i have been a fan of beth´s work since i saw it through critical mass some years back. her images are intense, beautiful and subtle. her combination of composition and theme go hand in hand creating an aesthetic commentary on built "nature". i especially like the garden and field work series. she also has blog called inderect objects.
If Suburbia renders the suburbs as cultural vacuums, contemporary investigations depict them as far more sinister. What used to be called suburban is today increasingly and pejoratively termed "sprawl." Indeed, the opening chapter of Suburban Nation: The rise of sprawl and the decline of the American dream details the history and primary components of sprawl. Seen as unchecked growth and development and understood in opposition to the traditional neighborhood, sprawl is characterized by authors Andres Duany, Elizabeth Platter-Zyberk and Jeff Speck as a conglomeration of single-family housing gated subdivisions segregated by gradations of housing price; shopping centers, office and business parks, and civic centers that are surrounded by large parking lots and inaccessible to pedestrians; and roadways that serve to increase traffic load... complete article here via amercan suburb x
The photographs in Lost Rivers by Alejandro Cartagena (b. 1977), which are part of a larger body of work entitled Suburbia Mexicana: Cause and Effect, interrogate the interdependence of humans and landscape in the face of urban expansion. Although artists and activists alike have placed intense focus on the negative impact of urban sprawl since the 1960s, Cartagena’s work is unique in its preoccupation with the subtler effects of suburban expansion, largely overlooked but indicative of significant, irrevocable change within a local ecosystem... JB (cont. reading at aperture)
i had to disconnect from the blogsphere for these past weeks. i have started teaching at the university of nuevo leon plus doing my masters degree... things are tight and wild! i will keep posting as much as i can. feeling in the teacher/promoter mood i´d like to call out to photo students to send me images or links to their sites. what is happening out there right now? lets see it...
A long December and there's reason to believe Maybe this year will be better than the last I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leaven' Now the days go by so fast And it's one more day up in the canyons And it's one more night in Hollywood If you think that I could be forgiven...I wish you would The smell of hospitals in winter And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls All at once you look across a crowded room To see the way that light attaches to a girl And it's one more day up in the canyons And it's one more night in Hollywood If you think you might come to California...I think you should Drove up to Hillside Manor sometime after two a.m. And talked a little while about the year I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower, Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe Maybe this year will be better than the last I can't remember all the times I tried to tell my myself To hold on to these moments as they pass And it's one more day up in the canyon And it's one more night in Hollywood It's been so long since I've seen the ocean...I guess I should
greg miller has some beautiful portraits in many of his series. these images seduce me into appreciating portraiture as a way to speak of who we are. greg seems to capture not just an interesting subject in itself, but that fascination towards learning about strangers by letting us scrutinize freely their body language and environments.
"Si el arte contribuye entre otras cosas a condicionar nuestro modo de ver el mundo y de configurar las relaciones sociales, entonces hay que tener en cuenta qué imagen del mundo promueve y a qué intereses sirve.” (Hans Haacke) via la vida no imita al arte more here and here
"Caio Reisewitz plantea una reflexión sobre la disonancia existente entre la evolución de la sociedad y la presencia de la naturaleza en todo este proceso. A través de fotografías de enormes dimensiones, el artista retrata los cambios que sufre su país, analizando fenómenos como el movimiento de los sin tierra o las transformaciones del sistema agrario brasileño". via photoespaña. mas info aqui y aqui.