Monday, March 28, 2011

Sex, Death and the History of Photography

I think this ambitiously titled series by Karl Baden is very entertaining. He made them pre-Photoshop between 1981 and 1988 using x-acto knife, dry-mounting tissue, then re-photographing. The results are quite clever and playful. More sex, death, and history can be found on Baden's Facebook page.

Diane Arbus / Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1988

after Paul Strand, 1982

August Sander / Diane Arbus, 1988

Timothy O'Sullivan / Edward Weston, 1988

after Brassai / Ralph Morse, 1988

Harold Edgerton / J.H. Lartigue, 1988

2 comments:

Moopheus said...

Dear Mr. Prince,

Sorry to hear about your recent loss. To clarify the issues involved, please see this work. While it would appear superficially that Mr. Baden's work was in a similar "appropriationist" vein as your own, note that Mr. Baden clearly does not regard his source material as "mere compilations of fact" to be used as raw material, but is in fact keenly aware of the original meaning of the sources and makes use of those meanings in presenting his satiric juxtapositions. The results are clever and amusing, and the not cheap ripoffs of a talentless hack.

Pay more attention next time, you asshole.

Blake Andrews said...

That's funny. This series made me think of Prince too, maybe because he's been in the news lately. I still don't really understand the appeal of his work but this article (http://tinyurl.com/4ejclrr) recently made me reconsider him in a new way.