Reading at a Table. Pablo Picasso, 1934 When word gets out the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the most significant repositories of art in the world, releases 400,000 images into the digital wild it's hard not to go have a look to see what bookish goodness awaits. Our first trip brings us a hardy selection of work from Durer to Picasso. Stay tuned for more gems from the collection and our hats are off to the powers that be for releasing such a treasure trove of material. Enjoy! [caption id="attachment_4876" align="aligncenter" width="534"] "Alberti Dvreri pictoris et architecti praestantissimi De vrbibvs..."...
Literally: The English Bookseller Captured
The series Literally by UK photographer Steve Kenward takes him inside the bookshops of England to capture the bookseller in their lair. He says of the project: Independent bookshops are great places to spend time in. These portraits are some of the lovely people who can help you find something special. You really can't beat the smell of fresh ink in a new hardback or the excitement on discovering a copy of that out of print classic. So next time you are passing a bookshop, pop in. You might be surprised what you find. I am glad he didn't call the project Endangered...
Walker Evans visits the New York Public Library
In 1949 noted photographer Walker Evans visited the New York Library and began shooting. When he was done 68 images where in the bag. Now thanks to the recent release of a treasure trove of hundreds of thousands of digital images from the Metropolitan Museum of Art we get a front seat. The library acquired Walker Evans archive in 1994. See the entire shoot here: Walker Evans | [68 Views of New Y rk Public Library...The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Nadine Gordimer: Icon
As part of his series 21 ICONS South Africa filmmaker and photographer Adrian Steirn pays homage to Nobel prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer. She is the first artist to be included in the series and his "Alice in Wonderland" portrait celebrates her "profound love of books and writing' by having her sit atop life-size copies of some of her books and if you ever wondered where Gordimer stands on going to school to learn how to write: “Read and write. Don’t go to creative writing class. You can’t be taught to write. You can be taught to be a good journalist, but you cannot...
Chris Jordan : “Edge-walking the lines between art and activism”
[caption id="attachment_4195" align="aligncenter" width="555"] E Pluribus Unum, 2010, image via Yes![/caption] It's hard not to appreciate the work of Chris Jordan. His work Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American Mass Consumption (2003 - 2005) and his ongoing series, Midway: Message from the Gyre (2009 - Current) give us some of the most haunting visuals of the new century and are a stark reminder of our distance to the precipice. Here's a look at some other of his works that lean our way: E Pluribus Unum (pictured above): a 24 feet square, composed of aluminum panels laser etched with the names of "one million organizations around the world...