Dear Zoe

I am a great admirer of your work, your blog, your voice; as you can see from this post, I have nothing but the utmost respect for you. I have collected your work and have pre-ordered America. Thus I am a little chagrined to have to deferentially correct you about a small misunderstanding on your part...

Oh, and by next week this is what Willy Penn will be wearing!


Care to place a small wager?

Your humble admirer,

Mel

Cinema

Alec Soth's new work, Thirty-three Theaters and a Funeral Home immediately brought the movie Cinema Paradiso to mind. It is one of my top 3 movies, ever. This video is the final scene. If you haven't seen the movie you may want to skip it, on the other hand it may give you the impetus to buy it/rent it/see it! It is a love story, the life long love of film and the movie theater. You will not be disappointed.

This series seems a tribute to a place and time as much as typology.

Illustration

Kris Stoddart

A. Wall Street
B. Bushco
C. Congress
D. Pundits
E. All of the above

Here is Illustrator Kris Stoddart's site.

via It's Nice That

On Press

Jeff Ladd announced Errata Editions a few weeks ago. He has found a way to take his passion for photography books and open a publishing house for out of print editions. I have great admiration for people who are able to translate their dreams into reality. Understand, Jeff is not a printer and has not done any publishing whatsoever. He is now in China supervising the printing of not 1 small, personal monograph. Getting a personal body of work through design and printing just they way you want to see your work presented is a very difficult job. He is on press with 4 books! 4 books that will faithfully, respectfully reproduce books already created and proven to be valuable and iconic!

All week he has been posting on the "on press" experience as well as the steps leading up to the round the clock culmination of the photo book. This post starts at Day 1 and you can read each day that follows. My respect for Jeff's thoughtful, critical reviews of photography books at 5B4 is a given. With allowing us to observe the printing process my respect has grown as much as my knowledge and understanding of what it takes to get a photography book into our hands. He has fundamentally enlightened me and changed the way I look at my books, the vehicles that bring much of the photography I am able to see.

News updates

I do not intend to have this become a news aggregator/regurgitator but the last few weeks, and especially the last few day's events compel me to point these out.

The news this afternoon reports that Senator McCain has suspended campaigning and Friday's debate is in question. Could this be a big factor? This is taken directly from the GOP platform ratified just a few weeks ago. How much more self-serving duplicity are the American people willing to stand?


This post by Rachel Hulin is absolutely brilliant.

And finally this story from Eyeteeth concerning the stationing of active duty troops this October in the United States for the first time in history, in case of "civil unrest", has me dumbfounded.

Lost Not Found

portion of pseudo event Justin Kemp 2008

The 10th essay, "Lost Not Found: The Circulation of Images in Digital Culture" by Marisa Olson is up at Words Without Pictures. Interestingly this essay includes links (pictures?) to the work of the artists she references. The essay is of course available for download as a PDF but the links are not live in the document. If you want to experience the internet art she is writing about you'd better look at it soon, in my experience the essays are only up for about a month.

Hope

As a follow-up to my previous post here is a small gift for the few of you that perhaps haven't seen Eyeteeth.

A great big fat helping

of having it both ways! For the first time in my life I received an email fund raising request from the GOP with Sarah Palin's name on it. I found it hilarious and thought I would share with those of you who haven't been contacted. I am being fair and balanced in presenting my source of merriment only with emphasis. I cannot be accused of taking anything out of context, I simply highlighted the contradiction.

I grabbed the portion above and then bounced it back to sender as fast as my little fingers could click the spam button.

Life in a small town

I was working at my studio today and looked up to see a small parade of 15 or so tractors driving down Main Street.

Existential angst

Dan Walsh has a blog that very well sums up my current state of mind. Garfield minus Garfield.

"Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb."

The current state of affairs in this country has me reliving feelings I haven't experienced since I was a small child in the 50's and 60's and neighbors were building bomb shelters in their backyards. The problem is, this time the danger is within.

Who We Were

My copy of Who We Were: A Snapshot History of America, accompanied by the portrait of Ambrose (if you order through Square America you can still get a snapshot and until the end of the month a DVD of home movies), arrived today. It is an excellent study of the photograph and Americans. You'll notice more than a passing resemblance between the cover image and the cover image on Robert Frank's The Americans. The amateur photograph on the cover of Who We Were, however, was made 40 years earlier. The two books make excellent companions.

"With the medium of photography, anyone can make a masterpiece. The cell-phone snapshooter is just as likely of capturing the next iconic image as the celebrated photojournalist. The higher challenge, the art – if you will, is assembling a collection of great images. With Who We Were: A Snapshot History of America, Richard Cahan, Michael Williams, and Nicholas Osborn have done just that. From hundred of brilliant fragments, they’ve pieced together a breathtaking view of the puzzle of America. "

Alec Soth, Photographer, author of Sleeping By the Mississippi

Go here...

Instruction

It has been a day of terrible, disappointing, frightening, sad news. Whether it is the millions without water/electricity/food in the huge swath affected by Ike (and once again the organization between local and state governments and FEMA is abysmal), the further economic upheaval/disaster caused by years of lying and "me first" from Wall Street bankers and brokers (Many of whom, by the way, funded the party in Contemporary Art. It will be interesting to see who has money left for Damien Hirst pieces.), the suicide of writer David Foster Wallace (on NPR a journalist David Lipsky, who had spent a week with him when "Infinite Jest" came out writes, He said, "If a writer does his job right, what he basically does is remind the reader of how smart they are. Wake the reader up to stuff that reader's been aware of all the time." Isn't this what most photographers attempt?), the hubris of Jill Greenberg, continuing stories and videos of the St. Paul police disregarding and destroying 1st Amendment rights during the RNC, and on and on.

I am not an escapist nor do I seek to trivialize any of the current cultural and political despair. I apologize for not providing links to all of the above stories and posts but I felt the despair in me rising to the point where I could no longer be efficient and detached. That said, Big Happy Funhouse's post today made me smile. It reeled me in and that was a gift. I hope it can do the same for some/all of you, Gentle Readers. It is unusual for me to post without a visual. I didn't want to spoil or preclude your going to Ron Slattery's curatorial splendor.

Taxi!

My trip to Chicago last weekend included a first time experience. For the first time that I can remember I had a woman taxi driver. I was so surprised by the box of tissues sitting on the hump on the floor of the back seat that I recorded it. It seemed like a signifier.

I am using this anecdote as a segway to what some people are also referring to as a first, although if they did a little research or remembering they would clearly see that it isn't. Sarah Palin is not the first woman to be nominated to the presidential ticket, she is the first Republican woman. In fairness, Hillary Clinton was not the first woman to run for President. I should know since I supported Shirley Chisholm in 1972, the first election I was eligible to vote in. I am seeing, and appreciating a great deal of hue and cry about Sarah Palin in the blogosphere and on the internet in general. I want to point you to a post by Iris Burnett, who's credentials and experience are more than impressive. I agree with her assertion that " The Democrats are once again talking to themselves.", please do take the time to read her full post where she goes on to list the books Mayor Palin floated having removed from the Waslia library.

The important thing I want to say, however, is that I have the growing feeling that all the posts I am seeing are preaching to the choir. The Democrats, Independents, pro-Obama people do indeed seem to be talking to each other when what is needed is to talk to someone, anyone who actually needs to hear it.

I fear I may need that taxi in November to take me to Canada, and I will need the tissues.

Stack

My weekend in Chicago included book purchases. I purchased from the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, and as a relief to my checkbook Powell's on Wabash.

Chicago

I am so behind I have real concerns about ever catching up. Oh well. The reason I'm behind is I had a great long weekend in Chicago. 5 exhibits later I feel nourished and invigorated. We stayed at The James Hotel, and I have to tell you that a hotel that puts the above pictured installation in the lobby (as usual click on each picture for enlarging) is my kind of place.

We (Dan and I) hit the Museum of Contemporary Art for the Jeff Koons show, The Book and Paper Arts Triennial, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, David Weinberg Gallery and Stephen Daiter Gallery.

Giant balloon dogs (I'm sorry, I LIKED it! and so did Peter Schjeldahl) to handmade paper and books (really amazing pieces and craft I will post on) to Rough Beauty/The Americans/Dorthea Lange (Once again,one has to get off the internet and see the work to fully appreciate it), to Who Gets What: a political show (Sonja Thomsen's work included, beautifully executed, smartly curated) to Dog Days Bogota (understated palette, intimate, poignant and compelling [and who doesn't talk with Alec about having a 3-way, long story!]).

As long as we leave sports teams out of it, I love Chicago.

Hijacked

Flak Photo is featuring the Hijacked, Volume One exhibit and book project during September. The list of American participants is a Who's Who of emerging (and emerged) contemporary American photographers. The Australian representatives are all new names to me. It represents a layered composition of "New World cultures".

In the video Mark McPherson, Curator and co-Editor and Max Pam, co-Editor address how the project came about. They speak to it originating on a laptop in Perth, where these things simply are not done. Melbourne or Sydney but not Perth (sound familiar Mid-Westerners?). Through the Internet artists were "discovered", conversations started and relationships formed. It came about through "digital word of mouth". These are exciting times when smart, motivated individuals can hijack the expected, the norm and create opportunities using the new paradigm.

I'm particularly grateful to Andy Adams at Flak for offering us a month long view of this inter-continental exhibit. I enjoy looking at each image and reading through its representation of culture found and culture created to guess if it is the work of an American or Australian artist. To discern the familiar from the foreign by whomever it was made. By the way, as of today the currency exchange rate indicates you can buy the book for $81.51US

Book Report 3

Collective Memory by Doug Keyes is a case where, while the reproductions are excellent and I am very glad to have the edition in my collection, the design of the book is (for me) not in keeping with the the concept of the work. I would have liked to see a design with a bit more substance and creativity, that is a tribute to "The Book".

Justin Visnesky

I received my edition of Justin Visnesky's print offer last week. It is a more than welcome addition to my collection. Justin writes that this print offer is to support the Here and There exhibit he is curating in St. Louis in a few weeks (September 13 to October 31). He has put together a very strong group show by emerging artists from across the country who's portfolios reflect a remarkable diversity, yet there is a cohesion created by the intense observation that each of them demonstrate.

Support contemporary photography, support the Midwest, check to see if there are any prints left!