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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A photographic image is a transformation of reality; when selected with consciousness and an intention beyond the recording of surface, it is inevitably a remaking of an event into the photographer’s own image, and thus an assumption of godhead. […] Issued at that particular historical moment ([in 1967], “Post-Visualization” virtually guaranteed that Jerry Uelsmann would find himself in the eye of a storm for years to come; not only did it declare its author’s intent to serve as a spokesperson for the approach described therein, but it implied his willingness to have his work treated as a litmus test for the theory’s validity, an example of its application in practice. […] Herman Emmet’s models, I know, are Agee-Evans and W. Eugene Smith, among others. This work emerges from that lineage, extends the thrust of those seminal efforts, and deserves to stand in their company. But it certainly is not of interest exclusively to those concerned with serious photography, who may well prove to be only a small segment of its audience. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |
Scratch a Good American: Anti-Semitism in the USSR (1988)
“Scratch a good American,” says the Oriole,” “and you’ll find a good German.” Ari had just scratched a good American. […]