10 Photos, 1880

1. Diane Arbus, Germaine Greer, 1971

It seems a secret, these two fearless women in a hotel room in new york, sharing news about the oncoming revoultion, almost snapshotty, intimate, and not grotesque at all, Greer claimed later to hate the work, and consider the sittings deeply problematic, apparently she straddled greer, but the best thing about it, was that they werent vain. (and a lot of the arbus shots of later freaks, were vain)

2. Seydou Keita, Two Great Ladies, 1958.

Its the riot of pattern, the elephant dishkis, the almost paisley background, more then the post colonial slippages that are found in other work.

3. Louise Lawler, You Could Hear a Rat Piss on Cotton # Charlie Parker, 1987
Its emptiness, i think, mostly.

4. Helen Levitt, Button to Secret Passage, 1938.
Its a joke, and a kids joke at that, but it says more then the secret life of cities then most of debord.

5. F Holland Day Into thy hands I commend my spirit., 1898
Performance, Obsession, discreet rituals done in private for later public consmuption, spectacle, masochism, and homoerotic bodies--its ths 80s shock troops, done 90 years earlier (seriously, much of that list is what photography turned out to be, his images are profoundly moving, i think because they are prophetic)

6. Dora Marr, Pere Ubu, 1936
its the fetus of an armodillo, strange and cute, domestic and terryfing, and the print is so crisp, you can see every scale and every hair.

7. Gillian Wearing, I'm Despeate, 1992
the photograph is the eye to the soul, visual and writen language are intractable, people lie even when they are telling the truth, a series of visual cliches made simple and elegantly subversive

8) Eugène Atget, Hotel de Roquelaure, 1905
its luxurious, so its well loved by the fashion crew, but i love it because of that black chair, the observation of emptiness, and also because i wonder what people thot when he was taking it.

9) Araki, Polaroid, 1997
the warhol isntinct remade as an erotic phatasia of western taste and japanese politics.

10) Steiglietz, O Keefes Hands and Thimble, 1937
Techincally its his best work, and more intimate then the many nudes, the domesticity, i think is what does it.

photos upcoming
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