals…)
It’s a gorgeous book, totally austere, and the high degree of craftsmanship was appropriate, given scott is an expert platinum/palladium printer, and meticulous in general.
Theo showed me that scott, and his wife Chantel, had hung one of my images in their kitchen, and I took a trippy-reflection-portrait of the three of us.
(Weird, right?)
From there, we drove through the rock mountains, windmills, and sand dunes.
Then on to Tucson, (this time NOT in a huge, dark-of-night rainstorm,) and we had In-N-Out burger for dinner there, as somehow we’d made it in and out of California without eating it.
(No pun intended.)
After destroying our burgers, (In-N-Out is always 4 stars, every time,) we visited with my friend, photographer Ken Rosenthal, who was recovering from an awful fall he’d taken out in nature last year.
(Wrecked his knee something fierce.)
Jessie and I checked out his studio as well.
This photo of a geyser at night stopped me in my tracks.
It is just so exquisite.
(Perfectly capturing that mysterious power one feels, in so many parts of the Great American West.)
We drove through more majesty the following day, (hundreds of miles of it,) on our way home.
Elephant Butte Lake in Southern New Mexico looked worthy of a return trip, and nearby Truth or Consequences is set in a killer locale.
Elephant Butte Lake, Southern New Mexico
On we drove, to the North, through Albuquerque, Santa Fe, then Española, before we got home.
Road-fried, with bellies full of gas-station-burritos.
Apparently, one of the kids in my daughter’s 2nd grade class gave a note to two of her best friends that read: I’m going to kill you.
They told the teacher, as you might expect, but it turns out the boy’s mom is co-workers with one of the victim’s mother.
So the perpetrator’s parent approached the victim’s mother at work, called her a “Snitch,” and started a physical altercation.
Now, the aggrieved mother told my wife, when the little boy, (who wasn’t suspended,) walks by the girls he threatened, he also whispers “Snitch” each time.
In 2nd grade.
In a charter school constantly ranked one of the best in the New Mexico.
Welcome to America in #2019!
This morning, trying to unwind from an overwhelmingly busy trip to Chicago, (a string of 18 hour days with zero downtime,) I put on “Next of Kin,” a silly-looking, late-80’s action film set in the same city.
It starred Patrick Swayze, (RIP,) rocking a mullet-ponytail, (of course,) and a thick Appalachian accent. It also featured Bill Paxton (RIP) and Liam Neeson playing “Hillbillies,” and a very young Ben Stiller as an Italian mobster.
Say what now?
Honestly, it’s no surprise we all miss the “seeming” innocence of the 80’s and 90’s.
I’m not done with the movie yet, as I took a break to write for you, but the Italian Mafia plays a central role, and we can thank them for the culture of “Omertà” that evolved into the 21st Century’s “No Snitchin’.”
How on Earth did “tattletale” become the worst thing a person can be? Worse than rapist, or killer, or thief? I mean, sure, we learn in kindergarten that “no one likes a tattletale,” but how many parents out there say “Go tell the teacher?”
I know I do.
Another word for “Snitch” or “tattletale” is “whistleblower.”
Right?
And sure enough, our pathological narcissist of a President may have finally managed to kick off an impeachment trial, because someone came forward to share that he, like the Mafia Don he appears to be, leaned on a foreign government to get dirt on Ol’ Joe Biden.
No one likes to hear “I told you so,” but honestly, I called him a Mafia-like-thug in this column so many years ago I don’t even remember when I first said it.
How did we get here?
And where is here?
2019 is so fucking confusing that sometimes I don’t even know what month it is, as I feel like I was just in London, (4 months ago,) or California, (2 months ago,) but if you told me it was December right now, I might not argue with you.
The NYT, my former employer, published an op-ed this week that confirmed this sense of perpetual confusion plays right into Trump’s hands, as the more unsettled people feel, the more likely they are to vote conservatively.
Which means there’s a strong chance that DJT is courting all this chaos ON PURPOSE.
All because 40% of the American population, nearly entirely white, wishes we could just go back to the 1950’s. That mythical time when non-ethnic, hat-wearing, square-jawed White Guys went out into the world each day to their office or factory job, and came home to a cooked dinner, served by their subservient, non-working wives, who kept their mouths shut, and did what they were told.
Sock hops and drive ins and juke boxes. Greasers and varsity jackets and pork chops and Coca Cola.
Mickey Mantle and Johnny Unitas.
Be like Ike.
This is what Trump means about Make America Great Again.
Let’s build a fucking time machine, out of a DeLorean big enough to fit 40% of America, and let’s all go back to a time when you didn’t have to acknowledge or respect other cultures.
When Thai Food was only in Thailand.
When 16 year old Swedish girls stayed in Sweden, and did what they were told.
When date rape was acceptable, and rampant pollution had not yet ruined America’s environment enough to draw regulatory blowback.
Make America Great Again?
No thanks.
Things may be royally insane these days, with our incels and our AR-15s and our Brexit and our Kardashians.
But I’d take it over a repressive, patriarchal monoculture each and every time.
You know who else was critical of the 50’s, while still managing to capture the best it had to offer?
That’s right.
Robert Frank. (RIP.)
Given the title of the column, you probably knew I was going to get here eventually. But still, in honor of Jack Kerouac, who wrote the introduction to the never-famous-enough-to-be-too-famous masterpiece, “The Americans,” I thought I’d push my stream of consciousness skills as far as they can go.
(Hey Andy Adams, still think Blake Andrews is the most brilliant photo blogger out there?)
As anyone reading this likely knows, Robert Frank, that once-a-century-genius, passed away recently. And though I’ve had the honor to meet and interview many of photography’s legends in my 10 years as a journalist, I never met or spoke to the man.
Hell, I don’t think I was ever within a few miles of him at any given time, though friends and colleagues did know him, and I send them my condolences.
But really, Robert Frank, Swiss Jew turned proper American, and his seminal book named after all of us, belonged to everyone.
Show me a trained photographer who never saw the book, or never cared for it. I dare you! Because we all know, no such person exists.
Each and every human being who ever picked up a camera in earnest, and then devoted him or herself to the craft, found this book to be an inspiration.
And rightly so.
Robert Frank, in the middle of the middle decade of the 20th Century, that decade now considered our heyday, came across the Atlantic Ocean and showed us who we were.
He used a camera, instead of a pen, to create a rambling visual poem, (as Kerouac correctly nailed,) that wove together a story about a newborn Superpower, one that used symbols in such a specific way that it took years for anyone else to have the guts to take back the American Flag, the crucifix, and the jukebox.
Because he owned them.
He made them his, and he made them sing.
Power brokers and fat cats.
Lonely workers and nobodies.
Trans people and cowboys.
African-American nursemaids and their lilly-white charges.
It was all in there.
TV screens and shotgun shacks.
Dancehalls and Drive-ins.
Death and despair.
Life and love.
It’s all there.
As a student, nothing impacted me more, as my final project for Photo 1 at UNM, called “Ten Hours to Vegas,” aped his style so strongly that I’m lucky I got out alive.
As a professor, I used the book to teach sequencing, as the transition from covered car to covered body, and rich banker in an office full of chairs followed by a worker squeezing his ass onto a narrow curb, will never be improved upon.
Those combinations are perfect, and help anyone and everyone understand how photographs can work together to strengthen each other.
I would not be the person I am today, nor the artist, had I not encountered it back in the 90’s, that decade the Millennials and Gen Z’ers are looking to as a model of a different kind of American Ideal.
Friends and Nirvana.
Pulp Fiction and Biggie Smalls.
Michael Jordan and Beavis and Butthead.
Yeah, I guess things weren’t so bad back then. But no matter what, unless you stumble on a wormhole, or a souped-up DeLorean, there’s no returning to the past.
Onward we go, instead.
So in honor of Robert Frank’s passing, I hope we all have the chance to do something important, like he did, because Lord knows the world needs all the help it can get.
Bottom Line: The best of the best, in honor of America
I was going on about him weekly, for quite some time, so I decided to take a break. It seemed healthy, as this is not, in fact, a politics blog.
Rather, aPE is about photography, so I decided that #247Trump was not appropriate.
But it’s been a while, and this being the dog days of August, when most of you are on vacation anyway, it seems like the right time to exercise my First Amendment rights. (While I still have them.)
Now that I’ve given myself permission, though, the words don’t flow as easily as I expected. I feel like the Monty Python guy, who couldn’t eat another bite, because it really has been absurdity-overload lately.
I was discussing it with my Dad the other day, and we agreed that while the national crisis may have been bigger during the Nixon 70’s, with crazy protests and riots, the Trump political scandal is far worse.
I’ve got a good memory, and even I can’t keep all these daily dramas straight.
But here are a few.
The President’s chosen communications director sought an on-the-record interview with The New Yorker, for crying out loud, and then said, of the President’s chief strategist, that he likes to fellate himself.
Oh, and he also threatened to kill the President’s Chief of Staff. (Who was subsequently fired post haste.)
Ironically, the Mooch was out before his paperwork was filed. (And before godsend Mario Cantone could franchise this impression.)
What else?
Oh, right, there was that Trump Jr/Jared Kushner meeting with Russian spies who offered dirt on Hillary Clinton, after their government had stolen a trove of her campaign’s emails.
And Donald Sr started Tweeting about her emails the same day.
This, and so much more, has unfolded in the press while a non-partisan former FBI director looks carefully into the President’s shady-Russian-Mafia connections.
At one point this winter, as my mother likes to remind me, I said it all resembles “House of Cards” + “The Americans,” and that seems to get truer each day.
The stuff Netflix and FOX made up as dramatic fantasy is actually no less salacious, at this point, than the Real.Fucking.Thing.
Welcome to August of 2017.
As I wrote here last year, I had my first premonition things might go awry when I was in Los Angeles in late October, and watched the 3rd Presidential debate at a theater in the Hammer Museum at UCLA.
“Not a puppet, not a puppet, you’re the puppet” drew laughter like we were watching “Chapelle’s Show.” Trump read as entertainment, to us, and he was damn entertaining.
But we were in literally the bluest bubble in America, and I felt uncomfortable with the elephant in the room: that millions of our fellow countrymen took him seriously, and agreed with many of the deranged things he said.
But she shied away from the word “lied,” because she felt it was too harsh.
Yes, that trip to LA gave my spider sense the tingles, but when I returned a couple of weeks ago, 6 months into the shitshow that is Trump’s presidency, few people were talking about him.
I didn’t talk much Trump in Los Angeles, but I did see a lot of photography. I don’t have the exact number, but I saw at least 25 projects at the LACP Exposure portfolio review, and am glad to show you the best work I saw.
I liked Lisa McCord immediately, as she seemed honest in a way I connect with. She showed me some work from the early 80’s, done on her family’s tenant farm in Arkansas.
Basically, Lisa said she’d felt more comfortable with the African-Americans who worked on the farm than she did with her people, who owned the place. So she hung out a lot, including with the Nanny who raised her, and people let her make pictures, because they knew and trusted her.
Images like this are seen as fraught these days, with so much tension around racism and white privilege. It’s hard not to see them as controversial, yet I sometimes think that says more about us than the pictures themselves.
Because if we take Lisa at her word, that these were her friends, more like family, than there’s nothing radical about the pictures save the color of everyone’s skin.
Dawn Watson had landscape photos in which she’d inverted the tonal curves in Photoshop, so the colors were reversed. I’ve seen similar projects, and told her about Adriene Hughes work we published here last year.
But I think showing digital’s unmistakeable hand can be a sound visual strategy, and I liked several of these pictures a lot. I told Dawn to be careful about whether she wanted to make pretty pictures, or edgy ones, as her aesthetic sensibility seemed to waver.
Douglas Stockdale, a fellow reviewer, has long run the excellent blog The PhotoBook Journal. He also makes his own books, and shared “Bluewater Shore” with me, his latest.
I’ve never seen a book that came in a plastic ziplock bag before, and that was a novelty. But I also like the re-purposed archival family images, which resonate with old school California beach culture.
I saw Eleonora Ronconi’s work at the portfolio walk, and it turned out she was engaged to my friend Paccarik, which I didn’t know. (He’s made a few appearances in the column over the years.)
She had pictures made in her native Argentina, and I thought they were lovely. Her color palette, in particular, with those rose-peach hues, grabbed my attention the most.
J. Matt is a surfer dude from Hawaii who recently moved to LA after many years in San Francisco. He’s an architect, by trade, but seems like a generally-creative-type person.
He showed me some pictures of LA that looked a bit like Dan Lopez’s from last week, and a little sample of work shot at the beach. As that’s a huge part of who he is, I checked it out on his website afterwards, and we’re sharing some of them here.
Linda Alterwitz, based in Las Vegas, had photographs made with a thermal imaging camera. I asked her if she knew of Richard Mosse’s work, the stuff with the expired pink film, and she said she did.
Little did I know, but he’s done work with thermal imaging cameras as well. So what, though, as I highly doubt Linda knew about it when she was lent a camera by a manufacturer.
The figurative images are wild, as are the horse pictures. And there’s a monkey in there too? WTF?
Finally, Mara Zaslove had photographs of an elderly friend, and they’ll include the only nudity we show today. (Hope that’s OK, as we’re normally SFW.)
Aging is a subject most people want to avoid. Hell, I was watching some old Westerns on TV the other day, and couldn’t believe how many old people there were.
Modern entertainment casts must be 25 years younger, on average. So I like that Mara’s work makes me think about that, while retaining some grace too.
Well, that’s it for the LA roundup. We’ll be back to book reviews next week, and I hope you’re enjoying the summer.
My name is Jonathan Blaustein, and I’m an artist and writer based in Taos, NM. I write a weekly photo book review column that’s published right here each Friday, on A Photo Editor.
We’ve never met or spoken, but you might recognize my name. That’s because I’m the a-hole who attacked you earlier this year, right here, on A Photo Editor. (You might have heard something about it.)
I made an example of a book you’d made, presenting it as evidence of the remarkable vapidity of much of contemporary photography. I’m here, many months later, to apologize. It was poor form to suggest your intellectual curiosity was less impressive than your friend list.
I often use this column as a place to sharpen the many axes I choose to grind, and you were the unwitting victim. I hope you accept my apology, because, as my regular readers know, sometimes I just can’t help myself. The taste for controversy is rarely sated gracefully.
For the rest of you, this letter is meant to serve as a reminder, yet again, that we need to keep our minds open. Just because you feel something strongly doesn’t mean it’s true. We’re at the end of 2013, and it’s a good time to make amends, apologize to those you’ve wronged, and clear your head for the New Year.
As a way of proving my positive intentions, let’s take a quick look at “Notes from the Foundry,” a new soft-cover book recently published by Spaces Corners in Pittsburgh, PA. (And edited by… you guessed it… Melissa Catanese, along with the equally-well-connected Ed Panar.)
It’s a strange book, given its inviting Tiffany-esque color palette. Open it up, and you’re met with a postcard insert informing you the publication is a compilation of work by several photographers, including luminaries Zoe Strauss and Todd Hido. (The latter of whom apparently inspired Spike Jonze’s new film, “Her,” if we’re to believe what we read on the Internet.)
Back to the book. That small bit of text on the insert is all we have to go on. Then it’s page after page of photographs, totally unlabeled. No titles, no sections, no essays. Nothing.
I recognized one image by Andrew Moore that I’d seen so many times before, and then the Todd Hido pictures at the end were easy to spot as well. But the rest of it was a bit opaque; a mashup of images by people like Daniel Shea, Nicholas Gottlund and Gregory Halpern. In fact, I had to look through the book a couple of times before discovering the text on the backflap that gives order to the artists’ work.
But what about the photos? Don’t they matter too? Or is this just an absurd attempt to hoover up some of the slime I hurled in Ms. Catanese’s direction earlier this year?
The pictures are so different from one another, it’s hard to say the book is about anything. Unless it’s Pennsylvania. Or Northern Appalachia. Maybe that’s it. The Eastern Mid-West. What would we call that?
The theme might not be super-tight, but the pictures are engaging and well-made, and in their variety, forced me to ask some good questions, as a viewer. What is photographable? Is everything?
Cameras are pointed in all directions, now, all the time. Are we really living in a world that co-exists, brick for brick, in the physical and digital realities simultaneously? If a tree falls on Google Earth, will you hear it through your new-Christmas-present-beats-by-Dre headphones? And if you do, does it even matter?
Sometimes, I find myself drawn to things other than photographs. Hunks of rock, paint on canvas, or a movie that makes me want to give it all up and hitchhike to Hollywood, with a bandanna dangling off a stick like some yokel from the Beverly Hillbillies.
Other times, though, while flipping through a book like this, I’m reminded that it’s insatiable curiosity that keeps us clicking the shutter. Curiosity at what a group of children might look like, in the silhouetted light of a highway overpass? Or why the acrid smoke rising from a chimney resembles a triumphant tornado? Or why some random pieces of plywood are taped together on a city sidewalk?
I could go on, but I think you get the point.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Blaustein
Bottom Line: A cool compilation, perhaps about PA?
I don’t check email on the weekends. No FB or Twitter either. I don’t have to worry about who wants to “talk” to me in New York, or New England, or even New Mexico. (Sorry, Dad.) Furthermore, I’m off the clock from 5pm to 8am each day. Try it some time.
Our brains weren’t designed for 24/7 contact and communication. Not even remotely. Every time you get a nice email, or a complimentary comment, your brain drops some dopamine or seratonin. (Mmmm, yummy brain juice.) Conversely, each time someone bitches at you, drops one more deadline on your head, or inundates you with sarcasm, your mind rolls out the adrenaline and/or cortisol.
Either way, your chemistry is working overdrive, all day, every day. I can’t wait to see what the cumulative effect will be, as this has never before existed in human history. We’ve all become a bunch of glorified lab rats, looking up at an unkind Universe, waiting for our next sign. (Ping, ping, ping.)
It’s none of my business if you choose to listen to this advice. I’m sharing it, because that’s what I do. For the last ten months, I’ve been talking to you each week. You can tinker with your routine, or not. I was as addicted as anyone, before my wife enforced these rules. Now, I’m happier, saner, and more productive.
Photographers, in particular, were not intended for such a life. Pre-digital, back in the day, it would have seemed absurd to any decent lensperson to suggest they allow themselves to be interrupted, constantly, while trying to get some work done. Our workspace was sacred: The Darkroom.
In the end, my decision to walk away from my Duke degree, (and the great likelihood of financial security,) was an easy one. Up until my time in the photo department at UNM, I’d never worked hard at anything before. School came easy, as did certain aspects of sports. If I wasn’t good at something, that was that. The idea of practice was not yet embedded in my head. Then came the darkroom.
At 23, for the first time, I could and did spend 5, 6, 7 hours at a time slaving away. The quiet, the sickly-sweet chemical smell, the soothing safety light, together they seduced my latent work ethic. Previously lazy, the darkroom engendered a marriage between my passion and my patience. I took it as a good omen, and devoted my life to the craft. (Especially when a color darkroom opened up a block from my apartment in San Francisco. The photo gods can, in fact, be kind.)
Now, we live on our computers. We tell people how proud we are that our digi-prints finally look as good as gelatin silver. And the world will never be the same.
As such, I was fascinated by “Darkroom,” a new, over-sized monograph by Adam Bartos, recently published by steidldangin. (A partnership, I believe.) Rarely before have I seen someone produce a work of nostalgia, without the sentiment. The project is devoid of emotion, while clearly bowing at the temple of the past. Tough combination.
The book is immaculate; even the cover image is perfectly rendered. High class production values have certainly gotten my attention lately. (Take it for what it’s worth.) We obviously don’t all have the dollars to spend, but a few extra grand can do wonders in the right hands.
The premise of the book is straightforward: photos of lived-in darkrooms owned by American photographers. A peek at the thank you note in the back indicates that several of them are high profile, and a couple are even folks I know here in New Mexico. So it has an insider appeal, as well as being a super-well-crafted look at a part of our collective history.
Compositionally, the images are very formal. Shiny film rolls, lined up here and there, posters that were rarely seen, as so much work was done in the dark. It evokes Thomas Demand a bit, with it’s cold rigor, but that prevents the whole project from devolving into a treacly mess. Nicely done.
I’ve got to think that many of you would love this book. Whether as a reminder of your salad days getting a contact high off the fixer, or as a hint that it’s time to put down the f-cking iPhone. Either way, this one is a keeper.
Bottom line: A very well-made trip down memory lane
Henceforth, I’ll be the guy that announced his wife’s pregnancy in a book review. There’s no way around it. That’s me now. I’m that guy.
And what of it? It means I’ve decided to share details about my life with you, our readership. Why would I do such a thing? Is it to ensure that these articles are interesting enough to hold your attention? Sure.
Or maybe it’s because the more you know about me, the more perspective you’ll have on my opinions? That’s true too. Because I really am just a guy sitting in his library, (soon to be nursery,) surrounded by photo-books, banging out the content each week. So the way I see it, the more you know about my taste and decision-making, the more capably you’ll decide when I’m wrong. (Or full of shit.)
So now you know that I’m going to have a daughter at the end of Summer. I already have a son, and a brother, who also has two sons. What do I now about raising a girl? Not much.
On the plus side, as an artist, I get to discuss my feelings. Heck, I get to be aware that I have feelings, which is more than I can say for many an American male. But yes, I have plenty of feminine characteristics to balance out the testosterone. Just last night, I had a chat about emotions with my Mom. Sure, I made her cry, but it was the good kind.
But as to rearing a little baby girl from scratch? I haven’t got a clue. I was weaned on sports, smacking my brother around, and slogging through the stream in the backyard. I’ve never played with dolls, (action figures are different,) and like many a man, have long harbored deep fears about what it will be like when my daughter’s first boyfriend (or girlfriend) shows up at the door with a smirk on his/her face. It’s a common fear, and one I’m looking forward to meeting head on.
But really, what am I in for? Where should I turn for a glimpse of what the future holds? How about a photo-book? (Yes, I’m sure you saw that coming this time.) In particular, let’s take a look at “Sasha,” by Claudine Doury, recently released by Le Caillou Bleu. (With an essay by my good friend Melanie McWhorter.)
I think someone made a comment about “Haiiro,” something about judging a book by its cover. Well, you can do that here as well. On a beautiful block of green fabric sits a black silhouette of a bird. Smallish, it might be a finch, or something like that. (Lacking details, as it’s black, we can’t tell.) But it sure is pretty. Open up and the inside of the cover is mauve, which is like a cross between pink and lavender. Again, pretty. (And it goes so well with the green.)
Flipping towards the photographs, which ought to be more important, we see a succession of images featuring a girl, whom we can only presume to be Sasha. She’s a late adolescent, maybe 12 or 13, if I had to guess, and is joined by a friend or two in many of the images. And what do they do? Play dead, imagine things, frolic in the mud, cavort covered with weeds, conjure spells cast with burning witch-ly sticks. In short, they live in imaginary worlds, no different from boys, in theory.
I suppose it’s a feminine version of what I did with my buddies back in the day, and what my son does now. In pre-school, we fought over who got to be Superman, and co-ordinated our Underroos. By Kindergarten, the teacher made us take turns pretending to be Luke Skywalker. On the playground, it was an endless blur of kickball games that always seemed to end in tears. (Yes, mine. I was a sensitive lad.)
No, really, back to the book. The photographs are well made, with a somber earth tone palette, and a healthy dash of mystery. Like when Sasha walks on water. (Thank you, Photoshop.) When the girls are running in mud, they made me think Ana Mendieta and her Earth art. Buried under the tall green grass up to her neck, eyes averted, Sasha plays dead. She’s always up to something, whether staring at leeches, presenting a blonde pony tail in a box, petting the bird from the cover, or pretending to suffocate while covered in a plastic sheet.
Is this my future? I don’t know. None of us do. But as I always say, I like to be surprised by a good photo-book, to learn new things, to witness fresh perspectives. “Sasha” did this for me; helped me visualize the unknown, which is the scariest thing of all. Will it do the same for you?
Bottom line: Lovely book, filled with pretend magic
Let’s be honest: last week’s column was long. The week after I agreed not to mess with the format, I went and added 10 paragraphs to your reading load. Forgive me. (Even my Dad had to read it in two stages.) I thought it was worth it, as the chance to hear from such talented publishers was too good to pass up. But this week, allow me to rectify the situation. We’ll keep it short, just to maintain the balance. Book review only. No rambling personal narrative. (Until next week.)
When I visited New York last Fall, I saw some posters strewn around Williamsburg. Intense and more than a little scary, they advertised a project called “Sicarios,” which was showing somewhere in Brooklyn, I believe. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it means Hitman in Spanish. (Or Assassin, if you prefer.) There are a lot of them running around Mexico and Central America, as the skill-set is in high demand.
So when the book ended up in my pile, (by Javier Arcenillas, published by FotoEvidence in Brooklyn,) I was relieved and disturbed at the same time. While I would normally drop into a story about the dangers I faced traveling in Guatemala back in ’99, I won’t go there today. Got to honor the promise above. But the photos in this book offer a stark, black and white vision of the red bloody mess going on down there at present.
Is this book for everyone? No. Definitely not. It’s a collection of gruesome, troubling and poignantly tragic photographs. They’re expertly rendered, and may or may not lead to any sort of social change. But they do, for certain, bring humanity to what is, for many, an abstract Geo-Political problem. The US can swing it’s military dick around the Middle East all it wants, but that doesn’t make the drama to our South any less real, or horrifying.
It was only two weeks ago that we collectively meditated on the concept of suffering with Donald Weber’s new book “Interrogations.” He left much up to the imagination, which was what lent a talismanic power to the publication. “Sicarios” does not. Which is why it’s not for everyone. But for those of you who hunger to stare down the ugly “truth”, this book might offer a sumptuous repast.
Dead bodies, naked streetwalkers, scowling psychopaths, blood trails down the side of a car door, young kids strolling through their perilous reality without a second thought, women crying in hand-me-down American T-shirts (West Virginia- No Lifeguard At The Gene Pool,) barbed wire-topped prison walls, cowboy hats, machine guns, machetes, crucifixes…it’s all there. Does this sound like fun? I sure hope not.
But, if you’ve read any or all of my previous columns, you’ll know that I don’t believe Art must always be pretty. Quite the opposite. Dave Chapelle once did a skit on his show called “When Keepin’ It Real Goes Wrong.” This book pretty much nails the concept. A cycle of violence, once kicked off, is hard to stop, no matter where in the world you live. Some places, as Malcolm Gladwell has mused, have it worse than others. Cultures of revenge and blood lust. Guatemala is such a place.
So let’s end this now, shall we. After all, I guaranteed you a short piece. This book is worthy of your attention. Mr. Arcenillas is laying out the gory bits for all to see. It’s up to you if you feel like looking. I won’t judge you either way.
Bottom Line: Super-hard-core book, not for the faint of heart
My father reads this column each week. He enjoys it, though he’d probably read even if he found it boring. He’s proud, sure, but he says that he learns things about me and my life that he wouldn’t otherwise know. I suppose that’s a solid, 21st Century definition of irony, as the two of us live in the same town.
He mentioned the other day that he likes the style I’ve slowly adopted. A few paragraphs that initially seem random, or perhaps self-absorbed, then a sexy segue, and finally an actual review of an actual book. My first thought was to burn the house down, if my tropes were so obvious, but he advocated for stability. People, he felt, appreciate the mix of repetition and renewal. Perhaps that’s true.
But I don’t mention my father simply to conduct one more meta-riff on the absurdity of writing about myself and photo-books at the same time. He’s in a tough spot right now, my old man, currently battling the triple-whammy of tooth infection, shredded-knee, and ruined back. He can’t have surgery on the knee until the infection clears, and then needs an operation on his back, but not until the knee heals. He’s gritting his teeth (Sorry, horrible pun,) and dealing the best he can. Not-quite-stoic-suffering runs in the family, a genetic chain back to ever-miserable relatives in the ghettos of Eastern Europe.
Humans, incredibly resilient, have adapted different solutions to the problem of terminal misery. Heaven. Meade. Weed. Video Games. All share the common denominator of distraction. Look at the pretty red cloth, Mr. Bull, and ignore the sword heading right into your neck. Whatever the coping strategy, people keep pro-creating, and suffering persists.
Donald Weber seems to know a thing or two about suffering, and its lack of inherent nobility. People eat shit everywhere, every day, and do the best they can to aid in its digestion. With dignity. When possible. His new book, “Interrogations,” was just released by Schilt Publishing in Amsterdam. Pop it out of its intentionally generic cardboard shell, and its pink cover will surprise you immediately. As does its calender-like vertical orientation. (And its “poor”, or at least “not-slick” publication quality. Proletarian sensibilities and all.)
The photographs inside, along with a truly well-written essay by Larry Frolick, (In the Epilogue) were made in Russia and the Ukraine earlier in the decade. After a slew of establishment photos in the Prologue, bleak snow, junkyard dogs and the like, the main meal consists of a series of photographs of sad, terrified, and forlorn men and women in generic rooms. Given the title, they seem to be reliving or recounting tales of beatings, bitch-slaps and bedlam. One imagines the emotions to be real, regenerated upon reflection. But I suppose it’s never totally explained. Not necessary. Point taken.
I’ve reviewed several books already, and one MOMA exhibition, detailing life in former Iron Curtain. I think I even mentioned, last time, that it seemed to be one seriously ubiquitous subject, of late. No matter. Whether it’s mindless horror movies at the Mega-plex, dramatic dragon paintings in a British Museum (more on that later), or bleakly violent Eastern European photo-books, people will always, always be fascinated by the dark.
Unless you’ve been locked away in a pretend spaceship, like those Russian astronauts, you’ve likely heard the name Vivian Maier in the last year or so. It would be almost impossible to have avoided her name entirely, though you might not be exactly sure who she is/was, or why her name stuck in your head. So allow me to clear up any confusion.
I can’t think of a parallel really. It’s almost like when Nintendo first came out back in the day. (Oh Mike Tyson’s Punch-out, where have you been?) One day, no one had heard the name Nintendo, and within a few months, every one of your friends had one. (Except me. I was the dunce that bought Sega, pre-Sega Genesis. Ouch.) But, clearly, I digress.
Ms. Maier was a prolific street photographer who lived in Chicago, and spent time in New York as well. She died, an unknown, in 2009. (Thereby pulling a Van Gogh part Deux, what with the exclusively post-humous fame.) A local Chicago historian discovered her archives, and the rest, as they say, is _______. Now that this work has been everywhere, (an exhibition opens today in Santa Fe at the Monroe Gallery,) it’s finally been released in book form by powerHouse. Apparently, there were something like 100,000 negatives to digest, so before you even open the book, you’re impressed by the sheer editorial effort.
Once you open it up and get started, it’s an odd experience, though thoroughly pleasurable. So many references popped into my head. Some expected: Frank, Arbus, Winnogrand, Callahan, Levitt, Strand, Evans, Ray Metzker, & Weegee. Others, totally fresh and surprising: Chris Jordan, Roger Ballen, Frederick Sommer. It’s almost like you’ve seen this group of photographs before, while at the same time, you’ve never seen any of the individual images in your life. Does that make sense? As little is known about the artist, it’s hard to say if she was riffing on masters, or just stumbled into this mash-up style. (Which is excellent, through and through.)
The plates are well-produced, with plenty of grayscale range. The pacing is taut, and the juxtapositions fantastic, particularly for their narrative quality. An example: Three kids on the street, one putting a small mattress into a baby carriage, another stout little blonde kid staring straight up, his look saying, “Huh?” That’s followed directly by an image of an African-American young man riding a horse down a city street, under an elevated train. After which we see a cowboy walking down the sidewalk, all duded up. (I’ve got to believe she was directly riffing on the Frank image from “The Americans,” though I suppose we’ll never know.)
Empathy, humor, respect for her subjects, a keen eye for detail, a mastery of texture, it’s all there. The gradation of light on some tough looking old guy’s face illuminates the pores of his skin, while his eyes look just above the camera. He must have cracked a heap of skulls in his day. It’s juxtaposed with a nun, resting up against the corner of a building, lost in thought. I could write about the contrasts all day if I wanted to. But then this would be a dissertation, rather than a book review. (And then no one, anywhere, would ever read it.)
So let’s wrap this up, shall we? This is an excellent book. I love it, and any fan of B&W street photography likely will as well. One oddity is the lack of information about the exact dates and places in which the images were made. (Nobody knows…) But a little mystery isn’t such a bad thing, is it?
The sun has yet to rise on the first Monday of the year. It’s ten degrees outside, and I’m sitting on a green pull-out couch in my gray cotton boxers. I’m also wearing a fifteen-year-old brown flannel shirt, unbuttoned. My hair, washed before bed, is standing in six directions, like the drummer in a band that you’ve never heard of. Like Lee Friedlander.
I feel naughty just for writing about how silly I look right now. None of us wakes up like someone in a TV Show. Seriously, have you ever noticed that people always kiss each other with morning breath in the movies? Please. So here I am, just rolled out of bed, and the very, very last thing that I would do is take a picture of myself. No, scratch that. The very last thing I would do is to show a photo of myself, looking as I do now, to anyone. No, wrong again. The very, very, very last thing I would do is to publish said photograph in a book. Yes, that’s the last thing I would do.
So it’s a good thing that Lee Friedlander is a braver man than I. Or crazier? Edgier? What’s the right word? (Other than better, which is too obvious.) I’ve written about the man before. Twice in fact. Last time was for a book of previously unreleased images of some cars in Detroit in the Sixties. Nice book, but mostly interesting because no one had seen the particular photos before.
Today, I’m here to talk about “Lee Friedlander: In the Picture. Self-Portraits 1958-2011,” which was recently published by Yale University Press. I’m pretty uncomfortable with the fact that Yale Press now co-exists in an article with a description of my underwear. It’s quite possible I’ll live to regret it. So why would I do such a thing? Because I’m writing about an artist who was far more fearless than that. Let’s call it a tribute review. Next thing you know, I’ll put on tight jeans and bandana, round up some friends, and start shimmying on stage to “Dancin’ in the Dark.” No. More likely it would be “Blinded by the Light.” Great song.
Ah, the book, you say? It’s black and thick, but not too large. The cover text colors, blue and florescent magenta, are jarring, but less so than the diptych of self portraits by Mr. Friedlander, which seem to bookend the temporal range covered inside. Rarely do I discuss things such as font color, but the inside of the flap is a day-glo lime, so clearly they were trying to make a statement right off the bat. With color. In a book of black and white images. Nice. Slowly flipping the pages, and the second photo in the book shows Mr. Friedlander, shirtless, in Taos, New Mexico, 1958. Thereby giving a little context to my half-clothed ravings. (It’s all good, bro. Clothes are for squares, man.)
OK, enough about me. The narrative is linear, the kids are born towards the beginning, and the woman I can only presume to be Mr. Friedlander’s wife looks like a be-speckled beatnik betty. Right away, the shadow comes in as a stand-in for the artist. Straight out of Jung, yo. Deep. But not quite so deep as the artist’s penetrating gaze and fantastic use of neck-fat. So unflattering, so brilliant. Really, it’s a lesson that jumps off the page here. Take more risks. Be less afraid. Push yourself. Take chances.
Last week, in the fabled comment section, a fierce debate arose over whether readers have the right to complain about my choices of things that I like. Others claimed that negative criticism is undervalued in the world of photography and art. I beg to differ. The entire critique process is based upon the concept of criticism, only it’s taught that one ought to respect others, and choose one’s words wisely. It’s best to balance a negative critique with a dose of positivity, and to use language that does not denigrate. But at the core level, the critique is about awakening deeper levels of self-awareness, so that we know, in our hearts, when a photo is not good enough. Or when we need to try harder. Or when we’re simply too derivative. So be negative all you like. But how about having the guts to turn that critical eye upon yourself? Like Lee Friedlander.
Back to the book. I swear I didn’t choose this week’s selection as a counterpoint to last week’s article, but now that I’m looking at it closely, the connection is clear. Growth. Change. The passage of time. It’s all here. A very well-made group of photographs, along with some insider references that people will love.(Robert Frank, Nick Nixon…) Most of the most recent images definitely lack the spark of the earliest pictures, but then again, no one listens to the Rolling Stone’s last album. I’d say I’m not surprised, but I saw Mr. Friedlander’s show at the Whitney in 2010, so I know he hasn’t lost it.
After the celebrity section, which at least has a few laughs, you arrive at the inevitable conclusion. The doctor’s office. The tubes. The glazed eyes. The chest scar. Heart Surgery? Probably. Does it matter? Time gets us all in the end, and it’s rarely pretty. But this book, and the artist’s career by extension, are two lessons in the value of investigation and examination, of ourselves as well as the outside world.
A great photobook will distill a greater truth out of the photographs inside, a truth that requires careful looking and reading, a truth that might not even be fully true. Redheaded Peckerwood does this masterfully and beautifully.
There’s been a ton of best photobook lists this year and I was thinking it would be interesting to see which books are common to most lists. Well, it turns out someone actually went out and did it. EyeCurious has “pulled together 52 lists” of book published in 2011 and the top books are:
1st Place (19 votes)
– Redheaded Peckerwood, Christian Patterson (Mack)
2nd Place (14 votes)
– A Criminal Investigation, Yukichi Watabe (Xavier Barral/Le Bal)
– Illuminance, Rinko Kawauchi (Aperture)
3rd Place (10 votes)
– Paloma al aire, Ricardo Cases (Photovision)
4th Place (9 votes)
– Gomorrah Girl, Valerio Spada (Self-published)
5th Place (8 votes)
– A, Gregory Halpern (J&L Books)
to see the complete list visit eyecurious. Also, an interesting comparison with the list of best selling photobooks:
1. Simply Beautiful Photographs (National Geographic)
2. The Great LIFE Photographers (Little, Brown & Co.)
3. The Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton (LIFE)
4. One Nation: America Remembers September 11, 2001, 10 Years Later (Little, Brown & Co.)
5. Portraits of Camelot: A Thousand Days in the Kennedy White House (Abrams)
It wasn’t until this morning, a few minutes ago, that I noticed the connection. As you might imagine, I take a big stack of books from photo-eye each time I visit, and make my selections later on, at home. Sifting, I noticed the link. Two books, sharing half a name. “Half Life,” By Michael Ackerman, and “The Half-Life of History, by Mark Klett. Strange.
Given the constraints of a book review column, it seemed like a connection worth investigating. Perhaps my curiosity was aroused, as a 37 year old, having lived half a life. Perhaps not. Perhaps I was thinking about how the Buddhists believe everything is connected. Perhaps not.
“Half Life” was recently published by Dewi Lewis in London. I don’t read the essays beforehand, in these books, just like I don’t bother with wall text, right away, when I go see an exhibition. It’s easy to double back, but one only gets a single chance to see the images fresh, without pre-conceptions. It’s not a perfect system, but it allows me to read and react, to guess at symbols, patterns, and deeper meaning.
I’d never heard of Mr. Ackerman before, but it was immediately obvious that his intentions were serious. The initial images are small, grainy, black and white, and have the look of old, found images. Head shots of forlorn, wasted looking men, this was not to be a fun ride through photo-book-land. Soon, train-tracks, blurry, snowy fields, European architecture. I thought of the Holocaust, as most people would. Then, images of naked people would appear, and hotel rooms. I thought of the sex trade. Next, Hebrew-covered headstones, and I was back to the Holocaust all over again.
I guessed the images to be current, and a subsequent cursory glance at the photographer’s bio said as much. So the images are not historical, they just reference that impossible era. Showers, even. But the nudes returned, and the power of the random single image resonated as well: a tranny penis, an elephant, an egret? I liked the embedded photo-homage as well: a sign saying Franks on one page, a big American flag on the opposite spread. Together, it’s a winding narrative with many references, but the end result is unique.
I’ve always thought it was easy to make creepy work. Either way, this book is definitely meant to disturb. It speaks of ghosts and visions, memories of the dead and the lost. Yet it has an undeniable beauty to it, like Anne Frank’s Diary. Why do people continue to read that book, when the ending is foretold? Because they enjoy the ride, I suppose. Bottom Line: Haunted, in the best possible way
The partner publication, in name only, “The Half-Life of History,” is more straight-forward, and in large part, color. Which surprised me, as all of the past work I’ve seen from Mr. Klett has been some shade of gray or sepia. Beautiful Saguaros that finally made sense the last time I set foot in Tucson. The new book, offered by Radius, is subtitled “The Atomic Bomb and Wendover Air Base,” whence the Enola Gay originated. Boom. Back to World War II, again, like it or not.
The style varies, from tightly-composed images of abandoned barracks, to sweeping vistas, and a four-page spread inside a airplane hanger. 50 caliber bullets are handled sculpturally, history is depicted gingerly, and a short trip to Hiroshima is made towards the end. The essay is by William L. Fox, a very bright scholar whom I heard lecture in Reno recently. I haven’t read it yet, but will speculate that he did a good job. (Lazy journalism, right there. For sure.) Bottom Line: Interesting, a must for Klett collectors
Sometimes, art can change our lives, or at least how we relate to the world around us. Writing in The New Yorker last week, Peter Schjeldahl mentioned that when he emerged from a recent visit to the new Islamic galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he felt like a slightly different person. Other times, though, it’s just nice to look at photographs that depict a different way of life in a foreign culture, far far away. It’s simple human curiosity, really: travel, for the recession age. So this week’s books are unlikely to give you an Earth-shaking epiphany that makes you to quit your job, or give up your life to Jesus. But they ought to satisfy an inherent desire to look outward towards chaos of humanity, and come back with a shade more context about your own little world.
“Zapallal/Yurinaki” is a new hardcover monograph by Andrés Marroquín Winkelmann, published by MA+GO Concept, and distributed by Misha de Kominek Gallery in Berlin. It’s kind of a funky production, as the blue, cloth-bound spine melds into a cardboard cover with a photograph glued to the top. It has the feel of a high-end arts and crafts project, but not in a bad way. (The text is presented in English, Spanish and German, so we know the audience is meant to be Global.) Inside, the first few pages are cut to different sizes, so it opens up bit by bit, You can see right away that the book depicts village life in Peru, with it’s attendant ducks, chickens, pigs, sheep and cats. Mr. Winkelmann apparently photographed in two different communities in Peru, but it’s not particularly evident in the images. Instead, you get a spate of well-seen, flash-driven contemporary documentary photographs of a place that doesn’t look like where you live. Dirty walls, dirt roads, junk in the backyard, meditative still lives of produce, that sort of thing. A particular favorite was a photograph of a young girl, the pink scrunchy on top of her head just peeking out above a kitchen table, while a generic, framed photo of a Caucasian grandfather kissing his grandson haunts the upper left hand corner of the composition. (It’s got to be the picture that came with the frame, right?) Bottom Line: Peru To purchase Zapallal/Yurinaki visit Photo-Eye
“The Brothers,” recently released by Dewi Lewis Publishing, is a black, hardcover book by photographer Elin Hølyand. Two, shirtless, bug-eyed old dudes stare out from the cover, one with a rifle slung over his shoulder. The brothers, I presume. Harald and Mathais, both now deceased, lived together as bachelors on the family farm in rural Norway for their entire lives. It was an old-school, hardscrabble existence, by all appearances. The project was shot in grainy black and white, yet never feels like it was done a long time ago. The photos read modern, for some reason, which could just be that there are enough temporal signifiers to get the point across. There are several double paged spreads where we see both gentlemen, ever so slightly different, like multiple versions of the same guy residing in parallel universes. All bushy eyebrows and plaintive stares…it’s almost enough to make me sad these men are gone, despite the obvious fact that I never met them. Ms. Høyland’s sensibility is odd and strange, but never veers towards creepy or cliché. It’s a terrific collection of photographs, and well printed too. Bottom Line: Norway To purchase The Brothers visit Photo-Eye
Finally, we come to “The Submerged,” by Michelle Sank. It’s a smooth, hard cover book recently offered by Schilt Publishing in Amsterdam. (Insert random stoner reference here…) Ms. Sank, peripatetic through a slew of artist residencies, apparently spent a few months in Wales, and this book is the result. Wales? It reminds me of that Wayne’s World joke where they mocked Delaware. Wales is not the first place I would salivate to go, but that’s part of the fun of looking at these books. What does it look like? What kind of people actually live there? I could tell you, but then you’d have no reason to browse the photos below. The whole selection of images is just the slightest bit weird, but in a subtle way. Like the Beauty Queen in mud covered boots, the Hasidic Jews frolicking on the beach, or the pudgy, dough-faced metalhead in the Ozzy Osborne T-shirt. Not to give away the best part, like a Hollywood preview, but the image of a forlorn, abandoned hilltop barn with “Twat” spray-painted on the side is a keeper. The more I look at it, the more I see a funnier, less genius, contemporary take on August Sander. Bottom Line: Wales To purchase The Submerged visit Photo-Eye
Full Disclosure: Books and scans were provided by Photo-Eye in exchange for links back for purchase. Please support Photo-Eye if you find this feature useful.
Three raccoons turned up dead here on the farm in the last few months. Most likely the dogs got them, though I suppose it could have been the coyotes. Coons are surprisingly big, and unfortunately the first was in the early stage of decomposition near where some friends set up a campsite earlier this summer. It made for a pungent evening, and for that I’ve already apologized. Co-incidentally, I got to take a look at a new book, recently released, called “More Cooning with Cooners,” published by the Archive of Modern Conflict in London, edition 500. They gray hardback, (with a black stripe across it like a raccoon’s face) is a collection of images from the mid-60’s, taken by an anonymous American hunter/photographer. It’s a little race of a narrative through a subculture of corn-cob-pipe-smoking, tough looking dudes who hunt raccoons with dogs, and collect the pelts for pleasure, (and presumably the marketplace.) If I had to guess, I’d say this book was published as the equivalent of an ironic mustache, but I don’t care. It’s funny, fascinating, and manages to capture the spirit of a little world that would be otherwise opaque, and lost to time. Of course, if the dogs keep bringing down the coons out here, I might be tempted to start grabbing some pelts myself. Bottom line: Ironically awesome
Last year, I reviewed a show of Michael Wolf photographs at Bruce Silverstein in New York. The exhibition was broad, and included many a large-scale mega-print, but I was most interested in some small images of Tokyo metro-riders, their faces squished up against the window-glass like an inverted version of pressed ham. The photos are both voyeuristic and intimate, which is no small feat. As a man who left New York partly because my soul was slowly erased by too many hours spent underground, (watching the rats copulate), I relate to something primal in these photographs. But they’re also fantastic as a method of resuscitating portraiture, because you really haven’t seen a group of pictures just like this before. Needless to say, the photos have re-surfaced, in the proper small scale, as a book called “Tokyo Compression Revisited,” published by Asia One and Peperoni Books. The plates are meditative and absurd at the same time, which is a terrific mix. And the back cover features a dude giving the finger to the photographer, which must have happened more than once, right? Think about it. You’re squeezed from all sides by strangers, some salary-man has his armpit smushed up inside your nostrils, and then you look out the window at some gaijin photographer documenting your misery? You’d give him the finger too. Bottom line: Spot on
Capitalism is built upon the premise of forward progress and growth. And yet, one of the great clichés we have is “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” That’s quite the conundrum. Fortunately, the artist Simon Norfolk had the brilliant idea of visiting one of planet Earth’s most recalcitrant places, and at the same time, revisiting a previous photographic vision of a mythic backwater: Afghanistan. “Burke + Norfolk” is a large, navy and gold colored hardcover that was recently released in conjunction with an exhibition at the Tate Modern in London, published by Dewi Lewis. First off, I’ve rarely seen an artist work with both color and black and white with equal facility. The contemporary color photos of Afghanistan are striking. But the gem, for me, is the repeated juxtaposition of John Burke’s historical group portraits and cultural landscapes with contemporary images presented in the same faded, weathered style. Rare is the artist that plays with our temporal expectations this well, and in so doing, passes along a strong message: We don’t have things figured out any more than we did a hundred years ago. Societies, and Empires in particular, keep making the same mistakes over and over again. I hope we’ll keep that in mind the next time some asshole like Dick Cheney suggests we invade Iran, or North Korea, or Venezuela, or Mars. Most likely, somewhere with oil. Bottom line: Innovative
Full Disclosure: Books and scans were provided by Photo-Eye in exchange for links back for purchase. Please support Photo-Eye if you find this new feature useful.
Ryan McGinley – The Kids are Alright
Rinko Kawauchi – Utatane
Geert van Kesteren – Why Mister Why
John Gossage – Berlin in the time of the Wall
Christien Meindertsma – Checked Baggage
Leigh Ladare – Pretend You’re Actually Alive
Sakaguchi Tomoyuki – Home
Simon Roberts – We English
Paul Graham – A Shimmer of Possibility
Doug Rickard – New American Picture
Dash Snow – Slime the Boogie
Miguel Calderon – Miguel Calderon
Viviane Sassen – Flamboya
Miyako Ishuichi – Mother’s
JH Engstrom – Trying to Dance
Jules Spinatsch – Temporary Discomfort: Chapter 1-V
Daniela Rossell – Ricas y Famosas
Uchihara Yasuhiko – Son of a Bit
Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs – The Great Unreal
Donovan Wylie – Scrapbook
Archive of Modern Conflict – Nein, Onkel
Stephen Gill – Hackney Wick
Susan Meiselas – In History
Florian van Roekel – How Terry likes his coffee
Michael Wolf – Tokyo Compression
WassinkLundgren – Empty Bottles
Nina Korhonen – Anna, Amerikan Mummu
Alessandra Sanguinetti – On the Sixth Day
Hans Eijkelboom – Portraits & Cameras 1949-2009
Alec Soth – Sleeping by the Mississippi
PhotoIreland Festival announces Martin Parr’s selection of the 30 most influential photobooks of the last decade. The selection, on show at the National Photographic Archive of Ireland until the 31st of July, is featured in the exhibition catalogue, limited to an edition of 500. The catalogue includes Martin Parr’s comments on each book, together with illustrations and ‘Author’s notes’. These are mostly unpublished texts by the photographers, publishers and curators of the works – personal statements on the process and raison d’être of each book.
