Formerly a columnist for the Village Voice\, the New York Times\, and the New York Ob server\, Coleman contributes to ARTnews\, Art On Paper\, and Technology Rev iew. His syndicated essays on mass media\, new communication technologies\, art\, and photography are featured in such periodicals as Juliet Art Magaz ine (Italy)\, European Photography (Germany)\, and La Fotografia (Spain). H is work has been translated into 21 languages and published in 30 countries .
Since 1995\, Coleman has served as Publisher and Executive Director
of The Nearby Café (nearbycafe.com)\, a multi-subject electronic magazine
where his widely read internet newsletter on photography\, "C: The Speed of
Light\," appears at photocritic.com. He also directs the Photography Criti
cism CyberArchive (photocriticism.com)\, the most extensive online database
ever created of writing about photography by authors past and present. Wit
h John Alley\, he publishes The New Eyes Project (k12photoed.org)\, a resou
rce for teachers of photography.
Coleman — who lectures\, teaches and
publishes widely both here and abroad — has appeared on NPR\, PBS\, CBS and
the BBC. A Getty Museum Guest Scholar and a Fulbright Senior Scholar\, and
a recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Has
selblad Foundation\, he was honored in 1996 as the Ansel and Virginia Adams
Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Center for Creative Photography.
American Photo named Coleman one of "the 100 most important people in phot
ography in 1998." In 2002 he received the Culture Prize of the German Photo
graphic Society — the first critic of photography ever so honored.
Col
eman's books include The Grotesque in Photography\; Light Readings: A Photo
graphy Critic's Writings\, 1968-1978\; Critical Focus: Photography in the I
nternational Image Community\; Tarnished Silver: After the Photo Boom\; Loo
king at Photographs: Animals\, a work for children\; Depth Of Field: Essays
on Photography\, Mass Media and Lens Culture\; and The Digital Evolution:
Visual Communication in the Electronic Age\, Essays\, Lectures And Intervie
ws 1967-1998. Critical Focus received the International Center of Photograp
hy's Infinity Award for Writing on Photography in 1995). Wired magazine cal
led The Digital Evolution "required reading for today’s media-savvy or info
rmation-obsessed artist." In 2007 he published his second collection of poe
try\, Like Father Like Son\, a collaboration with Earl M. Coleman. A new co
llection of Coleman’s essays\, Available Light: Photography in the 1990s\,
is due in 2008.
Coleman curated the current international traveling ex
hibition SAGA: The Journey of Arno Rafael.