Vivian Maier and the Critics

"We can’t know the full story behind this self-portrait, or behind the many thousands of images left in a storage locker in Chicago. But we can look at the range of Maier’s work and see the tantalizing evidence of artistry and ambition, and we can look at the expression of the woman reflected in the sheet mirror and see her indisputable pleasure. This is no frumpy old bird woman looking at her own pathetic destiny. This is a woman who knows what she wants, who has chosen to do her work free of judgment and commerce, and who is in charge of the scene."

Self-portrait © Vivian Maier

Some time ago I posted very briefly on the death and rediscovery of Vivian Maier; recently my UofR colleague, novelist Joanna Scott, published this smart essay at The Nation on Maier and, especially, Geoff Dyer's dismissive, patronizing interpretation of her work. Scott punctuates her essay with the passage I've lifted above.  As an aside, I think that Scott's assessment of Maier exemplifies nicely the point that David Levi Strauss made recently (link here) regarding the importance of criticism in establishing non-monetary criteria for assessing creative work.

Ai Weiwei Tweets

Here is a set of self portraits that Ai Weiwei recently has tweeted; you'll note that he is dressed in a slightly ill-fitting police uniform. According to this report in The New York Times, the tweets are prompted by Ai's ongoing legal battles with the Chinese tax authorities. Ai has been physically prevented from attending the proceedings. Essentially, the Chinese government (as I've noted here before) has adopted the Al Capone strategy - when you have a "trouble maker" charge him with tax fraud rather than with some substantive sort of wrongdoing.

Self-Portraits (4)

Marti Friedlander, Paris 1972.
Photo / Marti Friedlander.

I've commented on this genre of self-portrait here before. Friedlander is a photographer from New Zealand; I came across an interview with her but have not ever seen any of her work - beyond this image that accompanied the interview.

Self-Portraits (3)

Self-Portrait (March 2007) © Anne Holmes

Self-Portrait (September 2007) © Anne Holmes

I have posted here and here on this "genre" of self-portrait. And today I came across two other examples by Anne Holmes who keeps a very interesting blog called The Vigilante Journalist and has a great web page here that collects her various projects. It is very much work visiting her.

Self-Portraits (2)

Self-Portrait ~ Ilse Bing (1931)

Some time ago I posted several self-portraits by female photographers. This evening I came across this one at wood's lot so I am shamelssly adding it to my earlier bunch. Thanks Mark.

Self-Portraits

Having read Geoff Dyer's The Ongoing Moment I now have a hard time not continually seeing photographers who take "the same" pictures. One instance is the 1958 self-portrait by Inge Morath below and the (cropped) one at right by Jane Bown from 1982. You can find a larger version of the Bown image at the flash-based web page I link to; I couldn't find one to lift from the web. (There also is a story on Bown from The Guardian here with links to more of her images.)

Bown clearly is "behind" the camera, which obscures her face, while Morath is in the camera's shadow.
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PS: (Added 4/3/07) Here is yet another similar image, this one unidentified, that appears as a banner on the photography page over at Open Democracy ...