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Book Review – Steel Town by Stephen Shore – MACK Books
Photo Book Review – Steel Town by Stephen Shore – MACK Books The first time I met Stephen Shore was in 2019 at Photo London, but I have known and been influenced by his work for far longer. At Photo London (during the Press Event) Shore was interviewed, alongside my friend Mary McCartney (daughter of Paul) by William A Ewing. Shore’s bestseller by MackBooks entitled Steel Town combines a series of images that he took in 1977 when he travelled across New York state, Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio – the latter amid industrial decline and soon to be known as the Rust Belt.
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Photo Book Review – Pictures from Home by Larry Sultan
Photo Book Review – Pictures from Home by Larry Sultan The work was “about family history and the American dream, and how those two intersect,” Larry Sultan told The Times in 1989. “My father bought a one-way ticket from New York in 1949 and ended up in a dream house in Sherman Oaks. It was part of the cultural myth of the ‘50s about going west.” Larry Sultan was born in Brooklyn on 13 July 1946, but he primarily grew up in Los Angeles, California and graduated college with a degree in Political Science at UCLA and UCSB. He began photographing in 1968, for the Chicago Seed and the Good…
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Book Review: Painting Photography Painting by Carol Armstrong
Book Review: Painting Photography Painting by Carol Armstrong Painting Photography Painting: Selected Essays by Carol Armstrong, published by Mack Books in 2023, is an ambitious collection of essays that delves into the intersections of visual art forms, specifically painting and photography. This compilation represents Armstrong’s decades-long engagement with art history, feminist theory, and critical analysis of visual culture, making it an illuminating read for both art enthusiasts and academic audiences. Painting Photography Painting: Selected Essays All images – Courtesy of the artist and MACK. The Essence of Artistic Inquiry At the heart of Armstrong’s essays lies a compelling question: what defines a medium? This query is vividly explored in the…
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Ray’s a Laugh: A Human Portrait Through Time – Book Review
Ray’s a Laugh: A Human Portrait Through Time – Book Review Richard Billingham’s Ray’s a Laugh has long been hailed as one of the most significant works in contemporary photography. Initially published in the mid-1990s, the photobook offered a brutally honest and raw portrayal of Billingham’s family, particularly his father, Ray, and his mother, Liz, in their cluttered, working-class Birmingham flat. In 2024, Mack Books reissued this iconic work, recontextualizing the original images while expanding the narrative to offer new depth and understanding of the family dynamics. The 2024 edition, referred to as Billingham’s “director’s cut,” expands on the original, offering a more comprehensive collection of images alongside a more…
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Book Review – Pictures from Home by Larry Sultan
The work was “about family history and the American dream, and how those two intersect,” Larry Sultan told The Times in 1989. “My father bought a one-way ticket from New York in 1949 and ended up in a dream house in Sherman Oaks. It was part of the cultural myth of the ‘50s about going west.” Larry Sultan was born in Brooklyn on 13 July 1946, but he primarily grew up in Los Angeles, California and graduated college with a degree in Political Science at UCLA and UCSB. He began photographing in 1968, for the Chicago Seed and the Good Times. “It was the psychedelic culture and photographing rallies and…
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Book Review – Steel Town by Stephen Shore – MACK Books
The first time I met Stephen Shore was in 2019 at Photo London, but I have known and been influenced by his work for far longer. At Photo London (during the Press Event) Shore was interviewed, alongside my friend Mary McCartney (daughter of Paul) by William A Ewing. Shore’s latest release by Mack Books entitled Steel Town combines a series of images that he took in 1977 when he travelled across New York state, Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio – the latter in the midst of industrial decline and soon to be known as the Rust Belt.
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Exhibitions, Books, Films, Food and Drink – Incredible Things To Do This July
We’ll be adding to this wonderful list of cultural things to do throughout July 2021 so keep checking back. In this list you’ll find book signings to visit, exhibitions to attend in person or online and many other things to do. If all else fails, there’s always one more week to go of Wimbledon 2021, enjoy!
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Art Isn’t Fair – An Allan Sekula Forum
Celebrating the launch of Allan Sekula, Art Isn’t Fair: Further Essays on the Traffic in Photographs and Related Media, enjoy this video for a deep dive into Sekula’s groundbreaking critical work between image, text, and video and its incisive commentary on art, politics, and capital. With Makeda Djata Best, David Campany, and Chantal Pontbriand, Stephanie Schwartz, Billy Woodberry, and Sally Stein, it’s wonderful and by one of my favourite publishers, Mack. Please help… TheAppWhisperer has always had a dual mission: to promote the most talented mobile artists of the day and to support ambitious, inquisitive viewers the world over. As the years pass TheAppWhisperer has gained readers and viewers and found new venues…
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Book Review – Portraits and Dreams by Wendy Ewald
Photographer Wendy Ewald is a community based practitioner who has worked on collaborative photographic projects with children for more than fifty years. Within her newly republished and updated book Portraits and Dreams, it is immediately apparent that we are not just viewing images of children, we are actually getting to meet them. Ewald has the inert ability to treat children with profound tenderness, nurturing their fragile self esteem, enabling them to realise a range and depth to their imagery that originally would not have seemed possible. This book is rich in humanity. Each child shares not only their dreams and sometimes their fears, by creating portraiture of themselves in some…
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A Visual Tour of Alec Soth’s Bookshelf
If you’re anything like me, you will have read more books than had hot dinners, the former was always a priority. Alec Soth (of whom I am a huge fan) is not too different. In this unqiue video he gives shares a tour of his bookcase, it’s truly original, enjoy! Alec Soth (b. 1969) is a photographer born and based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His work is rooted in the distinctly American tradition of ‘on-the-road photography’ developed by photographers like Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and Stephen Shore. Concerned with the mythologies and oddities that proliferate America’s disconnected communities, Soth has an instinct for the relationship between narrative and metaphor. His clarity…
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