From the 1970s onward, the dominant view in American photography was that a good photograph should be a representation of the world. Interest in the

According to Susan Sontag, a photograph can never reflect reality:“It is always the image that someone chose; to photograph is to frame, and to frame

Somewhere in the 1960s, photographer Ray K. Metzker had the brilliant idea to treat an entire film reel as a single negative. Whether he ever realized this

The red tartan dress, Mémé Bartels, 2016 What makes the work of sculptor Medardo Rosso so remarkable is his vision. He wanted to capture what is fleeting

The other week, the film La Jetée suddenly came to mind. “This is the story of a man, marked by an image from his childhood.

When Ed Ruscha offered to donate one of his books to the Library of Congress, his offer was declined. His response? He placed an ad

,”A single photograph can express much, but in a narrative sense, it is like a single word,” writes Gerry Badger in his book The Pleasure

Three young men—two princes and a nobleman—and one beautiful, wealthy woman. Who will win her hand? In The Merchant of Venice (1596–1598), Shakespeare has the father of

I love sequences—the repetition, the rhythm. That’s why I’m drawn to conceptual photography and minimal dance. For Mahler, repetition was a mortal sin. He used

München, Haus der Kunst, (2011), Mémé Bartels In the exhibition American Photography at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, there’s a photo of a boy that immediately

Barneville Carteret, France (2020), Mémé Bartels Dear friends, Two years ago, at a photobook fair, a gallery owner walked up to my booth and asked: “Heb

On necessity and the polaroids of Cy Twombly. Dear Friends, At the moment Cy Twombly’s Polaroids touch me deeply. They are images of his studio