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| From "Not-so-secret atomic tests: Why the photographic film industry knew what the American public didn’t" |
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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Tim Barribeau, Imaging Resource, Not-so-secret atomic tests: Why the photographic film industry knew what the American public didn't. "The Government protected rolls of film, but not the lives of our kids. There is something wrong with this picture."
Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, Humans of New York and the Cavalier Consumption of Others. A take-down of HONY that articulates the problems of the popular blog well.
William Deresiewicz, The Atlantic, The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur. A fascinating review of the history of the idea of the artist in Western culture and a convincing, albeit kind of self-evident by this point, proposal for an updated concept of the artist as entrepreneur.
Daniel Grant, Huffington Post, New York Dealers Cannot Afford to Represent Emerging Artists. $80-100,000 dollars a month to run a gallery in Chelsea? No wonder you can't get representation and big name photographic stars of the 60s, 70s and 80s continue to get shows of work that's half as interesting as their best stuff.
John MacPherson, Duckrabbit, Cameras, Communication and the Intimacy of a Moment. An eloquent argument for replacing "just ignore me, pretend I’m not here" when approaching photographic subjects with "please accept me" instead.
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| From "Scientists made a robot art critic that is able to form its own opinions" |
Tony Manfred, Business Insider, Scientists made a robot art critic that is able to form its own opinions. What's interesting here is how they designed the robot to react to art - by studying the faces of others to create its own conclusion. I feel like I've sat in on a lot of crits like that.
John Edwin Mason, Gordon Parks, Ralph Ellison, and Invisible Man: Life Magazine, 1952. A recent overview piece in the Huffington Post on Gordon Parks got me interested in his body of work "A Man Becomes Invisible" and the first post that came up in a Google search was a piece from 2012 by John Edwin Mason who explores not only the body of work, but how its publishing context in Life blunted its full power.
Jordan G. Teicher, New Republic, Is War Photography Beautiful or Damned? Critical take on David Shields' new book "War Is Beautiful."
Richard B. Woodward, Collector Daily, Gregory Crewdson, Cathedral of the Pines @Gagosian Solid review of Gregory Crewdson's new work, although it wades beyond the critic's job, proposing solutions for the artist's problems.
