Archive for the ‘documentary’ Category
Close Quarters
Thomas Annan is best known for documenting slum conditions in Glasgow at the end of the nineteenth century. His photographs of the “closes” of the old city show the growing population, displaced from living on the land and recruited into factory work, squeezed into a new urban landscape. The buildings are literally close and Annan [...]
In: architecture, documentary, nineteenth century, photography, street life · Tagged with: Glasgow, Thomas Annan
Personal Space
I went to see “Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography” at MoMA with my father last weekend. Born in 1926, like this photograph, he is an artist and a man made feminist by the accident of three daughters. This show, drawn from the museum’s own collection and on display until March 21, 2011, [...]
In: documentary, photography, street life · Tagged with: MoMA, Tina Modotti
In Sickness and In Health
This image by Nina Berman is from her well-received series called “Marine Wedding,” which is featured in the Whitney’s biennial until May 30. She documents the re-entry of an injured Marine from the Iraqi war and then his marriage to the fiancee who waited at home for him. I first saw Berman’s work when one [...]
In: contemporary, documentary, portraiture, war photography · Tagged with: Nina Berman, Whitney Biennial 2010
Girl with Crayon
I spent Thanksgiving in a VA hospital in Albany, keeping my father company after his surgery and watching the damaged and hurting people around us. It led me geographically and emotionally to the work of Dona Ann McAdams, which is on view in Albany now. This photograph comes from her portfolio Garden of Eden (2002), [...]
In: documentary, mental illness, photography · Tagged with: Dona McAdams, Garden of Eden, Vincent Van Gogh
The Greatest
There’s an interesting show of Andy Warhol’s polariod portraits of athletes now at the Danziger Gallery through December 12. I chose this one to write about because I have just watched Leon Gast’s documentary When We Were Kings about the Ali-Foreman fight in Zaire in 1974. It’s a suspenseful story of how the dethroned Ali got [...]
In: documentary, polaroid, portraiture · Tagged with: Andy Warhol, Leon Gast, Muhammad Ali, When We Were Kings