5×5: “Pointing” by Gideon Jacobs

5×5 features five photographs by five photographers, usually curated around a specific subject matter, selected by a guest editor.

It’s cheesy to start anything off with a quote, but there’s no way around this one — legendary MOMA curator John Szarkowski said that “one might compare the art of photography to the act of pointing.” When I first heard this sentiment, it changed the way I thought about photography, simply because pointing is a reaction to something that’s already there. I began to imagine “the photographer” as someone who chooses which moments/perspectives in this finite world are worth saving, and then choses which of those extractions deserve our attention. Suddenly, in my mind, photography was a curative medium, not a creative one.

Maybe this is why I have a real soft spot for photo projects that are definitively curative, especially in the digital arena, which I see as an awesome and relatively untapped reservoir of imagery, ripe for exploration by great pointers.

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http://www.polyphoto.com (circa 1998) from “Internet Archeology” by Rydder Ripps

https://www.instagram.com/p/_nMsfzCB3a/

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from “Internet History” by Douglas Battenhauser

 


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