Ron Jude Dark Matter

Full Article on Patreon     …In assessing Dark Matter, I am also reasonably confident that this use of newspaper imagery is lodged in the artist’s practice from influences such as Michael Schmidt, whose book Ein–Heit, produced in the 90s, made great use of similar aesthetics of inconvenient German history, which was photographed and hung […]

Ursula Schulz-Dornburg Huts, Temples, Castles

  “He capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness.” William Golding, Lord of the Flies   “In Huts, Temples, Castles, MACK returns with a new book from Ursula Schulz-Dornburg. As is the distinct emphasis on architecture and vernacular sensibility, all typological […]

Photographic Sketchbooks 1

  Going through a box of photographic sketchbooks this week after a prolonged studio move reminded me of the importance of sketching ideas for photobooks ahead of or at least coinciding with moving to digital realms to begin the process of editing and sequencing. My book Dein Kampf (MACK, 2019), has precedents in the photographic […]

Alessandra Sanguinetti Some Say Ice

Alessandra Sanguinetti Some Say Ice MACK/Magnum Photo A girl plays the piano convincingly. Another different girl, spotlit, plays a different piano, slightly less convincingly. Steam rises from a river, possibly black, convincingly. A buffalo mourns Its condition confined between fences during a winter snowstorm, most convincingly. A man’s hands clean a six-shooter pistol, and I […]

Alec Soth Sleeping By the Mississippi A 2022 Reaction

  The original source material from this post comes from a long-format discussion with many different voices penning their thoughts on Instagram. I wanted to discover what people thought of Alec Soth’s Sleeping by the Mississippi in 2022. Of course, this is culled from the people who follow me on Instagram and are interested in […]

Paul Graham: Troubled Land

We fail our images and images fail our desires. In trying to deliberate over which side of failure images are consigned to, the human side versus the side of the function of the image itself, it is hard to not implicate oneself in misunderstanding the function of a photographic image. We have come to expect […]

Luigi Ghirri: Puglia. Tra albe e tramonti

  One of the enduring traits found in the photography of Luigi Ghirri is the way in which the artist played with the camera and the optical alignment of photographic images. His quest for optical games, shooting from behind the corner or through the veil as it were created a dialogue in photography that at […]

Donavan Smallwood Languor

  As per Donavan Smallwood’s admission in his new book Languor (Trespasser, 2021), I also wanted to be an archaeologist when I was a child. I spent at least a few summers basking in the glow of having seen the first two Indiana Jones films which had made an indelible impression upon my youthful, as […]

Jet Swan Material

  I have been thinking about Jet Swan’s book Material for the past week. This is a fortunate sign. It marks it as one of those books that float across my desk that at first glance I feel some sympathy with, not total, but then it, or the images inside of it, burrow into my […]

Guido Guidi Cinque Viaggi 1990-1998

  Guido Guidi’s photographs emanate from concerns that underpin a long tradition of art in Italy. While most of his images are consultations of place and perspective, the larger considerations for his work examine a minute rendering of color palette, shadow, and subscribe to a cornucopia or semi-neutral examinations of “the moment”. These images, in […]

Paul Graham Beyond Caring

  Despite my years of thin gruel during my time in London, I count myself as lucky for being able to divide my time there into simply “getting by” and avoiding bureaucracy. I have little talent for the regular custom of monthly, let alone weekly subscription to anything in which demands of my time are […]

Stephen Shore Steel Town

    Glancing at Steel Town by Stephen Shore (MACK, 2021) gives the reader the impression that what they are looking at has a point of fixity in the past. The images, produced in 1977 for Fortune Magazine, and have a quality that suggests a bygone era. Whether it is the kitsch interior of Eddie’s […]