Running Falling Flying Floating Crawling is a loose compendium of photographs and texts that picture, examine, explore, and / or suggest the human body in states of abandon, helplessness, terror, subjugation, serenity, and transcendence.

The former New York Times photography critic PHILIP GEFTER (DAVE, 14-17-23) has written a widely praised biography of Richard Avedon entitled “What Becomes a Legand Most” and which has been hailed as “definitive and insightful” (Publishers Weekly) and ‘beautifully written” (Stephen Shore) as well as “wise and ebullient” (The New York Times).

Using texts by John Berger, Walter Benjamin, and Roland Barthes as a framework, Strauss will reflect on the influence of the photographic image throughout history to the present.

SPECIFICALLY WITH ALL OF THE WORK THAT I HAVE BEEN MAKING NOW. I THINK THAT FOR AWHILE, I HAVE BEEN PROJECTING A CERTAIN VERSION OF MYSELF INTO THE WORLD. SOMETHING THAT IS GRAPHICALLY DIGESTIBLE, CLEAN, AND FORMALLY MALLEABLE. I WANTED TO EXPAND ON THE WAYS IN WHICH THESE DIFFERENT VIEWPOINTS COULD BE LAYERED IN THE FRAME WITHOUT AN OBVIOUS DECIDING FACTOR, THAT BEING MYSELF. THESE VIEWPOINTS PEAK THROUGH THE DARKNESS AND FORM A CLOUDINESS THAT HANGS OVER MYSELF IN MANY OF THESE IMAGES. AT FIRST, IT MAY NOT BE OBVIOUS BUT THAT FEELING IS CERTAINLY THERE. THESE PHOTOGRAPHS CONTINUOUSLY ASK THE SAME OLD QUESTION THAT I’VE DEBATED ALL MY LIFE, WHO IS SHE?

The new book by American photographer and educator Stephen Frailey, Looking at Photography, borrows the concept and format of Szarkowski’s seminal primer Looking at Photographs (1973): it puts together 100 great authors and a page of text for each, articulating the themes and emerging sensibility of contemporary photography.

Frailey, who is a photographer, writer, curator and currently the Director of Education at Red Hook Labs, introduces us to significant photographs from the early 1970s to the present day, featuring works of artists such as Tina Barney, Jeff Wall, Steven Meisel, Nan Goldin, Helmut Newton, Martin Parr, Tim Walker and Wolfgang Tillmans, among others.

It has been said, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” suggesting a single image can contain vast stores of information and ideas, as well as be a singular experience unto themselves, evoking a visceral response. In a world filled with images, visual literacy is an underutilized tool to help people navigate contemporary life.

Recognizing this, John Szarkowski, then Director of Photography at MoMA, penned the seminal 1973 book, Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, an accessible history of photography for seeking to learn how to become proficient at reading pictures.

Nearly half a century later, the world has become deluged by stores of images flooding our daily lives by virtue of the explosion of digital technology and our reliance upon it. Yet the subject of visual literacy goes largely unaddressed, and it is for this reason that photographer and educator Stephen Frailey’s new book, Looking at Photography (Damiani) is a much-needed contribution to the discourse.