Notes on Portraiture in the Facebook Age

No need for bottled water

Bottled Water
Via: Ally Trigg

Color changes things

ladyworkers
Women workers employed as wipers in the roundhouse having lunch in their rest room, Chicago and Northwest Railway Company. Clinton, Iowa, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress


Back in 2006, the Library of Congress organized an exhibition titled  Bound for Glory: America in Color that showcased little-known color images taken by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI).

Made from color transparencies taken between 1939 and 1943, these images change the way we see the past.  I mean, there’s just so much more color.  As silly as that seems to say, it makes these photos intimate and relate-able in a way that I haven’t felt before.  The black and white images of this era neutralize the bright colors and patterns in the clothing, signs, and wallpaper.  It makes it seem like this time wasn’t so long ago.

The photographs depict the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations, the beginning of the nation’s subsequent economic recovery and industrial growth, and the country’s great mobilization for World War II.

According to Wikipedia, these slides would have been some of the first of their time, as the chronology of the development of color transparencies look like this:

  • 1936: Agfacolor (transparency film)
  • 1940: Ektachrome (slide film)
  • 1942: Kodacolor (color negative process for still photography and later motion pictures)

YOU CAN VIEW THE PHOTOS EASILY HERE

OR HERE (NOT AS EASILY)

there is a book of these images too.

Art Fag City » Recessionary Art World Posting

An interesting compendium put together by Art Fag City of what people are saying about what’s happening in the arts as a result of the recession.

Posted via web from thepresentgroup’s posterous

With Funding Dwindling, Artists seek New Ways to Survive

A followup article to the Town Hall Meeting by Angela Woodall appears today in the Oakland Tribune.

“Just mention Germany or Sweden and most U.S. artists break into a reverie (or tirade) over the kind of support their European counterparts receive from their governments. Here, surviving as an artist takes talent, a do-it-yourself attitude and the patience to hunt down funding.”

read more….

Solving a Social Problem, Without Going the Nonprofit Route – NYTimes.com

thanks Stephanie

Posted via web from thepresentgroup’s posterous

Art world and professionalization

From Freize:

Over the last decades, the art world has become more and more professionalized. For an online-only survey, frieze asked 16 curators, writers and artists how they thought the languages, codes, education and business methods resulting from this process are affecting creative freedom. Is the art world too professionalized – or not enough?

View all 16 responses here:

California is last in arts funding — as usual

Reblog from the LA Times:

When it comes to funding for state arts agencies, California remains not-so-proudly ensconced in its customary slot — dead last — according to a report from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.

thanks Joseph

What is a magazine?

I’m just going to reblog here. Guest poster Jeremy Leslie on Its Nice That has a series this week on the question of “What is a Magazine?” I love this question. So here are the posts:

1, 2, 3, 4

Web hosting that supports artists.

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Lego Hello World
I wish all my printers were made of legos.

LIFE photo archive hosted by Google
Images from Life Magazine going back to 1860′s, hosted by Google

Coming Face To Face With The President
Well crafted story about an under-heard point of view.

In California, Pot Is Now an Art Patron
A new funding source for the arts – reaping big rewards and funding many projects.  It’s pot.

Notes on Portraiture in the Facebook Age

Celebrity Book Club: A List to End All Lists
Because, well, it’s sortof awesome.

Are "Artists' Statements" Really Necessary?
The pros and cons about that nemesis for most artists.

This to That
You tell it what you’ve got and it’ll tell you what to glue them together with.

Work of art: Online store for buyers, sellers
Not the TV show!  Kelly Lynn Jones from Little Paper Planes is interviewed on her project, gives us a cheat sheet to local affordable art resources.

How to make a Daft Punk helmet in 17 months
whoa.