…tists and the historical effects of their work are rarely synonymous. For example, artists who have benefited from the renewed critical and curatorial interest in Conceptual Art in the last decade have themselves resisted the label “conceptual.”(2) This is understandable – no practicing artist wants to be pigeon-holed as an example of an historical movement. Yet the conceptual designation has been crucial to the historical under… “The Photographic Idea: Reconsidering Conceptual Photography” (1999)  …n a vernacular culture, the architecture and details of a landscape that idiosyncratically described the U.S. This became the central theme of Evans’s photography as supported by both Keller and Rathbone, who dispel the labeling of Evans as a “socially concerned” photographer. Whatever Evans’s personal beliefs were about the social conditions brought on by the Depression, he did not use photography as a crusading practice…. WALKER EVANS: “Scavenging the Landscape – Walker Evans and American Life” (1996)  … Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, and Diane Arbus was introduced together in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, entitled New Documents, setting the standard for a new notion about the ‘documentary.’ In his wall label for that exhibit John Szaskowski wrote, ‘In the past decade a new generation of photographers has directed the documentary approach toward more personal ends. Their aim has been not to reform life, but to know it.’ 18…. LEE FRIEDLANDER: “Out of the Cool” (1991)  …23-1971) wrote that she was compiling her photographs into a ‘Family Album,’ likening it to a ‘Noah’s Ark’ and imagining in it the people who might be remembered and saved in the aftermath of the tumultuous 1960s.” Exhibition label, Portland Museum of Art, Diane Arbus’ cast of characters is a startlingly unusual group. They are people held together by all sorts of bonds, traditional and alternative, yet each merits special attention. Her mothers,… DIANE ARBUS: “Diane Arbus’ Noah’s Ark of Humanity” (2004)  … works are ‘portraits’ of spaces, but really you could just as easily turn that around: several of the portraits in my earlier work were to a certain extent already images of ‘spaces’, as I now see them. At the same time, the label that was attached to my photos very early on is proving stubborn. The same clichés keep on turning up in article after article. Admittedly, I still don’t make optimistic, colourful pictures, but I still believe I’m doi… INTERVIEW: “Conversation with Dirk Braeckman” (1998)  … work. I can’t stand to give him even that much credit. NF: Has your work aroused censorship in America? CS: No, I don’t think so. But I wasn’t surprised when Metro Pictures felt they should put up a warning label for kids. NF: You mean the sign at the exhibition of the Sex Pictures that read, “Parents might want to view the works inside before letting their children see them.” CS: Yes. But on the other hand, I suppo… INTERVIEW: “Interview with Artist Cindy Sherman – A Woman of Parts” (1997)  …unes of Depression times, but your photographs are not critical. I find them more of a glorification—glorification of the plain and simple reality. W.E.: I’m pleased to hear you say that, because I didn’t like the label that I unconsciously earned of being a social protest artist. I never took it upon myself to change the world. And those contemporaries of mine who were going around falling for the idea that they were going to bring d… INTERVIEW: Walker Evans – “The Thing Itself is Such a Secret and so Unapproachable” (1974)  Dru Donovan in conversation with J.W. Fisher about Lifting Water. New York 2011 J.W. Fisher: I probably should begin by stating that I feel very fortunate to have seen Lifting Water through it’s various stages from concept, to image-making, to editing, and final sequence. Would you mind talking about the cultivation of ideas for the TBW book project? Dru Donovan: I wanted to make a body of work that dealt with my friend’s illness. I didn’t wan… INTERVIEW: “Dru Donovan” (2011) |
