CONSTANT SIEGE

Stephan Doitschinoff, aka Calma, ‘Ars Moriendi’ 2008 (re This Isn’t Happiness)

See also: ”Ars moriendi (“The Art of Dying”) is the name of two related Latin texts dating from about 1415 and 1450 which offer advice on the protocols and procedures of a good death, explaining how to “die well” according to Christian precepts of the late Middle Ages. It was written within the historical context of the effects of the macabre horrors of the Black Death 60 years earlier and consequent social upheavals of the 15th century. It was very popular, translated into most West European languages, and was the first in a western literary tradition of guides to death and dying.”

See previously: Calma (Stephan Doitschinoff), ‘The Annunciaton’, 2005

And also: Ad Astra at the Calma show

Will Blanche, ‘The Newly Constructed Towers of the World Trade Center Seen From the South Side on West Street, May, 1973’ (via These Americans)

See also: Mitch Epstein, ‘West Side Highway, New York City’ [looking towards World Trade Center] 1977

John Dickie, gold and silver Versace-logo-encrusted Mexican druglord pistol, Mexico City, via Planet Magazine

See also: the guns from ‘Romeo and Juliet’

Charlotte Gainsbourg music video, ‘Heaven Can Wait’ featuring Beck, directed by Keith Schofield, making liberal reference to the work of William Hundley, specifically his ‘Entoptic Phenomena’ (previously) and ‘With Cheeseburgers’ series. (see image above, top row images Hundley originals, bottom row screen grabs from the Gainsbourg video.)

Click image for Antville discussion on the “homage.” Hundley was evidently unaware of the usage, and not pleased.

Schofield on his “working process”:

“I basically have this huge folder of all these found photos and when I get a song in, I’ll play the track and I’ll look through these pictures and see if any thing sticks,” he says. “I’ll be reading something randomly and see a funny picture and throw it in the folder. The whole thing with found photos is that they’re funny because there’s no context to them. You look at a funny picture and go, ‘what’s the scene about?’ And you draw your own conclusions.”

See also: the definition of “found photo”

Also also: Google Muthafucka! Do you use it!?

And also: Mr. Schofield might also find TinEye useful

And lastly: A Note To Young Art Directors and The Photographers That Work With Them

Abandoned taxi on fire, Manhattan, 2002

Cracked crosswalk guides and manhole cover, Brooklyn

See also: Tire treads in fresh snow, Brooklyn

The new mid-career retrospective (1990-) book for Nick Knight is out now.

See also: Nick Knight, ‘Susie Smoking’, 1988, one of the photographs that made me want to become a photographer

Also also: Massive Attack ‘Collected-Special Edition’ cover

And: ‘Insensate’, Nick Knight, Gareth Pugh, Ruth Hogben

Steam footprints in the bath, 4:26 am, Brooklyn

See also: Drawing my bath, 3:16 am, Brooklyn

Also also: The Canadian in the bubble-bath, Lux-11, Berlin, 2007

And also: KT upstairs in the bath on a rainy fall afternoon

And don’t miss: Monkey takes bath. It’s horrible.

Walton Ford, ‘Sensations of an Infant Heart’ 1999 (detail)

“When John James Audubon was a young boy, his stepmother’s pet monkey strangled Audubon’s favorite pet parrot. The monkey was kept chained after the incident. Later Audubon would write that the “sensations of my infant heart at this cruel sight were agony to me” and that the painful memory may have been one of the reasons he painted birds.”