#To Look Without Fear

[lvdbbooks]

2023年6月2日

【新入荷・新本】

Wolfgang Tillmans To Look Without Fear, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), 2022

Hardcover. 320 pages. 245 x 310 mm. Color.

価格：12,980円（税込）

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現代美術界で重要な賞の一つである「ターナー賞」を2000年に受賞し、ロンドンとドイツを拠点として活動するドイツ人フォトグラファー、ヴォルフガング・ティルマンス（Wolfgang Tillmans）の作品集。2022年9月から2023年1月にかけて「ニューヨーク近代美術館（MoMA）」で開催された展覧会に伴い刊行、その後も2024年まで各地を巡回する。本書は、写真、インスタレーション、印刷メディア、映像作品などを網羅しており、作者の幅広いキャリ���を知る上で最も包括的な1冊になっている。

ビジョナリーなクリエイターかつ総合芸術家である作者は、形式的な創意工夫と、今日最も差し迫った問題に取り組む倫理的な方向性とを結びつけている。その作品は単一的なの芸術分野の枠を超えているが、最もよく知られているのは、幅広い写真作品である。社会的な運動を痛烈に記録したものから窓辺の静物、ナイトライフの恍惚としたイメージからカメラを使わない抽象写真、繊細なポートレートから建築研究、天体現象から親密なヌードまで、考えられる限りあらゆるジャンルの写真を探求し、新しい写真の作り方と鑑賞者の経験を深める方法を常に試行している。作者にとって過去最大規模となる回顧展に合わせて出版された本書は、40年にわたる作者のキャリアを豊富な図版で紹介している。豪華な執筆陣が、作者の多面的な活動を紹介する多様なエッセイを書き下ろしているほか、作者自身によって著された新しいテキストでは、写真表現における独特の方法論が明らかにされている。本書は、写真の展示方法の形式を変えただけでなく、現代アートを新たな方向性へ示した作者の作品に新たな洞察を与える。

（twelvebooksによる本書紹介文）

Encompassing photography, installation, print media, video and more, this publication is the most comprehensive account of Tillmans’ wide-ranging career to date

A visionary creator and intrepid polymath, Wolfgang Tillmans unites formal inventiveness with an ethical orientation that attends to the most pressing issues of life today. While his work transcends the bounds of any single artistic discipline, he is best known for his wide-ranging photographic output. From trenchant documents of social movements to windowsill still lifes, ecstatic images of nightlife to cameraless abstractions, sensitive portraits to architectural studies, astronomical phenomena to intimate nudes, he has explored seemingly every genre of photography imaginable, continually experimenting with how to make new pictures and deepen the viewer’s experience.

Published in conjunction with a major exhibition of Tillmans’ work at the Museum of Modern Art, this copiously illustrated volume surveys four decades of the artist’s career. An outstanding group of writers offer diverse essays addressing key threads of his multifaceted practice, and a new text by Tillmans himself elucidates the distinctive methodology behind his system of presenting photographs. Wolfgang Tillmans: To look without fear grants readers new insight into the work of an artist who has not only changed the way photography is exhibited but pointed contemporary art in dynamic new directions.

[genericpuff]

Tbh at this point you should just make your own webcomic app/website because it would probably be 100 times better than whatever going on with webtoon right now.

hahaha it wouldn't tho, sorry 💀

Here's the fundamental issue with webcomic platforms that a lot of people just don't realize (and why they're so difficult to run successfully):

Storage costs are incredibly expensive, it's why so many sites have limitations on file sizes / page sizes / etc. because all of those images and site info have to be stored somewhere, which costs $$$.

Maintenance costs are expensive and get more so as you grow, you need people who are capable of fixing bugs ASAP and managing the servers and site itself

Financially speaking, webcomics are in a state of high supply, low demand. Loads of artists are willing to create their passion projects, but getting people to read them and pay for them is a whole other issue. Demand is high in the general sense that once people get attached to a webtoon they'll demand more, but many people aren't actually willing to go looking for new stuff to read and depend more on what sites feed them (and what they already like). There are a lot of comics to go around and thus a lot of competition with a limited audience of people willing to actually pay for them.

Trying to build a new platform from the ground up is incredibly difficult and a majority of sites fail within their first year. Not only do you have to convince artists to take a chance on your platform, you have to convince readers to come. Readers won't come if there isn't work on the platform to read, but artists won't come if they don't think the site will be worth it due to low traffic numbers. This is why the artists with large followings who are willing to take chances on the smaller sites are crucial, but that's only if you can convince them to use the site in favor of (or alongside) whatever platform they're using already where the majority of their audience lies. For many creators it's just not worth the time, energy, or risk.

Even if you find short-term success, in the long-term there are always going to be profit margins to maintain. The more users you pull in, the more storage is used by incoming artists, the more you have to spend on storage and server maintenance costs, and that means either taking the risk at crowdfunding (ex. ComicFury) or having to resort to outsider investments (ex. Tapas). Look at SmackJeeves, it used to be a titan in the independent webcomic hosting community, until it folded over to a buyout by NHN and then was pretty much immediately shuttered due to NHN basically turning it into a manwha scanlation site and driving away its entire userbase. And if you don't get bought out and try your hand at crowdfunding, you may just wind up living on a lifeline that could cut out at any moment, like what happened to Inkblazers (fun fact, the death of Inkblazers was what kicked off the cultural shift in Tapas around 2015-16 when all of IB's users migrated over and brought their work with them which was more aimed towards the BL and romancee drama community, rather than the comedy / gag-a-day culture that Tapas had made itself known for... now you deadass can't tell Tapas apart from a lot of scanlation sites because it got bought out by Kakao and kept putting all of its eggs into the isekai/romance drama basket.)

Right now the mindset in which artists and readers are operating is that they're trying way, way too hard to find a "one size fits all" site. Readers want a place where they can find all their favorite webtoons without much effort, artists wants a place where they can post to an audience of thousands, and both sides want a community that will feel tight-knit. But the reality is that you can't really have all three of those things, not on one site. Something always winds up having to be sacrificed - if a site grows big enough, it'll have to start seeking more funding while also cutting costs which will result in features becoming paywall'd, intrusive ads, creators losing their freedom, and/or outsider support which often results in the platform losing its core identity and alienating its tight-knit community.

If I had to describe what I'm talking about in a "pick one" graphic, it would look something like this:

(*note: this is mostly based on my own observations from using all of these sites at some point or another, they're not necessarily entirely accurate to the statistical performance of each site, I can only glean so much from experience and traffic trackers LMAO that said I did ask some comic pals for input and they were very helpful in helping me adjust it with their own takes <3).

The homogenization of the Internet has really whipped people into submission for the "big sites" that offer "everything", but that's never been the Internet, it relies on being multi-faceted and offering different spaces for different purposes. And we're seeing that ideology falter through the enshittification of sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. where users are at odds with the platforms because the platforms are gutting features in an attempt to satisfy shareholders whom without the platforms would not exist. Like, most of us aren't paying money to use social media sites / comic platform sites, so where else are they gonna make the necessary funds to keep these sites running? Selling ad space and locking features behind paywalls.

And this is especially true for a lot of budding sites that don't have the audience to support them via crowdfunding but also don't have the leverage to ask for investments - so unless they get really REALLY lucky in EITHER of those departments, they're gonna be operating at a loss, and even once they do achieve either of those things there are gonna be issues in the site's longevity, whether it be dying from lack of growing crowdfunding support or dying from shareholder meddling.

So what can we do?

We can learn how to take our independence back. We don't have to stop using these big platforms altogether as they do have things to offer in their own way, particularly their large audience sizes and dipping into other demographics that might not be reachable from certain sites - but we gotta learn that no single site is going to satisfy every wish we have and we have to be willing to learn the skills necessary to running our own spaces again. Pick up HTML/CSS, get to know other people who know HTML/CSS if you can't grasp it (it's me, I can't grasp it LOL), be willing to take a chance on those "smaller sites" and don't write them off entirely as spaces that can be beneficial to you just because they don't have large numbers or because they don't offer rewards programs. And if you have a really polished piece of work in your hands, look into agencies and publishing houses that specialize in indie comics / graphic novels, don't settle for the first Originals contract that gets sent your way.

For the last decade corporations have been convincing us that our worth is tied to the eyes we can bring to them. Instead of serving ourselves, we've begun serving the big guys, insisting that it has to be worth something eventually and that it'll "payoff" simply by the virtue of gambler's fallacy. Ask yourself what site is right for you and your work rather than asking yourself if your work is good enough for them. Most of us are broke trying to make it work on these sites anyways, may as well be broke and fulfilled by posting in places that actually suit us and our work if we can. Don't define your success by what sites like Webtoons are enforcing - that definition only benefits them, not you.

[platoapproved]

The building had been crawling with gentle humans who noticed not a thing as they’d stolen the clothes they now wore, uniforms of the young, and left by a broken door into an alley. Not my brothers and sisters anymore. — QUEEN OF THE DAMNED

[toughbunnyforever]

rubber boy

[claraoswalds]

#mrs flood who are you: time lord edition

[uncanny-tranny]

Something I love that some trans people do is talk about their pre-transition selves with no context as to their transition.

Like, if a trans woman talks about her past by saying, "when I was in Boy Scouts..." and never elaborates that she's trans and that there was a time where she was a boy scout. I just think that kind of normalization is great (and honestly, it can be funny when others are like "a GIRL in the BOY scouts?????? My life is changed")

[zu-is-here]

* A serrade petit cat appears! (ò_ó")

[kenziezie]

VILE piece for today (i do not own a blender i apologize if it looks whack)

also i'm editing this, i did not realize this was whump until i was told it was whump, so be aware you will see more of this!! i'm sorry if this is too intense for some people ;v;

[mueritos]

a little strange to get dms from other trans people saying they agree with biden's dumb statemet that he doesnt want minors getting gender-affirming care. if you really think its such an epidemic that 13 year olds are getting their knockers blown off by surgeons every other day, then please point me in the direction of said 13 year olds that are somehow accessing gender-affirming care that literal trans adults can't even access.

like please be fr. we literally have privatized healthcare and insurance where not even people who go through the appropriate avenues can get approved for care they need to stay alive. what makes you think a trans minor is getting phallo or vaginalplasty. feel whatever you want about 13 year olds who want gender-affirming care, but dont parrot transphobic rhetoric that is based on no facts and a moral panic. they second they legitimize barriers to care for trans minors is the second they start finding ways to do the same for trans adults. dont be a buffoon.

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 3 - Monstropolis

[forbiddentaako]

wish they got an excuse to dress up fancy in the show but alas I guess I have to draw that myself

gotta draw charlie next to match her girlfriend

[toxi-works-at-culvers]

raglan

[feltcreature]

family:)

[fedoraspooky]

Somehow I managed to make it through Ghost Trick completely unspoiled, and while looking back there were hints all throughout... MAN, there was no way I could have possibly guessed how that was going to end.

[londyboobs]

mariejordan + falling in love through glances

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

I may be going insane