Rob Ball Silent Coast

    Rob Ball‘s Silent Coast, published by Photo Editions (2022), suggests a distorted type of lyrical documentary investigation where the cruel conditions of political complications atomize the social concerns of a place and its people, reducing the everyday plight of the individual as small, unheard, and unnecessary. An opaque and uneasy accent of dissolve […]

Teo Becher: Charbon Blanc

  There is a resurgence in recent years to look at the topic of industry and labor among artists considering the monumental shift that society is experiencing from manual labor to skilled labor. Over half of the projects that I encounter regarding the shift to automation revolve around digital territories-projects about AI, automation, cryptocurrencies, and […]

Jindřich Štreit Village People 1965-1990

Jindřich Štreit is a Czech photographer that I was not much aware of before recently receiving his book Village People 1965-1990 published late last year by Buchkunst Berlin. I was curious about the artist as Buchkunst Berlin has been publishing quite interesting, if at times haunting and punishing books such as the Dieter Keller Eye […]

Photobooks of the Year 2020/Welcome to the Castle

“Earlier this year, there were some high-profile twitterstorms, in which particular left-identifying figures were ‘called out’ and condemned. What these figures had said was sometimes objectionable; but nevertheless, the way in which they were personally vilified and hounded left a horrible residue: the stench of bad conscience and witch-hunting moralism”         This […]

Chris Killip: The Station and a Note of Gratitude

  “Killip was a human first and an observer or lucid chronicler second”   Chris Killip is known for his immeasurable and singular vision of Britain during the 70’s 80’s and 90’s. To place emphasis on his work in a genre-fied manner would belittle his and its true humanity and potential. Killip was a human […]

Ruminations on Paul Graham’s A1 The Great North Road

  “The way in which we write history is tinged with this conundrum. It suggests blinders in the very least and in doing so, should compel an understanding of context that is piecemeal or limited”   It’s often difficult to unpack a particular body of work or historic book that has been republished without regarding […]

Chris Killip & Graham Smith: “Another Country” (1985)

Helen and Hula-Hoop, Seacoal Beach, Lynemouth, Tyneside, UK, 1984 by Chris Killip   His affection for the land and its people never blinded him to the toughness of ordinary existence.   By Richard Cork, Review of Another Country at Serpentine Gallery, September 12, 1985 Excerpt from New Spirit, New Sculpture, New Money: Art in the […]