Category Archives: photography

Annie Leibovitz’s WOMEN: New Portraits, Art Practical

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Larissa Archer

Annie Leibovitz. Portrait of Misty Copeland, New York City, 2015; from WOMEN: New Portraits. Courtesy of UBS. It’s hard to guess the reasoning behind the exhibition layout of WOMEN: New Portraits, photographer Annie Leibovitz’s continuation of her 1999–2000 collaboration with critic and partner … Continue reading →

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“The Hereditary Estate” by Daniel W. Coburn, for Art Practical

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Larissa Archer

Along the road as I walked, thinking about the mysteries of Easter, veils—seemed to drop off my eyes! Light, oh light! I have never seen such brilliance! It pricked my eyeballs like needles!…yes, yes, light. You know, you know we … Continue reading →

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Sophie Calle at Fraenkel Gallery

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Larissa Archer

In my early days as a theater student, when my teacher was tired of our careful, over-polished, actorish acting, he’d exhort us to show our “bathroom selves.” Your bathroom self is who you are before you apply your mask for … Continue reading →

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“Anonymization”: How Urban Sprawl Created a Homogenous and Hostile World, for Hyperallergic.

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Larissa Archer

LOS ANGELES — The list of ways the US has negatively influenced the rest of the world is long and shameful: unnecessary, interminable wars, nutritionally inane fast-food chains, a habit of wasteful consumption based on instant obsolescence. The list goes … Continue reading →

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I Modeled for Todd Hido

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Larissa Archer

A woman clasps her hand to her mouth. Visible in her eyes could be fear, horror, grief, or even just acute worry. The image described is not the one above, but one similar sent to me by a friend, who … Continue reading →

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Strange Developments: Alternative Process Photography in the Bay Area, a panel discussion

Posted on April 13, 2015 by Larissa Archer

If you can stand the sound of my speaking voice, which I cannot, here is a panel discussion I recently did with the amazing photographers Chris McCaw, John Chiara, and Niniane Kelley at SF Camerawork. This was the first (wildly successful, … Continue reading →

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The Sibling Rivalry that Shaped Arbus’s Vision: Alexander Nemerov’s Silent Dialogues, in Hyperallergic.

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Larissa Archer

“The camera … may want to know, to develop, to expose, but what it can also do, if pressed, is reveal the flowered vacancy of the invisibilities, the mixed-up motivations, that only a wise author could portray.” — Alexander Nemerov, Silent Dialogues In Silent Dialogues, art historian … Continue reading →

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Mapplethorpe’s Other Man: On Philip Gefter’s Wagstaff: Before and After Mapplethorpe, for Hyperallergic

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Larissa Archer

In Wagstaff: Before and After Mapplethorpe, Philip Gefter’s new biography of collector, curator, and market force Sam Wagstaff, the author argues that it was not only his subject’s life that was transformed by his relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. Before Mapplethorpe, Gefter writes, photography … Continue reading →

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Arnold Newman: Masterclass at the Contemporary Jewish Museum

Posted on January 3, 2015 by Larissa Archer

One of my favorite photography exhibits in San Francisco last year was the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s “Arnold Newman: Masterclass.” While some of the artist’s portraits have achieved iconic status (think of the composer Igor Stravinsky. The image you have in … Continue reading →

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Public Intimacy: Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa, Ponte City, for Art Practical

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Larissa Archer

“It was a place where the wave crashed inwards upon itself, with the seething violence of delayed hope. It was Africa coming back, but with nowhere yet to go…. It was 54 floors of people in between other places.”—Denis Hirson, … Continue reading →

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