Category: Blog News

I think one of the dynamics at play is that work that was recognized in the past triggers interest in similar work in the present. In other words, we have this library of images in our minds and when we see images that are similar to the images that we think are great, there’s an association, a connection that is positive. These are derivative images. But instead of being a negative aspect, these images get elevated, often to the highest awards and often without realizing we’re just awarding what worked in the past.

via Blog – Mike Davis.

On its visual merits alone, this show could have conceivably earned my first zero star review in the history of this site, which pains me severely given my love for Gursky’s previous work. That said, after much reflection, I think it jumps just barely to the one star category, mostly because I would recommend seeing this work to consider for yourself how one of our most shining stars could swing and miss so egregiously.

via DLK COLLECTION.

…Saatchi says he finds the new art world toe-curling. “My little dark secret is that I don’t actually believe many people in the art world have much feeling for art and cannot tell a good artist from a weak one, until the artist has enjoyed the validation of others. “Few people in contemporary art demonstrate much curiosity, and spend their days blathering on, rather than trying to work out why one artist is more interesting than another.”

via The Guardian.

The best advice I could possibly give you, and forgive me if this seems glib, is to work. Work. Work. Work. Every day. At the same time every day. For as long as you can take it every day, work, work, work. Understand? Talent is for shit. I’ve taught school for nearly thirty years and never met a student who did not have some talent. It is as common as house dust or kudzu vine in Alabama and is just about as valuable. Nothing is as valuable as the habit of work, and work has to become a habit.

via chillit.htm.thx @jmcolberg

In every interview Im asked whats the most important quality a novelist has to have. It’s pretty obvious: talent. Now matter how much enthusiasm and effort you put into writing, if you totally lack literary talent you can forget about being a novelist. This is more of a prerequisite than a necessary quality. If you don’t have any fuel, even the best car won’t run.

via The 99 Percent.

Almost every big contemporary gallery is funded by the blue-chip old works they sell out of the back room, while Goodman almost never sells works that her artists haven’t made. “It’s all front room,” says Tate director Nicholas Serota. “It’s an achievement to build a gallery on those terms.” Where other major galleries seem to have a supermarket approach, with something to feed any billionaire’s habit, most Goodman artists conform to one vision. “There’s an ethos in the gallery that you don’t find in many others,” says Serota. Goodman spots good work by young artists who seem likely to matter—the Jeff Walls of this world—and then sticks by it.

via Marian Goodman:The Daily Beast.

Cracked.com.

The truth is no portrait of substance has people smiling. Look at the history of painting, Rembrandt, Titian, Goya, Velasquez, Sargent, Vermeer, DaVinci, etc., the subjects gaze to the viewer is neutral at best, neither inviting nor forbidding. It is there for the viewer to see and feel. Smiling is like much of American popular culture, superficial and misleading. It is part of our vernacular, but it should be expunged in photographs.

— Rodney Smith

The End Starts Here via, wizwow

Someday there may be invented a machine that needs but to be wound up an sent roaming o’er hill and dale, through fields and meadows, by babbling brooks and shady woods–in short, a machine that will discriminatingly select its subject and by means of a skillful arrangement of springs and screws, compose its motif, expose the plate, develop, print, and even mount and frame the result of its excursion, so that there will remain nothing for us to do but to send it to the Royal Photographic Society’s exhibition and gratefully to receive the “Royal Medal.”

Edward Steichen, Camera Work, No.1, January 1903, p.48-

via Ben Rains. thx, Jeff Weddell.

I’m not particularly trying to make a living purely from photography but want to balance it with my existing (writing) work. I don’t think any of my classmates are naive enough to think it’s going to get them jobs – we all just wanted to grow as photographers and people, cheesy as that sounds.

via Are photography degrees the joker in the pack?

“Copyright Industries in the U.S. Economy: The 2011 Report”, underlines the size and significance of the US copyright industry. The report found that it added over $930 billion in value to the U.S. economy, represented almost 6.4% of the total GDP, employed nearly 5.1 million U.S. workers (nearly 5% of the total private employment sector), with jobs paying an average of 27% more than the rest of the workforce; and accounts for $134 billion in foreign sales and exports, significantly more than sectors such as aircraft, autos, and agriculture.

via TechCrunch.

…seeing Rhein II being sold for more then $4m most certainly gave me a funny feeling. The photograph is unremarkably mediocre…

via Conscientious Extended.

Instagram founder Kevin Systrom’s was in the photography club at school when:

my teacher handed me this plastic Holga camera and said, “You’re going to use this and learn to deal with imperfection.” I remember developing the first roll and the feeling I got from the vignetting and the light leaks that came from the blurry plastic lens. That transformed the way I looked at photography—from trying to replicate reality into taking a scene and creating some kind of interpretation of its mood.

Read more at The Fader.

I love this week’s challenge. Each artist is asked to respond to a work of art made by a child (on hand in the studio) with one of his or her own. This simple challenge works wonders, lifting all the contestants out of their comfort zones. Iffy artists step up; good ones get better; bad ones bottom out.

via NY Mag.

“I’m a child and photographer of the digital generation. My work usually doesn’t exist outside of ones and zeros on a computer, and to have it physically now gives it life. It’s been reborn in a very different way, and it gives it an existence in the real world that will live on whether or not there’s electricity. It took years for me to get a book from Iraq published. I had to win an award to do it because no one wanted to publish an Iraq book. Photo books take a loss financially, and then for it to be about Iraq, a subject that most Americans and Westerners want to forget…”

via Photo Booth:The New Yorker.

There’s never been a better time to do creative work than right now. You can get stuff started. You can get it out to people. And you can turn it into a business if it’s decent. And there are more ways to get work to material. And it’s easier to get work. We are at a peak. Everything about our country is going to hell. Our politics, industry — like this is the one part of America which is actually going great.

via » Nieman Journalism Lab.

“Entertainers try to please their audience – artists do what they do and the audience comes to them. I don’t think about my audience whatsoever.”

Suddenly I felt like a cheap carnival hawker. Not only do I consider the audience for my work, I confess that I aim to entertain. Is this pathetic? I guess it depends on the definition of entertainment.

via « LITTLE BROWN MUSHROOM BLOG.