Articles

Recently, the majority of my published writings have been co-authored with my TandM Arts partner (and wife) Virginia Maksymowicz. As part of our CETA Arts legacy work we wrote "The Forgotten Federally Employed Artists" for Hyperallergic 
(online, Dec. 2020). Before that our article on terminal degrees for visual artists, “An Alternate Approach to Establishing a Studio Doctorate in Fine Art” appeared in Leonardo (v 50 n 5, 2017). During the 1980s and 90s we wrote extensively for Art & Artists magazine and in the early 1990s we did a regular column about socially concerned art for The Witness magazine followed by a chapter for the book Social Problems of the Modern World, edited by Frances V. Moulde (Wadsworth, Jan. 2000). During the past decade we wrote numerous pieces for the Philadelphia Artblog (online).

I wrote "The Fluid Photograph/The Fluid Book" for the VASA Journal (online, Jan. 2016) and a review of the photo exhibition "La Famiglia" for the Italian-American Review (May 2016). I was commissioned to write the entry on digital photography for the Encyclopedia of 20th Century Photography (Routledge, 2006) and did a 2-part article on digital printmaking for pLUK magazine (London, Sept. and Nov. 2001). In 1992, based on my long-term interest in text/image relationships, I wrote “From Resistance to Embrace: Text/Image Relationships in 20th-Century Fine-Art Photographic Practice” for the book Word & Image Interactions, edited by Martin Heusser (Wise Verlag, Basel, Switzerland, June 1993). In 1990 my critical essay “Undermining Documentary” was published in Afterimage (Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, Sept.); also in Afterimage (July 1990) was my review "Two Coal Mining Exhibitions." My article about Detroit's Demolished by Neglect photographic project, "Making the Invisible Visible," was published in Artpapers (April 1989) and my piece on video artists Alan Powell and Connie Coleman's exhibition "Negotiations for a Heaven on Earth" appeared in the New Art Examiner (April 1988).


Photographs utilized in books and magazines

Many of my 1978 documentary photographs of the CETA CCF Artists Project have recently ended up in print. Three of dancer Blondell Cummings were included in the book Dance as Moving Pictures published by the Getty Research Institute (2021) and three of painter Ellsworth Ausby were used in the catalog for his retrospective  exhibition at Eric Firestone Gallery (2021). Numerous photos appeared in Hyperallergic, The Art Newspaper, aCurator, i-D and Create NYC (published by the Dept. of Cultural Affairs).

My photographs have appeared in both a chapter ("Around the Corner" in Site Matters, Burns & Kahn editors, Routledge 2005) and a book (Lure of the Local, New Press 1997) by Lucy Lippard and in the book Photographic Possibilities by Robert Hirsh (Focal Press 2001). They have also illustrated numerous articles written by Virginia Maksymowicz for Sculpture magazine, including a 1993 article that featured my photos of the Sicilian town of Gibellina Nuova. My photograph of a performance by artist Harold Olejarz was included in the book The Eye, the Hand, the Mind: A Cultural History of the College Art Association published by Rutgers University Press (Winter 2010). My documentation of a peace demonstration appeared in the N.Y. Times Magazine (Aug. 23, 1987).


Critical Reviews

The most comprehensive review of my work in print is "Dangerous Curves: Politics and Poetry in the Work of Blaise Tobia" by art historian Joseph Gregory, in Afterimage (Nov/Dec 2003). Roberta Fallon wrote "Blaise a Trail" for Philadelphia Weekly (Nov 26, 2008). Allan Wallach included my work in his article "Info/tograph: The Art of Demystification" in Obscura (v2 n5,1982) as did A.D. Coleman in his article "Photography in and Around Philadelphia" for The Photo Review (Fall, 1990). My work in the show "Couples" was reviewed by Benjamin Ginocchio in the N.Y. Times (April 27, 2008); also in the N.Y. Times (Dec. 26, 1993) was “Wit on Wry: Humor in Photography” by Helen A. Harrison,


Media references

Virginia Maksymowicz and I were extensively quoted (and pictured) in the article "Artists say a forgotten Nixon-era jobs program could radically alter federal arts funding" by Stephan Salisbury for the Philadelphia Inquirer (April 9, 2021). We were also references on CETA Arts in "Could a Nixon-Era Scheme Get Artists Back to Work" in The Art Newspaper (July 2020) and "The Landmark 70s Artists Program that Shaped American Culture Forever" in i-D magazine (Jan. 17, 2022). During 2021 we were interviewed for radio programs (on WFUV FM and WCHE AM) and podcasts (for The Art Newspaper and The Free Library of Philadelphia).