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I visited Mark Alice Durant at his home in Maryland to talk about his book, Summer of the White Fox, and After, published by Saint Lucy Books. We talk about how Mark came to photography and why he started his own publishing imprint. Summer of the White Fox, and After is a memoir and a monograph, with a touch of history and philosophy weaved into the essay. It is a recounting of grief and loss that enveloped Mark and his family through distinct events and all during the pandemic. It is also a story about experiencing love and care in ways that were, perhaps, unforseeable before all of the tragedies struck Mark's family. https://www.saintlucybooks.com/shop/p/summer-of-the-white-fox-and-after | https://www.instagram.com/saint_lucy_books/ This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club Begin Building your dream photobook library today at https://charcoalbookclub.com Mark Alice Durant is a photographer whose photographs, installations, and performances have been presented internationally including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and Artist's Space in New York. In 1991, he co-founded the performance duo ‘men of the world' that for 10 years performed on the streets of Chicago, Toronto, Seattle, New York, Houston, San Francisco, and other cities. He has written extensively on the nexus of photography, performance and cultural phenomena with essays appearing in such journals as Art in America, Art on Paper, ArtUS, Art Journal, Afterimage, Dear Dave, Exposure, New Art Examiner, and PLUK. Durant is the editor of the online journal Saint Lucy which is devoted to writing about photography, contemporary art and the lovely people of Baltimore. He has contributed to numerous catalogs, monographs and anthologies including The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire, The Gothic, Jimmie Durham and Marco Breuer: Early Recordings. He is author of McDermott and McGough: A History of Photography, Robert Heinecken: A Material History and co-author of Vik Muniz: Seeing is Believing and Dressed for Thrills: 100 Years of Halloween Costume and Masquerade. In 2005, Durant co-curated and co-authored Blur of the Otherworldly: Contemporary Art, Technology and the Paranormal. Durant was co-curator of Some Assembly Required: Collage Culture in Post-War America in 2002 and in 2008, he curated Notes on Monumentality at the Baltimore Museum of Art. He has served on the faculties of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, UCLA, the University of New Mexico, Syracuse University, and the Milton Avery Graduate School for the Arts at Bard College. He has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fleishhacker Foundation, the Center for Creative Photography, the Illinois Arts Council, and the MacDowell Colony. Professor Durant received his B.F.A. from Massachusetts College of Art and M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute. Support Real Photo Show with Michael Chovan-Dalton by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/real-photo-show
Durant invites us into a fluid free fall with his intentionally sequenced interplay of history, ideas and first-hand knowledge in text and image. Incubating his idea of how still images capture physical, emotional, social, cultural and political states grew to cross geography and time. Evocative and insightful this book is a symphony of authentic voices echoing the harsh and exciting realities of lived experience and the wilds of our collective imaginings. In this book group, Mark Alice Durant discusses, among other things:The semi-conscious states which feed creativityPhoto as a porous and democratic medium Performance as a portal, able to renegotiate social contractsTransgressing the specific to the symbolicThe beauty and elegance of a rigorous photoHow we see our past, photographicallyThe power of exclusion to push innovation and creativityReferenced in the episodeTeju Cole, “A Photograph Never Stands Alone”Walter Murch, In The Blink of An EyeLarry Sultan, “Pictures from Home”William Pope L. in conversation at The Walker Arts CenterMarco Breuer by Mark Alice DurantSigalit Landau, “DeadSee” (2005)Mark Alice Durant, “Running, Falling, Flying, Floating, Crawling”Mark Alice Durant Website | InstagramEngage with J. Sybylla Smith https://www.jsybyllasmith.com Instagram @jsybylla and Facebook @j.sybylla.smith
"They are really poignant images and they really sort of resonated humanity, and because I didn't know the author, I didn't know the intent or anything, in some ways that allowed me to kind of engage with them. Because I didn't feel like I was being manipulated, I was in control their meaning in some ways." -Oliver Wasow "Since the election, the sort of two dominating emotions for me have been rage and tenderness…This range of photographs in Oliver's work…encompassed this sense." -Mark Alice Durant This episode comes from a live audience show at the Big Room in conjunction with the School of Visual Arts MFA Photo, Video, and Related Media Program and Saint Lucy Books. I sat down with Oliver Wasow and Mark Alice Durant of Saint Lucy to talk about Oliver's book, Friends, Enemies, and Strangers published by Saint Lucy Books. We talk about publishing books, the history of portraiture, the context of images, and how this project was a reaction to the ascendancy of the Trump family to the American presidency. This episode sponsored by the School of Visual Arts MFA Photography, Video, & Related Media - Charles Traub, Chair. http://www.mfaphoto.sva.edu/ Visit realphotoshow.com @realphotoshow on Twitter/IG/FB
27 Contexts –An Anecdotal History in Photography by Mark Alice Durant was published by Saint Lucy Books (January, 2017) with 288 pages and 90 Color and black and white images. 27 Contexts is a series of linked essays that examine how photographs are inextricably bound in our personal and collective histories. Beginning with the author’s childhood obsession with his parents’ wedding album through a lifetime making photographs, teaching, and writing about photography, Durant’s narrative weaves memoir with photographic history and theory. Illustrated with a broad spectrum of images from family snapshots to Hubble space imagery, to the work of artists such as Josef Koudelka, Julia Margaret Cameron, Larry Sultan, Maya Deren, Odilon Redon, Nan Goldin, David Wojnarowicz and Chris Marker, 27 Contexts describes a life immersed in the quotidian, the political, and the enigmatic aspects of photography. Durant has contributed to numerous catalogs, monographs and anthologies including The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire, The Gothic, Jimmie Durham and Marco Breuer: Early Recordings. He is author of McDermott and McGough: A History of Photography, Robert Heinecken: A Material History and co-author of Vik Muniz: Seeing is Believing and Dressed for Thrills: 100 Years of Halloween Costume and Masquerade. In 2005, Durant co-curated and co-authored Blur of the Otherworldly: Contemporary Art, Technology and the Paranormal. He has served on the faculties of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, UCLA, the University of New Mexico, Syracuse University, and the Milton Avery Graduate School for the Arts at Bard College, he is now Professor of Photography at the University of Maryland School of Visual Arts. 27 Contexts – An Anecdotal History in Photography is available through the publisher’s website: https://saint-lucy.com/shop/27-contexts/ . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
27 Contexts –An Anecdotal History in Photography by Mark Alice Durant was published by Saint Lucy Books (January, 2017) with 288 pages and 90 Color and black and white images. 27 Contexts is a series of linked essays that examine how photographs are inextricably bound in our personal and collective histories. Beginning with the author’s childhood obsession with his parents’ wedding album through a lifetime making photographs, teaching, and writing about photography, Durant’s narrative weaves memoir with photographic history and theory. Illustrated with a broad spectrum of images from family snapshots to Hubble space imagery, to the work of artists such as Josef Koudelka, Julia Margaret Cameron, Larry Sultan, Maya Deren, Odilon Redon, Nan Goldin, David Wojnarowicz and Chris Marker, 27 Contexts describes a life immersed in the quotidian, the political, and the enigmatic aspects of photography. Durant has contributed to numerous catalogs, monographs and anthologies including The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire, The Gothic, Jimmie Durham and Marco Breuer: Early Recordings. He is author of McDermott and McGough: A History of Photography, Robert Heinecken: A Material History and co-author of Vik Muniz: Seeing is Believing and Dressed for Thrills: 100 Years of Halloween Costume and Masquerade. In 2005, Durant co-curated and co-authored Blur of the Otherworldly: Contemporary Art, Technology and the Paranormal. He has served on the faculties of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, UCLA, the University of New Mexico, Syracuse University, and the Milton Avery Graduate School for the Arts at Bard College, he is now Professor of Photography at the University of Maryland School of Visual Arts. 27 Contexts – An Anecdotal History in Photography is available through the publisher’s website: https://saint-lucy.com/shop/27-contexts/ . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
27 Contexts –An Anecdotal History in Photography by Mark Alice Durant was published by Saint Lucy Books (January, 2017) with 288 pages and 90 Color and black and white images. 27 Contexts is a series of linked essays that examine how photographs are inextricably bound in our personal and collective histories. Beginning with the author’s childhood obsession with his parents’ wedding album through a lifetime making photographs, teaching, and writing about photography, Durant’s narrative weaves memoir with photographic history and theory. Illustrated with a broad spectrum of images from family snapshots to Hubble space imagery, to the work of artists such as Josef Koudelka, Julia Margaret Cameron, Larry Sultan, Maya Deren, Odilon Redon, Nan Goldin, David Wojnarowicz and Chris Marker, 27 Contexts describes a life immersed in the quotidian, the political, and the enigmatic aspects of photography. Durant has contributed to numerous catalogs, monographs and anthologies including The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire, The Gothic, Jimmie Durham and Marco Breuer: Early Recordings. He is author of McDermott and McGough: A History of Photography, Robert Heinecken: A Material History and co-author of Vik Muniz: Seeing is Believing and Dressed for Thrills: 100 Years of Halloween Costume and Masquerade. In 2005, Durant co-curated and co-authored Blur of the Otherworldly: Contemporary Art, Technology and the Paranormal. He has served on the faculties of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, UCLA, the University of New Mexico, Syracuse University, and the Milton Avery Graduate School for the Arts at Bard College, he is now Professor of Photography at the University of Maryland School of Visual Arts. 27 Contexts – An Anecdotal History in Photography is available through the publisher’s website: https://saint-lucy.com/shop/27-contexts/ . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
27 Contexts –An Anecdotal History in Photography by Mark Alice Durant was published by Saint Lucy Books (January, 2017) with 288 pages and 90 Color and black and white images. 27 Contexts is a series of linked essays that examine how photographs are inextricably bound in our personal and collective histories. Beginning with the author’s childhood obsession with his parents’ wedding album through a lifetime making photographs, teaching, and writing about photography, Durant’s narrative weaves memoir with photographic history and theory. Illustrated with a broad spectrum of images from family snapshots to Hubble space imagery, to the work of artists such as Josef Koudelka, Julia Margaret Cameron, Larry Sultan, Maya Deren, Odilon Redon, Nan Goldin, David Wojnarowicz and Chris Marker, 27 Contexts describes a life immersed in the quotidian, the political, and the enigmatic aspects of photography. Durant has contributed to numerous catalogs, monographs and anthologies including The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire, The Gothic, Jimmie Durham and Marco Breuer: Early Recordings. He is author of McDermott and McGough: A History of Photography, Robert Heinecken: A Material History and co-author of Vik Muniz: Seeing is Believing and Dressed for Thrills: 100 Years of Halloween Costume and Masquerade. In 2005, Durant co-curated and co-authored Blur of the Otherworldly: Contemporary Art, Technology and the Paranormal. He has served on the faculties of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, UCLA, the University of New Mexico, Syracuse University, and the Milton Avery Graduate School for the Arts at Bard College, he is now Professor of Photography at the University of Maryland School of Visual Arts. 27 Contexts – An Anecdotal History in Photography is available through the publisher’s website: https://saint-lucy.com/shop/27-contexts/ . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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