Photography

War’s Queer Face

The brutal nexus of homophobia and geopolitics in Ukraine.

The War No One Wanted

In Sudan, the forces unleashed by the remnants of Bashir’s regime have not won. Even under siege, life continues.

With photographs by Salih Basheer

Seeing Genocide

Israel’s weaponization of images since October 7 obfuscates its genocidal campaign against Palestinians.

The Captive Photograph

Images seized from enslaved people are not private property to be owned, but ancestors to be cared for.

The Photographic Is Political

“Do we approach the photograph as spectators, or as citizens of the world?”

Race in Black and White

Slavery and the Civil War were central to the development of photography as both a technology and an art.

The Instagrammable Charm of the Bourgeoisie

The modes of perception and living that we attribute to Instagram are rooted in a much older aesthetic of the picturesque.

Unreliable Witnesses

From scrapbooks to family albums, a new book presents their visual testimonies from Kashmir.

Racial Violence in Black and White

Images of violence against African Americans have a radical heritage as instruments of critique.

Home Theater

Larry Sultan’s elegiac photography captures the suburban American home. 

Why Do Photography Critics Hate Photography?

For many critics, photography has become a duplicitous force to be defanged rather than an experience to embrace.

A Witness to Murder

Heinrich Jöst’s photographs of the Holocaust dwell in what Jean Améry called “the waiting room of death.”

Robert Capa’s Hope

The photographer wanted to show what freedom, and the people who made it, looked like.

Photographing Cruelty

In the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the weapon of choice was not the gun but the spectacle of public shaming.

The Uses and Abuses of Photojournalism

Do we approach the photograph as spectators, or as citizens of the world?

The Mapplethorpe Moment

For the photographer, art happens when the heat of living and the ice of death meet.

Philosophers on Photography

The Ethnocentric Icon

Can photographers, unlike writers, leave their native land with impunity?

An Interview with Susan Sontag

Geoffrey Movius speaks with Susan Sontag about photography, writing, and memory.

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