Paul Graham

About Episode 48

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha and photographer, Paul Graham discuss his self-taught beginnings in photography and what it’s like to see your work become historical with the passage of time. Paul and Sasha talk about Paul’s more recent, and more personal, work and Paul shares his thoughts on the ethics of photographing outside of one’s own community. They discuss these topics and many more in this season ending episode of the podcast.

Paul Graham has played an essential role in dissolving the barriers between the worlds of documentary and fine art photography. Starting in the early 1980s, Graham’s use of color in the role traditionally occupied by black-and-white documentary was a radical challenge to the unwritten rules of engaged photography. Troubled Land (on the Northern Ireland conflict) and Beyond Caring (addressing unemployment in the time of Margaret Thatcher) shifted the debate on how such issues could be visually articulated. With an extraordinarily long and active career of four decades, Graham has published eighteen monographs and three survey books. He moved to New York in 2002, and has worked in the United States since then. Most notably, a shimmer of possibility was published as a set of twelve books and presented as a solo exhibition at MoMA, New York. He is represented by Pace Gallery in the United States, and galleries in London and Berlin.

Artist Links:

Website

Episode Resources:

FSA, ICP, MoMA, Art Basel, Steidl, Creative Camera

People Mentioned:

Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, William Eggleston, Aaron Schuman, Garry Winogrand, Anthony Reynolds, Bill Brandt, Chris Killip, Martin Parr, Gregory Crewdson, Susan Kismaric, Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Robert Frank, Alec Soth, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth