PhotoSnobbery

The End of Manhattan by Jay Fine and trip to Madrid

2011-09-12T12:40:00.004-04:00

Last week I actually got out of work at a reasonable hour on a Thursday (wonders never cease) and made it downtown for an hour of First Thursday in Chelsea. First stop on this momentous occasion was the Kim Foster Gallery on 20th Street, where I checked out a series of photographs shot in Lower Manhattan by Jay Fine. The gallery's first post-summer show was somewhat 9/11 in theme, with a mix of Mr. Fine's ethereal photographs mixed with the New York / Italian-American themed paintings of Antonio Petracca. While Mr Fine is definitely talented, I wish more of his work had been included in the show because notes on the show suggest that Mr. Fine has lived in Lower Manhattan and has been documenting activity near the World Trade Center since 2003. The photos are thought-provoking without being overly nostalgic (which is a typical and at this point, kind of shameful, place for artists to take their work based on 9/11). As I become very impatient with the sensationalized coverage of 9/11 every year around this time, I found this show to be a refreshing, positive and visually interesting exploration of the topic that all too often ventures into maudlin territory (this is not at all to suggest that I am not moved by those who lost loved ones in the tragedy - of course I am and as a New Yorker was very personally impacted by the events of that day, I just find the media's nonstop tear-jerking coverage to be very manipulative and off-base 10 years later).
Then, I ventured down the block to check out Lee Bae's show at Nicholas Robinson. While I will not pretend to know the first thing about sculpture, the coal-oriented objects arranged by Mr. Bae are breathtaking. The inspire the mind to go to all kinds of dark, creepy, archaeological places. These sculptures make one feel like they're unearthing archaiac treasures of some strange tribe of animals who buried their costumes before some kind of horrific volcanic accident. I love that art that weaves a narrative in my head. This show is awesome and this art would look killer in anyone's apartment.
So, be jealous! I'm off to Madrid later this week. While my time is going to be pretty limited, I'm trying to compile my short list of great art to view while in town. Naturally I'm planning trips to Museo Del Prado and Reina Sofia, but am hoping also to drop by Espacio Minimo Gallery(there's a jaw-dropping group show on right now, Human Nature, featuring works by the brilliant Corey Arnold, and Rachell Sumpter).
I also can't really speak or read Spanish work a damn, so I am hoping like hell that the show up at Marlborough Galleria in Madrid is this one: Carlos Franco: Veredas entreveradas.

Katie Orlinsky photos of Mexico's Drug War

2011-08-14T22:45:00.007-04:00

Today's NY Times Sunday review has a long story about the rising role of women in the treacherous drug industry in Mexico. Katie Orlinsky's photos are gritty, harsh depictions of women who have been hardened by both prison life, but one suspects, also the grim events leading up to their convictions in a country so completely torn apart by poverty and crime.

Ms. Orlinsky, who is a fellow at Columbia's well-reputed Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, proves without a doubt with this series shot at the Juarez Women's Prison that she's a master of black and white (she's already more than proved herself to be a very unique talent in her handling of color in the series she shot in Gaza).

Nicely done, Ms. Orlinsky! It's always a pleasure to call out remarkable female talent, especially when the subject matter of the project is also feminist in nature.

Tyler Hicks in the NY Times

2011-08-04T00:53:00.006-04:00

It's been a long time since I've posted about really strong photojournalism, and Tyler Hicks' work today in the New York Times from Somalia is definitely post-worthy. Mr. Hicks has produced a slideshow about the devastating famine in Somalia. The situation in Somalia is one that has pretty much been a complete humanitarian mess since 1991, which is almost impossible to get my head around because I was still in high school then. Since around the time that the latest prime minister in an ongoing revolving door of leadership just took office in June, 2011 (Abdiweli Mohamed Ali), it's estimated that the government's soldiers have control over about 60% of the capital Mogadishu, where about 80% of the country's population resides.
That's just nuts.
Imagine if 40% of New York City was basically run by heavily armed militia (Al Shabab) with ties to Al Qaeda.
The simple beauty of Mr. Hicks' work really is just heart-breaking when the viewer considers the truth of these photos. The children subjects of these photographs are breathing their last breaths. There is probably no miracle on the way to save them. This is a humanitarian crisis of the highest nature; a pseudo-government blocking Western aid and imprisoning people trying to get out of Southern Somalia to escape this famine. Mr. Hicks is not only a true master of composition, but an exemplary human being for even daring to hang out in Al Shabab territory to obtain these images and expose this kind of suffering to audiences in the US.

(c) 2011 Tyler Hicks / NY Times

These pics have inspired me (a self-professed famously cheap bastard) to part with some cash and make a donation to the World Food Programme, which is funded entirely by donations. If you're inspired to do the same, check it out here.

Jehad Nga, my hero!

2011-07-28T02:26:00.003-04:00

In 2008, I was standing in line at Starbucks (story of my life) and the cover picture on the NY Times caught my eye. It was a picture taken by Jehad Nga, a US photographer/nomad who roams the world basically looking for trouble (from what I can gather by his Facebook posts). I wrote about that picture and Mr. Nga's work has always inspired me to return to this blog even after weeks of not having time to dedicate to it, because his career embodies why photography is important to me: there are people in this world who are suffering the effects of decisions made by others, and their reality can only be known to us through the images captured by people brave enough to risk their own lives to travel head-first into danger. Mr. Nga not only makes it his business to seek out this human suffering, violence, and danger, but he also somehow manages to capture moments that are indescribably beautiful. He is really a rare talent, and from what I can assess, a righteous dude as well.

Last week he published a story about his family history in Libya on the Time Lightbox website that was so touching, it's been on my mind all week.
The photographs that accompany the story, which obviously Mr. Nga didn't take himself because he probably wasn't even born yet when most were taken, provide a very rare glimpse into what Libya was like before Gaddafi took over the country. It was a downright glamorous place. It looks like a modest duplicate of Palm Springs in the 1960's, complete with fancy night clubs like the one at the hotel once owned by Mr. Nga's father, lavish New Years Eve parties, sun-kissed swimming pools and family picnics in classic American cars. I will confess I've never wondered much about what the Middle East was like before I was born. In my head, countries like Libya, Syria and Lebanon smack of dictatorship, restriction, religious persecution and corruption. This story is wholly enlightening, it really delivers the impact of what so many decades of political tyranny has done to the lives of the people in Libya, as well as the psychological trauma that such radical change inflicts on the people who choose to leave a country and their personal success behind to escape a terrible situation.

Please take a moment to read Jehad's heartfelt, genius story about what the current events in Libya mean to his family. You'll be glad you did.

So much to post... viva!

2011-07-28T02:09:00.007-04:00

Summer in New York has sucked the life out of me. Quite seriously. I can't handle the heat and I don't venture down to Chelsea during summer months when it's too hot out to enjoy a hot coffee at joe on 23rd Street.
That said, I've probably missed out on a lot of awesome stuff, which I do regret.
What I don't regret at all one bit is commissioning this bit of total awesomeness by artist Rebecca Hanson for my friend's birthday:

My friend Lauren and I were in Bermuda back in March and had to make a break for it during a boring part of our tour of downtown Hamilton for ice coffee. We found ourselves at Rock Island Coffee House, pretty much the coolest coffee shop on the planet, where they were showing Ms. Hanson's recent work. Her landscapes of local beaches are breathtaking, but her cool little bomb-head character paintings stole Lauren's heart. I can't wait for my friend to get back to the city from NOLA and check out this super boss gift (hopefully she is not regularly reading my blog, but given my infrequent summer posting situation, I think my friends have given up on me until fall).
In photography news, Daniel Cooney has some very awesome prints on auction at igavel right now including some extremely hot work by Kenro Izu and Todd Hido (whose work I adore).
If I had money to spare (thanks a whole bunch, Sallie Mae) I'd be online bidding on this hotness right now:
by Joseph Hoflinger. If you have money, you should get yourself on over to igavel and bid on this and then give it to me. I do intend to get over to Daniel Cooney on 25th Street tomorrow to catch the last day of Lydia Ann McCarthy's "Refractions" show, which looks inspiring. If only the heat would just subside!

And lastly in late summer news on things I don't regret, I have a new couch surfer and his name is Silvio Dante. I don't regret plucking him out of the shelter on E. 110th Street one bit.

My little guy is suffering from a pretty bad eye infection he picked up at the NYACC but some kind soul there took the time to start treating it and keep him off the euth list, so he's already on the mend and terrorizing my big fatso cats around the apartment.

Open Studios at LIC Art

2011-05-27T02:56:00.004-04:00

Last weekend I made the trek out to Long Island City (ok, it's not that far, but it does involve taking the E train on a weekend, which is far from enjoyable) to check out open studios at LIC Arts Center and Reis Studios.
Fran Kaufman, notable portrait photographer of musicians, has studio space there, so it was extremely cool to see so much of her work in such an intimate setting. Fran had a show up at BAM of her work with jazz musicians, and she really is a master of capturing *that moment* as well as the spirit of the music.

My heart goes out to Chris Hondros...

2011-04-22T15:01:00.002-04:00

The world lost a brilliant photographer and fearless artist this week in Libya. Chris Hondros made it his life's work to show the true violence of war. His photograph of a little girl in Iraq, screaming in agony with the blood of her parents on her face after they were killed by US soldiers at a routine traffic stop, is one of the most moving images of modern warfare I have seen. Even today, six years after the photograph was taken, I feel tears welling up every time I look at this picture. One of the children in the car at the time this photograph was taken had also been injured by the gunfire that had killed his parents, and because the powerful images of Mr. Hondros captured international attention, the boy was flown to Boston for life-saving medical care.

copyright 2005 Chris Hondros

It's kind of impossible for me to put into words what an enormous tragedy it is when members of foreign press associations - especially ones who are so unbelievably talented at their craft - are killed while working. People like Chris are just as much fighters for freedom as soldiers are. They risk their lives to rush headfirst into extremely dangerous environments to show the world what's going on, what people are enduring, and ultimately what our own troops are sent in to fight for. Chris was killed this week during a mortar attack in Misrata along with Tim Hetherington, who produced the jarring documentary Restrepo with writer Sebastian Junger.

Chris Hondros's website
An audio slideshow on Chris's work in Iraq care of NPR
Tim Hetherington's website

Debbie Miracolo - The Change Agents

2011-01-29T21:00:00.006-05:00

Proving once again that you simply never know when you're going to encounter great photography, I got to checked out Debbie Miracolo's work, The Change Agents, while getting my hair dyed (RED!) today at Arrojo Studio. Some background on this - I used to work at a very straight-laced advertising agency across the street from Arrojo. Some people on staff there used to swear by Arrojo shampoo, so finally one day I went in and booked an appointment for a haircut. I was a little intimidated by the staff and atmosphere there, because it is really hip, really busy, and literally every single stylist there is fierce in the way that they dress and wear their own hair. We're talking lots of tattoos, lip rings, shags, silver blond, and goatees.
However, now that I've been a regular there for two years, I have come to really love that place and everyone who works there. And Debbie's work, which is a series of portraits of this cast of Arrojo characters at home, really captures delicate moments. So much so that my beloved colorist, Courtney, told me she opted not to participate in the project because her home is her sanctuary and she really didn't want to open up her apartment to an invasion of privacy. For me, this show addresses something that I often wonder about as a New Yorker... where and how do all these people I see every day live? In this city one encounters so many people with whom you share a level of intimacy; for example, the delivery guys who bring food to your apartment when you're being lazy, the veterinarians who care for your pets, the unenviable laundromat owners who do your laundry while you're at work, and the stylists who touch your hair.
Each shot is unique and I have a few favorites.

John Arsenault at Clampart

2011-01-19T13:12:00.000-05:00

My friend Kora and I were very much trying to avoid a group of tall, blond tourists who gave themselves away as Midwesterners on our way to Clampart, and once they entered John Arsenault's show and got a glimpse of some great queer photography, they were on their way back outdoors. Too bad for them, and how ironic, because this show is all about Arsenault's rustic life in Provincetown, Massachusetts. There are some very fun self-portraits in this show (I'm going to go out on a limb here about the photo of Arsenault dangling out on a limb and say he's a bit of an exhibitionist), and some that are just strikingly beautiful. "I Can't Stand How Much I Miss You," is just gorgeous. I am guessing (based on the inclusion of one photo of the embroidered word "FAGGOT" in red embroidery floss on a demure mantle) that Arsenault is making a statement about gay pride with may of these photos. In my own humble opinion, this positive, enthusiastic statement on gay life outside of the confines of a city is very timely, after a year filled with so much tragic hatred and loss.

Todd Hido

2011-01-19T00:53:00.002-05:00

Todd Hido needs to update his website. It doesn't currently make mention of his show, "Fragmented Narratives," at Bruce Silverstein right now, at this very moment, in Chelsea! This is a great tragedy, indeed, because Fragmented Narratives is the most emotionally stirring solo show I've seen in a while.
Honestly, I haven't blogged in a while because I'm a lousy critic in that I don't actually like to critique. I like to rave. And this show is rave-worthy.

Who hasn't been enamored with the idea of trying to capture the rainy-day hopelessness of shooting through a wet car window? I, for one, have done this many times and have ended up with an expensive bunch of prints that don't look like much. Todd Hido, however, tells a beautiful, lonely story that seems to say, "don't mind me, just passin' through." I am often too hatefully lazy to read the artist's statement while still at the gallery (true!), or at least until after I've viewed the work to see if I was able to get a gist of the photographer's point. Reading the statement first is like cheating. My overall impression of this show initially was one of transience. That the photographer is capturing a beautiful moment, but the moment knows that the photographer won't linger long.
His drizzly landscapes aren't much different from his portraits of ladies usually posing in bedrooms. Their expressions seem to reveal exposure, disappointment, indifference. A Persian cat with matted fur poses with a smirk in a wood-paneled room. One light's turned on upstairs in an aluminum-sided house on a winter's night. Raindrops distort the shapes of a pickup truck parked outside a one-story ranch house against a gray sky, in the middle of nowhere. Each of these photos begins to tell a story, and it's easy to get lost in them, wondering about these people who find themselves in bedrooms casting long shadows, driving down dead ends during rain storms.

Vivian Maier - Chicago street photographer

2011-01-05T01:54:00.002-05:00

As someone born and raised in Chicago, this story really captured my heart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWEDOnBfDUI&feature=player_embedded

New work by Domagoj Blazevic

2010-12-31T18:51:00.004-05:00

So, my big plan to wrap up 2010 with a week of gallery hopping was thwarted by the miserable snow storm and my foe, the MTA. I barely left the Upper West Side this week after serving out my duty as a cat sitter in Carroll Gardens during the worst few days of blizzard aftermath, and even today (four days after the snow fell) there are giant snow mountains on my corner on 106th.
Anyway, luckily great photography finds its way to me even when I don't venture outdoors. A happy-new-years email from brilliant Zagreb-based photographer Domagoj (pronounced dome-a-goy) Blazevic reminded me of his enormous talent! He has new work up on his site and is keeping himself quiet busy these days. What's so special about his work is that he has mastered composition so thoroughly that he can play with the basics, like focus, and the result of his framing is beautiful without exception.

See for yourself in Almost Close.

Capture Brooklyn - participants announced!

2010-09-14T10:27:00.003-04:00

Woot! Go Joseph Holmes! The New York Photo Festival announced the finalists in the Capture Brooklyn show, opening on Sept 23rd at Powerhouse Arena (37 Main Street in Dumbo, Brooklyn). There are some familiar names in the mix and some I don't recognize, and since everyone knows I love Brooklyn, this will be an opening reception not to be missed!
If you can't make it to Dumbo that night the exhibit remains open Sept 24 - 26 as part of the Dumbo Arts Festival.
Of note from the list of participants - Debbie Miracolo! Check out her small portfolio, some very nice stuff. I also really like Lauren Silberman's online portfolio.

Rebecca Greenfield - genius

2010-04-04T23:18:00.012-04:00

I was checking out the Jen Bekman Hey Hot Shot blog and noticed that she posted work by Rebecca Greenfield. Greenfield's work, particularly that which focuses on the subject matter of youth, is a little reminiscent of Lauren Greenfield (I don't think there's any relation), but as a photographer I sense less of her personality through her interaction with her subjects, and more of a true moment captured, as if the photographer were merely a fly on the wall. Her work on quinceaneras is a perfect example of this effect (or lack there of) - the teenage girls she showcases appear unaware of the camera, their emotion and details in each frame are raw. My favorite is of a young girl in a tiara on her Quinceaneras holding a bouquet in the backseat of her parents' minivan. The expression on her face sums up the momentous occasion - she isn't really going anywhere out of the ordinary, but she's leaving behind and senses trepidation about her destination - adulthood.

Pieter Hugo: Nollywood at Yossi Milo

2010-03-21T13:22:00.003-04:00

Manhattan is experiencing a strange wave of warm, dare I say... hot weather, this weekend. After about four straight months of brutal cold and daily snowflakes, New Yorkers are kind of flipping out. Wearing shorts and drinking ice coffee even though it's really not quite spring.
Anyway, yesterday I headed down to the meatpacking district to check out the Mr. Brainwash show before it closes, and while killing time as my friend Lauren dropped off her busted mac book at Tekkserve, I stopped by Yossi Milo to catch a glimpse of Pieter Hugo's latest.

Hugo, whose show in 2007, The Hyena and Other Men, blew me away (I am a sucker for a well-behaved hyena, I guess), has shifted his attention in this latest offering to the performers in Nigerian cinema. Who would have guessed that Nigeria boasts a filmmaking community more robust than that of Los Angeles, churning out over 1000 low-budget straight-to-video movies every year?
Hugo's well-known use of matte, muted colors works well in this show. Even in his indoor portraits, the viewer can imagine that hanging just outside the subject's window is the heavy overcast African sky of his outdoor shots. Some of the shots are more impactful for me than others - this is the first time I have seen Hugo shoot female subjects, and maybe I am biased in saying that both portraits of actresses included in Nollywood are my favorites. Obechukwu Nwoye, her eyes painted with fake blood, poses comfortably in a leather chair, the focus on the smoke escaping her cigarette.

Her gaze is one of strength, she almost seems to be smirking, her white zombie makeup almost an afterthought in the perfectly composed frame. In the other portrait of an actress in the show (not on the Yossi Milo website), a topless actress frowns directly at the photographer with a prop knife appearing to plunge through her chest and out of her back, covered in unconvincing bright red fake blood.
What's less powerful about this series than The Hyena and Other Men is that I'm not sure what point Hugo is trying to make with these images. The performers look other-worldly and ghoulish in the settings they have been placed, but there is nothing I can learn about their lives from these images. Certainly even the most popular and talented Nigerian actors don't live the lives of luxury that even D-list celebrities in Hollywood enjoy, and it would appear from the makeup and costumes in Hugo's shots that most Nollywood films are about gory zombies, masked monsters and shoot-em-up violence. As the viewer, I wonder more about the lives of these people after the makeup is washed off.

An end to winter laziness!

2010-02-20T17:00:00.003-05:00

I don't think I'm alone in saying that this winter has sucked, and it has sucked for a long time. The suckiness of many cold months complicated further by taking a class since December are the reasons behind why I haven't updated this blog in so long, but it's back! There's much to report!
Today I checked out the Daido Moriyama show at Luhring Augustine in Chelsea. I especially like the oversized vertical prints in Gallery 1 (the front room) for their humorous, critical and slightly retro look in black and white at life in Hawaii.

Moriyamo has a masterful grasp of balancing light in his black and white work, and the gritty grainy-ness of these shots exposes a very different side of Hawaii than the stereotypical bright colors and blue skies that often come to mind.

Mr. Moriayama, whose work is well known in his native Japan, has taken his photographic work in a number of directions - from Tokyo street scenes to unexpected eroticism. An exploration of life in Hawaii is a little bit of an odd choice for him, but given the wide range of work in his portfolio, I guess it's not. He's someone who continues to take risk, search for slightly irreverent and humorous details in his subject matter even many decades into his career.
Then... Andrea Rosen has a Wolfgang Tillmans show on at the moment that has gotten a ton of press coverage, and for good reason. The German master, whose work really kind of defies a quick description, assembles in this show a collection of work that is as quintessential Tillmans as possible. Using his impressive and unique grasp of color - which he stunningly manages to apply in both seemingly arranged indoor shots as in well as spur-of-the-moment slices of life, this show is almost overwhelming. I like to think of Tillmans as the kind of photographer who always has something special in every shot - something your eye almost misses - something that was only present in a situation for a split second but he manages to catch it with his lens. There's a shot in this collection of a big tray of baby chicks, all dyed various bright colors, and Tillmans' camera closes in on one in brilliant focus, the only one tiny bird in the bunch dyed purple who dares to look directly at him as if to indicate that he, too, finds it absurd that he is purple.

In another one of the smaller prints, which are unceremoniously taped to the wall (no fancy frames here), a yellow leaf steals the show being beautifully back lit as it rolls in the wind down the sidewalk.

This is simply one of those shows that really deserves all the hype it's getting. Brave the cold. Get your coat on. Go to Chelsea. See this show. And be on the lookout for the lemur in the tree (how can anyone not love a lemur in a tree)? The text accompanying this show on the Andrea Rosen website sums up Tillmans' enormous talent nicely... he's just so good that he makes photography seem easy.

Tracey Baran at Leslie Tonkonow

2009-09-27T12:05:00.005-04:00

Before you get really excited about the emerging talent of Tracey Baran, and her unflinching yet sensitive portrait work, and the endless possibilities for a young female photographer whose body of work suggests such promise, I'll go ahead and ruin your day by informing you that Tracey Baran passed away last year at the age of 33. Her solo show at Leslie Tonkonow, is a thoughtfully curated collection of her most personal, and in my opinion, most memorable photographs. The carefully composed shots in Pictures of Tracey are mostly of Baran and her family members; her boyfriend sprawled naked on a rock, Tracey appearing to be sunbathing with a beer in the front lawn with her mother behind her on the porch expressing annoyance, Tracey posed lazily on her bed on the morning of her 30th birthday with a single cupcake on the floor... the flowers in the rug on the floor matching the flowers on Tracey's sheet in a way that now, a year after Tracey's death, seem heartbreaking.

Two years ago, the gentle frankness captured in the moments of these pictures would have left me wondering about these subjects, their lives, why the woman (Tracey's mother) with the horse looks so forlorn and happy to be with horse, why the woman peeling potatoes is... peeling potatoes, but now in reviewing these pictures I am left wondering increasingly about this artist and the abrupt end of her life.

I've read that the cause of her death was an aneurysm that left her suffering seizures and unable to breathe on her own, and her passing is ever so much sad when considering how many young photographers she inspired during the course of her own short career. Tracey was my age, we were born in the same year, and in looking at the pictures of her family I can't help but feel nostalgic for the home where I grew up, where the same clutter was commonplace; the sagging of the stairs, the pile of shoes near the door, the unfashionable plaid couch.

Update!
Last year's IGavel auction is over, but here's a sample of what it included. One of my faves

a storm moving into Brooklyn by Jenny Burgos.

Apologies for the long delay since my last post, but galleries in NYC tend to keep irregular hours during the summer, and not feature new work between May and September. Thankfully summer is finally over!

Summer's Over!

2009-09-04T00:54:00.003-04:00

Ah... cool air, shorter days, and finally some new work in the galleries of New York! Mark your calendar, because Sept 10 Clamp Art is debuting new work by rising star photographer Amy Stein. Stein was named one of American Photo Magazine's top 15 emerging photographers in 2007, and this show coincides with ClampArt's printing of her first monograph. Her show, Domesticated, explores what Stein calls the "new natural history" and the relationship between man's progress and the natural world.

Visit Clampart for more information. Opening reception will be Sept 10 from 6 - 8 at ClampArt, 521-531 West 25th Street, Ground Floor, New York City 10001.

Heike Buelau - Distractions

2009-05-08T13:52:00.002-04:00

I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Heike Buelau's tiny show "Distractions" at Home/Made, the tiny restaurant that doubles as a furniture store at 293 Van Brunt in Red Hook. Unfortunately I do not have a scanner to scan the flyer, and Ms. Buelau does not appear to have a website, so for now I will urge you to stop by Home/Made on your way to Ikea for some tasty food and check out this intriguing black and white, high contrast work. Buelau is a master of positive and negative space. There's one shot in her show of what appears to be a plastic bag stuck on razor wire that is quite a stand out.

Hey Hot Shot - Deadline Extended!

2009-05-02T12:06:00.003-04:00

If you just haven't gotten around to submitting to Jen Bekman's Summer 2009 Hey Hot Shot program yet, you're in luck. The May 1 deadline has been extended to May 5, 2009. Not that I'm... you know, an official judge or anything, but after reviewing the Flickr entries for this year's contest so far, I like Ward Roberts, Kurt Tong, and as always... Amro Hamzawi... love his stuff. I hope what's up on Flickr aren't all the entries to date! There's some strong work but also as always some "what am I looking at and why was this worthy of photographic documentation" stuff, as well.
Get your submissions in!

Party: Andrea Diefenbach at Clampart

2009-04-30T13:58:00.002-04:00

Tonight! Tonight!
Andrea Diefenbach's show on AIDS in Odessa is opening at Clampart.
ClampArt Gallery (521-531 West 25th Street
Ground Floor, New York City)
6pm - 8pm

Or if Brooklyn tickles your fancy more... check out the opening of SPLASH at Klompching featuring the work of Paul McCartney, Elaine Duieganan, Cornelia Hedigar and more.
http://www.klompching.com/
111 Front Street Suite 206
Brooklyn NY
from 6 - 8PM

I Am Because We Are at powerhouse Arena

2009-04-28T18:40:00.005-04:00

April 24 was World Malaria Day, hence the focus on another photography project bringing (hopefully) attention to health issues in Africa. Kristen Ashburn has been documenting the pandemic of AIDS across Malawi and South Africa for nearly seven years. Currently on display at powerhouse Arena are several shorts from the book that she assembled as a companion piece to a documentary produced by Madonna and directed by Nathan Rissman by the same title, I Am Because We Are. Fun fact: Nathan Rissman is Madonna's former gardener and his wife is David Banda's nanny (Madonna's adopted son from Malawi). Madonna's ongoing commitment to publicizing the public health crisis in Malawi is pretty admirable; while the AIDS crisis has obviously been one close to her heart as demonstrated by her charitable efforts for decades, her commitment to Malawi and the nearly one million orphans residing there is one in which she has taken a very personal interest.
The photographs by Ms. Ashburn, her own right a seasoned photojournalist who has initiated a charity in Rwanda that trains orphans of the genocide to use cameras similar to the Kids With Cameras project in India, are simply beautiful. Ms. Ashburn is enormously gifted in black and white, and I can't begin to imagine what her personality is like based on her photography. She captures her subjects in their most private moments, when they are alone in contemplating their disease. Unlike Andrea Diefenbach's portraits of people dying of AIDS in the Ukraine, who look utterly defeated in their battle of the disease, Ashburn's subjects challenge the viewer for a response. In some, their utter rage and refusal to accept of their fate is visible. In others, their overwhelming sadness about what the inevitable end that they know lies ahead is plain to see, and makes the beauty of the portrait all the more memorable. Nearly all of the subjects shown in this show have already succumbed to this disease due to a lack of available drugs in Africa, and Ashburn laments in her introduction to the work that she wishes she could have gone back in time and saved even just one of the many who she met during the course of this project.
The show was taken down at powerhouse on 4/27, but the book is available at the powerhouse store and online.

NY Photo Fest - Submissions Due!

2009-04-28T18:34:00.002-04:00

NY Photo Fest is back in DUMBO and the deadline for submissions to its awards program is May 1, 2009. On the judging panel this year are returning festival organizers Frank Evers (VII Agency) and Daniel Power (powerhouse) and other notables including Jasmine Defoore (Redux) and Brian Clamp (ClampArt Gallery).
Get your submissions in at http://www.nyphotofestival.com/

Jonathan Torgovnik: Aperture

2009-04-16T18:40:00.004-04:00

I totally lucked out today. I stopped by Aperture gallery with my friend Jutta after a decadent lunch in Chelsea to see the featured story from April's issue in person, Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape, an absolutely gripping photo essay by Jonathan Torgovnik. And completely randomly (well, not so randomly as it turns out) the photographer was actually there! Torgovnik spent three years working on this personal project, which is a portrait of Tutsi women raped during the Rwandan humanitarian crisis in the 1990's, and the resulting children of their rapes, largely at the hands of Hutu militiamen. The show, which is a companion to the book published by Torgovnik with the aid of Aperture, Open Society and Amnest International, features thirty-one portraits with short pieces of accompanying texts telling each woman's story.
I really can't remember when - yes, this is cheesy of me - I was actually moved to tears in public. Reading the stories of these women, the brutality that they suffered and survived, the loss of everything they owned on earth and most of their families, too, and how many of them still cherish these children that they conceived by their rapists is truly remarkable. The story of Marguerite, who loves the son she had by her rapist so much that she can't bring herself to tell her first son, fathered by her husband, that they aren't full-blooded brothers, was the breaking point for me. "Honestly," she tells in her story, "I love this boy so much. I don't know why, but I love him."

Torgovnik happened to be at the Aperture space today because the non-profit foundation that he co-founded to benefit the women of Rwanda and their children, Foundation Rwanda, is having a big benefit tonight at the Aperture space on W. 27th Street. I got to chat briefly with Torgovnik about the project, about getting to know his subjects in Rwanda, and he told me that while Rwanda has a great deal of medical assistance available to HIV positive persons (many of the women raped during the violence are now HIV positive), there still exists both a terrible stigma attached to having been raped, as well as to being a carrier of the disease. It is very difficult for Tutsi women, who suffered so much at the hands of the Hutus, to seek medical assistance in Rwanda when so many of the aid workers and doctors in the country are Hutu.
Foundation Rwanda provides medical and psychiatric assistance to women who were raped during the genocide, and also provides secondary education for the children of those raped women. It is such a fundamentally important and noble cause in a country that has suffered so greatly - and such a great example of a photographer going above and beyond the call of his profession to impact the lives of the people who he has met on assignment for the better. For those of you who can't be in New York for the fundraiser, I'd like to share this number: $350 is the cost of tuition for a child to attend a secondary school in Rwanda for a year. Maybe $350 is a lot to ask of you to donate during a recession, but even $5 goes a long way toward ensuring the future of one of these kids. You can make a donation on the site, or you can contact Aperture and find out if a donation will be made on your behalf if you purchase a copy of the beautiful hardcover book (which comes with a video interview with Jonathan Torgovnik, produced by mediastorm), which is the case at tonight's benefit.
Of course, your hardcover book may not be autographed by the artist like mine, but hey... seriously, I usually try to keep this blog non-sales-pitchy, but this is some absolutely fantastic photography for the most noble cause I can think of.
And for the record, Torgovnik shot these portraits on Hasselblad. Of course I had to ask.

Blake Fitch at Clampart

2009-04-11T12:38:00.007-04:00

In the back room at Clampart - easily missed by anyone visiting the gallery to check out the dizzying Kids Behaving Badly show, Blake Fitch is showing work that's almost the opposite of the theme in the gallery's front. Fitch photographs the tan, knobby-kneed blonds of summer in her suburban settings. They visually bring you back to the safety of the 1980's, the days of patterned wallpapers, down vests and Tretorn shoes. It's a shame that this show is so tiny, and after reviewing the full set of shots in Fitch's Expectations of Adolescence on her website, I am really curious about some of the curatorial decisions - some of the work on the site is really stirring. I love the shots of the girl poking through a jewelry box with her sister in the background, three sisters on a bench with the youngest disinterested in being photographed and playing in the window, and the young girl in her driveway with her eyes closed. These are portraits of girls at their most honest moments, twirling hair, napping in lawn chairs, and the collection as a whole is an emphatic visual statement on suburban, white adolescent femininity in the United States.
image (c) Blake Fitch

531 W. 25th Cat Seeks Anne Neely Show, Fails

2009-04-10T21:49:00.005-04:00

This pitiable cat, who lives and is well cared for at the Whitehall Gallery Building at 521-531 W. 25th Street, had one thing on his mind and one thing only: busting into the Ann Neeley show at Geduld. Other people I encountered in the lobby informed me that they had let him in and he had been kindly asked to leave. So there he sat, outside the glass doors, begging to be allowed back in. This cat must seriously love art.

Tanyth Berkeley at Danziger Projects

2009-04-10T20:26:00.006-04:00

I checked out the show at Danziger Projects this afternoon on one of my routine trips up to Chelsea for the video blog. I wanted to single this show out because it really floored me. Usually Tanyth Berkeley shows her work at the progressive Bellwether space on 10th Ave, so I'm not sure how/why Danziger picked up this show of just portraits of Grace. Grace, or Graciela Longoria, is an albino model with whom Berkeley has worked extensively. Berkeley's work has been shown at MOMA (one of the Grace portraits) and covered by J. Colburg's Conscientious in 1997.

(c) Tanyth Berkeley

Berkeley, like many New York-based photographers, seeks muses and subjects in subway cars and parks. Unlike so many photographers whose work hers is compared to, Berkeley seems to drop her subjects back in time 100 years, transform them with her lens into silent movies stars, and celebrate unique beauty magically with the unlikely aid of harsh daylight and gray skies. In researching her I've seen her work compared to that of Nan Goldin and Diane Arbus (even Danziger Project's press release on the current show states the Arbus comparison), but I think Berkeley's work is wholly original and unique. Just one block away from Danziger, Clampart is showing Kids Behaving Badly featuring shots by Goldin, and in reviewing both sets of images in the same day it's fair to say that both Goldin and Berkeley view their unique models in a flattering, celebratory manner, but Berkeley manages to transform and glamorize rather than expose with brutal honesty. It is really remarkable to watch Grace's transformation in the portraits, from a fragile teen unable to open her eyes in sunlight to a fierce fashionista scowling on the subway platform.
And, as Berkeley's style seems to shift from project to project, whoever curated the show at Danziger did an impeccable job of both selecting pieces and arranging.
See more of Berkeley's work from her 2006/2007 series Orchidacae.

Winners of Hearst 8x10 Announced

2009-04-08T16:06:00.007-04:00

Yesterday Hearst announced the winners of their first 8x10 photography contest. This was no flash-the-pan contest... the judging panel included photo greats including National Geographic alumns like Steve McCurry and Mary Ellen Mark and Esquire's Editor-In-Chief David Granger. Considering that half of the entrants even considering submitting work to this contest might have been too daunted to try, and a small amount of those who entered may have been clueless as to the identities of the esteemed judges, I cannot imagine the variety in the 1,000+ submissions.

Anyway - eight lucky winners and ten runners' up have their work on display at the Hearst Tower, where I am headed after typing this post. Two of the winning entries are posted below, and I did some googling on the artists (as always). Sometimes winners of photo contests are flukes, but both of these winners have pretty red hot portfolios.

- Andy Freeberg, Stroganov Palace, Russian State Museum, 2008

- Louie Palu, U.S. Marine Joshua Wycka age 21, Garmsir District, Helmand Province, Afghanistan

War and soldier themes have - for obvious reasons - been very intense in this last year. Mr. Palu's work in Afghanistan appears to be quiet, soft-spoken, delicately balanced. The expression on his marine's face in the winning photo is both distant and heart-wrenching. Is he wracked with regret and on the brink of crying, or exhausted and unwilling to look into the camera's lens? Whatever the marine's story is, you can't deny that it's compelling.

In contrast, Mr. Freeberg's couldn't be more visually different - his winning shot looks meticulously composed but given its subject matter and the palace guard's unassuming posture, he couldn't have had the luxury of posing and positioning. Such a humorous and memorable shot - is the guard on display with the painted dogs? The muted colors work perfectly for the subject matter. The wrong angle or slightly different exposure would have ruined this shot, but Freeberg nailed it. The inclusion of both Mr. Palu and Mr. Freeberg's work in the winners' list strongly demonstrate the variety and appreciation on the part of the jury for all forms of photography.

Nicely done, Hearst. Thanks for looking out for the newbies.

PhotoSnob Gallery Tour 3/14/2009

2009-03-22T23:20:00.004-04:00

All new video gallery tour of artists mentioned in the most recent post. Look, people, I'm not a trained cameraman or anything. But my hope is to give any photo fans who don't live close enough to NY an opportunity to check out what's in in the galleries here. If you see something you like... check out the photographer's site listed below.

Nina Berman
Lucian Read
Chris Vongsawat
Steve McCurry
Odette England
Marc Baruth
Anat Zalk
Eddie Adams
Barbara Probst

DUMBO and Barbara Probst

2009-03-17T11:35:00.017-04:00

So... It has been weeks (OK, honesty is the best policy... months) since I updated, and I have a good excuse other than general winter-inspired lethargy. My 11-year-old supercat Bubba was diagnosed with a huge tumor and I've been chilling with him at home instead of pounding the pavement in search of great new work in NYC lately. Perhaps this may sound a little pathetic and crazy-cat-ladyish, but if you knew this cat, you'd feel the same way.

This past Saturday I escaped my apartment and made my way down to Powerhouse Books & Exhibit Space to check out the current show, 2191 Days and Counting, a benefit for Iraq Veterans Against War. It's a mixed medium show, with some fantastic works by brilliant established pros like Steve McCurry. Anti-war as a theme in photography has been big for me this year if you may recall how much I loved Jim Lomasson's portraits of vets in the Pacific Northwest over the winter. Nina Berman contributes two striking portraits that emphasize her subjects' scars.

The most riveting photos, in my opinion, are by Farah Nosh, a female photojournalist who has been covering Iraq for years. Her two portraits are of amputees in Iraq posing for the camera with their children, who seem bemused with their father's conditions but strikingly comfortable with how much the lost limb or prosthetic has become a part of their family's daily life. In fact, if anyone especially loves me right now I'd like a print of Wounded Iraq I from the show catalog (c'mon, guys, it's for a great cause!). If I hadn't already wasted my tax refund on trivial things like bills I'd already be that print's owner.

More info about the show and about the 2,191 Days and Counting anti-war project can be found at the benefit's official site.

Then, since I was in DUMBO, I rounded the corner to check out the Visual Morphology show at Klompching. This is one gallery space in Brooklyn that always pushes the envelope, and this show is a great example. I really like the works in this show by Odette England (Attentional Landscapes No. 7 shown). A quick visit to her personal photography site reveals a project called Crash Markers that's both visually beautiful and thought-provoking, kind of of a photographic watercolor version of New York City's ghost bike program to mark the corners in the city where bicyclists have been killed.

While at the 111 Front Street Building I checked out the Eddie Adams show at Umbrage Gallery. Adams' work is so well-known and profound that I'm not even including a thumbnail because if you've never seen his Pulitzer-prize winning 1968 photo of the police chief of Saigon executing a Viet Cong prisoner, you better start googling straight away. Brilliant work - this particular photo probably inspired at least one hundred thousand antiwar activists, and the collection of photos in this show suggests that Adams was both supportive of the marines and soldiers he photographed in Vietnam, and a dedicated reporter of the inhuman violence that he witnessed while overseas.

Also at the 111 on display right now is the A.I.R. Artist In Residency show. A.I.R., which exclusively shows works by women artists, has a few photographers' work showint at the moment but the shot that really grabbed my attention was by Anat Zalk.

Anat Zalk at A.I.R. >>
The colors are muted, the story suggested or captured a mystery. Why a shattered coffee table? Why the trees just past the window? It's a shot that is both curious and absolutely deliberate and precise in every way. I'd love to see more of this photographer's work.

And to wrap up my very ambitious day of gallery watching, I headed into the city to check out the Barbara Probst show at Murray Guy. First of, I'll admit that I'd never before been to this gallery space and it's both unique and has a very cool layout for showing work. One of the two exhibit rooms is sleek and modern and the other has an unfinished wood floor and is very quiet.
I read up on Barbara Probst and knew in advance that the work in this show is inspired by surveillance, or in the art of capturing a moment in a scene from several angles. Sometimes cameras and tripods make cameos in the resulting stills. This technique aside, the resulting prints are somewhat striking just from their visual presentation. Probst blows out her color, resulting in blotchy prints that almost look like tabloid enlargements and border on Lichtenstein art. There is something undeniably masculine about the framing of some of the shots and this blunt use of color. I find the black and white shots included in the show to be very disconnected from the color work, but I suppose that's the point of presenting a scene with multiple angles shot all at the same second via radio control. The Barbara Probst show will be up until April 4, 2009.

Cindy Sherman on the UES, weird

2008-12-23T23:01:00.003-05:00

It's been a while since I updated this blog. The excuses as to why are varied... I moved, I work insane hours, blah blah blah. But this past weekend despite freezing temperatures and thick patches of ice covering all sidewalks in New York, I suffered the weekend 4 train local service all the way up to the Skarstedt Gallery on E. 79th (yeah, 79th! A good 60 blocks above my normal weekend travels in Manhattan) to check out the Cindy Sherman World History Portraits series.
First of all, to see the work of an out-there wacko talent like Ms. Sherman in a highbrow snootified gallery like Skarstedt (and I mean snootified in the most dignified and respectful way) is a little weird. I mean, you're walking through a spectacular limestone mansion where balls and galas were once thrown, and you're looking up at Cindy Sherman with a baldcap on and a fake moustachio glued to her upper lip. But in an obvious way this is the perfect setting for exhibiting this work. It has taken me a while to "get" Sherman. On one hand this particular series could be dismissed as a woman playing dress up after flipping through an art history textbook and snapping off some pictures. On the other hand Sherman the model manages to capture - with minimal effort placed on realistically simulating body appendages or masking - definitive, undeniably distinct characters. Her lighting and framing mimic perfectly the tone of the style of painting she is recreating.
At first glance - this work could be easily dismissed. At second you see that Sherman is a master of wit, and that having this work shown in a forum with fantastically polished wood floors, goldenrod walls and a regal staircase to the second floor is simply smashing.
That said, great show. And somehow I managed to miss her most recent show at Metro Pictures, which closed in Chelsea today.

Goran Tomasevic

2008-07-20T16:37:00.000-04:00

What can I say, I'm into Afghanistan this weekend.
Goran Tomasevic shoots for Reuters. As you can see below, being in the most dangerous part of the world and photographing coalition troops as they have shoot outs with the Taliban doesn't prevent him from finding beauty with his lens.

2008-07-20T13:18:00.003-04:00

Fox news is reporting that a photographer who documented the execution of two women in Afghanistan by the Taliban was held for two days as a suspected terrorist.

The photographer, Rahmatullah Naikzad, was suspected by Afghanistan authorities of being associated with the Taliban. Naikzad is a stringer for the AP in Afghanistan who had heard that the Taliban was going to be holding an event to punish thieves. He contacted them in advance, concerned for is own safety, and once the event began he realized that it was not thieves who were being publicly punished but rather two women accused of opening a prostitution ring to service coalition soldiers. There's a ton of web chat happening about whether or not Naikzad's willingness to stand by and document the killing without intervening is responsible. This is the age-old question of photojournalism and journalism in general - is it the responsibility of the one documenting to intervene in the action of what he or she is documenting?

Flickr find - Nick Rain

2008-07-20T12:57:00.001-04:00

Mexico boy
Originally uploaded by nick rain images

I've always thought with a little bit of guilt that half of challenge of photojournalism is just physically traveling to where the action is. But then I see the work of someone like Nick Rain and am reminded that getting to the action is barely scratching the surface - finding people with stories to tell, people who probably don't want their stories told or picture taken - and convincing them to trust you... that is the real challenge of photojournalism. Some of Nick's photos of children in Mexico and Afghanistan, and sex workers across Asian have left me stunned, not only because of the raw emotion he captures, but because I can't imagine how he approached his subjects about taking their photo. Unforgettable work.

photo titled "Mexico Boy"

Nataliya Peregudova is cuckoo and I love her

2008-06-11T22:08:00.003-04:00

This Ukrainian photographer and photo-manipulator has a delicious, spot-on eye for whimsical, vintage-looking, candy-colored images of cherubic faces and dainty poses! There's really no way to accurately describe Ms. Peregudova's work other than to say that it's entirely original and completely feminine.

Check out her whole wacky portfolio here... Nataliya Peregudova.

Who is Daniela Aroyo?

2008-06-11T21:40:00.002-04:00

Last year a photographer named Daniela Aroyo won the 1st prize in the Venice Photo contest for an advertising shot. Other than that she lives in Bulgaria and is insanely talented, I have no clue who she is or how to reach her. Check out her portfolio on photo.net. It's powerful!
Her photo.net profile can be seen here.
Other award-winning work she's shot can be seen here.

Artists Wanted: EXPOSURE

2008-06-08T21:04:00.001-04:00

Artists Wanted is currently accepting submissions for their EXPOSURE photography contest thru June 17th. For $25 you can enter up to 4 photographs for a chance at winning $2008 and your own show at a gallery in the meatpacking district in NYC.

Check it out here: http://www.artistswanted.org/exposure/

2008-06-08T20:24:00.003-04:00

I had many good intentions this weekend about going to DUMBO and seeing what's new at powerHouse. However, when the thermometer hit ninety and kept traveling upward, I opted to just cruise internet for good photos instead.
Here's what I found...
Bao Nguyen does some lovely, lovely work - he's not afraid of a close-up and his subjects aren't afraid of him, either:

2008-06-04T20:16:00.002-04:00

Sometimes cruising through flickr lands you in an unexpected portfolio of great photography. Hillary the Mammal's is one such cool portfolio, a graceful mixture of sunny hipster portraits and dreamy kitty closeups.

Hillary is from Portland.

Jehad Nga, where it's at

2008-04-06T21:40:00.008-04:00

Since seeing Jehad Nga's cover shot on the NY Times last week I've become slightly obsessed. The eyes of the little girl, the colors of the garments, the walll... this photo is unforgettable!

The 30-year-old photo journalist currently in Somalia was chosen as one of PopPhoto's Emerging Artists last year and his profile can be found here: http://www.popphoto.com/americanphotofeatures/4734/jehad-nga.html

His work featured at M+B last year can be found here:
http://www.mbfala.com/Nga/Nga.html

His work on Ethiopian churches from the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2006/09/12/travel/20060917_ETHIOPIA_SLIDESHOW_1.html

This guy is amazing.

(photos linked without permission from nytimes.com)

i heart Ida Borg

2008-02-12T16:35:00.001-05:00

I came across Ida's work on fffound and am obsessing.

It's kind of like photographic screengrabs from your brain as your read fairy tales.

I'm going to email her to find out her story & will update.

Photo contest - AI AP 2008

2008-01-31T13:11:00.000-05:00

Get your pictures ready...
http://www.ai-ap.com/

i can't get onto the submission page to find out the cut-off date, but maybe someone else can?

Jury includes

Kathy Ryan
Photo Editor, The New York Times Magazine,
Jury Chair
Stephen Frailey
Chair, Photography Department, Bachelor of Fine Arts degree program, School of Visual Arts
David Harris
Design Director, Vanity Fair
Lesley A. Martin
Executive Editor, Aperture Foundation
Stephen Mayes
COO Image Source (Americas), Secretary, World Press Photo
Greg Pond
Photo Editor, Fortune

A fond memory of summer

2008-01-10T19:05:00.000-05:00

NYC is experiencing some weird January weather - it's been 60 degrees+ all week. This is both awesome and a sure sign of our planet's eminent doom. To focus on the positive, check out Carlo Van De Roer's photos of calming pool scenes.
It is unknown if he is a swimmer.
http://www.carlovanderoer.com/
Or buy one of his prints on Jen Bekman's 200x200.

Win a Nikon D40 from Powells Books

2007-12-14T11:40:00.000-05:00

You'd have to be an idiot to not sign up to join Powell's photography list and enter to win this camera:

http://www.powells.com/camera/

Thomas Demand

2007-12-04T18:44:00.000-05:00

Thomas Demand
Yellowcake
303 Gallery

11.3.07 - 12.22.07
In the world of movie making, when something is high concept, it means it's simple, bold and easy to understand; the movie Elf is about a guy who is raised by Elves but who is in fact a big human guy. In the world of art, high concept means something quite contrary, I think. The concept of Thomas Demand's show Yellowcake is based on the 2003 paper trail uncovered by Italian intelligence of the sale of concentrated uranium (known as yellowcake) for the purpose of making nuclear weapons of Nigeria to Iraq. The paperwork was stolen from the Nigerian embassy in Rome, and this series of 9 photographs in which settings are modeled entirely with paper is intended to recreate the office environment. Since there are no photographs available to the public of the interior of the Republic of Niger's embassy in Rome, Demand visited the office several times himself and committed as many details to memory as he could before constructing these sets.

image used totally w/out permission from the 303 Gallery website

Demand, who has made a career of out finding the fine line between reality and artificiality captured by a camera's lens, creates the real out of unreal. In my own humble opinion the most striking photo in the collection is the one that shows a very messy office, covered in slush piles of paper. The disarray is such a common workplace site that one notices the fold and tape marks on the handle of the desktop phone and still doesn't suspend belief that it is in fact a phone. While his work is possibly worthy of a what's the point one has to admit that Demand's delicate meticulousness is really awe-inspiring. His scenes suck you into a story even if you have no clue what the story is unless you read the publicity notes as a cheater before leaving the gallery (which is what I do, so what!). Liken it to sitting down to enjoy a large feast at a Mexican restaurant and then being told just before digging in that everything before you on the table - everything right down to the shredded lettuce - is made of woodchip and fingerpaint.

Visit the 303 Gallery, New York
Thomas Demand's website (warning - this website bugs out my browser)

The Hyena and Other Men

2007-12-03T11:07:00.000-05:00

Pieter Hugo
Yossi Milo Gallery
515 W. 25th Street
New York, NY
Tues - Sat 12 - 6 PM
Show is open from 11/29/07 - 1/12/08

What's even more astounding than the content in the photographs shown by Pieter Hugo (he followed a team of animal charmers around Nigeria in order to capture these powerful shots of men with their domesticated hyenas and baboons) is the composition he manages to achieve in each shot. His framing is nearly impeccable - as much as these shots must have been somewhat rushed and impulsive just based on there being real, live, enormous hyenas involved - he displays these men and their trained animals against Nigerian backdrops of gray and beige.

(photo copyright Pieter Hugo)

The longer you stare at these photos the less shocking it becomes that the animals displayed have been so thoroughly domesticated... by the time you make your way completely around the gallery you notice that the baboons shown hold onto their trainers' waists on motorcycles the same way a human child would. The hyenas look toward their trainers with affection the way a family dog might.
Boing Boing did a small piece on this exhibit and claims that Hugo saw this photo:

(photo not taken by Pieter Hugo)

which inspired him to travel to Nigeria and learn more about these animal charmers. He spent ten days traveling with them. Ten days isn't a long time but it seems like what's going on in Hugo's photos is more than a desire for these trainers to show off the animals that travel with them. Perhaps unintentionally they are showing off that there is a complicated agreement in place between them and these animals.
The photo I'd love to someday see would be one of these guys trying to get the rope muzzle on the hyena to begin with.
Yossi Milo shows selected work along with a few shots from another of Hugo's efforts in Ghana, where he followed wild honeycatchers into the jungle to shoot portraits.
See Hugo's online gallery for more pix: Showstudio
See more about The Honeycatchers in Portfolio Magazine Issue #44

2 shows, equally weird

2007-11-24T04:49:00.001-05:00

On Fri 11/23 I avoided the insane throngs of suburban shoppers (and their children) by checking out two shows in Chelsea far from the stores in Soho. Completely different in theme, the two I checked out were equally weird, as if both having been created in distant dusty corners of the universe by two equally bizarre people.

Oscar Korsar
No Wind Can Blow Us Down
Yossi Milo Gallery
525 W. 25th St NY NY
212-414-0370
show closes 11/24
At Yossi Milo I saw the No Wind Can Blow Us Down showing of ink-on-paper sketches Korsar drew of skinny, freckled teenage girls in what seemed to be rural/fantasy environments. As I checked out the 10 or so drawings a middle-aged guy wondered aloud to his wife if the drawings were somehow biographical for the artist. I'm not sure if that guy was smoking crack since Korsar is male with what appears to be a vague interest in drawing boobs on emaciated girls in bras. But the publicity release on the show does say that he drew from his own experiences growing up without water or electricity in Northern Sweden. His sketch style is fascinating - just crosshairs that don't appear to have been very meticulously thought through before hitting the paper - and the drawings are so detailed that if you don't look closely you might miss the dragonflies, the hibiscus patterns drawn on fabric. Or the breaks in the realm of fantasy with punctuations of pop-culture (a Bart Simpson sticker, what appears to be Tupac's gravestone just a few feet outside of a girl's trailer-esque home). My favorite is one of a goofy girl with glasses smirking on a boat on which she has set sail with her rat-faced dog and a harmless skeleton sitting atop a stack of books. I was not expecting to like this show as much as I did and now I am hoping that Oscar Korsar someday considers making an animated short about these goofy girls in their whimisical world of tents and glasses and dogs. I'm a little PO'd at myself for missing the gallery reception with the artist in October.

My favorite image from the show can be seen on Artslant.com (i am too afraid of getting sued for copyright infringement to re-post it here).

AES+F
Last Riot
Claire Oliver
513 W. 26th Street NY NY
212.929.5949
show through 12/29/07
The other show that I saw over at Claire Oliver on 26th St. gets the giant WTF for the week. Last Riot is a series of composite photos (they look like they were put together in Photoshop with some 3D rendered backgrounds) of teenage models posed as if killing each other during some kind of biblical battle.

The models are so thin that they don't look strong enough to actually kill anyone with swords; they are pale and very well-groomed. They are also for the most part expressionless. In a few instances the poses taken are suggestively sexual but lack the energy to even support a twisted S&M storyline of any interest. Apparently there's video that goes along with this concept art that you can watch further executing the point of the composites here.

This installation was put together by 4 Russian artists (Tatiana Arzamasova, Lev Evzovitch, Evgeny Svyatsky and Vladimir Fridkes) as AES+F and the show was much-celebrated at the Venice Biennale 2007. The published statement on the work is: “…everyone is fighting against the others and against themselves. There is no difference between victim and aggressor, male and female.”

I'm not sure if this is a statement on the modern world, or what. On the AES+F website the statement on the work is similarly inconclusive (read it here). NY Magazine claims that the arrangements are based loosely on the paintings of Caravaggio but this is a stretch, in my opinion. In Caravaggio's more violent paintings, emotion is always the star brought forth both with lighting effects and dramatic expression. In Last Riot the models are barely play acting. For composites that have 3D CGI backgrounds the presentation is quite 2D (all of the models are in perfect focus regardless of foreground/background). Now I'm not so lowbrow that I don't see that this is the whole point - that the violence being presented is emotionless and without consequence (nowhere do we see blood, just swords pressed to skin threatening to stab). But I still have to pause to wonder... what is the point? Some of AES+F's other pieces from previous installments feature similar teens fighting with missile launchers out in the desert. There's something about scantily clad teens with automatic weapons that delivers more of a punch than this silliness with swords. The pieces that have been masked out with circles seem to emphasize the post-modern joke more clearly to me, but I still feel like I'm not totally in on this joke. Without knowing the full context of the concept, the arrangements (some of which have ferris wheels in the background and spaceships floating overhead in the sky) just seem like Diesel ads sans adequate body makeup covering exposed flesh. Maybe that is exactly what AES+F were going for. To be fair, by the time I made it over to Claire Oliver, my venti peppermint mocha had caught up with me and I really needed to find a bathroom and was looking at this show rather anxiously. You be the judge... this evening at least I prefer Korsar's nerdy teenage girls hiding out in their tents, bedrooms and boats with ghouls.

Check out: the Claire Oliver site.

Lauren Greenfield's THIN on HBO

2007-11-20T18:42:00.000-05:00

Lauren Greenfield's documentary THIN makes its debut this month on HBO. You can watch a trailer here.

Little known fact: Lauren is sister to Matthew Greenfield, producer of movies including The Good Girl and Chuck and Buck.

Fazal Sheikh at Pace/MacGill (NYC)

2007-11-20T18:06:00.001-05:00

Fazal Sheikh
Pace Mac/Gill
32 E. 57th St - 9th Fl
New York, NY
10.18 - 11.24.07
So I FINALLY made it over to Pace/Macgill today at lunchtime to check out the much-hyped Fazal Sheikh portrait show during its last week. In this installment Sheikh combines portraits from several projects - Moksha (translation = heaven about widowed women in Indian), Ladli (about the prejudices against young women in contemporary India), A Camel for the Son (about refugees from Somalia who've been living for a decade at a camp in Kenya), Simpatia (about migrant workers in Brazil), and The Victor Weeps (about Sheikh's visit to the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, from where his grandfather came). One has to wonder in the portraits of the widows of India, who are for the most part social outcasts, what they made of the young American man photographing them. The women in the refugee camps of Africa look at Sheikh's camera with pride and defiance - they're survivors - but the portraits of the widows of India all showcase sorrow. If you check out the online version of the book of the Moksha project (http://www.fazalsheikh.org/10_moksha/online_edition_en/start.php ) - available from Steidl - you can see that much of the project actually focuses on the tightly bound community of these disowned women living together. It was an interesting choice of Pace/Macgill to leave these group photos out of the show.
But of all of the collections it is a photo from A Sense of Common Ground (taken at a Rwandan refugee camp in Lumasi, Tanzania in 1994) that had me looking over my shoulder even as I was leaving the gallery. A young girl named Wezemana holds her sleeping brother Mitonze on her back in sort of a makeshift backpack. In many of the portraits in this show the subjects look directly at the camera, their grief, exhaustion, desolation apparent on their faces. Wezemana looks upward, beyond the camera. There's something about her pose, her expression that's hopeful and expectant. Even hours now after seeing the show I'm wondering where that little girl and the baby on her back ended up.
Check out Ladli