Vietnam reinvented

Both Eddie Adams and Nick Ut's Vietnam pictures are reinvented all over the place - the first image above I found stencilled under a bridge on the banks of the Avon in Bath, and the same theme has been used all over the place (in Brian Haw's parliament protest for example, but not in Mark Wallinger's installation ).


Banksy did his Ronald and Mickey take on the Nick Ut, and Manit Sriwanichpoom reshot it for his This Bloodless War series (which he showed in little happenings that took place on the streets of Bangkok) , a commentary on Thai Consumption which followed on from his Pink Man series.

Sriwanichpoom is doing black and white anthropological portraits of his neighbours now which you can find (along with the Pink Man/Bloodless War work on the link above). There's also a short interview here.

TV Personalities

TV Personalities

TV Personalities

'AROLD!

TV Personalities

"Here they come, la-la-la-la-la la-la..."

TV personalities

More suggestions for art photography cliches include creepy kids, former Soviet countries and not too dangerous developing nations - development and decay seem to be the themes here. Anyway, enough of that.

Here's Charles having a bad day ( in Oman if I remember right).

Television Personalities

If Richard West likes stuffed animals, I like TV. For me there are few pictures that can't be improved dramatically by a judiciously placed television, preferably one with something exciting happening like Nixon giving his resignation speech or Tony Blair being arrested for corruption.

Pictures of the screen have a certain magic, the mediation of film on a badly tuned analogue signal rendering a Dorian Gray like quality to those being photographed. Photographs of television images reveal the subject warts and all, the finer qualities of their celebrity/power-based lives somehow stripped bare.

Harry Gruyaert's TV Shots remains a great record of an epoch through television, but the addition of a light sprinkling of rough old images of the telly adds weight to many a great photobook. And so much work has been done directly from the television that it is a definite candidate for a top 10 place in the art photography cliche list.

Many of my happiest hours have been spent in front of the telly trying to capture that small screen decisive moment. To follow are some of my finest efforts, starting with Kim Jong Il in full Dr Evil mode.