January 2005 Archives

Studio Soussi portrait index, (Sidon, Lebanon), 100 pages, approximately 150 portraits on each page. Collection of the Arab Image Foundation.

From MAPPING SITTING. Currently on exhibit at the Grey Gallery at NYU.

"Conceived by contemporary artists Walid Raad and Akram Zaatari working with the archives of the Beirut-based Arab Image Foundation (AIF), Mapping Sitting explores how photographic portraits operated in the Arab world over the past century. Raad and Zaatari's projected and photographic installations on view in the exhibition highlight four distinct practices: 1) identity photos; 2) the Middle Eastern tradition of photo surprise; 3) itinerant photography; and 4) institutional group portrait photography. Collectively, the images convey the pluralistic and multifaceted communities captured by indigenous photographers—images far different from photos of the region circulating widely in the popular press today. In Mapping Sitting, Raad and Zaatari reveal how Arab portrait photography not only pictured individuals and groups, but also functioned as commodity, luxury item, and adornment. Concentrating on commercial images, the exhibition not only raises questions about portrait photography in the Middle East, but also about portraiture, photography, and visual culture in general."

See also, this book review by Kaelen Wilson-Goldie about "Behind the lens in Sidon: 50 years and 50,000 images"

San Francisco artist Chris Cobb imagined a library organized by color rather than genre, author or title. The alphabet gives way to a spectrum of light, and as a result, bookstore browsers discover color connections between mysteries and pulp and metaphysics, all on the same-hued shelf. At the Adobe Book Store in San Francisco's Mission District, (for a limited time, perhaps), you'll find used books by happenstance -- or affinity with warm or cool or hot pink book jackets.

Hamburger Eyes, a street-wise photo magazine from the West Coast, launched its Issue Number 8 with a gallery showing of 20 photographers and a jam-packed party. Here are some photos from the opening.

David Crawford has created an interesting Flash-based website montage of stop motion photographs of people traveling on subways in cities around the world. Perhaps the most hypnotic is Series #13, which combines "footage" from London, Paris, Boston, New York, and Tokyo into a roughly 7 minute animation.

According to the website: "Each installment's modular structure has provided a library of building blocks that have been edited into a linear animation approximately 7 minutes long. The algorithmic montage constituting each clip's DNA remains intact, while the individual sequences are now composited within a linear framework. The speed of the transitions is based on network connection speed."