Opinion
Images Worth a Dozen Words
SAN FRANCISCO — Recently, I stumbled upon the Descriptive Camera, a project by artist Matt Richardson that harkens back to the days when we could simply describe an image without showing it.
Photography
Interview
The Artists Who Gave Domestic Workers Toy Grenades
HONG KONG — "I wanted to enter Hong Kong homes forcefully, allowing these mechanisms of art to become a platform of conspiracy for the Filipino domestic workers." Sun Yuan and Peng Yu discuss their photographic series on view at Art Basel Hong Kong.
Art
The Kaleidoscopic Visions of Leslie Thornton
Most of us are somewhat conscious of the way in which the technological tools both create and limit what is possible visually, and how that evolves over time. Leslie Thornton's new video work, "Luna," is a tour de force exploration of these possibilities.
Books
The Hidden Beauty of Disease Under Our Skin
Beneath our sheath of skin is an internal world both vast and complex. While most of us rarely get to see it, these workings of our systems and organs are the daily viewing of pathologists, particularly when it comes to disease. A new book of photography takes us into our own interiors, and shows th
Art
Rare Postcards Reveal Early 20th Century Panoramas
The United States Postal Service was just expanding into widespread delivery to the remote corners of the country when panoramic postcards appeared to advertise in wide frame the beauty of these far-flung locales. Usually folding for more compact delivery, these broad little views offered expansive
Opinion
Model/Surrealist/War Photographer Revealed Through Thousands of Images
Some people manage to live many lives in their one existence, and Lee Miller with her journey from Poughkeepsie to the Surrealist scene of Paris to the front lines of World War II was definitely a woman whose life could not be singularly defined.
Art
The Front Lines and the Fallen: Photographs of Finland in WWII
The military history of Finland during World War II remains overlooked in those brutal years of battles, as the Nordic country was actually fighting three wars between 1939 and 1945, all aimed at guarding their independence. Now a massive photo archive of around 160,000 images has been made availabl
Art
Stare at the Sun, Without the Blinding Side Effects
In a video released this week by NASA, you can stare at the sun for the equivalent of three years in just three minutes, making it the most efficient and safe way to look at the solar cycles yet — as well as a really cool example of how photography can show us that which is not visible to our delica
News
First Photography Museum Joins Google Art Project
By now, we're used to museums partnering with the Google Art Project and sharing selections of their popular or less known collections online. However, this month a photography museum finally got into the mix, with the George Eastman House, the oldest photography museum in the world, offering an ini
Art
Portraying the Sometimes Strange American Self in Tintype Photographs
A lot of 179 of these tintype photographs dating from the 1860s to 1890s is part of the upcoming Fine Photographs & Photobooks sale at Swann Auction Galleries, and are something of a core sample of the shifting social changes in the country, and how those 19th century people were choosing to remembe
Art
A Photographer Captures the Grim Allure of Disaster
Distilling violence into art is a tricky alchemy. Even when done carefully, it can result in a strange brew, leaving some intoxicated and moved by its heady ascetics, others feeling sick and hung-up on its inherent horror, sadness, and trauma. In On Photography, Susan Sontag famously enunciated that
Art
Photographs Turn New York City into a Stage for Humanity
Like so many people who come to New York, part of what attracted me was the spectacle of the city itself. I wanted to wander streets thick with history and creative currents, to watch and become part of the human drama just outside my door. That also describes my experience of Susan Wides’s stunning