Photography

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The New Manifest Destiny

In the series Modern History (1978), the artist Sarah Charlesworth photocopied the front pages of newspapers and reframed the news by blocking out all the text, leaving only the masthead and photographs in their relative positions. The …

Jesse Nivens|Essays

In Search of Stock(y) Photography

Odalisca, Fernando Botero, 1998I work for a company that manufactures fitness equipment. While working on a new marketing piece, I found myself in the seemingly normal situation of needing a general stock photograph of an overweight …

William Drenttel|Slideshows

Voting & Religion in America: A Slideshow

"Intermingling of Church and State," Boise, Idaho, anonymous photographer, 2006.I have voted in over twenty elections, including national, state and local elections. Two times I voted by absentee ballot from Europe. I have voted in three …

DJ Stout|Essays

Remembering Ann Richards

Cover of Texas Monthly, art directed by DJ Stout, photographed by Jim Myers, July 1992In the late spring of 1992, when I was the art director of Texas Monthly magazine, I sat down with the editorial team to brainstorm ideas for an upcoming …

Kenneth Krushel|Essays

The Face Of Oblivion

Photograph by Kenneth Krushel, 2006I am the family face;Flesh perishes, I live on,Projecting trait and traceThrough time to times anon,And leaping from place to placeOver oblivion.— Thomas Hardy, HeredityThey're in every supermarket …

Michael Bierut|Essays

My Phone Call to Arnold Newman

Michael Bierut remembers a 25-year-old phone conversation with the late photographer Arnold Newman.

Julie Lasky|Essays

The Photography of Mark Robbins

Mark Robbins exhibition at Atlanta Center for Contemporary Art, 2003Mark Robbins' Households is a collection of portraits in which the sitters are sometimes sitting rooms (or kitchens or bedrooms), and the people are polished, draped, and …

Michael Bierut|Essays

Design by Committee

"Design by committee" is usually thought to be a bad thing, but it has produced one great piece of architecture, the United Nations Headquarters Building.

Julie Lasky|Slideshows

Edward Hopper, Village Person

An acquaintance of mine teaches at New York University's School of Social Work. Not long ago, while I was visiting her in the department's Greek Revival mansion at 1 Washington Square North, she led me upstairs to the fourth floor with the …

William Drenttel|Essays

Small Town Meetings

Zoning regulations are how a town designs its future. They determine what kind of development is encouraged, and what kind is discouraged. In Meetings, Paul Shambroom visited 150 local government meetings in 32 states. The photographs are …

Rick Poynor|Essays

Getting Louder: Chinese Design on the March

The “Get it Lounder” design exhibition in Shenzhen, billed as the first of its kind in China, reflected the lifestyle aspirations of its participants. Will Chinese design be able to confront social reality in more overtly …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Extremely Young and Incredibly Everywhere: The Public Art of Jonathan Safran Foer

Jonathan Safran Foer published his first novel, Everything is Illuminated, to critical acclaim only three years after graduating from Princeton University, where he won the Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior Creative Writing thesis …