{"id":15511,"date":"2012-12-31T23:45:02","date_gmt":"2013-01-01T04:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/?p=15511"},"modified":"2013-03-21T21:59:37","modified_gmt":"2013-03-22T01:59:37","slug":"2012-that-was-the-year-that-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/2012\/12\/31\/2012-that-was-the-year-that-was\/","title":{"rendered":"2012: That Was The Year That Was"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A.This marks the end of the third full calendar year for Photocritic International<\/em>, which made its debut in June 2009.\u00a0During the past 12-month period I\u2019ve published 64 posts here (counting this one), slightly more than one per week. According to\u00a0Google Analytics<\/a>, as of midnight on December 31, 2012 this blog had served up just under 70,000 pageviews for the year, to over 32,000 unique visitors \u2014 31,000 new readers plus more than 10,000 recidivist gluttons for punishment. It remains the most widely read blog by any critic\/historian of photography.<\/p>\n

This year began much as 2011 had ended, with my getting\u00a0yapped at by a ravening pack of feral Corgis, Yorkies, pugs, and Chihuahuas<\/a>. Once my ankles healed, I launched into several experiments, initiating new series of “collaboreviews” with such partners as Lorne Knoblauch of DLK Collection, kicking off a second new series of “Letters to an Emerging Critic,” and publishing Guest Posts by such invitees as Ken Schles.<\/p>\n

Early in the year I continued herein my coverage of\u00a0the demise and dismemberment of the Polaroid Collection<\/a>, which story then\u00a0took a protracted breather en route to its anticlimactic denouement.\u00a0From mid-2009 through 2012,\u00a0Photocritic International<\/em>\u00a0has provided more extensive and detailed coverage of this significant story than any other print or online source.<\/p>\n

\"National

National Review Romney-Ryan cover, 9-10-12, with Stalinist propaganda poster.<\/p><\/div>\n

Leaving that trail while awaiting new developments, I moved on to extended consideration of several other matters that intrigued me. These included my continued response to the imagery emergent from the November 18, 2011 attack on UC Davis student protesters by the campus police force, “Pepper-Spray Cop: Birth of a Meme,”<\/a> another story not yet fully concluded; meditations on the theme of “Trope: The Well-Made Photograph,”<\/a> concerning the unbearable sameness of seeing in much contemporary work;\u00a0and, preoccupying much of my attention from September through the present, “Election 2012: Image World,”<\/a> in which I’ve approached the visual imagery of the 2012 election cycle from my perspective as a critic of photography and digital media, a consideration that will terminate with a discussion of the pictures of Barack Obama’s second inauguration in a few weeks.<\/p>\n

\"New

New York Post cover, subway death, 12-4-12. Photograph by R. Umar Abbasi.<\/p><\/div>\n

Shorter clusters of posts in 2012 included the series\u00a0“Forumization and Its Malcontent,”<\/a>\u00a0about my experiences with several photo-specific online forums in late 2011;\u00a0a multi-part discursion on the concept of\u00a0“Self-Plagiarism: Oxymoron Invasion”<\/a>; another,\u00a0“Jack Kerouac: Tech Pioneer,”<\/a>\u00a0about the Beat writer’s inventive relationship to the typewriter; a trio of reports from China<\/a> during my June visit thereto; and, most recently,\u00a0“The Photographer as Citizen,”<\/a> concerning the “subway death photo” and the ethics of photojournalism.<\/p>\n

Sprinkled in among those you’ll find posts on such diverse subjects as George Will’s position on street photography<\/a>;\u00a0a kiddie-porn case<\/a> in California; the stagnation of World Press Photo<\/a>; photography, art, and politics in China<\/a>; accounts of our experiences here on Staten Island<\/a> during and after Hurricane Sandy; and a “collaboreview” with Loring Knoblauch<\/a> of the blog\u00a0DLK Collection\u00a0of a Jeff Wall show in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

Overall, then, my usual smorgasbord of varied and sometimes odd obsessions and concerns prevailed.<\/p>\n

\"George

George Slade, 2008, by Marc Norberg<\/p><\/div>\n

Blog as Book<\/strong><\/p>\n

George Slade, who published a Guest Post<\/a> here on the Polaroid case several years ago, has just issued a year-end wrap-up titled “Good Reads – 2012”<\/a> at his own blog, re:photographica<\/a>. Amidst a dozen books he includes\u00a0Photographs Not Taken<\/em>, edited by Will Steacy, pairing it with Photocritic International<\/em> \u2014 the first time this blog’s been compared to a book.<\/p>\n

Slade writes: “The absence of realized images in the former and the dominance of considered ethics\/politics in the latter characterize these good reads. Although most photographers do better writing with light than with words, there must be something about the ‘ones that got away’ or were decided against that prompt eloquence. Coleman, for anyone who doesn’t know, is one of photography’s great agonistes. For over forty years he has served as a critic, in the truest sense of that word, on behalf of photography’s better angels. His observations will always stir feelings in me, whether my head is nodding in agreement or shaking in opposition.”<\/p>\n

Thanks for the encouraging words, George. A good note on which to wring out the old year and bring in the new.<\/p>\n

Coming in 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Liu

Liu Xia installation, Hong Kong Arts Centre, June 2012. Photo \u00a9 by A. D. Coleman.<\/p><\/div>\n

Preoccupation with curation and management of “The Silent Strength of Liu Xia,”<\/a> the touring exhibition of 26 photos by the dissident Chinese photographer, artist, and poet, also included design, publication, and content development of a substantial website for that project. That led to my putting various plans for this blog on hold.<\/p>\n

I have nothing else of that magnitude on the runway, so I’m returning to those ideas with renewed energy. The goals I announced for 2012<\/a>, most of which I did not fulfill, remain active and prioritized for 2013:<\/p>\n