The Half-life of Censorship

With retrospectives at both the Getty and  LACMA and a new HBO doc about his life and work, Mapplethorpe sparked this editorial from writer/curator Simon Herbert: Given the current tone of political discourse in an election year, it’s tempting to think that we’ve hit new lows in civility; yet rewind to 1989, on the floor …


Ordinary Pictures

It could be argued that, ever since Andy Warhol intrigued and scandalized (yes: scandalized, at the time) art audiences in the 60s with the conceit of pop culture regurgitations of mass market products (or, if one is to be entirely precise, when Marcel Duchamp’s ‘found’ urinal named “R.Mutt” outraged the Society of Independent Artists in …


Profound Archive Loss Syndrome

By guest writer Simon Herbert Many times in our lives, we only realize the importance of something after it’s gone. That’s what our parents tend to preach to us: to value what you have in the long term; but, usually, we don’t listen, and “stuff” happens; and suddenly, when things go awry, we’re back to …


Blazing a New Trail

By Simon Herbert Where confusion and opportunities arise, pioneers step in first to make sense from the haze; and Stock Pot Images is a new start-up that steps into that medicinal marijuana haze, the first stock photo agency to specialize exclusively in cannabis-related imagery. At a time when the Feds and the States vie over the application of …


The Circle Will Not be Broken

Delighted to find out about the Photographic Archives at the Grand Ole Opry. Simon Herbert chatted with Curator Brenda Colladay recently. In the current Grand Ole Opry theater, there is a six-foot square of wood cut from the home’s main original home, the Ryman Auditorium, which was home to an iconic range of musical stars …


Let Me Introduce You to Harry and Edna

Guest post by Simon Herbert with thanks to PetaPixel Our photographic records have changed radically over the last century: from the tiny black-and-whites that our great grandparents took; to the larger format black-and-white of our grandparents; through to the color print “happy snaps” of our parents; then the first digital camera pictures taken by our …