Author: JH

I’m strongly biased toward people who do something new rather than lamenting the ineffectiveness of the old, toward using the web for what it does best, and toward my own work. Three good reasons to send you over to Chelsea’s Michael Mazzeo Arbor exhibition, here. I recommend the full screen view which, in its own way, can compete with some of the best brick and mortar gallery experiences. You’ll see an interesting variety of takes on the subject – arbor, both literally and figuratively – in particular, and on photography in general. At the same time, there is a strong, coherent voice, something that other attempts at showcasing and selling fine art editions on the web often lack.

So far, with very few exceptions, galleries make only reluctant use of the internet. Most gallery websites operate very much within the paradigm of, to borrow a phrase from exhibit-E, the maker of many of those sites, “complementing promotional gallery activities.” Chances are that this does not quite cut it anymore. Judging from the experience of how Arbor was put together, in a super-smart, smooth, and entirely virtual way, leading up to the end result that is online now (and an exhibition catalog available from Michael Mazzeo’s website), you can’t help but think that more people should move forward like this.

In my little apartment project (more here, here, and here), I do encounter the occasional humanoid. While I do not work with actors in my personal projects, I sometimes remember what well known directors say about them. I guess everybody knows Alfred Hitchcock’s verdict (allegedly) – that they are just “cattle.” Less offensive, and perhaps more intriguing: According to Jack Nicholson, Michelangelo Antonioni told him on the set of “The Passenger” that he considered actors simply as “moving space.” I find that a lucid self-description of what Antonioni does. And given his deliberate approach to photographing spaces, the term does not even seem all that derogatory.

Well, my human spaces do not even move, and that’s not just because I make stills. This image from earlier this week. Before I took it, I actually thought of one of Antionioni’s movies (in particular, of a frame from “L’eclisse”).

This poor fella from Midtown. Apparently, he suffers in this weather too.