Idle No More (2)
Labels: Canada, democracy, Idle No More, political graphics
“What we need is a critique of visual culture that is alert to the power of images for good and evil and that is capable of discriminating the variety and historical specificity of their uses.” - W.J.T. Mitchell. Picture Theory (1994).
Labels: Canada, democracy, Idle No More, political graphics
Labels: Obituaries
Labels: wind turbines
Labels: Best Shots
The lecture looks at the emergence of photo theory and new kinds of theoretically informed photographic practice in the 1970s, in a decade of social conflict and political activism in Britain when the impact of new social forces, new forms of theoretical writing and new forms of social mobilization changed the conception of the place of the political and put a new emphasis on "the politics of representation."
Labels: Local Event
Labels: Data Graphics
Labels: George Saunders, literature, New Books, politics, Rochester, UR
Labels: Democrats, elections, Obama, Occupy the SEC, political economy
Labels: Bangladesh, festivals, Shahidul Alam
"If we think about the point of a democratic society, I understand the American project in its ideal form as people poking at society, contesting it, constantly asking questions about what it is exactly that we’re doing."
Labels: Civil Rights, Cornel West, Ella Baker, MLK, Obama, Symbolic Politics
Labels: China
Labels: Fashion Photography, Leibovitz, Maisel, OWS, Political Not Ethical, Rankin, Rebecca Solnit, Vogue
Labels: Conservatives, Data Graphics, ideology, libertarians, Obama, political science, Poole
Labels: Afghanistan, convergences, Dyer, Poland, Salgado, War
Labels: Obituaries, Tomatsu
Labels: Critics
Quick Brown Fox is a curated blog by Alex Rose, in which photographers have to create a piece of work based on a single word. The first photographer is given a word and then they pass on a new word to the next featured photographer.It is, in other words, something of a photographic chain letter - or maybe, given the one word limit, more like a chain tweet. You can find Quick Brown Fox here. I very much recommend you have a visit.
Labels: New Blogs
Labels: GA Cohen, Political Theory
"Her assiduously neutral position on the politics of the film brings to mind, ironically, a politician."The point? Engaging with the time one lives is important and admirable. But doing so by narrowing one's focus so relentlessly as to miss the contextual differences from one situation to the next is, well myopic in the pejorative sense. And to do all that with supreme, unquestioning self-confidence is, frankly, astounding. This is a political story, after all. Political at the core. And Bigelow seems oblivious to that.
"In [The Hurt Locker]the wider controversies of the war in Iraq are sidelined in favour of the experiences of the soldiers: the beads of sweat, the dust, the fly dancing on an eyelash as it looks, unblinkingly, down the barrel of a gun. These small details accrete, over the course of the film, into something like a moral force. Bigelow justifiably won the 2010 Oscar for best director, the first woman to win in that category.
Zero Dark Thirty takes "a similar perspective", she says, with its focus on the individuals, a group of CIA agents tasked with finding Bin Laden and played with brilliant understatement by Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Ehle and Jason Clarke. 'It's a very human piece and it's a story of determination,' Bigelow says. 'We can all, as human beings, identify with believing in something – believing in something so strongly that there is nothing else in your life.'"
"Bigelow's absolute conviction in her own rightness is a habit of mind she has had since childhood."
"Bigelow's diffidence is something she acknowledges with wryness and regret."
"When she gives any thought to the vastness of the story, and to the radioactive sensitivity of so many of its elements, she reassures herself that, "as a film-maker, it's a responsibility to engage with the time I live in. You're kind of creating an imagistic version of living history." And with all the risks that entails."
"Not even its harshest critics dispute that Zero Dark Thirty is a beautifully made film, with clean, sharp lines, completely gripping, and light on any extraneous material. There is almost no backstory for the characters, just the grinding sense of mission that propels people working in extraordinary circumstances. There is nothing glorifying about the torture scenes, either, which illustrate both the hideous reality behind the euphemistic language and the fact that you can't trust information coming out of them: when asked for details of an imminent attack, the detainee – beaten, waterboarded, dragged on a leash and finally shut in a box – mumbles in terror and bewilderment every day of the week. (Later, when not under duress, he gives up a key name, which critics of the film say sets up a false causality: there is no conclusive evidence that torture led to this particular disclosure.)"So the nub of the issue in much of the critical commentary seems to revolve around whether Zero Dark Thirty does or does not establish or gesture at or . . . whatever, the efficacy of torture in eliciting 'actionable' information in the hunt for bin Laden. You'd have to see the film to decide.
Labels: Best Shots
". . . we are trying to make a documentary archive of Rochester at this particular moment in time." ~ Alec Soth
Labels: Magnum, Pellegrin, Political Not Ethical, Rochester
Labels: Canada, democracy, Idle No More
"Someone out there should offer an annual prize for the most lethal review of an art exhibition, because art reviews are getting way too polite. [. . .] The bloated reputations of so many artists of our time offer critics a lifetime's supply of truth telling, so why hold back? We should be going after this lot (and loads more) all the time, and at full volume. Instead, they are more or less guaranteed nice reviews that ignore the pustules of badness that seep out of chic galleries." ~ Jonathan JonesThis is the punchline from this essay at The Guardian today. I agree with the estimation of most product from the contemporary art world. However, I don't think we need more prizes. Indeed, part of the problem with art world denizens is that they too often have their eye on the prize (whichever one). And, while I admit to often finding myself tempted, we hardly need more caustic commentary. Critics should, I think, instead write mostly about work they admire or find compelling. Ignore the dreck. Silence is more effective than vituperation.
"Szarkoski's writing made him envied, but the irony is that his competitors seem to miss some of the most obvious keys to his success. Among these is that he writes only about what he likes. It is a practice that cuts down competition from the start; to be clear about how and why something is difficult, whereas just to turn one's animosity loose on something weak is both fun and safe (who can accuse you of being sentimental). No wonder the affirmative essays stand out, and, assuming they are about respectable work, last longer. Weak pictures drop away of their own weight, as does discussion of them, but the puzzle of stronger work remains: we are always grateful to the person who can see it better."*None of that means being un-critical, or failing to acknowledge the political, economic, social currents that conspire to render good work - creations worth discussing in the first place - so rare and exceptional. But I do think Adams is right. Need examples? How about John Berger's essay on sculptor Raymond Mason? Or, the essay on Susan Meiselas that Adams himself includes in Why People Photograph?** These are the sorts of critical assessments I remember. The 'hatchet jobs' I forget.
Labels: Art, Berger, Critics, David Levi Strauss, Hickey, John Berger, Raymond Mason, Rebecca Solnit, Robert Adams, Susan Meiselas
Labels: China, democracy, Liu Xiaobo, OWS, politics, Václav Havel
Labels: Labor, Obituaries