Alexander Binder is a wizard creator of imaginary worlds. Growing up in Germany’s Black Forest in the 1980’s, his pre-internet (and pre-Kanye West) childhood and limited athletic abilities sparked a love for old fairytales, comic books and fantasy literature, as well as science fiction and horror movies. Over the years, these obsessions accumulated into a mental archive of psychedelic stories and imagery, which have had a major influence on his photographic practice for more than a decade. Binder’s upcoming book with Tangerine Press, Kristall ohne Liebe, meaning "The Crystal without Love,” uses various mystical symbols to draw an ongoing tension between competing forces of darkness and light. From a distance, this might sound like the perfect recipe for a late 1990’s mall-goth picture book, but it’s executed with a sensitivity that is smart, thoughtful and aesthetically riveting. And it's even stranger when viewed while listening to Black Sabbath’s N.I.B.
Time Magazine associate photo editor Myles Little has organized an internationally touring exhibition 1%: Privilege in a Time of Inequality, that attempts to raise awareness of the growing disparity of wealth around the world. Using Edward Steichen's 1955 exhibition and book The Family of Man as a launch point, Little aims to use the work of some of today's most acclaimed photographers to create a contemporary conversation about inequality. Little positions his exhibition in contrast to Steichen's, which presented an optimism towards the human spirit. For Little, the vast disproportion of today's wealth has harmed humanity with grave consequence. While these words and the exhibition title might suggest a collection of weighted, potentially propagandistic images, Little's selection contains a thoughtful mix of work that is as soft-spoken as it is hard-hitting, which will hopefully help it to speak to a broad and diverse audience. We spoke with Myles to learn more about the exhibition, and the book he'll publish with Hatje Cantz if successfully funded through a Kickstarter campaign.
There is a tendency among naysayers to refute Instagram's legitimacy, condemning it as nothing but a visualized Twitter. These wizards say it's not much more than a tool for self-promotion, navel gazing, or disguised brand building. That, despite Vik Muniz and Alex Praeger's Instagram prints garnering thousands of dollars in Aperture's 2013 benefit auction, there's no value in its incredibly low resolution. Despite this ongoing discourse, Instagram continues to be an impactful source of photographic discovery and influence, for some it's become its own distinct lens, and for others, it's become a sketchpad for larger ideas. For the past year, Humble has invited some of our favorite photographers to participate in weekly Instagram residencies - each with a unique bend. To celebrate this pseudo-anniversary, here are 52 of our favorite images from participating photographers in all their low-res glory. We encourage you to explore their feeds, and follow their ever-evolving work.
Joe Rudko’s Object Drawings are a series of collages that manipulate, obscure, and otherwise distort photographs. They confront viewers to rethink how we experience the act of seeing and understanding the world around us and its increasingly malleable visual representations. While the Seattle-based artist’s final pieces are far from straight photography, they are often rooted in his ideas about its continuously evolving history.
For our own gesture of photo historical patriotism, we culled some completely random vintage photographs of independence day happenings from the Library of Congress' online photo archives. Many of these are from the Farm Security Administration, others are author-unknown, but all represent our continued obsessive meanderings of online rabbit-holing. Happy 4th, from Humble Arts Foundation.