On the Web: October 2004 Archives
The new issue of Web-based photo mag AK47.tv has been posted. Lots of good stuff, particularly Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin's South African series, "Mr Mkhize`s Portrait". Also, nice work from Fin Manford and R. Jerome Ferraro. Ferraro's protraits make me wonder how you get the gumption to ask your friends of the opposite sex "Mind if I take a picture of you in your underwear?"
Exactitudes® is a project by the Dutch team of photographer Ari Versluis and stylist Ellie Uyttenbroek purporting to catalog archtypical "modern tribes". Each archetype is represented by nine identically posed examples.
Don't forget that registered trademark!
There's a new Web-based photomag out on the Web, this time from Portugal. BZKmag comes in English and Portugeuse flavors. If you haven't had the chance to see Alex Soth's "Sleeping by the Missippi", they've replicated many of the show images in large images. Via flux & mutability.
Okay, the Art Blog Survey results are in. I haven't had time to analyze the results in detail, but I wanted to make a quick post relating some of high level findings. Nearly 200 people were kind enough to fill out the short survey, so thanks to all of you who did.
Of most personal interest, 12% of respondents said they visit Gallery Hopper daily or weekly. I'm hoping increased post frequency will boost that number since 34% said they were Very Interested in photography.
Probably the most striking result, for me at least, was that 54% of respondents identified themselves as a working art professional - museum, gallery, critic, working artist. I would have expected more students in the audience - only 5% of respondents.
While I didn't find it unusual to see that 89% of respondents had at least a 4-year degree, I was a little surprised to see the age range skewing higher, with 33% over 40. Not a single respondent was under 18, which is disappointing, but maybe not surprising.
As expected, there were several comments about the East Coast/American skew of the survey, which I expected. Yes, the publicization of the survey was made through primarily American blogs, most of which are based on the East Coast. That's a grain of salt to be taken with the results. 33% of respondents identified themselves as from the US Northeast and a whopping 77% are urban residents.
A few choice comments:
"I am disappointed with your inclusion of just "traditional fine art" blogs in this survey. Art includes contemporary craft and not just the monarchial NYC and LA art scenes." With this blog, at least, I'm trying to keep it local. That I live in NYC is an accident of history.
"Would love more info about emerging artists and smaller galleries."
"My biggest problem with most art blogs is that they don't post enough." I have been trying to pick up the pace around here, at least.
"Todd kicks ass." I wish I could believe you were talking about me, but I'm sure this comment was directed at Todd Gibson.
From the Floor has other, high-level results.
More to come...
Don't forget, you've only got until Sunday to fill out the Art Blogs Reader Survey created by Todd Gibson over at From the Floor. If you're a left-leaning anti-establishmentarian and don't want to fork over your personal info, check out Franklin Einspruch's fiery rant about an art blogging revolution over at artblog.net. Otherwise, launch that survey and start clicking radio buttons.
If you already filled it out, then, thank you.
It's been a while since I've been able to venture out to the galleries. Aiming to sneak away this weekend and see something. Perhaps that's why I have been stuck on short little posts. Not the case elsewhere.
Robert over at Coincidences has been burning up the keyboard with a variety of great posts on a whole slew of up-and-coming photographers, as well as discussing the mix of commercial and fine art sensibilities. Also a good post on the death (and life) of Richard Avedon, including links to the major obituaries.
Stacy Oborn's blog, the space between, has a nice post on Masahisa Fukase and how personal experiences are expressed through photographic themes. I had the opportunity to see some of Fukase's "ravens" pictures at the Victoria & Albert Museum in late 2001, unfortunately before I knew what I was looking at.
If you 've got a spare $6 million lying around and a serious jones for high risk, there's a daguerreotype of a young Ulysses S. Grant for auction on eBay that's waiting just for you. Starting bid is $6 million, so who knows how high it could go? No bids, yet, probably for good reason. The highest comparable sale I could find on Google was a collection of 250 early American prints by the team of Southworth & Hawes that was auctioned by Sotheby's for $3.3 million in 1999. I don't feel confident that this is actually the record for photography sales, so if you know of anything higher, leave a comment.
