A quick introduction post since while @kukkurovaca is sort of driving this blog, part of the point here is that @kalli and I will be going in whatever direction we feel like as well. For my part, I tend to try and write about photography by referencing how it fits in with history in general as well as non-photographic art media.
I love seeing museum exhibitions where photography, paintings, sculpture, etc. are in the same room, in conversation with each other. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually seen this. Which means I’m always on the lookout to post anything which can do this—e.g. comparing Duchamp’s Fountain to Weston’s Excusado and realizing how much they had in common (beyond just subject matter) in exploring the forms and textures of the mechanical age.
The same goes with history. @kukkurovaca and I are both constantly annoyed by how so many of the same arguments about photography come up over and over again without any awareness of how similar things have been written decades or centuries ago. We’ll both be trying to add some of that historical perspective here., even if it means referencing Baldessari’s Wrong over and over and over again.
Most of my big posts here will be crossposts from NJWV and, as a result, contain a number of links to previous material I’ve written there. I will have smaller Hairy Beast-specific posts. I may also have more personal photography posts on NJWV—plus all the other random non-photography stuff I write about—which will not appear here.