Warhol’s art. He thought “the true substance of photography is the shadow cast by and on its subject. This was the essence of his major innovation, which still reverberates today: the reciprocity between painting and printing. The sheer graphic power of the silkscreen image … confers on any subject a drama of light and shadow, an urgent aesthetic bounty grounded in the photographic now.”
Brassaï and Stettner both cut their artistic teeth on street photography but from there they diverged. Brassaï avoided improvisation where he could, sometimes giving his images a “frozen” quality. Stettner, whom Brassaï mentored, was all spontaneity. His sympathetic images of New York commuters combine “theatrical composition and voyeuristic opportunism”.
A fine essay on Mapplethorpe’s art. “Was he an art-world dandy who used sexual imagery to boost his brand? Or was he using his exceptional technical skills to give pornography the sheen of high art? Neither was the case. [He saw] desire as inherently dignified and, as such, nothing to be confined to dark spaces or behind closed doors.”