photography: search and destroy

And I *do* like digital photos taken on holiday.

Weirdly enough the publisher of a New York magazine just proposed putting out a CD ROM of my photos. Better shut up before people accuse me of consolidating the Momus brand by cross-promotion...

Use other cliches about Araki, please. Yes, there are tied up girls. There are also flowers, cats, the sky, photos of his wife Yoko dying, and, most recently, street scenes in Seoul, Korea.

Were you also Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells when you looked at Mapplethorpe's heavily-bonded men?

Destroy: 'iconic' news photos which have a reducing effect on history equal to any soundbite.

The tied-up girls are obviously consensual (like the Mapplethorpe models, which I must admit I like more than Araki's work) and I've seen the other work (Mapplethorpe has his pretty flowers too, and I think they're MUCH sexier). What's so dangerous or hentai about what Araki's doing? Nothing. The work isn't REALLY violating any societal taboos, is it? No way. That's why I don't think Tonbridge Wells is losing much sleep over him (unless you count a couple of old duffers having wet dreams) but that's a guess, I don't live there even in metaphorical terms. Use other cliches, please, if you want to accuse me of conservatism in my taste in art. Pffff.

Saw a big doc on C4 about Japanese rope bondage where they interviewed the rope master and the girls equally; it wasn't about the play/games element so much as what an honour it was for the women to get rigged up by such a venerable dude. Sometimes, the problem with people who willingly subordinate themselves to 'the master' in this way is that it becomes rather more permanent a pecking order than either party would like to admit in our lovely modern times. I would love it if the dynamics of this were reversed for the sake of fun and experiment. Any volunteers?

Things that are cheaper than/near in price to this and more worthless include: this week's NME, a half in any London pub, a non-chain or Pret cappucino, a bag of chips. You may have purchased any of the preceding items in the past week and found them to be not as good as you thought they might be. But did you go to the purveyors and tell them you Paid Good Money? Thought not!

I'm wondering what you'll think of this year's Turner shortlist. Richard Billingham: guy who's famous for his candid family snaps. Martin Creed: guy who's famous for selling wadded up balls of paper to gullible rich folks and Tate Modern, while drawing crowds to see him do Punk By Numbers. Isaac Julien: guy who makes films of ballet dancers in the desert. Mike Nelson: guy who makes punters go through weird labyrinths. I love 'em all, and not just because I get to go and drink the free champagne ;-). They'd be worh a lot more than a fiver to me and I'd still be in and out of there for cheaper than it would take to go Large at McDonalds.

The first half of my post was entirely serious, though - why should I care about Tillmans' mates? The amount of money paid was hardly the point, it's the fact of having to pay and go to a gallery to see them: I say instancy and informality is the key quality of photography, you say a-ha but that's what Tillmans does, I now say well no its not because it's on display in a big gallery, where's the instancy and informality there?

I'm enormously looking forward to this years Turner exhib, of course.

So are you saying you want your photographers always to violate social taboos? Or are you saying you saw Araki's bondage shots, assumed they were just intended to shock, and judged them entirely on whether they shocked you or not, deciding that, as they didn't, they had no other interest whatsoever?

This attitude reminds me of the NME reviewing my 'Ping Pong' album. They said I had a 'look, Ma, I'm swearing' attitude, then said the swearing was 'about as shocking as a pudding'. But I wasn't swearing to be shocking (fuck no!) but because that's how people talk. That's where language is at. And because it fitted the narrative purpose of the songs (about desire, censorship, etc).

If you're not shocked by nudity, swearing, etc in art, fine, neither was the artist, the model, the gallery or 90% of the public, in all probability. So get to the next level, get to what it's about, its formal properties, don't just trash it for being unshockingly shocking. This is so British. If it's not shocking, it's not even worth pointing out that it's not shocking.

What tied up girls are about is beauty. In Japan everything is tied up in a loving way, from the trees they tie up in winter to stop them getting frost damage to the sushi trussed by seaweed to its rice base. You have to see tied up girls in the Japanese context of low-anomie. There is no darkness in these images, no implied violence. There is some erotic submission, but it's very much in the realm of etiquette and play.

Personally, I've only ever tied someone up with elastic bands. I can't be arsed, and I was never any good with knots (left the scouts, couldn't stand the discipline). But I've had girls asking me to tie them up. It was their fantasy more than mine.

By the way, and this is a shocking non sequitur (I hope!), did those snaps of your roof party ever get posted anywhere on the web?

I've changed my mind about photography. No, strike that, I've changed my mind about humanity.

Nick: if you actually read MY paragraphs a little more c.a.r.e.f.u.l.l.y you'd see that I 'got' the formalism in Araki and have seen other stuff about tying up in Japan that corresponds more directly to the work than the limp 'oh, everything's giftwrapped in Japan' explanation you provide. Hello, like I already know that. I just don't find it very INTERESTING to see that played out in Araki (pick a level, any level) and like other photographers MORE. And maybe I'm just a little bit bored with the cliché of Respected Male Artist using Compliant Female Acolyte to express formalist points, regardless of the consensual/'play' element involved.

(Anyway even so Takahashi (sp?) should have walked it. That installation was grate.)

This year's prize: keep an eye on Mike Nelson.

As for dissing your guests, consider it my revenge for being judged, by many of these same people, a FOOL in Freaky Trigger's 'Am I Cool Or Not' beauty contest back in May. I didn't take it amiss, and neither will they, I'm sure.

Tom: agree about Tomoko Takahashi, by the way, I thought that installation was great too. Looked like parts of my room.

Oh, Nicolath, don't be tho thtoopid.

In hip style magazines ( nest, Wallpaper, the vouges, dutch all in the past 6 months) it seems like they are talking more and more about statioanry.

There seems to be an explosion of font choices and fonts seem to be a design indicator. We know who you or your club/organaztion is by the font they use

Does this mean my typos, spelling mistakes and freakish grammar are hip

I know this has nothing to do with photography.

Destroy: Tri-X, Cannon Rebel, APS or any other off-size roll film, inc. that old 110 shit in the thin package.

The LA Times had a review of his exhibition Manufactured Landscapes at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego. It ends on June 5. It's a 2 hour drive, but I think it might be worth it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/photography/genius/ could be interesting

"Follow the story of photography in BBC Four's six-part series 'The Genius of Photography'. See some of the most famous photographs ever taken and find out more about what made them so very special."

Quite looking forward to this - it's being trailed heavily in Amateur Photographer (which thesedays isn't remotely the soft pr0n mag it resembled in the '80s - no "glamour" tips). However, it clashes with the football and Serafinowicz and I don't have a functioning VCR, so I'll be staying up late for the repeat.

Quite a good thread this, back in the day.

I found a big box of presumably expired or near-expiry film the other day in our shed - probably dating from the days when I got a free film every time I got something developed at PhotoOptix in Welwyn (also some late-'90s stuff which I presumably bought in the US and some mid-'70s Minolta stock for the 16 sub-mini). Still, there's a Flickr group especially for expired film, so I'll be contributing lousy images to that...

Good start - beats all those silly seasons like 'Doctors on TV' (though it does give an opportunity to catch a repeat of "Cardiac Arrest") or 'Archeology night'.

Shame they covered the whole 'Is photography art?' debate. I suppose they had to, but it's lame.

this was great, looking forward to the next part next week

I've seen nothing but a tiny entry in the time out art section, but there is an exhibition on at the atlas gallery http://www.atlasgallery.com/ to accompany the Genius of Photography series.

On a vaguely related theme, I went to see the Chuck Close exhibition today at the West End White Cube http://www.whitecube.com/artists/close/ - strongly recommended.

I don't understand the destroy bit.

What mostly irks me is that sometimes people just shoot a picture and then don't stop and really watch what they photographed.

You can't really tell that from the photos they take, though.

is this being torrented anywhere yet? No sign of a sale to BBC America or PBS.

amazing surrealist photography:

http://www.parkeharrison.com/

Been finally getting round to Luc Sante's blog on photography. I enjoyed his contributions to the BBC4 doc, so...

http://ekotodi.blogspot.com/

No photograph can be considered as identical to its content; every photograph is an individually wrought object that has passed through hands, rooms, climate, and every photograph is a grinning skull.
I hate 9/10s of writing about photography.

the best museum photo retrospective i've seen is the roy decarava one at MOMA (i think) like 12 years ago. his stuff really engaged me in a way most "art" photography fails to.

I hate 9/10s of writing about photography art

the Hiroshi Sugimoto retrospective I saw at the Ft. Worth Modern was incredible

Just went and saw the Steichen/Stieglitz/Strand thing at the Met and tbh I found it really fucking boring for the most part. Photography got better after them.

none of those three are among my favs

search: patrick joust and dans240z on flickr

I have a major boner for stephen shore

http://corkap.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/shore_lightbulbs.jpg?w=418&h=336

http://kathall.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/stephen_shore_chevron.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/17/arts/shore.450.1.jpg

^^love these

THINK this is that chevron station

Connie Imboden

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I3KAcwEJR8I/SwLCe6Lf6mI/AAAAAAAAC_0/fk_Y65kBc20/s1600/ConnieImboden_4.jpg

lol joe u r the greatest

Between the Cartier-Bresson exhibit, the Nan Goldin slideshow, and "Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera Since 1870", SF MOMA is a pretty fun right now for photography fans.

i also like a lot of martin parr, but not all

http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/fourpaintings/manet/large/parr.jpg

http://www.clusterflock.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/parr.jpg

http://www.canadianart.ca/online/see-it/2008/05/01/martin_parr1_1000.jpg

like, these are what i want my holiday photos to look like

Stephen Shore's large format stuff is amazing. Particularly the Canadian leg of the Uncommon Places trip. The Nature of Photographs is a great book too. One of the best things I've ever read on the subject.

yeh stephen shore seems to be the hip '70s eggleston-alternative' photographer to namecheck these days. I like the nature of photographers but I like szarkowski's photographers eye more.

robert adam is a shredder. for color, I also love joel sternfeld

yes! joel sternfeld is fn A

also i think i might have over-repped this lady in the past but melanie schiff is still several kinds of awesome for me.

http://kavigupta.com/images/KaviGuptaGallery000183.jpg

http://kavigupta.com/images/KaviGuptaGallery000182.jpg

http://kavigupta.com/images/KaviGuptaGallery000349.jpg

also i think dayo that theres something inherently diff. in how u look at photographs, that is as somebody who's interested in photography*. they are a pretty functional thing for me so my appreciation of certain aspects is obv. pretty dimmed. still that functionality is prolly why i like warhol's polaroids so much.

http://www.hypebeast.com/image/2009/01/andy-warhol-still-life-polaroid-exhibition-1.jpg

http://www.lamjc.com/local/cache-vignettes/L431xH550/6ffcdb40-e0e6f.jpg

*also def. apprec. ur knowledge on these threads. srsly teach me more things.

lol plax I feel the same way w/r/t you and art! I don't really have any 'grounding' in art at all but really love the stuff you bring.

those melanie schiff pix are very beautiful

btw plax just realized i live near AGNES AVE, will have to snap a pic sometime

and co-sign warhol's polaroids

http://refinedvanguards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/awg1.jpg

loool pele!

Just went and saw the Steichen/Stieglitz/Strand thing at the Met and tbh I found it really fucking boring for the most part. Photography got better after them.

― I can take a youtube that's seldom seen, flip it, now it's a meme (Hurting 2), Sunday, December 26, 2010 11:53 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

none of those three are among my favs

― dayo, Monday, December 27, 2010 7:09 AM Bookmark

Like there were very few really striking images in the show, other than maybe O'Keefe's boobs. There's a famous semi-abstract one of shadows on a white table that I like. There was a downright shitty portrait of Stieglitz by Strand -- bad light, poor contrast, not particularly interesting or revealing of character. The flatiron building at night photos are uninteresting except for the flatiron building itself. I don't mean to say that newer tech is generally better, but photo tech really did get much, much better in the ensuing decades, and you wind up with much better photography.

i saw a big steichen thing in madrid a few years ago that i loved. I love the ridic. isadora duncans at the parthenon, the tiny little early domestic scenes (tho these are little-seen maybe?) the Garbo portrait and also the staginess of all his portraits (they let the sitter project the image they want to project, theres something generously enabling about his set ups, nothing is revealed) I like the glassiness of his surfaces, the expensive sheen of his commercial work

xp was the show curated using vintage prints?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2011/may/28/richard-mosse-infrared-photographs-congo#/?picture=374940719index=1

Carrie Mae Weems won a MacArthur Grant:

http://gawker.com/list-of-macarthur-genius-grant-recipients-leaked-early-1381201894

Not really in the spirit of this thread (but not worth starting a new one):

Anyone recommend any "photobooks" for printing/keeping own photos? The Moleskine one is too much hassle. Couldn't get Bobbooks to work. Snapfish was okay rather than brilliant.

(UK)

You should ask Michael Jones

?

djh we talked a little about books here:

photo-breezing

Ta.

https://instagram.com/p/BZ7czYtF_b5/