The Ruskinian mantra of “truth to nature” was eventually upended by the development of digital imagery and the agile manipulations of Photoshop.
Photography
Fuse Visual Arts Review: Clifford Ross at MASS MoCA — Reinventing the Sublime
The artist knows that beauty, and even the sublime, on their own terms are not enough to cut it in the competitive field of contemporary art.
Visual Arts Review: Photographer Rose Marasco — The Search for Juxtapositions
Rose Marasco’s strong sensibility is always at work, searching for contrasts to capture in her photos.
Visual Arts Review: Photographer Gordon Parks — Return to Fort Scott
Back To Fort Scott, a compact, affecting exhibition of meticulously printed black and white photographs, is like a grainy, retro speed bump between the museum’s adjacent galleries.
Visual Arts Review: Duane Michals — Photography as Amazement
The photographer and the exhibition both make much of his outsider status and radical departure from the classic, reserved aesthetics of American art photography.
Visual Arts Review: “The Dying of the Light” — An Elegy for the Beauty of Celluloid
This engaging exhibition features the work of 6 artists who meditate on the demise of the analog film image, exploring celluloid’s “particular visual, material, aural, and even metaphoric characteristics.”
Visual Arts Review: At the MFA — Bruce Davidson’s Dramatic Vision of ’60s Harlem
Despite the show’s darkness, “East 100th Street”‘s exploration of Harlem in the ’60s is in many ways a testament to the endurance of love.
Fuse Film News: Bert Stern — Original Madman
What about Bert Stern, the artist? He deserves credit for bringing fashion photography into the modernist moment in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Short Fuse Movie Review: “Bill Cunningham’s New York”
I, personally, don’t care much about clothes, and was only prevented from turning off to the film by photographer Bill Cunningham’s elemental enthusiasm. It can be tempting to write him off as simple in some way, what with his bright, ready laugh. If so, he’s simple in the best way.
Fuse Visual Arts Review: Gaza in Photographs — Up Close and Personal
Though unquestionably didactic, Skip Schiel’s images are also haunting glimpses of the perilous nature of life in Gaza. The photographs never feel invasive or forced; they simply capture moments of intimate truth between photographer and subject.