Kenneth Graves: Dropping In, Tuning Out of the Home Front

“In my late 30’s and cynical beyond belief, I actually find this little book creating a new space or affection for the idea of the 60’s and 70’s that I had shelved previously under “cyclical fucking baby boomer bullshit”.

Exploring Two Works by Diane Arbus and Their Connection to the 60’s

A Young Man in Curlers at Home on West 20th Street (N.Y.C. 1966) Arbus uses a strong flash to create a high-contrast photograph in “A Young Man in Curlers at Home on West 20th Street,” which is representative of the strong, conflicting ideologies of Americans in the 1960s. The man’s face is stark white compared […]

Prince of Boredom: The Repetitions and Passivities of Andy Warhol

Sidney Janis, 1967 Silk-screening makes repetition part of the meaning of the image. Even one silk-screened print is felt as a repetition, and Warhol repeats these images until repetition is magnified into a theme of variance and invariance, and of the success and failures of identicalness. Prince of Boredom: The Repetitions and Passivities of Andy […]

Jerry Brendt: Scene from 1960’s Boston – ‘The Combat Zone’

                ‘The Combat Zone’ was the name given to the roughest area in Boston at the end of the 1960s, full of violence, sexual exploitation and racial war. In 1967, Harvard University commissioned Jerry Berndt to explore this Boston of shadows and vice. Like a war reporter, the […]

DANNY LYON: “THE BIKERIDERS”

  First published in 1968, Danny Lyon’s The Bikeriders explores firsthand the stories and characters of the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club.  Authentic, personal, and uncompromising, Lyon’s depiction of individuals on the outskirts of society offers a gritty yet humanistic view that subverts the commercialized image of Americana.   EXPLORE ALL DANNY LYON ON ASX (All rights […]

Enrico Natali: “Detroit 1968” (2013)

    During the time that Detroit 1968 was made, taken during 1968, many of Enrico Natali’s white middle class American Dreamers were starting to flee the city. Motor City’s status as one of the shining stars of the industrial revolution was beginning to fade. Detroit was becoming a poster child for the racial conflict […]

Vietnam Zippo Lighters (‘DEATH FROM ABOVE’)”

    Vietnam War-era Zippo lighters featuring personalized and anonymous engravings chosen by U.S. soldiers, sailors, and airmen during deployment. The collection has been compiled individually by American artist Bradford Edwards over several years in the 1990s, on-site in Vietnam. (Images @ Cowan Auctions)

Lee Friedlander Puts Your Selfies to Shame

  “At first, my presence in my photos was fascinating and disturbing. But as time passed and I was more a part of other ideas in my photos, I was able to add a giggle to those feelings.” – Lee Friedlander Lee Friedlander: Self Portrait Museum of Modern Art EXPLORE ALL LEE FRIEDLANDER ON ASX […]

Notes from the Margin of Spoiled Identity – The Art of Diane Arbus (1988)

“I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do, that was one of my favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse.” – Diane Arbus   By Gerry Badger as a collaboration with ASX, Originally Published in Phototexts, 1988 The principal issue raised by the remarkable photographs […]

MARGUERITE BAKER JOHNSON: “AMERICAN LIFE” (1952-1964)

Marguerite Baker Johnson, a native of Brussels Belgium was a noted female photographer noted as the first woman to take photographs inside the arena at “Cheyenne Frontier Days”, a task formerly conducted by men due to the dangerous setting. Her photos appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Automotive Periodicals, London Times, Daily Mirror, […]