Talk about Brazilian photographer José Oiticica Filho in Galeria MaPA, São Paulo, Brazil

This summer, I had the honor to contribute to a conference dedicated to the Brazilian photographer José Oiticica Filho (Rio de Janeiro, 1906–1964). The conference took place on August 22, 2017, and coincided with an exhibition of his work in Galeria MaPA, São Paulo, July 11 - August 31, 2017. I was invited by art historian and curator Marly Porto. 

Read more

I'm excited to present my research on Brazilian postwar photography

I'm excited to present my research on Brazilian postwar photography. My paper, "Bandeirante photographers in global context: Brazilian participation in FIAP, 1950–1965"  is included in the program of the conference In Black and White: Photography, Race, and the Modern Impulse in Brazil at Midcentury.The conference takes place at the Martin E. Segal Theater, The Graduate Center, City University of New York (365 Fifth Avenue), May 3, 2017.

Read more

Thrilled to speak at the conference "Art, Institutions, and Internationalism: 1933–1966"

I am thrilled to present the findings of my on-going research in paper "The Misunderstood 'Universal Language' of Photography: The Fourth FIAP Biennial, 1956" at the conference Art, Institutions, and Internationalism: 1933–1966. The conference takes place at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, March 7, 2017.

Read more

I'm presenting my latest research at the CAA 2017, New York City

I am very excited to present my latest research at the CAA 2017 in New York City. I am presenting my paper, The “Cosmopolitan Art”: The FIAP Yearbooks of Photography, 1954–60 at the session "Photography in Print" at the Gramercy A/West (2nd Floor), New York Hilton Midtown, Friday, February 17, 2017, 10:30am–12:00 noon.

Read more

The Selfie: More and Less than a Self-Portrait, an invited talk at the New School

In the invited talk “The Selfie: More and Less than a Self-Portrait” I will argue that the selfie is neither a low-brow offspring of the noble tradition of self-portrait in art, nor a democratic and popular version of self-portraiture in general. Instead, I will emphasize the specific conditions of making and viewing selfies as part of a live stream of updates on platforms such as Instagram. 

Read more

Why every self-portrait is not a selfie, but every selfie is a photograph

This article, commissioned by Riga Photography Biennial 2016, focuses on the role of technologies in defining and understanding the selfie. I examine the difference between the way datasets of selfies are being constructed for research and comparison, and how selfies are consumed and experienced in their natural habitat, the live flow of images on Instagram.

Read more

Defining competitive photography

In this article, I introduce a term competitive photography and define its historical emergence in the international juried exhibitions of photography in the 1950s. I believe that this term, competitive photography. brings into focus a large segment of photographic practices, contemporary and historical alike, which so far has escaped the attention of scholars. 

Read more

Clash of theories: New Objectivity versus Subjective Photography

In an interesting historical turn, what was meant to be non-art, became the very epitome of art (as exemplified by Albert Renger-Patzsch’s followers), whereas the most artistic photography of the 1950s (Otto Steinert’s Subjective Photography) turned out to be a dead end, at least from the perspective of today's art history.

Read more

Making sense of the selfie

This article belongs to a series of related articles and book chapters that I have written since the late 2014 and early 2015 about photography in social media and selfies in particular. All these writings are based on research project Selfiecity that I co-authored with Lev Manovich, Moritz Stefaner, Mehrdad Yazdani, Dominikus Baur, Daniel Goddemeyer, Nadav Hochman, and Jay Chow.

Read more

Art of the masses: From Kodak Brownie to Instagram

This article touches upon some of the inherent complexities of understanding the selfie. Seeking for valid methods of theorizing and contextualizing the selfie, this article attempts to combine insights from the perspectives of history of photography and art history, digital humanities, and software studies.

Read more

Good photography is a game of rules

There’s two kinds of photography, one that follows the rules and one that does not. When you follow the rules, you get good photography. When you break the rules, you might either get good art or waste the resources. After years of studying photography that breaks the rules, I’m turning to photography that follows the rules.

Read more

Gisèle Freund about women photographers

Gisèle Freund in 1954 wrote that "Women are interested in things more than in their relations to each other. They are not easily attracted by political or current events, but they distinguish themselves in portraits, children’s photographs, and they know how to capture with subtlety every expression of everyday life." From today’s perspective, it may sound outrageously “anti-feminist” and patronizing. But what if she was right?

Read more

Work in progress: The aesthetics of Instagram photography

At the CUNY Digital Humanities event, November 20, 2015, I'm presenting work in progress, a research article co-written by Lev Manovich, where we discuss the aesthetic qualities of photography on Instagram and are attempting to answer questions such as: is "Instagram killing the art of photography" or rather "Here comes the new photographer" again?

Read more