Pinned NYC

strandbooks:

Postcard found in a book.

newyorker:

“His best works are able to catch the viewer immediately but, at the same time, provoke the viewer to search for more information below the surface,” Ferdinand Brueggemann of Galerie Priska Pasquer, in Cologne, tells Jessie Wender of photographer Shomei Tomatsu, who died at age 82 in Okinawa this past December.

Continue reading about the artist: http://nyr.kr/11xQuGD

agenerousdesigner:

Nandan Ghiya’s The Dreamer series (acrylic on old photographs, 2012)

kickstarter:

The Buddhas of Mes Aynak.

Documentarian Brent Huffman is racing against the clock.

Last year, Huffman began work on the story of Mes Aynak, an ancient Buddhist city located in the desert of eastern Afghanistan. An archaeological wonder, the 2,600-year-old site is home to an enormous monastery complex, many temples, and hundreds of statues, representing a major cultural legacy for the war-torn country. But by the end of the year, the entire city may be destroyed.

The site currently belongs to a Chinese mining conglomerate, which expects to extract up to $100 billion of copper from beneath the city, leveling it in the process. A major financial windfall for the beleagured Afghan government, the proposal is nevertheless hotly contested by displaced locals, concerned environmentalists, and a small team of archaeologists working overtime to preserve Mes Aynak.

Huffman just launched a Kickstarter project to fund his documentary, which will bring the story of the site to a wider audience. He hopes to mobilize international pressure to save the ancient city, while broadening the discussion around foreign investment in Afghanistan as a decade of war winds down and money begins to flow.

kickstarter:

A second book of photographs from the critically acclaimed street photographer Vivian Maier has just been released. Titled Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows, it features never-before-seen work from the recently uncovered artist.

For those new to the story, Maier’s photographs were first found just a few years ago, when filmmaker John Maloof stumbled upon thousands of undeveloped negatives at a neighborhood auction in Chicago. The work he uncovered was breathtaking — a collection of candid portraiture depicting city life across a span of 50+ years — and quickly caught the attention of artists, enthusiasts, and curators all over the world. It was a story that unfolded alongside an early Kickstarter project on the identity of the mysterious photographer who spent her entire life working as a nanny.

Now, years later, it seems we’re no closer to unpacking the enigma of Vivian. From Slate’s piece on Out of the Shadows:

Co-authors Richard Cahan and Michael Williams spent the last year attempting to fill the gaps in the story of Vivian Maier. They contacted just about every home she’d worked in, interviewed the children she cared for, the neighbors who watched her with skepticism as she pointed her camera into garbage cans. They found the people who repaired her cameras and those who sold her film. And the answer, sadly, for those of us hoping to get even further into Vivian Maier’s brain, is no. There was no one. Maier’s only partner in life, her only confidant, was her camera.

Who was Vivian Maier? We may never know the answer — even as we experience the world through her eyes.

theatlantic:

Scenes From 21st-Century China

The People’s Republic of China, the most populous country, and the second-largest economy, in the world, is a vast, dynamic nation that continues to grow and evolve. In this, the latest entry in a semi-regular series on China, we find a tremendous variety of images, including a military theme park, a rocket launch, a seriously massive shoe, a Pac Man soap-box racer, and a man who invented his own prosthetic arms. This collection offers only a small view of people and places across the country over the past several weeks. 

See more. [Images: AP, Reuters]

newyorker:

“Attachments,” a group photography show featured in this week’s Goings On About Town section, opened this Saturday at The Hole. Curated by Kathy Grayson and Tim Barber, the show features work by nine contemporary photographers: Barber, Andrew Kuo, Asger Carlsen, Jason Nocito, Jessica Eaton, Jim Mangan, Kate Steciw, Peter Sutherland, and Sandy Kim.

Click-through for a slideshow of images, and more from Jessie Wender on the show: http://nyr.kr/VkmnuQ