Dear Readers    

We are bringing back a popular theme—photography. As a regular Artillery contributor, I guest-edited a photo issue four years ago. Since then, Artillery Editor Tulsa Kinney and I have talked about revisiting the topic. That 2012 photography issue covered Zoe Crosher and Matthew Brandt, artists whose careers have since taken off, along with features on established photographers such as Robert Adams, Jo Ann Callis and Thomas Demand. We investigated “street” photographers like Doug Rickard who use Google Maps Street View and profiled other artists working in a range of techniques and styles.

Our current issue likewise reflects photography’s ever-evolving identity: its connection to cutting edge technological trends, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, artists who use film and chemistry to invoke chance by pushing the limits of their materials (far more, it seems, than artists of the pre-digital era). Josh Herman and Anise Stevens examine the latest trends in digital and analog photography and DeWitt Cheng looks at sci-fi-like Kirlian photography as applied to art.

Photography’s now widespread presence in daily life also informs current art practice. Contributor Emily Wells interviews artist Audrey Wollen, who graces our cover. Wollen’s platform of choice is Instagram, which we hint at by including a slice of text from the post this image comes from. Befitting our Instagram focus, columnist Zak Smith decodes the selfie and considers its implications in art. In addition to Wollen, we profile two other LA-based artists who use portraiture to explore notions of identity in our time. New York contributor Seph Rodney discusses Todd Gray’s photography with an eye toward art and race. Writer Annabel Osberg covers Amy Elkins’ revealing look at men toughened by prison or sport, and the limits to toughness their milieus impose. In Reconnoiter, Christopher Michno interviews Dhyandra Lawson, a LACMA photo curator.

Colin Westerbeck visited New York and caught the latest installment of MoMA’s often groundbreaking “New Photography” exhibition series. Let’s just say he didn’t like the show much, noting the curatorial tendency to explain obtuse works of art in language equally obtuse. (At least this year’s title, “Ocean of Images,” allowed for some fun “sea” motifs.) He discovered an intriguing trend: forays into three-dimensional illusionism both within individual images and in series installed in ways that gave depth to visitor interaction.

Photography’s recent, film-based past is revisited by columnist Mary Woronov, who drew inspiration from current museum exhibitions on Robert Mapplethorpe to hone in on shots of body builder Lisa Lyon. And in the reviews section we consider Chris Killip’s celebrated documentary series, “In Flagrante,” a stark view of 1980s British working-class life.

Photography has always involved a unique mash-up of art, science and social practice. Its definition seems still to be expanding—inclusive of new technologies, practices, perspectives, makers and audiences. At the same time, art is about pushing limits. By highlighting photographers drawn to experimentation, who have a strong read on culture and who work with emotion, in this issue, as in our last, we focus on the importance and relevance of the ever-changing art form.

—Guest Editor Anne Martens