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Delaney Allen, no title given, 2010. Ling Meng, no title given, 2010. Matthieu Lavanchy, no title or date given. Copyright the artists.

previously : o, oo, ooo 

Faith in Donkeys is the latest photography and video project from Portuguese photographer João Pedro Marnoto; an exhibition of photographs from the project is now on view at the Hard Club in Porto, Portugal. Each photograph in the series is a portrait of a donkey or mule, with their owners, standing in front of a white backdrop that Marnoto installs on site. Although unidimensional in format, the photographs are a gentle distillation of an important part of rural life in northern Portugal. By utilizing the formal portrait backdrop, which brings fashion photography to mind, Marnoto seeks to elevate his subjects beyond mere nostalgia or sentimentality, hopefully convincing viewers that the exhibition is more than (excuse the pun) a one trick pony.

Rural life and culture in the face of increasing globalization and urban migration is a recurring theme in Marnoto's photography; he has described his work as a representation of "a human relationship with nature and faith vanishing and confronted by new social, economic and political realities." Marnoto, and his non-profit organization MediaUtopia, also conducts participatory photography workshops throughout the country, most notably Entre Nos/Between Us (2009), now a book and documentary film.

Faith in Donkeys will be on view through August 2011 at the Hard Club, Mercado Ferreira Borges in Porto, Portugal

http://www.faithindonkeys.com/

http://www.jpmarnoto.com/en/

Appearing in the brand-new issue of Aperture Magazine (Fall 2011) is a tightly-edited interview between photographer-teachers John Pilson and Tod Papageorge on the subjects of photographic education, straight photography, picture-making, Brassai and Cartier-Bresson, among others. The text was culled from a 5+ hour conversation the two had with a limited number of students and colleagues present, on the occasion of the publication of Papageorge's Aperture book of essays, "Core Curriculum," which also happens to be at the beginning of this phased retirement after 32 years of teaching.

An excerpt:

JP: When I was a student, the big arguments revolved around "the politics of representation"; who you were and what you could say. There was an implied criticism of the Szarkowski tradition, that there were unasked questions in terms of the nature of the “gaze” and privileged positions.

TP: Again, it gets back to that moment that I saw those two Cartier-Bressons. To me, the picture was utterly fictitious. Of course, I’d be a fool not to agree that a photograph represents something in the world at a certain moment, that it is indexical to some degree. In fact, let’s say a large part of its paradoxical strength is because of that. Because we are looking at the world and, at the same time, a representation of it. That combined with my profound belief in the idea of Art and the idea of great poetry, great music, great photography, led me to be completely unconfused about what I consider side issues. Who cares about images of identity or questions of representation? We’re making art here. Art is “The leaf so short, the craft so longe to learne”—“the life so short, the craft so long to learn.” The game is for mortal stakes, as Frost put it. It isn’t for what somebody is going to think in ten years, or an art historian is going to think tomorrow. That was always my attitude. I’m not saying that I always have been and always will be completely right, although I believed it and still do. That gave me, I think, a certain kind of strength (maybe even some people might call it arrogance) in relation to what I felt were these sort of temporal or momentary questions.

The piece also includes several new and unseen older photos from the last few decades, alongside well-known images from Papageorge's oeuvre. Also included in the issue are interesting experimental works by Lois Conner (Tod's student from his first couple years teaching) and also disturbing, raw images by Rimaldas Viksraitis of rural Lithuania. This issue's a keeper, not desinted for the recycling bin.

This blog series is created by choosing a photograph by a photographer who's work I greatly appreciate, that photographer picks a photograph by another photographer, that photographer picks a photograph by another photographer, and so on until a chain of five photographs have been created. 

The structure is based on the book Poets Picking Poets published by McSweeney's in 2007. Applying this technique to photography and photographers, allowing them to choose their own tablemates, will surely spark some interesting visual conversations that will be diverse and surprising. 

Adam Golfer, Almine Rech - Brussels for W Magazine, 2008. Courtesy and copyright the artist.

Joe Leavenworth, Dad (Running), 2010. Courtesy and copyright the artist. 

Bryan Schutmaat, Ralph from the series "Grays the Mountain Sends", 2011. Courtesy and copyright the artist.

Debora Mittelstaedt, Sunset Park from the "New York" project, 2005. Courtesy and copyright the artist.

Cass Bird, Daria Werbowy for T Magazine, 2011. Copyright the artist and T Magazine. 

Previous : ppp1 > ppp2 

"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. "

Leonard Cohen

Marcel Musil, Icelandic Volcanoes, 2011. Pieter Hugo, from "Permanent Error", 2009-2011. Bea De Giacomo, from "Occulto", 2009. Copyright the artists.