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RIP the great Rosalind Fox Solomon, go to the Center for Creative Photography Arizona to see a large selection of her archive.

Rosalind Fox Solomon, Portraits in the Time of AIDS, 1988

Solomon’s portraits during the plague are harrowing, empathetic, confusing, of the moment and timeless. The exhibit is in New York at Bruce Silverstein until August 2.

One of our greatest living photographers; Solomon’s body of work is evidence that intelligent documentary portraits, without conceptual novelties, will always remain one of photography’s primary modes. A wide collection of Solomon’s work is hosted at the Center for Creative Photography site.

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Diane Arbus, contact sheet with Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C, 1962

Interestingly, a search doesn't turn this up on Tumblr. When the "Revelations" exhibit opened at the SFMOMA in 2003, this contact sheet was on display and the San Francisco Chronicle ran a profile of the boy in the photo. For more background, there's a wiki entry and the contact sheet in the "Revelations" book (archive.org with login).

For Arbus detractors this is evidence that she's showing a subject in an unflattering split-second with a demonic expression. I'm in the opposite camp - the contact sheet shows Arbus working with a subject and then plucking the most interesting photograph. Arbus isn't assembling a "freak show" (Sontag), but instead allowing people to show their freak.

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Verso side of Diane Arbus photographs sold at Christies:

Identical twins, (Cathleen and Colleen), Roselle, New Jersey, 1966 ($1,197,000, 14 May 2024)

Identical twins, (Cathleen and Colleen), Roselle, New Jersey, 1966 ($630,000, 27 Feb 2025)

Mr. Peanut in Times Square, N.Y. C., 1956 ($75,600)

Young couple on a bench in Washington Square Park, N.Y.C., 1965 ($13,860)

Triplets in their bedroom, NJ, 1963 ($40,320)

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"I was twelve when Diane Arbus photographed me for Town and Country magazine in 1962. I liked her, but she really took her time over the shoot, about three hours! I felt really cornered and desperate by the end . However in the portrait she managed to capture some of the unease and ambivalence I had been feeling about growing up in a gilded cage." - Penelope Tree's instagram

Penelope Tree in her Living Room, New York City, Photo by Diane Arbus, 1962

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Diane Arbus, Marcel Duchamp and his wife, Alexina Sattler, at home, N.Y.C. 1965

Neil Selkirk, Don DeLillo, n.d.

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LaToya Ruby Frazier, Momme Silhouettes, 2010

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The Crowded Vacancy: Three Los Angeles Photographers

A review of the 1971 exhibit in Artforum.  Photos by Mausoleum Books, which notes 700 copies of the book were printed.

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Masahisa Fukase

- From Window

1973

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It's impressive how many people I follow from the classic Tumblr era who are still doing it. Yes, I'm an old web 1.0 guy, but blogging is the high point of the internet. Everything that came after, social media, apps on the hand computer and now AI has been much better for business, but with hindsight highly corrosive. Like a food pyramid, a base of writing, still images and then a dash of audio/video will be proven to be the best way to communicate.

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Nan Goldin has released two prints for two weeks to raise money for three institutions working on trans justice.

image: Nan Goldin, Jimmy Paulette at Wigstock, 1991, 5x7 in., signed, open edition via Leslie Lohman Museum.

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Gary is on instagram and posting photos from the protests this week. Background on the Barbara Kruger work you may have seen in the background of photos this week (and also in 1992).

Gary Leonard | 1st & Alameda, Downtown Los Angeles | 1992

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Catherine Opie, Mariela's Tacos/Uprising, 1992

Most recent Apple Maps view of Mariela' Tacos, in the same location 33 years after Opie's photo was taken.

Opie's show at Regen Projects last year (review / artist's walk through) featured several photographs made during the 1992 uprising, when the National Guard was called out to quell actual violence. 63 people were killed and thousands injured. It would be nearly impossible to find anyone here who experienced the summer of 2020, let alone 1992, who believe the National Guard or Marines were needed in Los Angeles this week.

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unknown, [printing Lynn News], 1853

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Diane Arbus, Albino sword swallower at a carnival, Md. 1970

Reminder (mainly to myself) if you are in the Los Angeles area, you'll want to go see the exhibit, "Cataclysm: The 1972 Diane Arbus Retrospective Revisited" at Zwirner. It recreates the 1972 MOMA retrospective with 113 prints. If you've mainly seen Arbus on the screen or even book, the handcrafted prints bring you into the details like the sword swallower's clothing, bringing the focus from the overall crucifixion composition to the the texture of the tent fabric and her hand pressing into it.

Question: is the vignetting on this photo (and others) the lens hood on her Mamiya C, or a filter she was using?

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William Gedney, San Francisco, 1966

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Arnold Genthe.  Michio Ito pupils, 1921.