Category Archives: Politics

Banham on landscape and legacy

November 23, 2012

“We have become so paranoid about our capacity to spoil and despoil that we are unwilling to look with honest eyes at what we have wrought upon our deserts, especially those almost domestic deserts of the Southwest that were once… Continue reading →

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Berger on the narrative gap

November 23, 2012

“Between the experience of living a normal life at this moment on the planet and the public narratives being offered to give a sense of that life, the empty space, the gap is enormous. The desolation lies, lies there, not… Continue reading →

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From “The Country Without a Post Office”, by Agha Shahid Ali

November 3, 2012

Again I’ve returned to this country where a minaret has been entombed. Someone soaks the wicks of clay lamps in mustard oil, each night climbs its steps to read messages scratched on planets. His fingerprints cancel blank stamps in that… Continue reading →

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Azoulay on Citizenship & Photography

September 16, 2012
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Rineke Dijkstra, Rebecca Solnit & Iceberg Economies

May 25, 2012

Photograph © Rineke Dijkstra, from Portraits. “Tecla, Amsterdam, Netherlands, May 16th 1994“ “The official economic arrangements and the laws that enforce them ensure that hungry and homeless people will be plentiful amid plenty. The shadow system provides soup kitchens, food… Continue reading →

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Berger on The Suit and the Photograph

May 25, 2012

“The suit, as we know it today, developed in Europe as a professional ruling-class costume in the last third of the 19th century. Almost anonymous as a uniform, it was the first ruling-class costume to idealise purely sedentary power. The… Continue reading →

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One off: Ariella Azoulay.

May 25, 2012

“My mother wouldn’t allow me to go to the beach on Fridays. That’s the day the Arabs go. “They go with their clothes on,” she muttered. Ever since, I’ve carried around in my head an image of Arabs half-submerged in… Continue reading →

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Berger on Art

April 6, 2012

“Art is neither value-free nor an independent source of values; to one extent or another, it always reflects the needs, politics, intellectual and aesthetic priorities, and tastes of the artist, the institutions that support and disseminate his or her work,… Continue reading →

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Piper on Political Art

April 6, 2012

“Motivated by self-censorship, and by the strategic understanding that making explicitly political art lessens the chances and the magnitude of professional success, this kind of implicitly political art is an expression of imprisonment within the bounds of political conflict, rather… Continue reading →

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One off: Ryszard Kapuściński.

April 6, 2012

Photograph 3 Whoever scrutinizes this photo of father and son, taken in 1926, will understand a lot. The father is forty-eight and the son seven. The contrast between them is striking in every respect: The huge, powerful Shah-father stands sulkily,… Continue reading →

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