If ever the premise of a body of work was betrayed by its execution, this is that work. I should clarify that this statement is not intended as a pejorative, but rather to note that the simplicity of the means in Shea’s initial premise is a bit of a false lead. It starts with a […]
There is a small number of essential photobooks that explore the concept of artistic process/practice and performance. Most recently, I have found myself thumbing through Joseph Beuys: Coyote, by Caroline Tisdall (Schirmer/Mosel, 1976), which features photographs of Beuys’ legendary 1974 performance, I Like America and America Likes Me. The performance, arguably Beuys’ most well-known, next to How to […]
Once on a departing flight from LAX, Mark Ruwedel glanced down from the height of his window seat and noticed a short tract of sand between the runway and the coastal highway. What stretched out below him was the El Segundo Dunes Preserve, the last remaining sand dunes in Los Angeles, still marked by the […]
What appears as fok or “primitive” in the handling of Magdalena Suarez Frimkess’s exceptional sculpture is illusory. Instead, what the work relies on is a consistent production of cultural comic and cartoon icons ad infinitum, their forms shaped not by Frimkess’s vision of a new form but by the replication (at volume) of these cultural […]
If you happened to attend the 2009 NY Art Book Fair, you might have come across Gregory Halpern’s Omaha Sketchbook on the table of J&L Books. This early version was rough and unassuming, printed on a laser printer and spiral-bound, its pages made from cheap white paper with small contact prints affixed throughout. The images […]
I have never seen a single Sofia Coppola film. This might be surprising for someone reading this book review. Of course, I know her presence and work, but I have not seen the movies for any outward reason. I probably know more about her as a person and a cult hero than I do about […]
Access to medical attention should be a right, no matter religious qualification or moralizing over another adult person’s decision. In the case of abortion, this is complicated by how we judge human sentience in the form of an unborn child. It is complicated. To say otherwise would be a misstep that does not account […]
Mårten Lange’s The Palace, KARL, 2024, is a brilliant continuation of his last self-published photobook, Threshold (KARL, 2023). The two books share a systematic approach to addressing iterations of architecture that morph and suggest, among other things, portals to history and the domestic interior as ephemeral markers, respectively. The shift from his previous books, Ghost […]
I recently picked up a copy of Vince Aletti’s The Drawer from Self Publish Be Happy/MACK, a title released last year that won the 2023 Aperture Photobook award. At the time, I knew about the book. Still, I had not picked it up as I was unsure of what I could add to it, being […]
Sons of the Living (Trespasser 2024) is Bryan Schutmaat’s opus. It is the summation of a decade-plus of making exceptional photographs. I have been familiar with his work for some time, and seeing his work and career grow has been a pleasure. He is also a good dude and supportive of other artists. That should […]
Gregory Halpern’s photobook King, Queen, Knave has been nineteen years in the making. The first images for the photobook were shot while Halpern was a student in the MFA program at California College of the Arts, where he studied under his mentor, the photographer Larry Sultan. At the time, Halpern felt lost and adrift, unsure […]
It has taken me a few weeks to elucidate my feelings in reviewing Gregory’s new book King, Queen, Knave, published by MACK this past month. I had previously seen some photographs in a workshop we facilitated in Athens with Gregory, Raymond Meeks, Adrianna Ault, and Tim Carpenter. I remember the images well, though I am […]