British photographer Brian Griffin has died aged 75. Griffin was celebrated for his playful photography and later work, which appeared on album covers for artists including Depeche Mode and Echo & the Bunnymen.

Griffin, who was born in Birmingham in 1948, intertwined surrealist motifs throughout work that mischievously rethought the corporate world, drawing on his diverse inspirations, from the industrial influences of his childhood to futuristic films such as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and Renaissance paintings.

After graduating from Manchester School of Art in 1972, Griffin moved to London and focused on portraits of musicians including Elvis Costello, The Jam, Queen, Ringo Starr, Iggy Pop, Siouxsie and the Banshees. He shot the first five Depeche Mode studio album covers, among which the debut one was released in 1981. 

Griffin also created the album cover for Echo & the Bunnymen’s Heaven Up Here (also 1981), which was named the best album of that year by NME, and one of the best albums of all time by Rolling Stone magazine. He received the Royal Photographic Society Centenary Medal in 2013, and his works have also been celebrated in retrospective exhibitions at Reykjavík Art Museum, and London’s V&A and National Portrait Gallery.

Here, we look back to Griffin’s shoot for Wallpaper* in May 2018, capturing an immaculately tailored corporate meltdown. 

Brian Griffin’s Wallpaper* shoot

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Finnish photographer Petri Damstén has crafted a digital clock within a photography flash unit using a Raspberry Pi Pico W with a ST7735 display coded in CircuitPython.

The digital display fits into where the diffuser panel once was. It mimics the simple aesthetics seen when on camera lenses to perfection. At the top, in large, easy-to-see numbers is the time. Below that a graphic reminiscence of depth of field markings seen on lenses. This part is just for aesthetics, but it’s a nice touch.

“The idea of a camera-themed clock originated from my interest in photography. Another concept I had in mind was a Back to the Future DeLorean time machine-themed clock, but that might be a project for another day,” Damstén says in a blog post detailing the project

See the video below and more on PetaPixel. The project files are on GitHub.

NEW YORK; January 31, 2024 — Climate change takes center stage at Asia Society with the presentation of COAL + ICE, an immersive photography and video exhibition taking place February 13 through August 11, 2024. The exhibition will be accompanied by a multidisciplinary program series, with performances and activations throughout the city, designed to raise awareness and catalyze responses to the climate crisis.

Encompassing work by over 30 photographers and artists from around the world, the exhibition traces a photographic arc of climate change spanning the past century, from deep within coal mines, to the melting glaciers of the greater Himalaya. Greenhouse gases are warming the high-altitude climate of the Tibetan Plateau, disturbing the great rivers of Asia and disrupting the lives of billions of people downstream. Rising sea levels and extreme weather events are highlighted in the exhibition by an immersive presentation of the video installation Deluge by Gideon Mendel, documenting flooding around the world.  

COAL + ICE is a collaborative visual experience that calls attention to the urgent global issue of climate change. Through intimate portraits and vast, altered landscapes, the works on view document the consequences triggered by our continued reliance on fossil fuels, and bring to life the environmental and human costs of climate change, in Asia and around the world. The exhibition will be presented across four floors of Asia Society, and will culminate with a series of projects by photographers, artists, and designers who foreground a range of differently scaled solutions to the climate crisis including an installation on renewable energy by Jamey Stillings.  

Co-curated by Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas and exhibition designer Jeroen de Vries, and led by Orville Schell, Asia Society Vice President and Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations, the exhibition has evolved since its initial premiere in Beijing in 2011. A growing set of works from around the world visualizes the human consequences of climate change, including droughts, floods, fires, and migration. Each photographer’s commitment to capturing our changing environment and its human toll is reflected in imagery curated from their long-term, authored bodies of work.

Visitors to the exhibition at Asia Society will be greeted by a two-story presentation on the Park Avenue building facade of two large-scale photographs by artist Clifford Ross capturing the menacing waves of Nazaré, Portugal, which swell up to 100 feet high with increased hurricane and storm activity.

The immersive installation New York, 2050: A Possible Future, created for Ingka Group (IKEA) for their Action Speaks summit in NY, presents a vision—through sight, sound, and smell—of a thriving net-zero city, where New Yorkers have transformed the way they live to ensure a hopeful and resilient future. It was produced in collaboration with UK-based studio Superflux, led by Anab Jain and Jon Ardern.  

Artist Maya Lin has created an interactive presentation from What Is Missing?, a memorial to the places and species we are losing during this sixth mass extinction that highlights memory, action, and hope, and shares new pathways toward a more livable planet. 

Leveraging behavioral science, world-building, and storytelling, Jake Barton’s Accelerator 2050 features a time machine that invites visitors to text with an AI-derived version of their future self about the positive impact of the climate actions they will take now and in years to come.  

Participating artists and photographers
Jake Barton
Bernd and Hilla Becher
Daniel Beltrá
Noah Berger
Matt Black
David Breashears
Jimmy Chin
Bruce Davidson
Cameron Davidson
John Davies
Willem Diepraam
Anna Filipova
Geng Yunsheng
Lewis Hine
Jane Hirshfield
Joris Ivens
Dolf Kruger
Meridith Kohut
Maya Lin
Dana Lixenberg
George Mallory
Gideon Mendel
Niu Guozheng
Darcy Padilla
Gordon Parks
Clifford Ross
Camille Seaman
Vittorio Sella
Nichole Sobecki
Song Chao
Jamey Stillings
Henri Storck
Superflux
Peter van Agtmael
Major E. O. Wheeler
Witho Worms
Yu Haibo 
 
Climate Action Partners 
Asia Society has partnered with over 30 arts, culture, educational, environmental, and community organizations across the city to highlight the breadth of climate-related activities occurring in all five boroughs. Our Climate Action Partners include: American Museum of Natural History, Billion Oyster Project, Bronx River Alliance, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Brooklyn Grange, Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation, City of Water Day, Climate Fresk, Climate Film Festival New York, The Climate Museum, Dysturb, Fotografiska New York, French Institute Alliance Française, Hudson River Foundation/NY NJ Harbor & Estuary Program, Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center, International Center of Photography (ICP), LA MAMA, Lincoln Center, Magnum Foundation, Melting Metropolis, National Sawdust, New York Botanical Garden, New York Public Library, New York WILD Film Festival, NYU Gallatin WetLab, Park Avenue Armory, THE POINT Community Development Corporation, Queens Public Library, Staten Island Museum, The Trust for Governors Island, Waterfront Alliance, and Working & Learning Together Electronics (WALTER).

Support
COAL + ICE is funded by the generous contributions of The Schmidt Family Foundation, Janet Ross, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Frank and Susan Brown, Adobe, Jerome Dodson, Stephanie Hui, Laumont Editions, and many kind donors who wish to remain anonymous; list in formation.

Support for Asia Society Museum is provided by Asia Society Council on Asian Arts and Culture; Asia Society Friends of Asian Art; Arthur Ross Foundation; Sheryl and Charles R. Kaye Endowment for Contemporary Art Exhibitions; The Hazen Polsky Foundation; The Mary Griggs Burke Fund, and Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Project background 
COAL + ICE was first developed by Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations for exhibition at Three Shadows Photography Art Center in Beijing in 2011. The exhibition traveled across China, and was on display at the U.S. Ambassador’s Residence in Paris during COP 21 before coming to the U.S., to Fort Mason in San Francisco in 2018 and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in 2022. 

Asia Society Museum is located at 725 Park Avenue (at 70th Street), New York City. Museum hours are 11:00 am to 5:00 pm, Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is $15 adults; $10 students/seniors; free for persons age 16 and under. Admission to the museum is free on Fridays. Free Friday admission is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Find out more at AsiaSociety.org/NY. Connect with us on Instagram @AsiaSociety, on TikTok @Asia.Society, and on Facebook and X @AsiaSocietyNY.

So she learned how to do it well the first time.

Now, after more than two decades documenting the culture, she reflects on her work with pride. “I really have a thing about telling the story through my photos about our culture,” she says, “and I feel like I’ve captured everything through the years, and did it the best way possible, you know?”

Below is just a small sample of D-Ray’s photos, some never before seen, and her comments about each, edited for length and clarity.

D-Ray: So this was me just looking around the room and seeing these two knuckleheads laugh. You know what I mean? Just seeing them crack jokes there. They’re probably just roasting each other like no tomorrow. If you see Jacka, you can almost hear him laughing.

This picture right here shows Stan and Jack’s relationship. A lot of people might not realize that F.A.B. and Jack are actually close, you know, like friendship-wise, more than just music. But this right here, this is Ramadan. So Jack was definitely fasting that day, and they were probably cracking a joke on how he wanted to eat or something, you know?

D-Ray: This is at Keak’s house in the 70s in East Oakland, during MTV’s My Block. History was being made and I decided to document it. To see them both sitting on a porch in East Oakland, it meant a lot to me. When Sway came to the Town it brought a lot of people out; it showed the love.

D-Ray: So Messy (Marv) got the cover of Showcase magazine; that was actually shot behind Showcase’s office in San Leandro, off East 14th. It’s my very first cover shot. Frank Herrera was like, “D-Ray, you think you can do it?” I was like, “Hell yeah.” Mind you, this was film. You couldn’t see what you were taking pictures of.

This shot ended up in The Source magazine, XXL, this is what got me exposure in the world. Messy Marv welcomed me into the world. Also, Kilo Curt, Mac Dre and Miami The Most showed up to go talk to Gary and Frank because they were working Mac Dre’s record at the time. They saw me doing Messy Marv’s photoshoot, and that’s what got me adopted into Thizz — because Dre was like, “Oh, we need a female photographer.”

D-Ray: We used to have dance battles at Youth Uprising, it was a safe haven. Kids from East Oakland, their parents, folks who weren’t a part of the youth center would come, it was something to do on a Friday night. Those kids, look at them, those kids in the middle row are the only kids that probably go to Youth Uprising. Those other kids are family and friends.

D-Ray: It’s showing East Oakland and both sides of Vallejo. Do you know what I’m talking about? Because I am the official Thizz photographer, and I still have a relationship with people like 40.

I saw it, I took it. I saw the T go up, and it automatically happens. I’ve just got to keep it real. As soon as the T goes up, it just happens. It’s just the way my mental is trained.

D-Ray: I spent like two weeks with Husalah before he turned himself in, and we wanted to get all of his stages, like all of his looks. I mean, he changed his clothes multiple times. We went to the projects, we did all types of stuff, just to make sure he had content while he was in prison.

When he was in prison, I made sure that he was still kept alive. Like, I had good pictures of him. I had press packets. I had whatever we needed. It was a sad situation. I’ll never forget it was like those two weeks.

D-Ray: This is at Youth Uprising (YU). The Jacka would show up anytime I asked Jack to show up.

I have a thing with YU, those are all my kids. I don’t know him as “Ice Cold,” I know him as Gary. You get what I’m saying? Today, knowing his name is Ice Cold, I’ve had to get used to it.

I have a bunch of kids at YU, and I just felt like I had to make sure (Gary) had a picture with my brother and he had that kind of love that my brother could pass off to him… And I just remember, because they were all excited to see Jack there.

Jack would get me in trouble tho, because he would come through smelling like OH MY GOD. Olis Simmons (the former head of YU) would say, “D-Ray, take him outside and spray him down before he comes in here.” I’d be like, “Why Jack, why?” But then, you couldn’t hold that against him. The kids would love him because he’d come in and he’d be himself. Jack would inspire those kids, and bring shirts and talk to them. I think that’s what gave Gary — Ice Cold — so much hope. He makes me very proud. Ice Cold makes me very, very, very proud. To see him glowing in this picture like he is, that’s why I pulled this picture.

Houston, Texas: In a dramatic revelation, local photographer Jason Artique’s deep and insightful Instagram captions have been unmasked as nothing but a collection of trending hashtags. This shocking discovery has overturned his reputation as a profound artist and shaken the Instagram community. 

Artique’s portfolio, lauded for its emotional depth, combined everyday scenes with captions like “Amidst chaos, find serenity #DeepThoughts #UrbanJungle,” now revealed as mere echoes of popular social media tags. His followers, who admired his seemingly philosophical insights, are left feeling betrayed and disillusioned.

Take his viral shot of a chipped coffee mug, paired with the caption “Broken, yet holding the elixir of life #CaffeinatedSouls #FragmentedExistence.” Eagle-eyed fans noticed its uncanny similarity to a hashtag-storm under #MotivationMonday. And who can forget the image of a wilted flower with “Beauty in decay, the transient poetry of nature #EphemeralAesthetics #WitherWithWisdom,” a near-verbatim echo of #ThoughtfulThursday’s musings.

Artique’s admirers, who once revered him as a modern-day philosopher, have expressed their discontent and sense of betrayal. “I thought he was channeling the essence of life, but he was just channeling trending topics,” said one former fan, echoing the sentiments of many.

Artique, amidst the controversy, maintains a defiant stance. “Art is about capturing the zeitgeist, and my captions reflect the collective psyche of our time,” he argued, seemingly undisturbed by the accusations of unoriginality.

Art historians and social media experts are now weighing in on the scandal. “This case opens up a broader discussion about originality in the digital age,” commented a noted art critic. “Where do we draw the line between inspiration and outright appropriation in art?”

As the story unfolds, the art community and social media users are left to ponder the fine line between artistic inspiration and intellectual theft. Meanwhile, Artique continues to post, undeterred, with his latest photo of a raindrop on a leaf accompanied by yet another trending caption, igniting further debate over the nature of art and authenticity in the era of social media.