Early this year Miyako Yoshinaga, a Chelsea gallerist, invited me to attend the March 2nd opening of a mini-retrospective, “Ken Ohara: Extreme Portraits 1970-1999,” and meet the photographer. She seemed surprised when I accepted. But I sensed something ceremonial about the occasion, and thought I should go. […]
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The first thing I want from you, as the person in charge of materials that you hope to place in an archive or as the person managing an archive, is to to do no harm — to think long and hard before you throw anything away. And, preferably, to consult with people who understand and work with archives before you discard anything. Because you can’t possibly know, or anticipate, what I will find important when I get there. […] Donald Trump’s bromance with his puppet master, Vladimir Putin, has made headlines and served as op-ed fodder for much of the past two years. So it seems appropriate to point out Putin’s small but not insignificant place in the history of contemporary photography — specifically, the Krappy Kamera movement. […] If, as we are regularly encouraged to do, we pay heed to the lives and works of Robert Capa and John Morris, then, in the spirit of the field of journalism in which they both worked and to which they declared their commitment, we should do so “warts and all.” The fabrication of their D-Day myth has a prominent place among those blemishes. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |
Shenzhen Economic Daily Interview, 2007 (a)
I have always imagined my own “average reader” as a reasonably educated and literate member of the general public, broadly interested in cultural issues. Of course I sometimes write specifically for, and am read by, people who work professionally in the arts, and for the audience for contemporary art. But I would not want to have my own writing restricted to that segment of the population, and I don’t think the public discussion of photography should be limited to its function as an art form. […]