Preoccupation with curation and management of “The Silent Strength of Liu Xia,” the touring exhibition of 26 photos by the dissident Chinese photographer, artist, and poet, also included design, publication, and content development of a substantial website for that project. That led to my putting various plans for this blog on hold. I have nothing else of that magnitude on the runway, so I’m returning to those ideas with renewed energy. […]
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@adcoleman@hcommons.social
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My wetware may have undergone some retrogressive modifications, or stabilized itself in what (by current standards of the speed of technological evolution) would be considered low gear. This leaves me less than ideally positioned for life amidst the suddenly emergent “Internet of Things” (IoT), in which I’m apparently considered a “digital immigrant” rather than a “digital native.” […] Because Liu Xia now lives under house arrest, incommunicado save for periodic visits with her mother, I can’t run any decisions past her, as I would automatically in organizing a show by a living artist. Thus I have to trust to my instincts, along with my sense of what I’d want others to do with my work if I were in her shoes. […] Unimaginable that — except as explicit satire — 100 writers and artists from the former Soviet Union would inscribe by hand today the loathesome principles set forth by Zhdanov and enforced thereafter by his goon squads. What a bizarre reaffirmation of a long-discarded set of prescriptions and proscriptions this book represents, then — a self-abasing modern version of the obligatory “loyalty dance” performed under his portrait as a morning ritual by all mainland Chinese citizens at the height of Mao’s cult of personality. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014All content of this publication is © copyright 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 by A. D. Coleman unless otherwise noted. All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without prior written permission. All photos copyright by the individual photographers. "Fair use" allows quotation of excerpts of textual material from this site for educational and other noncommercial purposes.
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Dog Day Afternoons: Bits & Pieces (3)
Late last year I gave a talk in London, “Dinosaur Bones: The End (and Ends) of Photo Criticism,” in which, among other things, I bemoaned the fact that the newspaper and magazine industry has begun to replace specialized critics grounded in the visual arts (like me) with “cultural journalists,” generalists with no depth of […]