Another loss to anthropology and archaeology. Mike Rowlands died on July 19. He was there at the funeral and at the tribute to Chris Tilley last November [Link] and I recalled first meeting him in 1979. It was at a conference about social theory that I helped organize with Keith Ray and Mark Gregson at…
Author: Michael Shanks
Studio update July 2025
Studio Michael Shanks Stanford University Click images to enlarge Questions and propositions Four interrelated research questions: Current projects — ongoing Archaeological history — building scenarios. Greece and Rome: a new model of antiquity. With Gary Devore. A project concerned with how one might conceive of antiquity as a kind of archaeological prehistory, retold through speculative…
Archaeography: An Introduction
A conversation with photographer Graeme Williams [Link] last November prompted me to reorganize and review my own photowork. Here’s one result. Archaeography — where the performance of photowork meets an archaeological sensibility.Exploring the shared practices of archaeology and photography — working with remains, attending to traces, and composing with absence. Since the 1970s I have…
Cloud study with monument
North Sea – Storebaelt Bridge. After John Constable’s cloud studies 1821. Series. Archaeographic notes An archaeologist might come upon an unexpected discovery. A photographer judges when to release a shutter on a moment before the camera. Kairos is a key in archaeological and photographic engagement and mediation — kairos is actuality, the moment when things…
Figuration
Three ancient figurines from Freud’s desk. Charcoal drawing by Robert Longo [Link] after a photograph taken as Freud left Vienna in 1938.
Robert Longo’s archaeological sensibility
An exhibition of works by Robert Longo at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art [Link]. Raft at Sea 2016-17 Longo traces photographs in charcoal. Large scale charcoal drawings. Of photographs. Blow-ups — upscaled photographs — traced projections. Iceberg for C.D.F (Caspar David Friedrich), 2015-16; The Western Wall, 2011 (Jerusalem) Stand back and you see the BIG…