The Easel

25th May 2021

Nan Goldin Gets Your P.A.I.N.

Christian Viveros - Faune | The Village Voice | 21st April 2021

“Flashbulb memory” characterises Goldin’s diaristic photography – a way of remembering what happened the night before. A “vast” show of new work draws not just on the drug-addled 1980’s but also on more recent photography. Her work blurs into her anti-opioid activism but this does not stop them adding significantly to “the requiem-like power” of her oeuvre. Showing the “wonder and untold dangers” of addiction is a “reason the camera was invented”.

Stephen Shore: “Photography Isn’t Very Good at Explaining”

Brigitte Ollier & Jonas Cuénin | Blind | 11th May 2021

Shore came to prominence with images of “what American culture looked like”. That led to a project photographing steelwork towns in the Rust Belt. The resultant series gave a face to large scale industrial decline and the “deaths of despair” that it brought. Shore’s acclaimed deadpan aesthetic captures a sense of sadness among the affected workers who “seem to question the photographer, as if in the hope of a miracle solution”. More images are here.

18th May 2021

Atget’s Paris in Sepia

Laure Etienne | Blind | 12th May 2021

When Baron Haussmann set to remodeling Paris, Atget set to recording the small streets and passageways that were disappearing. His impersonal documentary style showed urban life in an unmistakably modern way. Yet he also showed a way to express “poetry [that] was forged from attention to detail”. Street photography is but one area that reflects his immense influence. Background on Atget is here.

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