I am tied up in a love-hate relationship with the American landscape and civilization.

Socialdocumentary.net has a presentation of Baldomero Fernandez’s project Middletown.
I like this selection a lot, an interesting mix of documentary ’style’ and more recent medium format aesthetics. Intriguing work, I want to see more.

There’s been no shortage of coverage of the current economic crisis affecting the US, but John Francis Peters‘ “Just a Dream” project has really drawn me in. To see the essay, go to Peters’ website and find “Just a Dream” under “New Work.” As in other essays on the topic, especially in essays on “destination du jour” Detroit, the decay and abandonment are prominent. This essay, though, in the still-inflated balloon or the damp spot on the garage floor under the house, communicates the currency of the economic violence ripping through towns across the country. Not only have these houses been ripped out from under their previous tenants, but the removal happened swiftly, fiercely, and probably just last week. I saw these pictures a few weeks ago, but the communication in these little details keeps drawing me in.

From the artist statement:

After a few minutes wandering through oddly colored rooms and taking in the dull smells of animal dander and black mold, something else begins to absorb into my sense. It can only be described through how I feel the energy in the rooms, distress, sadness, loss. Something else is still in the home and it hints at its existence through violent holes in the wall, children’s stickers, an old lamp, curdled milk, a pink rubber ball, a suicide note written in magic marker.”

Scott wrote a few weeks ago about Seamus Murphy’s new work on Russia in Dispatches magazine. Like Scott, up until recently I had only known of Murphy’s work and hadn’t seen much of it. So props to reader and friend of Dva Jeremy M Lange who pointed us to a new site of Murphy’s and helped change that for me.

Alas I just found a gallery (don’t know if it is new or I missed it before) of Murphy’s pictures on the Reportage by Getty Images website with pictures from America. They’re very interesting and Worth a Look.

Here we go with another mass of links, but there is too much good stuff out there this week following the Obama victory on Tuesday night. I’ll split this into a couple or three posts I think.

It has been incredible week here in Seattle .. dancing in the streets and wellwishes from the world over (I’ve heard from friends as far as Kosovo, Finland and the UK who are all jumping for joy themselves). Even Thom Yorke, the leader of Radiohead, got in to the spirit and released a free song in celebration. Please feel free to send us your tips and links, or even your own work, and we’ll consider posting it here for the rest to see.

We can start with Magnum | InSight America’s Election Night post with some interesting deadline work by Magnum photographers van Agtmael, Anderson, Vink, Dworzak and Reed. David Alan Harvey chimed in on his blog, bez pictures unfortunately, with “Obamatime…”

We can’t miss Alan Chin’s contribution over at BAGNewsnotes (which I was happy to see got a shout-out on APhotoEditor’s blog in Rob’s own campaign wrapup). Be sure to read the comments. And start following BAGNews right now if you aren’t familiar with it; there will be lots of great insights in the coming days (it has already started) about the election-night pictures.

Here is a cool little slideshow (sideshow?) at Time by photographers Christopher Morris and Danny Wilcox Frazier at John McCain’s Campaign Farewell in Phoenix, Arizona.

From some international photographers: Swedish/Polish photographer Chris Maluszynski, a favorite from the Moment Agency, offers his take from the election in Chicago. And Bruno Stevens from Brussels will soon be posting more from his Land of the Free: America 2008 work. Cross your fingers it will get up, and stay up, on those Digital Railroad servers.

Watching the day-after coverage on the major American networks last night I saw reports and interviews with two Obama-centric photographers. Time photographer Callie Shell, who is popping up everywhere these days (see this popular feature at Digital Journalist) was on Anderson Cooper’s CNN show (can’t for the life of me find it online) and NBC nightly news (click in to their player and search for ‘Obama’s incredible journey in pictures’). Also notable is that Tufankjian is releasing a book titled Yes We Can of her nearly two-year Obama project through PowerHouse Books.

The SLOG pointed me in the direction of Philly photographer Zoe Strauss (I guess M. Scott’s mention of her to me didn’t stick) and her new book “America”. I haven’t seen too much yet but it looks good. Philadelphia Weekly also published a cover story and selection of the work this week, and that seems like a great place to start reading about Strauss and the pictures.

Perennial favorite Chip Litherland posts some pictures from his extra-long election day assignments on his Sportsshooter page.

On the Newspaper front: Andrew Sullivan has the final tally of newspaper endorsements. A little out of date, but the New York Times has Campaign Trail photo galleries from a bunch of its photographers. And the cherries on top: PDN writes about the great day for print journalism with record sell-outs of newspapers and the Newseum’s roundup of the world’s newspapers announcing Obama’s election (including this radical horizontal cover by the Hartford Courant, spotted by M. Scott). Truly a worldwide moment.

More soon….

Thanks to 2point8 I found ArtsVote2008, which aims to collect information about Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s various statements about the arts, funding for the arts, and arts education.  While McCain has yet to issue an official campaign statement about the arts, Obama’s is pretty wide-ranging (PDF).  The candidate’s main positions have been summarized in another document (PDF) which I have included below:

In a pitifully small statement released by the McCain campaign, the candidate states his position, worth including here in full:

John McCain believes that arts education can play a vital role fostering creativity and expression. He is a strong believer in empowering local school districts to establish priorities based on the needs of local schools and school districts. Schools receiving federal funds for education must be held accountable for providing a quality education in basic subjects critical to ensuring students are prepared to compete and succeed in the global economy. Where these local priorities allow, he believes investing in arts education can play a role in nurturing the creativity of expression so vital to the health of our cultural life and providing a means of creative expression for young people.”

That sounds fine, but it’s 4 relatively meaningless sentences. Lip service. John McCain opposes the existence of the National Endowment for the Arts. The Salt Lake Tribune has great analysis of the two candidate’s positions.

Obama’s arts policy proposal, on the other hand, was called “the most comprehensive platform on the arts” by Arts Action Fund CEO and president Robert Lynch. It provides for the creation of an Artists Corps (which reminds me of the Farm Security Administration, which begat modern photojournalism), national initiatives for funding and recognizing arts achievement, and widespread arts education based on research in Chicago’s failing schools. More than that, freelancers reading this will be interested to note Obama’s recognition of the impossibility of obtaining health insurance as an independent artist outside of traditional employment, noting that his health care policy would make it easier for artists to afford federal health insurance. And our international audience will be happy to learn that Obama’s platform includes explicit provision for cultural artistic exchange, both through funding American artists’ travel and exhibition internationally and through the streamlining of visa processes in order to make the USA an attractive place for international artists to come and create and exhibit their work.

Just got a look at this great work by Platon for the New Yorker. The usual style, for the portraits, but I’d never really seen his documentary style beyond a few so-so examples on his website. These pictures, though, capture the malaise, exuberance, uncertainty, confidence, and all the other emotions wrapped up in America’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The kid in the uniform struck me as overly cutesy and sentimental at first, but the accompanying text discovers the significance of the shot: Sergeant John McKay, a marine whose uncle and grandfather were marines, and whose three-year-old son posed in uniform at the wedding of a cousin, also a marine, said, “He’s just waiting till he’s eighteen.” He went on, “I’m scared for him, but if he wants to do it I’ll support him.” There’s some audio from Platon about the project, too. If you haven’t already, check out Platon talking about his shoot with Putin over at the World Press site. Click on 2008 and then the thumbnail of Putin.

(via APADnews)