Top Ten #1 – Brandi Carlile

A singer songwriter from Seattle, Brandi Carlile takes the number one spot with her fusion of country, folk, and rock. Her first album, Brandi Carlile, released in 2005 seemed to mark her as the next Lucinda Williams, a promise that was more than met with the 2007 release of her even better follow-up The Story. Yet in spite of a big push on Grey’s Anatomy, Carlile has not yet become the big name I anticipated (which makes listening to her even cooler). Here’s a video of a very relaxed performance that gives a better sense of her style than some of her more polished videos.

Top Ten #2 – The i-phone

Just as the Walkman and the first MP3 players ushered in a new era in how we listen to music, the iPhone presages the era of the all-in-one machine in a way that I'm still not sure has been fully recognized. It is a device out of science-fiction and it's been interesting to note not only the incredible press, but also the level of skepticism and hostility. So I think it's only begun to tap its market potential. (Let's see where Apple stock is next year.)

Trying not to be caught up in the initial hype, I resisted as long as possible (about three months) but after spending long hours at the Apple Store after both my children broke their computers, I gave in. (It was fortunately just after the price drop.) But, boy, do I love my iPhone! And don’t believe the scare stories. Everything about it works flawlessly and it’s really simple to master. In order of frequency the applications I use most often are: phone, iPod, notes, photo album, camera, weather, and the link to You Tube, but my newest pleasure is using it to listen to podcasts of Studio 360 as I walk my dog. Now that’s cultural enrichment!

Top Ten #3 – What Remains

Steven Cantor’s second film about Sally Mann (his first was a 1994 Oscar nominated short) was shot over five years and largely eschews the controversy about nudity and children to focus on the creation and aftermath of Mann’s photographic studies of death. An intimate and beautifully shot feature-length documentary, the film takes you deeply but unintrusively into Mann’s personal life and ends up as a study of the life of one of our most serious and talented photographers and the challenges even a renowned artist faces. Look out for: the story and pictures of Sally and husband Larry when they first met; and the unfolding drama of Mann's Pace/MacGill exhibition.

Top Ten #4 – Blogs

As previously noted, Jorg Colberg’s Conscientious, The Sartorialist, and Alec Soth’s late blog, were not just a pleasure but an inspiration. However, to state the obvious: the entire blogosphere is simply teeming with original voices, opinions, and content. In writing this blog I often find the answer to my research on one blog which leads me to another blog, etc...

If not for blogs, how would I have known who made the bra Nicole Kidman wore on the cover of Vanity Fair? (Thank you Mr. frankufotos.) Or seen the daily photographic postings of Swedish photographer Sannah Kvist on “She Broke My Heart So I Broke Her Face”. Or even known there was a blog “For White Men Who Prefer Black Women”. (I was trying to find out who took this great period expression of pride in black beauty (below) after I saw it on another blog that was referencing Jacob Holdt’s website for “American Photographs”.) I'm still trying to find out the photographer, so blog readers, please help!

Top Ten #5 - The Sound of No Hands Clapping. By Toby Young

The second book I loved was so funny I couldn't stop laughing out loud even as I ruefully noted the diminishing number of unread pages. Toby Young was the archetypical Brit in New York whose first book, “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People”, chronicled his hapless time at Vanity Fair where among other things he invited a stripper to the office on what he was unaware was Take Your Daughter To Work Day.

The follow-up finds him improbably successful after his first book is turned into a one man play in London. He is hired by a big time Hollywood producer to write the screenplay for an un-named movie about a mysterious 70s record producer. As he learns the ways of Hollywood and screws up with regularity, Young warily gets married, has a child, and in some of the books funniest moments attends various friends’ weddings where his inappropriate toasts end up losing even more friends and alienating even more people. A heroic failure in true Brit fashion, the book provides the vicarious pleasure of seeing the Emperor, himself, reveal he has no clothes, while skewering the media, the film business, and other cultural obsessions of our time.

Top Ten #6 - When the Light Goes: A Novel. By Larry McMurtry

While the cover misleadingly uses photography to reference "Brokeback Mountain" (for which McMurtry co-wrote the Oscar winning screenplay) "When the Light Goes" is in fact the latest and fourth installment in his Thalia series. Set in Texas oil country, the series began with the 1966 “The Last Picture Show”, followed by "Texasville", and the wonderfully alliterative “Duane’s Depressed”.

“When The Light Goes” picks up Duane Moore (the Jeff Bridges character in "The Last Picture Show") at 64 - now widowed, semi-retired, and crisied in just about every way. When I told my friend the über literary agent Mark Reiter I was reading it, his comment was “Oh, the sex book!” and it’s certainly….. frank. If that’s not enough to recommend it, McMurtry's writing is so sharp and breezy it’s one of those books you race through and then makes you want to go back and read all the others in the series.

Top Ten #7 – I’m Not There – the soundtrack

Merry Christmas to all!

I’ve never defined myself as a Dylan fan and I thought the movie was a mixed success, but the soundtrack was out of this world - an eclectic mix of recording artists covering 36 Dylan songs with a bonus 37th song of Dylan himself singing the title track. Many of the artists are pretty obscure. I still don’t know who John Doe is who sings my favorite song “Pressing On”, but I’ve at least heard of some of the other contributors - Karen O, Jeff Tweedy, Sufjan Stevens, etc.. Nevertheless in combination with the film, the soundtrack re-awakened my interest in Dylan so that my Christmas viewing will now include Scorcese’s Dylan documentary.

Top Ten #8 – Project Runway

If I had to pick one television show it would have to be Project Runway. What's so fascinating about P.R. is that as the contestants grapple with the weekly challenge you really do see the creative process at work from beginning to end. Idea, struggle, solution, execution. Surprisingly, the contestants seem largely friendly and supportive of each other, although there's always some super-narcissist to stir things up, and host Tim Gunn is avuncular, helpful, and charming – all at the same time. The judges are honest and incisive and so all the tension comes organically from the simple format – who is going to make the best outfit of the week and who is going to make the worst and get voted off. It’s thrilling to watch.

Top Ten #9 - Patrick Tsai and Madi Ju

Patrick Tsai is a 26 year old American who moved to Taiwan in 2003 to pursue his photography. Three years later he met a young Chinese photographer named Madi Ju via the internet and shortly afterwards they began an intense personal and professional relationship. Working together under the studio name "My Little Dead Dick", they began documenting their travels and life together. Like Lartigue crossed with Nan Goldin their photographs are footloose, modern, romantic, and blissfully free of the heavy-handed Chinese references that seem so prevalent in the wake of the Asian art boom. I have never met them or seen their work in person but we have communicated via e-mail, and their pictures are the freshest thing I have seen all year.

The writer Will Doig summed up their work beautifully. “These photographs,” he said “make me want to flee — not flee anything in particular, but simply flee for the pure elation that comes from irresponsibly picking up and leaving. Because what starts as irresponsibility so often turns into opportunity, and sometimes you just need a little nudge to make that leap. This series feels like a good, hard shove.”

Top Ten #10 – Across The Universe

I’ve never been a huge fan of top ten lists (other than David Letterman’s). Too often they seem obvious or self-congratulatory. But as I’m taking off for the holidays, for the next ten days I hope you’ll find some interest in a countdown of the top ten things that enriched my life culturally in 2007.

With best wishes to all for a Happy New Year!



This Julie Taymor film which wove a bunch of Beatles songs into a trans-Atlantic love story set against the political and cultural background of the 60s seems to be film that everyone meant to see, but didn’t get around to. It got terrible pre-release publicity as a result of an editing showdown between the director and producer and that (along with a lackluster advertising campaign) seemed to rob it of the necessary kharma. It was, however, not only imaginative and entertaining, but pulled off the incredible feat of refreshing its Beatles songs and reconnecting you to what made them so special in the first place. (So the soundtrack shares kudos with the film, which should be out on DVD any day.)

Weekend Video - Grapes of Wrath

Seven years ago I happened to see the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts' landmark show, "Made in California". A vast and ambitious look at California culture, the works ranged from Edenic painted landscapes to Rock and Roll posters. What affected me most, however, was a short film loop of Henry Fonda's end speech from the John Ford film of Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath". Inspired by FSA photography it was film as verbal and visual poetry, and I always felt a loss at not being able to revisit it at will. Well, thanks to the miracle of You Tube, here it is. (If you're impatient skip to 02:15 minutes into the clip.)

To set the scene: it is late at night after a dance at the workers' camp. Tom Joad and his mother stand at the edge of the wooden dance floor. Joad has killed the man who assassinated his friend the activist Preacher Casey. Now Joad must run away to take up Casey’s mission.



And here, for the record, are Fonda/Joad's words:

Well, maybe it's like Casey says. A fella ain't got a soul of his own, just a little piece of a big soul, the one big soul out there that belongs to everybody. Then....(Ma Joad: "Then What, Tom?") Then... it don't matter. I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be everywhere…wherever you can look. Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beating up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready…And when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise, livin' in the houses they build, I'll be there too.

Man and Hyena

One show not to miss is Pieter Hugo’s “The Hyena and Other Men” at Yossi Milo (through January 12). There a large and pale-colored group of photographs present the surreal spectacle of a group of Nigerian men who make their living by traveling around displaying their captive hyenas. The hyenas look nothing like one would expect, but rather like strange mythological beasts. The crudeness of their muzzles and chains bring to mind Aslan’s sacrifice in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”.

The photographer, Pieter Hugo, is a 31 year old self-taught, South African photographer who has been exhibiting all over the world since 2002. This is his account of the work:

These photographs came about after a friend e-mailed me an image taken on a cell-phone through a car window in Lagos, Nigeria, which depicted a group of men walking down the street with a hyena in chains. A few days later I saw the image reproduced in a South African newspaper with the caption 'The Streets of Lagos'. Nigerian newspapers reported that these men were bank robbers, bodyguards, drug dealers, debt collectors. Myths surrounded them. The image captivated me.

Through a journalist friend I eventually tracked down a Nigerian reporter, Adetokunbo Abiola, who said that he knew the 'Gadawan Kura' as they are known in Hausa (a rough translation: 'hyena handlers/guides').

A few weeks later I was on a plane to Lagos. Abiola met me at the airport and together we took a bus to Benin City where the 'hyena men' had agreed to meet us. However, when we got there they had already departed for Abuja.

In Abuja we found them living on the periphery of the city in a shantytown - a group of men, a little girl, three hyenas, four monkeys and a few rock pythons. It turned out that they were a group of itinerant minstrels, performers who used the animals to entertain crowds and sell traditional medicines. The animal handlers were all related to each other and were practicing a tradition passed down from generation to generation. I spent eight days traveling with them.

The spectacle caused by this group walking down busy market streets was overwhelming. I tried photographing this but failed, perhaps because I wasn't interested in their performances. I realized that what I found fascinating was the hybridization of the urban and the wild, and the paradoxical relationship that the handlers have with their animals - sometimes doting and affectionate, sometimes brutal and cruel. I started looking for situations where these contrasting elements became apparent. I decided to concentrate on portraits. I would go for a walk with one of the performers, often just in the city streets, and, if opportunity presented itself, take a photograph. We traveled around from city to city, often chartering public mini-buses.

I agreed to travel with the animal wranglers to Kanu in the northern part of the country. One of them set out to negotiate a fare with a taxi driver; everyone else, including myself and the hyenas, monkeys and rock pythons, hid in the bushes. When their companion signaled that he had agreed on a fare, the motley troupe of humans and animals leapt out from behind the bushes and jumped into the vehicle. The taxi driver was completely horrified. I sat upfront with a monkey and the driver. He drove like an absolute maniac. At one stage the monkey was terrified by his driving. It grabbed hold of my leg and stared into my eyes. I could see its fear.

Two years later I went back to Nigeria. The project felt unresolved and I was ready to engage with the group again. I look back at the notebooks I had kept while with them. The words 'dominance', 'codependence' and 'submission' kept appearing. These pictures depict much more than an exotic group of traveling performers in West Africa. The motifs that linger are the fraught relationships we have with ourselves, with animals and with nature.

The second trip was very different. By this stage there was a stronger personal relationship between myself and the group. We had remained in contact and they were keen to be photographed again. The images from this journey are less formal and more intimate.

The first series of pictures had caused varying reactions from people - inquisitiveness, disbelief and repulsion. People were fascinated by them, just as I had been by that first cell-phone photograph.

Many animal-rights groups contacted me, wanting to intervene (however, the keepers have permits from the Nigerian government). When I asked Nigerians, "How do you feel about the way they treat animals?", the question confused people. Their responses always involved issues of economic survival. Seldom did anyone express strong concern for the well-being of the creatures. Europeans and Americans invariably only ask about the welfare of the animals but this question misses the point. Instead, perhaps, we could ask why these performers need to catch wild animals to make a living. Or why Nigeria, the world's sixth largest exporter of oil, is in such a state of disarray.

Notes from Jo

I just heard that the British photographer Keith Arnatt is not well. This summer I was introduced to Arnatt's work in a show at The Photographers' Gallery in London curated by his friend, Magnum President David Hurn. While Arnatt started off as a painter, he turned to conceptual photography in the late 1960s with work that often had a deadpan humor. One series in the show particularly caught my attention. "Notes from Jo" (1990 – 94) record his wife’s Post-It note messages usually left in their kitchen. The work irreverently plays on the conceptual concerns of image and text through the irritations and communications of daily life. Above and below are a selection of the pictures. We wish Keith the very best.

Weekend Video - Dance With Me

Nouvelle Vague (the band) was created by two french arrangers, Marc Colins and Oliver Libaux, who put together eight singers - six French, one Brazilian and one New Yorker - to reinterprate 80s post-punk songs in mellow French "lounge" style. Sounds pretty arcane, but the group found their own cult audience and released two albums with a third on the way. Their stand-out production, however, has to be this incredible video of their song "Dance With Me" set to the famous dance scene from Jean-Luc Godard's 1964 film "Bande A Part".

As you can see from the clip of the original film (below) - there's
been some deft editing to make it synchronistic, but it's currently my
favorite video.

For trivia fans:

1) The actors dancing are Anna Karina, Sami Frey (in the jacket) and
Claude Brasseur.

2) The film gave its name to Quentin Tarantino's production company, A Band Apart, and several of its scenes are echoed in "Pulp Fiction".

3) Nouvelle Vague and Bossa Nova both translate to "New Wave" in English.

4) In 2005, "Bande A Part" was the only Godard film selected for Time
Magazine's All Time Top 100 Films list.

Your Spread of Spreads

I am not a disinterested observer (being in the process of producing a film based on the life and autobiography of Diana Vreeland) but Vince Aletti's 8 page appreciation of the exuberance of Vreeland's VOGUE layouts in the new issue of Aperture Magazine is a knockout. Vince has long been an authority on magazines as well as one of the more eloquent and astute writers on photography and the selection of spreads is terrific (as is the design by Yolanda Cuomo).

Regarding my own D.V. project, I am incredibly pleased to announce that Ric Burns has agreed to make the film his feature debut. My co-producer is Nina Santisi who produced what is generally considered the best and truest film on fashion - "Unzipped". We are at the earliest stage of development, but describe the film-to-be as a blend of documentary and performance with a single actress playing the role of Diana Vreeland. For those who did not see Ric Burns' last work, the 4 hour PBS documentary on Andy Warhol, trust me - it's one of the greatest documentaries ever made (along with his 7 part series on New York). Both are available on DVD.

American Pictures

The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize is one of the most prestigious in Europe and the four shortlisted photographers have just been announced.

Most interesting of the group is Jacob Holdt – a little known 60 year old Danish photographer. Beginning in 1970, Holdt spent five years hitchhiking across the US, living with and documenting the lives of the people he met - from sharecroppers to wealthy families. Holdt was not particularly interested in photography as anything other than a means of expressing his shock at the conditions he found in America. Yet as his images reveal, he was an extraordinarily gifted photographer. (Think William Eggleston, Robert Frank, Donna Ferrato, and Nan Goldin!)

In 1977 selections from his travels were published in a book titled “American Pictures”, but after a Byzantine plot by the KGB to use the book as pro-communist, anti-american propaganda was uncovered, Holdt hired a lawyer to stop publication of the book all over the world.

Since 1991, Holdt has worked as a volunteer for CARE in numerous third-world countries while maintaining one of the more eccentric and image laden websites. A book, “United States 1970 – 1975” was published by Steidl this summer, and is listed on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, but I have yet to see a copy in any store.

Jacob Holdt on his travels around America circa. 1972.









Georgia Prison





After church in South Carolina.

Palm Beach



15 year old unwed mother.

Nicole Kidman (x2)

This week's unveiling of a new waxwork of Nicole Kidman at London's famous Madame Tussaud's is a chance to comment on one of the most extraordinary cover pictures of the year, but one that passed by with almost no attention. Taken by Patrick Demarchelier for the October Vanity Fair, it shows Kidman in a jaunty nautical cap opening her blouse to reveal her victorianly white skin and a Carine Gilson bra. Her eyes are unfocused, her lips parted as seductively as her current face allows. It's a strong and surprising image with an almost Arbus-y subtext as the subject seems pinned into her moment of odd revelation. It's a great cover shot.

Demarchelier is so prolific I'm not always sure people recognize quite how good he can be. But what I found so surprising about the image is: a) that Kidman found the need to do it; and: b) that once done it seemed so un-noteworthy. Did she want us to see that as she approaches 40, she looks every bit as good as her waxwork likeness (in the red dress)? In the age of photoshopped covers and nip and tuck, a glossy magazine cover picture is more an illustration of a concept than something with any great basis in reality. However, I would have thought there would have been at least some feminist outrage at the sexual objectification of one of the more accomplished women of her age. Perhaps in a time of panty-less celebrities a pale poitrine and expensive underwear is just the touch of class we need!

Weekend Video - Billy The Kid

For several years prior to opening Danziger Projects, I shared an office floor with Jennifer Venditti. Jennifer specialized in casting for fashion shoots and shows and was credited with being one of the pioneers of street casting, i.e. finding non-professionals in far flung places. To say Jennifer was a force of nature would be an understatement. She worked her assistants hard and herself harder and during the time I shared space with her she decided to take a course on documentary film at NYU because she knew that was a direction she wanted to pursue.

Now four years later, Jennifer's first film, "Billy The Kid", which was almost that long in the making, editing, releasing, etc... has just opened in New York having worked its way round the festival circuit picking up prizes wherever it was shown. It's a funny, sad, and touching, verité portrait of an outcast teenager from Lisbon Falls, Maine, with the kind of troubled head that comes from having a sweet soul that's been immersed in too much heavy metal and pop culture. It's a subtle and impressive debut - good honest film-making, and a testament to the power of will and talent.

The Life Aquatic

I left Miami on Friday morning after visiting the Aqua fair. If you're not sated after 7 or 8 fairs I imagine there's something wrong with you. So I was happy to leave, but especially happy that after the dull start of the main Miami Basel fair, the peripherals brought back the sense of discovery and pleasure that art fairs should be all about. So just a few additional pictures....


The j-pegs don't do justice to this picture by Richard Barnes but it's a pretty spectacular print and wry comment on both the human condition and on the concept of exhibition.


Arne Svenson is following up his popular black and white series on sock monkeys with a new color series of stray cats photographed against patterned towels!


I really liked these collages made from cut up Art Forums by Keith Holbrook.

As I was finishing Aqua the skies opened up and with all that art and inspiration and influence fresh in my soul I couldn't resist taking this Darren Almond/Thomas Ruff/Matthew Spiegelman tribute.

Fair Weather

Thursday started off with a visit to Photo Miami.

First pictures to make an impression were by the young California photographer Alex Trager and her faux voyeuristic images (above and below).




Miklos Gaal's pictures, while hard to see here, employ a highly selective focus that makes every scene seem unreal and have looked interesting for two years running now.


Two great pieces by Robert Polidori.

Needless to say there was lots of Asian photography this year, much of it heavily reliant on photoshop and of mixed success. This is one of the better images by Cui Xiuwen.


Wout Berger creates original still lives in nature.

John Divola's cars were pretty and mysterious.

Then it was off to AIPAD Miami.

This unusual August Sander portrait of a child was one of my favorites of the whole day.


Luis Gonzalez Palma showed both old work and this new color piece (above).

I like Michael Wolf's portraits of Chinese copy painters.

Bob Dylan was much in evidence with different pictures at many booths. This 1966 picture by Daniel Kramer.

An untitled John Divola.


A David Hockney polaroid at Keith DeLellis with a great accompanying card to Heny Geldzahler postmarked 1976. (It says "Swimming pools are such marvelous subjects don't you think?")

Shinuchi Maruyam (at Bruce Silverstein) gets interesting results manipulating liquids in his own studio.

This by the great colorist Martin Parr.

How to match the artist with the work. (Robert Glenn Ketchum.)

A remembrance of times past.


At NADA, Matthew Spiegelman had an interesting selection of pictures.



Walead Beshty made photograms by folding the paper and exposing different sides to different light.


Matt Ducklo's strange images are of actual "Touch Tours", organized for the visually impaired by different museums.


Kate was in the house. The above installation piece by Nico Vascellari is titled "I Kate You" and consisted of neatly organized sheafs of K.M. clippings in plastic folders inside frames.

An My-Le's new series records the American navy's protection of Gulf oil platforms.




Melanie Schiff - that's her in the bottom picture - was a standout and has apparently already been tapped for the next Whitney biennial.



The bargains of the fair were Mark Borthwick polaroids selling for $60 each to benefit the Journal.


Meanwhile at Art Miami, the Starns were showing large new work.

An unusually small and delicate (given the subject matter) Thomas Ruff.

Ruud Van Empel's pictures still look fresh.

Meanwhile many photographers are working with the same selective focus as Miklos Gaal. Here a print of a Japanese race track by Naoki Honjo.

A particularly good Massimo Vitale.


Lastly, lenticular photography - usually a gimmick - finds an appropriate subject and usage in this commentary on the vanishing presence of native americans. As you walk past the image, Edward Curtis's subjects appear and disappear before your eyes.

So much to see...

As you enter the 2007 Miami Basel Art Fair, you are surrounded by photographs. To your left, a huge new Gursky titled "Cocoon"...

... next to a Thomas Ruff jpeg picture.

To your right a series of uninspiring Idris Khan pictures. (Even though his previous work is what they all seem to be copying this year.)

And a Darren Almond.

The point is that photography is EVERYWHERE. But at Miami Basel it's photography through the prism of contemporary and modern blue chip art galleries - which means big prints, big prices, and a dollop of conceptual thought. It's a conundrum that those who hew to a more straightforward tradition find frustrating, but nobody has to buy it.

There wasn't much new and exciting at Miami Basel in the way of photographs, but here are the pictures that grabbed my attention for one reason or another.



Flavia Darrin did a Loretta Lux by way of John Currin.

Ernesto Ballasteros did Idris Khan. (Sorry about the bad reflection.)

Ryan McGinley continued to look good.

This was an interesting constructed piece by Adrian Paci about immigrants going nowhere.

Sam Taylor-Wood showed her latest video piece. A two minute loop on Leda and the Swan.

...another Darren Almond.

A new Wolfgang Tilmans window-sill piece.

A large untitled new Florian Maier -Aichen.

This was an amusing piece by Fabian Marti.

Shirana Shahbazi had some striking color still lifes.

Yet another Darren Almond. He got the ubiquitous prize.

Waiting for a Struth buyer.

A Vera Lutter of Times Square.

Damien Hirst has now officially become a photographer - or perhaps just signed his name to these pictures of butterflies and skulls.

A lovely grid of Vera Lutter's Venice pictures.

I noticed Malcolm Daniel of the Met eyeing this Wolfgang Tilmans.

A good large Cindy Sherman "Untitled Film Still" from 1979.



A group of my favorite William Eggleston 4x5 bar-room portraits at Cheim and Read.

A Struth "Museum" picture.

A nice group of Diane Arbus photographs at Fraenkel.



Many Richard Prince photographs, but most of them looking a bit yellowed.

Teaching the folks at In Fashion '07 a lesson, this lovely grouping at Howard Greenberg. An Irving Penn on top and a Horst below.

Also at Greenberg, another great pairing - Arnold Newman contact sheets and an Irving penn of Frederick Kiesler and Willem De Kooning...

...followed by Steichen's 1924 portrait of Joan Crawford.



Lastly, at Art Supernova - a young offshoot of Miami Basel - a group of adult Pippi Longstocking-ish constructed portraits titled "I Love My Life" by the Israeli photographer Rona Yefman

That's it for now. More on Photo Miami, AIPAD Miami, NADA, and Art Miami tomorrow.

Morning in Miami (2)

For the astute viewer, you will see that this year I am on the north side of Loews Hotel. Otherwise not much has changed in Miami although it's a little less cloudy!

I arrived in Miami last night in time to get to the launch party of the New York Times Magazine's T section website. I checked into the site this past Sunday and found it O.K. - a bit fussy for my taste - however, I am a HUGE fan of the magazine. Whenever the T section appears I am astounded that something of that rarified a sensibility ever comes with The New York Times, but there it is. Prescient articles, inventive photography, a great regular series in Robert Maxwell's "Originals" portraits, a highly original revolving selection of artists and designers doing the guest T graphic that opens the well. I even find the contributors bios interesting as they seem a cut above the usual magazine contributors in terms of what they're working on and their achievements. I usually find magazines that try to be cool annoying, but T's blend of creativity, hipness, and substance is the real thing. Well maybe it's a blend of creativity, hipness, and the superficial, but it's clearly based on the notion that there's profundity in surface and style. (A note- the website seems to have problems loading today, but try to access it through nytimes.com.)


From the T party, there was just time to drop in on In Fashion '07 - the most awful collection of fashion photographs. "200 fashion photographs by 20 photographers!" banners blare all along Collins Avenue, but what a waste of time. What's so dispiriting about bad fashion photography is all the effort that goes into it with all the models, stylists, hair and makeup artists, assistants etc.. At least if bad photographers take bad street photographs or landscapes they're only wasting their own time. (I highly recommend bad photographers to take self-portraits.) Anyway, so as not to be completely negative, here are two images from the show that somewhat broke through the clutter. Taken by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, who clearly knows a good prop when he sees one, here are his pictures of Irina and Madonna. If you go to his gallery website you'll see a whole series on guitars, which the organizers of In Fashion 07 were not smart enough to make his display.


More to come.

Morning in Miami

Busman's Holiday–noun. A vacation or day off from work spent in an activity closely resembling one's work, as a bus driver taking a long drive.

I'm off to Miami to visit the various art fairs and I'll report on any interesting work, trends, events, etc.. I'll try not to show too many pictures I've taken as I'm truly just a snapper, but I rather like this photograph taken last year from my hotel room at Loew's.

Snap Happy

I'm not a camera person, but two photographers I work with - Andy Freeberg and Scott Schuman (better known as The Sartorialist) happen, coincidentally, to both use the Canon 5d. So I can vouch for this camera wholeheartedly having seen the results.

It sells for about $2,000 - which is the entry level price for a digital camera where the lens and the chip line up so you get exactly what you see. Freeberg has enlarged his pictures to 50" x 60" with no appreciable loss of quality. They look like pictures taken with a view camera. The Sartorialist's pictures not only reveal every hair on the heads of his subjects but employ an extremely shallow depth of field (where only one area of the picture is in focus) something that has until recently evaded digital photography.


Freeberg's shots of Chelsea gallery front desks (above) were the talk of the season with their deadpan revelation of the manners and convention of the art world. Meanwhile, The Sartorialist (below) who has already taken the blogosphere by storm, is set to take on the photography world when he shows his work at Danziger Projects this coming January. (Unavoidable plug - sorry.) Given the difference in their work and point of view, it is amazing to think Freeberg and Schuman use the same camera, but it once again proves how photography is not about equipment, but about ideas and having an original and worthwhile point of view.