June 2007 Archives

At Photobooth.net, you can find a photo booth near you. I've used the one at George Eastman House. A comprehensive photo booth resource, you can also find a list of artist who use photo booth photography in their work and even arrange to rent one. No walk-ups, please!

It seems that German photographer Bernd Becher passed away last Friday in Germany as the result of complications from surgery. He was 75 years old. Amazing that there has been little or no coverage of this in English-language news, even in art-related publications.

Becher, along with his wife Hilla, was one of the initial photographers I became familiar with when my interest in photography began in earnest in 2000.

Sonnabend Gallery is currently showing a selection of the Becher's "Grain Silos", one subject amongst an encyclopedic catalog of industrial structures.

More commentary on Bernd's significance over at "State of the Art".

UPDATE: The NY Times published an obituary on June 26th.

The NY Times has reviewed the street photography show at the Met, drawn from the museum's collection which opened last month.

When artists talk about “training the eye,” they generally don’t mean doing exercises to maintain 20/20 vision. They mean honing a set of instincts, learning to see relationships among colors or objects or spaces. The title of this small but potent collection of contemporary photographs from the Metropolitan Museum’s collection describes this kind of vision another way: seeing what is “Hidden in Plain Sight.” The show focuses mostly on versions of street, rather than studio, photography.

Hidden in Plain Sight
Through Sept.3 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 5th Ave
(212) 535-7710

As part of the Magnum 60th Anniversary, WNYC's The Leonard Lopate Show interviewed Jonas Bendikson, Alec Soth and Mark Lubell (Magnum's director). Includes an interesting explanation of how the Magnum membership process works. In the recent portfolio review session, they culled down 250 submissions from each of the four Magnum offices down to 4-8 photographers being reviewed by all the members to become a Nominee. Last year there were no Nominees selected. Nominees have two years to create a new body of work for review before moving up to be an Associate Member. Associates then have two years to create another new body of work to be submitted for Full Membership. Full Members are members for life.

Listen in the embedded player above or on the WNYC site.

Perhaps someone can explain this one to me, because it makes absolutely no sense to me, and not just because I can't speak Portuguese. Sao Paolo-based ad agency Neogama/BBH just won a Cannes Gold Lion for an anti-smoking campaign using the post-Katrina photography of Robert Polidori to represent the internal damage smoking can cause.

Is it just me or does this seem like a highly inappropriate use of such photography? Heck, I felt a little uncomfortable viewing these works in a museum setting, like I was some sort of death voyeur, but seeing them used as an ad, even for a "good cause", strikes me as wrong.

The Edward Burtynsky documentary, "Manufactured Landscapes" is currently showing at Film Forum. The 8:10 showing tonight features Q&A with Burtynsky and filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal. Thurs (8:10) and Fri (6:20) showings feature Q&A with Baichwal alone.

Through July 3rd at Film Forum
209 West Houston, btwn 6th Ave and Varick
(212) 727-8110 for showtimes

Both uptown and downtown, there are quite a few shows out there to see before everything converts completely to group work from the flat files. And I've created a handy Google map to assist with your June gallery crawl. Black and white seems to be making a comeback, at least in terms of what's being shown.

A New American Portrait

Water by Christine Collins

Christine Collins, Jen Davis, Benjamin Donaldson, Amy Elkins, Peter Haakon Thompson, Todd Hido, Alec Soth, Brian Ulrich, and Shen Wei
A strange prevalence for anonymity amongst the photographers and subjects. What does that say about the modern American character?
June 22 - Aug 3 at jen bekman
6 Spring St
(212) 219-0166

Colour before Color
1970s European Color Photography, curated by Martin Parr
Luigi Ghirri, Keld Helmer-Petersen, John Hinde, Peter Mitchell, Carlos Pérez Siquier, Ed Van der Elsken
Contrast the work of John Hinde and Peter Mitchell for a stark understanding of the range of what was going on at the time, economically and photographically.
Through July 20, 2007 at Hasted Hunt
529 W 20th St, 3rd Flr
(212) 627-0006

Bernd & Hilla Becher
Grain Silos
If you haven't seen the Becher's work up close, Sonnabend gives you a chance about once a year. Highly recommended.
Through July 27 at Sonnabend Gallery
536 W 22nd St
(212) 966-6160

June Bride
Diane Arbus, Tracey Baran, Valérie Belin, Lee Friedlander, Robert Gober, Nan Goldin, Wang Jin, Seydou Keϊta, Rosemary Laing, Nikki S. Lee, Loretta Lux, Robert Mapplethorpe, Karl O. Orud, Bill Owens, August Sander, Lise Sarfati, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Malick Sidibé, Alec Soth, Arthur Tress, Chris Verene and Akram Zaatari.
Through August 17th at Yossi Milo Gallery
525 W 25th St
(212) 414-0370

Sam Samore
Scenarios
Through June 29 at D'Amelio Terras
525 W 22nd St
(212) 352-9460

Apocalypse: Contemporary Visions

Untitled by Paolo Pellegrin

Through July 27 at Candace Dwan Gallery
24 W 57th St, Suite 503
(212) 315-0065

Uniform: South Africa's New Clothes

OASIS: Sasol, Albert Road, Woodstock, 2006 by Pieter Badenhorst

Pieter Badenhorst , Bridget Baker, Lien Botha, Franci Cronje, Santu Mofokeng, Dale Yudelman, Donovan Ward
Through June 30 at Spanierman Modern
45 E 58 St
(212) 832-1400

Conceptual Photography, 1964-1989
Through June 23rd at Zwirner and Wirth Gallery
32 E 69th St
(212) 517-8677

It's reputed that the Yale School of Art represents the top of the photography education programs in this country if you are interested in entering the Art World and being successful as a manufacturer of fine art photography. I don't know if this is empirically true as I have yet to investigate the density of Yale MFA degrees in current and recent photography shows in town, but something in my gut says this reputation is outsized in comparison with the evidence. In any case, it may be educational to watch the career trajectories of the current crop of graduates, whose work is (mostly) on display on the Yale Gallery wiki. I say "mostly" because, since it is a wiki, any member of the Yale community can log in and edit the gallery pages and,as a result, approximately a third of the 90 images are now broken and unviewable. No attribution is given to the individual images, so it's not too useful for sussing out the new generation of photography all-stars, but it is instructive to me that my own struggle with proper exposure of the sky in landscape work is probably misplaced effort.

The marketing blog "murketing" has posted an interesting interview with Jen Bekman about her new 20X200 project. It elborates on many of the thoughts I've had about this initiative, including the potential ghetto-ization of the participating artists. As a business person (wow, that sounds weird), I'm also interested about the underlying economics of art as a product. Bekman picks up on this as well:

I want to create an opportunity that’s not instead of the traditional gallery environment, but in addition to it. I want more artists to make their living making art and I want the people who want to buy art, but feel that it’s too rarefied for them, to actually buy it. It’s absurd to me that there are so many of both of those types of people and yet they’re not connected with any sort of efficiency. I want to sell more art and I want more people to buy it.

The project is slated to launch July 27th.

Jon Feinstein of Group Show fame has put together a new exhibition at Gitana Rosa gallery in Brooklyn entitled "In the Dirt", showcasing six emerging photographers and their take on the modern landscape.

El Mal Pas, NM by Rachel Sussman

Through July 6th at Gitana Rosa
19 Hope St, 1st Flr, #7
(btwn Roebling and Havemeyer)
(718) 387-0115

Andy Grundberg reviewed the new show "Foto: Modernity in Central Europe" in this past weekend's Washington Post.

In the show's fine catalogue, curator Witkovsky asks a central question: "Why would 'new photography' take hold especially strongly in Central Europe?" His provisional answer revolves around the presence of a strong amateur photography tradition and the creation of schools that nurtured photography as a radical new instrument of expression. One could also point to Central Europe as the meeting place of constructivist ideas from the Russian avant-garde and new art movements from France and Italy such as cubism and futurism.

The exhibition is at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, through Sept. 3rd and will be coming to the Guggenheim on October 10th.

I've sometimes considered whether I could turn this photography jones into an everyday gig. One of the biggest obstacles appears to be, surprise, money. Replacing my current salary seems insurmountable in the short term and I'd have to move to North Dakota to make our saving stretch otherwise. Seems this is not an uncommon quandary, even if you're a Wall Street type who's been pulling down seven-figure salaries for a few years. This weekend the Wall Street Journal profiled Bruce Silverstein, an investor who quit his job several years ago to start a photography gallery in Chelsea.

The weekend Times' Travel section is dedicated to photography and has several great articles pertaining to travel photography and photo-oriented travel. Of particular interest was the article about "photo safaris" that combine sightseeing with photography workshops.

One of the online features is a catalog of 2007 photo shows across Europe and the US. After finding the link on Personism, I read through the piece and was flattered (shocked!) to find Gallery Hopper listed at the bottom of the page as one of three online resources for photo information.

Part 1 of an exploration of "the deadpan style", contrasting the work or Stephen Shore and Andreas Gursky. Uses a slide-show essay format, which I don't find completely satisfying and seems to be only used to drive additional ad impressions. Slate does the same thing.

Office Parks by Mark Luthringer

From Mark Luthringer's artist statement:

The typological form achieves an uncanny synergy and resonance with this subject matter because it mimics the mental images I suspect many of us form as a way of ordering the chaos of abundance that surrounds us. We can’t help but form in our heads lists, groups and categories based on product, brand, price point, style, market segment, country of origin, etc.

To see one of these turned into a group of images lined up together can be unnerving, though. In print, they confront us in a way never possible when they're just in our heads. We are presented with order, and while it is often an absurd, seemingly pointless order, it is one that we recognize immediately.

(via Core77)