While trolling Ryan McGinley's Instagram a couple weeks ago, we noticed a photo of him with Cindy Sherman at a Gucci event. Yes, we went a little #newyorksocialdiaries on this, but more importantly, we were surprised, as he linked to it, that Ms. Sherman's complete works, which now have their own Instagram handle, at the time, only had 248 followers. (Editor's note: within about an hour of this post going live, "Cindy Sherman Complete" followers exceeded 300.) So, despite whatever's going on with Instagram's algorithm change and whether you'll actually be able see her updates, it's a nice, growing overview of some of her most recognized works. And while you're at it, consider following these 12 photographers who have been taking over Humble Arts Foundation's Instagram over the past few months, with spontaneous visual diaries, or, like Sherman, as a vehicle for showing longer term projects. One (Eleanor MacNair) even has a nod to Sherman's famous Film Stills in Play Dough.
Photo Courtesy of Shutterstock
Photographic buzzwords are still some of the most heavily used, yet meaningless forms of journalism today. Possibly the "millennial" answer to The New York Post's historically obnoxious front page headlines, these "delicious" words continue to get our clicks, regardless of how hollow they might actually be. They make stories more "digestible" with language designed to entice even your feline friends. For many photo editors, this tendency towards linguistic carelessness also finds its way into image requests, and for the self-proclaimed intelligentsia, using art-speak can often seem a bit more "complex" than it actually is. Since we at Humble are guilty of all of the above, for the second time, we invited some of our favorite art and photography curators, writers, editors, and producers to share some of their most beloved/hated photographic buzzword pet peeves, which we illustrated using some of our favorite stock photos and illustrations of cats. Enjoy, and "please share this magical work" widely. Wanna see our 2015 list first? Click Here
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CategoriesPublications
© Ka-Man Tse
Ka-Man Tse and Aaron Blum offer unique views into communities that are historically stereotyped or underrepresented by popular media, and show how those groups balance their traditions with the modern world. In their respective projects, which I recently selected for Silver Eye Center for Photography's annual Fellowship grant and exhibition in Pittsburgh, PA, Blum and Tse break from a straightforward, documentary format. They photograph their subjects with a rich narrative creating a deepened, yet open ended understanding from within, rather than a purely descriptive documentary processes. Tse's series Narrow Distances, includes portraits and chaotic landscapes that offer a queer lens into LGBTQ culture and identity in contemporary Hong Kong, while Blum's A Field Guide to Folk Taxonomy, combines landscapes and quiet ephemera to portray unexpected intergenerational symbols and mythologies from Appalachia. Each shoots with a large format view camera, which helps them meditate on their communities, through a slow, layered, and poetic voice.
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What do a cat shopping for Christmas presents, a snow buried car and some shivering NYC pigeons have in common? Not much aside from their obvious "winter" theme, but they are all part of the fascinating digital archive put online earlier this year by the New York Public Library. While curating our latest group show, Winter Pictures over the past few weeks, one favorite distraction was rabbit-holing it down this maze of historical photographic tangents, so we thought it would be fitting to cull a collection of our favorite cold, discordant gems - a series "b-sides" to the exhibition. Enjoy.
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CategoriesGalleries
Coorain by Brian Christopher Glaser
Coorain Devin, host of the new video art talk-show web-series, Coloring Coorain, is a renaissance-hatted conceptual artist, TV star and cultural wonder producer who uses campy humor to address complex themes ranging from feminism and queer identity, to poetry, vernacular photography, and even personal health issues. Their playful, and often heartwarming approach, which credits influences spanning Candy Darling, Oscar Wilde, Dave Eggers, and John Waters, help to make these issues more accessible to a range of audiences without dilution or sacrifice of content. Corain recently collaborated with 15 photographers to produce a calendar picturing the artist as a means to to explore some of these same issues "at a time when queerness is frequently appropriated, repackaged and deployed as entertainment." Coorain's work gives agency and visibility to them, and their influence on contemporary pop culture. We interviewed Coorain to learn more.
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CategoriesArtists