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Duane Michals: National Arts Club (2000)

[This is the fourth in a series of decade-by-decade posts of material from my archives. For the third, click here.

By 2000 I had left the New York Observer, relinquishing — though not without a fight — the column I had run there from 1988-97 when they demanded ownership of copyright to my articles. The […]

A. D. Coleman on Photo Books, 1978 (a)

If photography books are to become really viable as products, without meaning as “merchandise,” if they’re to be able to be self-sustaining as a produced artifact, they’ve got to go beyond the market in photography. […]

The Origins of the Wall Accessory (2)

These artifacts are not intended to engage the discourse of art or creativity on any level whatsoever. No meaningful gauge can be applied to them; since they take no risks by which they could be considered failures, it is impossible for them to succeed. […]

Robert Heinecken as Black Sheep (1)

I consider it a measure of a certain kind of stubborn integrity that Les Krims, Duane Michals, Kenneth Josephson, and Robert Heinecken continued to self-identify as photographers instead of jumping ship and reinventing themselves as picture-makers in one or another of the art world’s approved categories. They knew the dynamics and politics of the art scene, and understood the price they’d pay for their decision. Which made this an act of principle. […]