Archive for March, 2012

Odds Against

23Mar12

Harry Callahan, Chicago 1961 When I was ‘young in photography’ this Callahan photograph made a deep impression on me. A monumental figure like a statue is plucked out of an everyday moment on a footpath. The ominous clock ticking away, its hand pointing at the woman, a de Chirico in Chicago. What are the odds […]


Abe Frajndlich, portrait of Cindy Sherman, 1987 There are so many portraits of Cindy Sherman they are almost a genre of their own. A number of very good photographers have looked at her face to see what’s behind the many disguises she has worn over the past 37 years. She has not hidden away from […]


Sherman show

11Mar12

Annie Liebovitz, portrait of Cindy Sherman When Cindy Sherman was starting out in the 1970s she worked on the front desk at Artists Space gallery in New York. She would appear dressed up in costume from her shoots. The fact that she would sometimes show up for work dressed as, say, a nurse, or in […]


August Sander, portrait of Anton Räderscheidt, 1927 The NGV‘s recent Mad Square exhibition of Weimar art included the August Sander photograph above. It is a portrait of the painter Anton Räderscheidt, photographed on the Bismarckstrasse in Cologne. Shot at six in the morning when the street was empty of people, Räderscheidt is dressed in his […]


Katrin Koenning, Lacuna 00 Melbourne’s new photography gallery, Edmund Pearce (Edmund who?) has had a group show that included the work of Katrin Koenning, an emigré German photographer who lives in the city. Her work can be viewed on her excellent website http://www.katrinkoenning.com. The images may remind you of Lorca diCorcia‘s urban photos, I can’t […]


Phillip Toledano, from Gamers, 2003 Phillip Toledano is an enterprising photographer from the U.S. I recently posted about his satirical project America, the Gift Shop. The startling image above is from a series on emotion and facial expression. It looks like someone inflicting pain, or receiving it. Could it have been shot in a gym, where […]



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