The Magnum Digest: September 13, 2019

Mark Power’s latest book featured on American Suburb X 

Mark Power’s ongoing project – Good Morning, America – a five-book series documenting the social and physical landscape of contemporary America, has been featured on American Suburb X. Reviewing the second instalment of the work, Good Morning, America (Volume 2), the feature explores the sinister reflection of America and the nation’s slovenly industrial and desert sprawls, laid bare through Power’s work.

You can read the full feature here, and read an essay on the work by Gregory Harris of Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, on Magnum, here.

Christopher Anderson reflects on his best photograph

In the latest of The Guardian’s photographic series, My best shot, Christopher Anderson discusses his photograph of his partner, Marion, breastfeeding in their former home in Brooklyn. Anderson reflects on the space, the role it played in the making of his book Son, and also how the image captures a moment in his career when he was thinking deeply about his role as a photographer, “coming to understand that the only thing I really had something to say about was my own life and what was immediately around me.”

You can read the feature here. You can see more images from the book Son here, on Magnum.

Raghu Rai honored by France’s Academie des Beaux-Arts

Academie des Beaux-Arts, Paris, has named Raghu Rai as the first recipient of its Photography Award – William Klein, created this year in tribute to Klein. The prize, recipients of which are to be announced every two years, is intended to reward photographers for career-long dedication to photography. An exhibition retracing Rai’s career will open at the Academie’s exhibition space in Paris on October 24.

You can read the announcement in French on the Academie’s site, here.

Martin Parr discusses controversy and being ‘paid to do your hobby’

In a long, in-depth conversation with Martin Parr, It’s Nice That charts the photographer’s famously productive career to date, touching on numerous projects – from Parking Spaces to Last Resort – and delving into his thoughts on everything from productivity and  obsession to mental decay and his love affair with the north of England.

You can read the interview on It’s Nice That, here.

Dennis Stock’s Golden State adventures

Dennis Stock’s travels through California in the 1960s saw him capture the epitome of that era’s freewheeling, countercultural movements. Back-to-the-earth hippies, radical activists, anti-war protesters, and the odd few ‘squares’ sit alongside brutalist architecture, circuitous coast roads, and geodesic homes in his book, California Trip. With that long-out-of-print title recently republished by Anthology Editions, the work was featured on SF Gate, here, and Flavorwire, here.

You can read Stock’s own words on his trip on the Magnum site, along with more images from the project, here.

A selection of Stock’s photographs from the book are available now on the Magnum Shop as fine prints.

Robert Frank: 1924-2019

Robert Frank, the Swiss-American photographer and filmmaker, died on September 9, 2019 at the age of 94. Frank’s work in the mid-20th century United States – including his seminal 1958 book The Americans – helped define his legacy as a nuanced, uncompromising, and at times controversial artist. Magnum photographer Thomas Hoepker touched on Frank’s influence, writing, “For my first extensive road trip assignment through the US, in 1963, I had one major guiding star: Robert Frank and his book, The Americans…”

Over the years many Magnum photographers have made portraits of Frank. You can see a selection of these images on the Magnum archive, here.