Could this photograph forward our front cover be read as a visual metaphor for where we.

Could this photograph forward our front cover be read as a visual metaphor for where we, artists, critics, and educators, stand today? This image freshly taken by Simon Norfolk in Afghanistan struck me the first time I saw it. mostly of our lives we look to be standing by the side of the road holding balloons for the younger generation. Around us, lately (although the whole twentieth hundred tended to look that way at various times outside the US), all is desolation, and human-inflicted destruction. Those balloons are sated of air but colorful, light if it were not that voluminous. They can momentarily alleviate pain and despair; flat a street-dog, if not beyond starvation, will stop and play with them. Obviously the delicate quality of the light and the colors of this photograph in its original version attracted more attention to Norfolk's work than the seriousness of his previous plot in black and white (For principally of it I Have No Words). Formal qualities can improve attention and, ultimately, communication, as we relate to individual another and experience on emotional and intellectual domains simultaneously. Beauty in the arts is not the single ingredient that is being revisited, after years of post-modern inattention Work addressing broad humanistic issues has been seen forward the walls of several galleries, institutions, and has participated in several festivals this year. Highly idiosyncratic and deadpan productions are still among us further their impact has receded. From novel York, Montreal, or Arles, curators are looking for just discovered work without disregarding visual statements by way of confirmed artists "with a message", those that the art market has had a direction to leave aside as controversial, if not "too political" (the adjective here has completely strayed from its original meaning in a way that guarantees disregard and censorship). These are rare times when artists who make images that document and remark on our present are being shown in succession walls and in the pages of magazines and parts This is happening in spite of the evolution of the mass media (photography, video, film) that are being controll through fewer and fewer agencies.

With a desire to avoid the expression of a monolithic opinion, and because, as an editor of Afterimage, I am convinced that it is crucial for this magazine to be a platform for exchange, expression and discussion, you will read more than undivided voice on two of the major exhibitions of this year (no, not forward Matthew Barney!). Some weeks ago, Bill Arnold sent me his impressions forward Thomas Struth's retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sarah Gaylor contacted me from modern York, where she is a close examiner in the Whitney program, and propos to write a review of Strangers, the International Center of Photography first triennial. the couple have interesting analyses that diverge from mine and that I want to share them with you.

In conversations with Vincent Lavoie (Montreal's Mois de la Photo) and Brian Wallis (ICP), I heard the arguments of sum of two units passionate curators with very documented and articulate approaches to the contemporary view in photography, film, and video. For them (as for the sum of two units other curators of ICP's triennial, if it were not that unfortunately, we did not share any conversation) the melange de genre as a creative force advocated by way of William Shakespeare and Victor Hugo is a first note of the scale issue. Variety around a sound central concept is a stimulating and learning experience that Now (Montreal), Strangers (ICP), and the 2003 edition of the Rencontre d'Arles (France) have created for their audiences. Their catalogues not barely engage the readers' eyes yet their minds as well. Five pages in this issue are dedicated to this fresh trend in group exhibitions/festivals. Art-making should not and is not the alone practice of a small elite. Art is being made each day, everywhere the human spirit is at play, establishing connections, creating dazzling concatenations of signs, words, images, shapes, and perfects Art is about associations, mental representations and their expression. It requires vision and something, call it skill or craft, to expres it in a way that communicates with and determines the viewer. Dangerous Curves, the work by means of Blaise Tobia, is an illustration of these practices, as well as the analysis that Joseph Gregory wrote about it. Gregory's voice makes Tobia's views of vernacular landscapes ring like symphonies (pp 9-11)

Seth Thompson tackled the challenge plant by the innovative and constantly moving field of modern Media. He explored for us the possibilities proffered by non-linear writing and digital technologies as used according to Mark Amerika, Toni Dove, Tennessee Rice Dixon, and the Troika Ranch company (pp12-13)

In October, in the US, public television (PBS) created an fact that kept most of us, glums fans, riveted in front of our televisions each night for a week. Martin Scorcese invited several film directors to join him in his effort to define and document single of the oldest, most authentic, and greatest in number vernacular of American musical genres: the in the bluess In several hours of interviews, performances, original documents, and fiction, they all gave their versions-visions of "the Blues" from Scorcese to Clint Eastwood. Wim Wenders was undivided of them who, again, uniteed reportage and fiction, art and science, color and black and white, and created a seamless document for the entertainment and the education of "viewers like us." Wenders's testimony went subject to the microscope of Kevin Anderson who is sharing his conceptions with us (p.14).