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.
© 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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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
© Azikiwe Mohammed aka @misterace12
As much as brands have been using Instagram to sell their products (dear readers, we KNOW you've seen McDonalds come up in your feed sometime in the past two weeks to a barrage of comments like "Get the f*ck out of my feed, Ronald!") it continues to be an invaluable tool for photographers to get their work in front of larger audiences. Whether it's a straightforward means of promoting new projects, or using the app as a sketchpad for new ideas, we're constantly in awe of the new work IG helps connect us to everyday. For more than a year, we've enlisted some of our favorite photographers to participate in week-long Instagram "residencies' taking over our feed, occasionally in wild and unexpected ways. Below (and above!) are highlights from 10 Humble Instagram residencies over the past few months. We encourage you to keep up with their work, on IG and beyond.
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CategoriesArtists
© Josh Poehlein
The first image Seattle-based photographer Josh Poehlein made for his series Hinterland is a vertical photograph of people walking up a barren sand dune. One of the few images in the series that contains a human presence, it suggests a journey into an unknown void, an infinite, open-ended reality, and in some ways serves as a linchpin for the entire project. The work, a mix of sculpture and studio-based photographs of stars, interstellar abstractions, and natural phenomena paired with images of the Pacific Northwest’s sweeping natural landscapes, raises questions about time, space, and photography’s ability to reconcile it all.
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