Gordin refers to his approach as “conceptual photography,” though by this he obviously means something much different from the haphazardly made, often amateurish or deliberately casual imagery generated as documentation of performances by conceptual artists since the 1970s. Carefully planned and meticulously crafted, Gordin’s images are previsualized as sketches on paper, which he then stages for the production of the negatives necessary to actualize the imagined image. […]
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I can think of no other postmodern-era project that has at once paid such homage to Walter Benjamin while at the same time so thoroughly refuting him — by making a convincing argument that even digitally rendered, mechanically generated facsimiles of mass-produced artifacts can effectively contain and transmit the experience he called “aura.” […] The tradition of people’s history continues in the work of Eugene Richards who, by reviving a cold case of racial oppression, delivers an important perspective on how little and how much has changed in a half-century of struggle against the forces of dispossession. […] In my opinion, Eugene Richards stands out as the most important photojournalist of his generation. Often imitated, yet seldom surpassed, his work embodies the values he defends. In early 2019 Richards returned to the Delta where he reconnected with old acquaintances and met others willing to discuss the impact of the Civil Rights movement on their lives. […] I would propose that what Langston Hughes achieved in The Sweet Flypaper of Life, though radically different in kind, constitutes an editorial accomplishment that bears comparison with what Robert Frank did with his own pictures in The Americans, published in 1958-59. To use a distinction from general systems theory, Hughes took a heap and made of it a whole. […] |
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