Berenice Abbott, Interference of Waves, 1958-61
From Photograph magazine:
To explain wave phenomenon, Abbott adapted photogram techniques she had learned as Man Ray’s assistant in the 1920s. Combining a glass-bottomed ripple tank with an overhead flash, she projected shadows of oscillating waves onto unexposed photographic paper. The strong graphic black-and-white lines in Wave Pattern with Glass Plate lucidly reveal how energy pulses through water.
So often in the debate on climate change and global warming, the focus leans so heavily on the debate aspect, the issue itself takes a back seat. No matter the degree to which one believes in the human impact on the environment, we should be able to find some common ground in the idea that we have some impact and should take care with how we do it, even if many are not willing to completely change their individual lifestyles and economic choices.
Recently featured on the New York Times’ Dot Earth blog, this video, illustrated and animated on a whiteboard by artist between the scientists Peter C. Frumhoff and Kerry Emanuel on the subject of finding common political ground in the landscape of sustainability in society. In fact, the discussion itself took inspiration from an earlier post by the author on the same blog. It all came around full circle recently when the two scientists, one a Democrat and the other a Republican, joined forces for the Union of Concerned Scientists with their simple proposal for the video. Their concept is simply that environmental measures have the greatest chance of succeeding when they make good sense both economically and environmentally. But the rest is best summed up in the video itself. Watch below:
The temperatures have turned frigid here on the East coast and that means a lot of people (including me) are planning their winter getaways. Here are a few East Coast brands, recommended via Foam Magazine, to help get you inspired. I will say that my Salt bag is my favorite for overnight trips and that the hand-poured, organic wax from East is one of my new go-tos. To quote a stranger I gave a bar to in Ventura, “this stuff is the jam.”
—via Foam Magazine
St. Nicholas Ave. South, from 146th Street, circa 1910, Karl Struss, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery
New York gallery owner Howard Greenberg has made his remarkable private photography collection available to the public at the Henri Cartier Bresson Foundation, in Paris. In the 60’s Greenberg began collecting photographs by the thousands. Late in the 70’s he established the non-profit about his fascinating background and story on their photography blog, LENS. (more…)
Andy Warhol, San Diego Surf, 1968/1996. © 2012 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, a museum of Carnegie Institute. All rights reserved
As previously reported on the Harmony Blog, MoMA is screening Warhol’s San Diego Surf…this week! From January 23–28, 2013.
Also of note: Amy Taubin reviewed the film in the January issue of Artforum.
Gary Beydler. 20 Minutes in April. 1976. Chromogenic color print, 13 5/8 x 18 3/4"
As a device, the mirror beckons a panoply of critical formulations. A mirror can be seen as the symbol of vanity (the Narcissus myth), the site of the ego’s formation (Jacques Lacan’s mirror stage), or the mind of the perfect man (Chuang Tzu), to name just a few famous metaphors. But none of these feels particularly pertinent to the experience of Beydler’s mirror pieces, in which the mirror is never used to show the physical means of production (the camera itself) or the audience (which would require an actual mirror in the screening space). Instead, Beydler’s mirror is a structuring device used to create a double picture, a picture within the picture. The internal picture in the mirror acts as a counterbalance to the otherwise powerful illusionism of cinema, reminding us palpably that we are being shown a place that we cannot fully enter into. This internal space is chronologically synchronous with the larger frame, but spatially set apart from it.
–Benjamin Lord on Beydler’s work in X-TRA. Read on.
The newest issue (No. 14) of the magazine Acne Paper is a tribute to creative culture throughout Manhattan’s recent history, with nostalgic black and white portraits of the borough’s streets, and the many now-famous writers, painters, performers, and artists of all types who have filled them and been inspired by them. Of course, the magazine takes a heavy lean toward the fashion side of things as well, since the clothing and the style of the times are an inseparable counterpart to the city itself. The issue features contemporary interviews and portraits of those who have long been associated with Manhattan and its institutions, from The New Yorker and its covers to off-Broadway theater groups and their playwrights.
The nostalgic bend of the issue can be seen in its prominently-featured classic black-and-white portraits of creative heroes taken by Brigitte Lacombe, and at the heart of the magazine is a collection of vintage photographs from New York’s classic Kodachrome era, by the photographer Saul Leiter. And the topic of Manhattan could certainly not be complete without a look into nine widely varying apartments, each in different neighborhoods. What the magazine (and borough) lacks in space for the up and coming artists, it makes up for in a bounty of inspirational source material for the next generation to take it over. Despite the current difficulty for most young creative people to reside within its confines, as long as Manhattan’s mythology and mystique continues to draw the attention so many people like those featured here, it will certainly never cease to be a center of creativity and culture.
Maine in December. Photo: LaVecchia
Here in New York, we are still months away from summer. But what the winter lacks in weather, it makes up for in waves, as evidenced by this new portfolio and video (make sure you watch it! It’s so good!) of Mikey DeTemple in Maine. Enjoy!
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