A study of three photographic projects that emerged in the 1950s―The Family of Man, Robert Frank's The Americans, and Bernd and Hilla Becher's typological record of industrial architecture―that expressed the modern desire for social belonging and the dream of nation.
The old dream of social belonging and political sovereignty―the dream of nation―was fraught with anxiety and contradiction for many artists and intellectuals in the 1950s. On the one hand, memories of the Second World War remained vivid and the chauvinism that had enabled it threatened to return with the growing tensions of the Cold War. On the other hand, the need to bind together into a new global identity―into a world nation or "family of man"―seemed ever more pressing as a bulwark against the rapidly expanding threat of a nuclear World War III.
The Pivot of the World looks at an exceptional effort to work out that geopolitical tension by cultural means as developed in three hugely ambitious photographic projects: The Family of Man exhibition that opened in 1955 and traveled the world for the next decade; Robert Frank's influential book The Americans, photographed in 1955-1956 and first published in 1958; and Bernd and Hilla Becher's typological record of industrial architecture, begun in 1957 and continuing today. Each of these projects worked to release the dream of nation―of belonging and sovereignty―from its old civic trappings through the medium of photography's serial form, in the experience of one photograph followed by another and another and another, so that all seem at once intimately connected and at the same time autonomous and distinct. Innovations in the serial composition of photographic form could open new possibilities for social form while the modern desire for political belonging could be made cosmopolitan, could be globalized―but in the most human of ways. This epic sense of purpose lasted only for a moment―it had already passed by the beginning of the 1960s―but it bears particular interest for any historical understanding of the contest over globalization that continues to hold such great consequence for us now.

The Pivot of the World: Photography and Its Nation

Arts & Photography

Stimson, Blake

Photography & Video

Mit Pr

What is a photographic image? Can a photograph ever tell the truth? These are some of the questions artist Walid Raad (born 1967) has been investigating for the past 20 years, in a practice that encompasses photography, film and video, sculpture, installation and performance. This publication brings together three major bodies of work: the photographic and video works produced under the fictional collective name The Atlas Group; various series of seemingly "straight" photography of his native Beirut titled Sweet Talk: Commissions (Beirut); and his most recent project, Scratching on Things I Could Disavow: A History of Art in the Arab World. The publication includes an exchange between the artist and curator Achim Borchardt-Hume; an essay on conceptions of truth by poet and writer Alan Gilbert; a text on Raad's use of photography and its ties to Beirut by Blake Stimson; and an essay by Hélène Chouteau-Matikian.

Walid Raad

Gilbert, Alan

Chouteau-Matikian, Hélène

History & Criticism

Whitechapel Gallery

As the United States slowly emerges from its most significant economic downturn since the Great Depression, the CCA Wattis Institute reexamines the well-known photography program of the Farm Security Administration (1935-44). In More American Photographs, 12 contemporary photographers were commissioned to travel the United States, documenting its land and people. These new works are presented alongside historical images by original FSA photographers such as Dorothea Lange in a catalogue whose design was inspired by Walker Evans’ seminal book American Photographs. Participating photographers include Walead Beshty, Esther Bubley, Larry Clark, Roe Ethridge, Walker Evans, Katy Grannan, William E. Jones, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Sharon Lockhart, Catherine Opie, Gordon Parks, Martha Rosler, Collier Schorr, Ben Shahn, Stephen Shore, Alec Soth, Hank Willis Thomas and Marion Post Wolcott.

More American Photographs

Hoffmann, Jens

California College of the Arts

From his life to his work, Andy Warhol is an enigma. The leading figure of the pop art movement, Warhol created paintings, films, performance art, and his famous studio, the Factory, in New York City. Fans, aficionados, enthusiasts, experts, and critics alike have tried to make sense of Warhol, creating a wealth of knowledge and speculation. Blake Stimson builds on this project in this gorgeously illustrated book, which brings new attention to the philosophical and creative influences behind Warhol’s life and work. Citizen Warhol leads us through the artist’s youth, from his religiously infused childhood and adolescence in Pittsburgh to his university training at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, where he was profoundly affected by Carnegie’s industrial-age theory of art. Stimson recounts Warhol’s brief but formative dalliance with the guilt-riddled sensibility and decadent lifestyle of Aubrey Beardsley, an English illustrator whose drawings emphasize the grotesque and the erotic. In addition, Stimson describes how the Byzantine-influenced religious rituals of Warhol’s childhood affected his relationships with the figures who starred in his films and staffed the Factory, as well as relating the lessons he learned from his triumphs as a commercial artist working in a world still beholden to the Red Decade ideals of the 1930s. More than any other artist, Stimson shows, Warhol represents the unresolved contradiction between the ideal of the citizen and that of the consumer, an incongruity people continue to struggle with today. From Lonesome Cowboy to Campbell's Soup I, this book provides readers with deeper insight into the meaning and legacy of Warhol’s life and art.

Citizen Warhol

Individual Artists

Reaktion Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stimson, Blake. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Stimson, Blake