Reading Shortlist 2.13.14

© Issei Suda, GINZAN-ONSEN YAMAGATA (FROM FUSHIKADEN), 1976

The Reading Shortlist is an occasional post with an eclectic listing of recommended sites, readings and links. A recommendation does not necessarily suggest an agreement with the contents of the post. For previous shortlists, please visit the site links page.

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Colors Magazine, All Official Portraiture of North Korea's Reigning Kim Family Is Made by Mansudae Art Studio. A little about how to become an official North Korean painter of Kim Jung-un images, North Korean symbology and Mansudae's (generally disastrous) excursions into African public sculpture projects.

Marc Feustel, Amercian Suburb X, Takashi Homma: Adrift in the City of Superflat. Feustel is one of my favorite online writers. He's obviously very well-informed about East Asian photography and he combines clean text with pinpointing ideas and issues. Here he talks about Homma as one of the photographers in the post-Provoke era who searched for a different photography vocabulary to explore the explosion of suburbs and modernization projects in Tokyo after the 1980s economic boom.

John Foster, The Design Observer Group, The Renewed Art of Embroidered Photographs. Here Foster presents both historic embroidered postcards as well as the work of two contemporary photographers who have revived the practice, Maurizio Anzeri and Hinke Schreuders, whose work is below.

© Hinke Schreuders, 

Fotografía Magazine. “Photography is wandering in the universe by yourself” – From a letter by Sergio Larrain. Larrain gives advice to his nephew, who wants to become a photographer, about where to start.

Interview with Judith Joy Ross. Ross speaking about her beginnings in photography, her experience under the dark cloth, meeting John Szarkowski, her relationship with her subjects and her personal reasons for developing her various projects. The interview was done in connection with her exhibition at Foundation A Stichting.

Video still from Interview with Judith Joy Ross

Pasaporte al Arte. ¿Qué está sucediendo con la fotografía en Colombia? Colombian photographers Jorge Panchoaga, Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo and Federico Rios organized a talk at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Medellín on the contemporary photography landscape in Colombia as a response to the series Alec Soth and I have been running on the question. In Spanish. Better audio quality coming next week.

Louisiana Channel, Dayanita Singh, Stealing in the night. Interview with Singh about her project based on a burglary in which the burglars stole her exposed rolls of film from under her bed.

Issei Suda at Charles A. Hartman Fine Art in Portland, Oregon. Hat tip to Kevin Thrasher - I'm enjoying getting to know Suda's work.

TateShots: Lewis Baltz. Can you tell I'm watching lots of photo videos these days? One more video interview, this time with Baltz about his start in photography and his reasons for photographing, the role of the viewer in art, photography as the only "deductive art" and the world as divided between those who like Matisse and those who like Duchamp.

Reading Shortlist 12.18.13

© Georgina Berkeley, untitled page from the Berkeley Album (1867/71), from the exhibition "Playing with Pictures:
The Art of the Victorian Photocollage"

The Reading Shortlist is an occasional post with an eclectic listing of recommended sites, readings and links. A recommendation does not necessarily suggest an agreement with the contents of the post. For previous shortlists, please visit the site links page.

______________________________

AGMA Magazine, Playing With Pictures: The Art of the Victorian Photocollage." Some impressive works in this post of early mixed media work from high society women in the 1860s and 1870s. (Click on the words "Playing With Pictures" to get the gallery of images to open up.)

Laurie Anderson, Rolling Stone, Laurie Anderson's Farewell to Lou Reed. Nothing at all to do with photography, but a lot to do with life.

Capa at 100, International Center of Photography. A half-hour radio interview which is the only recording known of Robert Capa's voice. He discusses a trip to Russia, how a couple of his most famous images were made and how he came up with his name. Also includes one of the most awkward, non sequitur product placements I've ever heard.

© Jane Cooper, Original Caption: "This Area Is Known as Gay Hill near Stockbridge, Vermont. The Farm Was
Originally Built in the 1800's by Ephraim Twitchell, the Famous Vermont Bridge Builder 03/1974"

DOCUMERICA Project by the Environmental Protection Agency. This Flickr page of the U.S. National Archives houses over 15,000 images from the EPA funded Documerica project. The project, ongoing between 1971-1977, entailed contracting freelance photographers to capture images relating to environmental problems, EPA activities and everyday life in the 1970s. Photographers included David Alan Harvey and Danny Lyon.

© Barcroft Media via Getty Images

The Guardian, Liu Bolin, invisible man - in pictures. Not really photography either (beyond documenting his performances via the camera), but man, this guy is impressive.

Andrew Reid, EOSHD, Consumer DSLRs "dead in five years" I'm generally not very interested in talking about gear or gear articles and the points here may be a little extreme, but the coming changes to the camera market and camera development are going to affect all of us.

Sightsmap. Fascinating map of the density of photographs taken around the world.

Alec Soth, Little Brown Mushroom Blog, Popsicle #46: The letters of Sergio Larrain. Soth explores the idea of photographers giving up on photography through Aperture's Sergio Lorrain.

Susan Worsham, Fresh Air on Tumblr, Conversations with Margaret Daniel. I've been putting this hour-long audio compilation on while scanning or doing post-production the last month, just listening to Daniel talk. She could talk about anything and I'd listen.

Michael Zhang, PetaPixel, Video: Photographer Has Camera Lens Stolen From Around His Neck. Welp, that...that sucks.