Recently I spent some time in a faraway land (it’s called Reston) for a quick get away from the house and to have an indulgent type of weekend. Other than room service, decent restaurants, and sitting on my ass, for me that usually means buying a bunch of books or magazines, that weekend was no exception. So here is the beginning of the magazine roundup.
Cabinet. At fist I thought I had made a big mistake with this because it has a feel of “we are based in Williamsburg and we are trying real hard”. Well the fact is, that they are trying real hard and succeeding on a number of levels.
Jocko Weyland’s article; Square Watermelons and Leg Art, a story about the lost images of the Associated Press was worth the price of the magazine alone. However it is followed up with a small portfolio of Greg Jones recent photographs Make Model Mark, which although simple and banal are in fact supercharged images of automobiles that respond as artworks about class as well as using a quotation of minimalism to address and further its viewpoint. Top all this of with Trevor Paglen’s great article about symbols and insignia of classified military units.
This magazine is almost like an onion, I keep reading from it and get more and more each time.
JPG is a magazine with a huge web presence. It has a very egalitarian approach to curatorial decision – they are voted on by people who visit the site and sometimes it matter and sometimes it does not. This is good and bad. The magazine has great photos, but the problem for me is that there are too many single images from one photographer. It is a bit like going to a show where there are 47 works by 47 different artists – you see some great images but there is no depth – nothing that gives you enough to make a real decision about any of the artists.
I should note, JPG, is not trying to be the next Aperture so maybe this lack of curatorial / editing is more my problem than the typical reader. your milage may vary – still enjoyable though.