Collage/assemblage as a medium seems simple, but in practice is quite complex. Mr. Beard has mastered it on many levels, from the tactile and visual to the intellectual and intuitive. Everything in these works becomes integral to them, retaining its own flavor and texture while also blending with the other ingredients, as in a perfectly made stew. […]
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Wynn Bullock’s ability to reconcile both these approaches to photographic praxis, the European and American versions of modernism, has few parallels in the field. The consequent breadth of his investigation of the medium makes him one of the most experimental photographers working in the U.S. in his time. […] [This is the fourth in a series of decade-by-decade posts of material from my archives. For the third, click here. By 2000 I had left the New York Observer, relinquishing — though not without a fight — the column I had run there from 1988-97 when they demanded ownership of copyright to my articles. The […] What we’re offered instead is merely a set of pictures John Szarkowski likes — a comparative bagatelle … Such a misuse of power, prestige and influence is an effective if lamentable indication of why the Modern’s credibility and influence on the medium have waned so dramatically during the last decade of his tenure. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |
Spring Fever/Cabin Fever: Bits & Pieces (2020)
Among my mottoes I include “Nihilism: There’s no future in it.” I find I can only mope and grump for so long before it gets boring. So I’ve laid in a supply of unpopped kernels for my hot-air popcorn machine. Let’s watch the show. […]