We asked Nicholas Nixon to tell us about a picture that means something to him, and why. Nicholas Nixon: Persistence of Vision is on view through April 22 at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.
I have had a wonderful print of Diane Arbus’s Sword Swallower, printed by Neil Selkirk, hanging over my desk since 1975, when I was lucky enough to trade a few of my own pictures for it. I love it as much now, maybe more, than I did then.
Why, you might ask. Well, first of all, everything in it is beautiful: the picture, the subject, the space of the tent wall, and the print itself. It is an offering and a sacrifice at the same time. Her voluptuousness and gesture are affirming life while the swords make clear the possibility of the quick end we all fear.
I am not a practicing Christian, but the cross-like form of her arms and torso always suggest to me the presence of something bigger than I know, something even sacred. I feel very small, and glad to be part of whatever it is.
Nicholas Nixon
We asked Nicholas Nixon to tell us about a picture...
A Retrospective Presents 40 Years of Dawoud Bey's Empathetic Photographs
Like Harlem Redux, Bey’s latest series Night Coming Tenderly, Black, its title a reference to a line in Langston Hughes’s classic poem Dream Variations, applies the photographer’s compassionate sense of looking to a historically charged landscape.
W.M. Hunt
Tupper, Graduation, 1903 We asked W.M. Hunt, pho...
David Hume Kennerly: Witness to History at the Center for Creative Photography
To mark its acquisition of the archive of photojou...
Rosamond Purcell’s Cabinet of Curiosities
On the occasion of her first retrospective at the Addison Gallery, the photographer speaks to Lyle Rexer about photographing natural-history specimens in the “kingdom of the dead.”
William Helburn: Ad Man at Staley-Wise Gallery
William Helburn’s work spans fashion, editorial, and advertising photography, but one feature united it all: desire.
Vince Aletti Dives into His Archive
photograph's editor, Jean Dykstra, speaks to longtime contributor Vince Aletti about his new book, The Drawer (Self Publish Be Happy).
Roxana Marcoci
MoMA's senior photography curator talks about her cross-disciplinary approach to curatorial work, Wolfgang Tillmans, An-My Lê, and more.
Christopher Rauschenberg
Charles Harbutt, Blind Boy, New York City, 1961. C...
Amy Arbus
We asked Amy Arbus to tell us about a picture that...
Idris Kahn: New Photographs
[caption id='attachment_3136' align='alignnone' wi...
Eva Respini
When Eva Respini left the Museum of Modern Art in ...