You can view AIPAD as a (mostly) non-verbal version of the book that Benjamin planned to produce, comprised entirely of quotations from other sources. Benjamin structured his “Arcades Project” — first conceived in 1927 and unfinished when he died in 1940 — after the glass-roofed shopping malls of 19th-century Paris, epitomizing that “commodification of things” which he saw as the defining characteristic of modernity. […]
|
|
In terms of our initial “mission statement,” the project was over a long time ago. Originally the project goal was to donate work to 10 or perhaps 15 museums, with a total estimated “gallery retail” value of $150,000. As of today we are at 82 museum donations and the donated print value appears to be $2,211,750, with additional museums still on my “active” list. […] The “giving back” aspect [of The Museum Project] was intended for all museums that have supported photography historically, and initially I was more interested in locating museums that appeared more prone to use the donated work — either university “teaching museums” or smaller museums with an active photography-exhibition calendar. […] Most of us in the West — even Western Europeans — simply have no idea of what it has meant to be Eastern European in this century, for even those who lived there are only now able to acknowledge it. There’s a long period of reeducation ahead for all of us; and the paper trail we’ll have to follow is strewn not only with sheets bearing the written word but with photographs of all kinds, like these. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |
All Greek to Me: APhF 2015
The diatribe of photographer and Magnum member Patrick Zachmann exemplified perfectly the knee-jerk defensiveness with which representatives of what I’ve come to call the Capa Consortium respond to any challenge to the Capa legend. One member of the audience asked me if I’d paid Zachmann to prove our point; I had to answer that he’d done so with no prompting from me. […]