July 2007 Archives
From Cool Hunting, a visit to Lori Nix's studio.
On the heels of the online mention in the NY Times, this past weekend Gallery Hopper got a tip of the hat from the Wall Street Journal in a rather substantial article on affordable art, "Art for Less". Lisa Hunter (Intrepid Art Collector) was interviewed for the article as well as dealer and fellow Colorado College alumnus Paige West of Mixed Greens. Other blogs mentioned were Modern Art Notes and Edward Winkleman. Good company.
Ashley Gilbertson has been photographing in Iraq since 2002. The latest issue of The Virginia Quarterly Review features a long, detailed article by Gilbertson and his wife called "Last Photographs" covering various experiences in Iraq, all centering on death and photography in some way. "Last Photographs" refers to the times Gilbertson has been the last person to photograph someone before they died, whether a US soldier or an Iraqi matriarch. In June, he was interviewed on NPR to promote his new book, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. The interview sheds some light on Gilbertson's motivations, including how his pro-intervention views have changed after years of covering the conflict. Photographs from the book will be on exhibit in October at Gallery Bar, 120 Orchard St.
Suaada’s dentures by Ashley Gilbertson
For comparison, listen to this interview with Time photographer Christopher Morris, from July 2003. At that time, according to Morris, photographing the wounded was allowable, but release of such photography was delayed to allow for notification of families.
Morris covered the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, and like a lot of the photojournalists that covered that war, was outraged that the US did not act faster to intervene and put a stop to the genocide. Asked whether the US intervention in Iraq represented a change for the better in this regard, Morris squirms and says "I don't know if my role in society is to give my opinion." That strikes me as an astonishing position for a photojournalist to take, but maybe not for a modern Western journalist who believes journalism truly can be, and is, wholly objective and the only opinions that appear in a paper are on the editorial page. Compare to the position of Philip Jones Griffiths from a generation before: "To me, there is no point in pressing the shutter unless you are making some caustic comment on the incongruities of life. That is what photography is all about. It is the only reason for doing it."
He goes on to say, "We have bit off more, ah, than we can handle in the sense that we are in a region, as part of the world where we are not liked. No matter what we do, what good we do, what our intentions are, it will be turned against us. And I think we have opened a very serious can of worms that we will have to deal with for a long time." That was in the summer of 2003.
Nearly half of the photographs that make up "A New American Portrait" exclude the subject's face. Deliberate or not, this is a significant feature of a show focused on portraiture as the subject's face must be considered to be the most expressive element of a portrait, particularly the eyes. Is there something evasive, something craving anonymity in the modern American character? Is it an indication of shame? A peculiarly American desire for privacy? It seems strangely counter to the growing exhibitionism I see in American culture today, from the prevalence of pornography to our tabloid addiction to the popularity of My Space and Facebook.
I imagine it could be an accident of selection. The show mixes a few mature artists with others just starting their careers. The younger, less experienced photographers represented here may struggle with confronting a subject harshly, in a frontal assault. The face is a difficult media to mold and the process of portraiture, particularly when it is for the photographer's benefit, not the sitter's, can be an act of theft and violation. But, that's just a guess, primarily driven by comparing these works with the two strong examples from Todd Hido included in the show. Hido's work here, more than the others, demonstrates a connection with the subject as a person and not merely as an atmospheric prop. While the shutter captures just a moment of the session, your imagination immediately goes to work unspooling all the time before and after.
Through Aug 3 at jen bekman
6 Spring St
(212) 219-0166
Here are the July gallery picks. Group shows are in full force, but I like that. As usual, I've made a handy Google Map.
Evolution of the Digital Portrait
Everyday by Noah Kalina
Nancy Burson, Aziz + Cucher, Loretta Lux, Ruud van Empel, Jill Greenberg, Simen Johan, Jake Rowland, Marc Yankus, EJ Major, Gregory Scott and Noah Kalina
Noah Kalina's everyday is one of YouTube's greatest hits, now canonized in a $50 limited edition DVD.
Through Aug 17 ClampArt
521-531 West 25th St
(646) 230-0020
Road Trip
Luke Barber-Smith, Jinkee Choi, Linda Ganjian, Birgitta Lund, Eric Payson, Don Porcella, Kathryn Refi, Marie Sauvaitre, Joseph Smolinski, Zoë Sonenberg, Amy Stein, Ann Tarantino, and Carlo Vialu
Some non-photography mixed in there (or is it photography mixed in with the non-photography?) Four images from Amy Stein's Stranded series make the scene.
Through Aug 10 at Mixed Greens
531 W 26th St
(212) 331-8888
Easy Rider
A cast of thousands, seemingly. Not sure how it all is going to fit in the gallery. Jeff Brouws, Tim Davis, William Eggleston, Mitch Epstein, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Allen Ginsberg, Frank Gohlke, Ernst Haas, Todd Hido, Jodie Vicenta Jacobson, Lisa Kereszi, Justine Kurland, William Lamson, Dorothea Lange, Danny Lyon, Nathan Lyons, Christian Patterson, Mike Smith, Ed Ruscha, Lise Sarfati, Vicki Sambunaris, Stephen Shore, Rosalind Solomon, Alec Soth, Mark Steinmetz, Joel Sternfeld, and Garry Winogrand and others. Apparently Robert Frank hates the Internet.
Through Sept 8 at Yancey Richardson
535 W 22nd St, 3rd Flr
(646) 230-9610
Stephen Shore
Biographical Landscape: The Photography of Stephen Shore, 1969-79
On Father's Day, we were having lunch around the corner from ICP. So much of Shore's work's been on display over the past year or two I didn't feel the need to poke my head in, but I did hit the bookstore and grab a copy of Uncommon Places.
Through Sept 9 at International Center of Photography
1133 6th Ave
(212) 857-0000
Degrees of Separation
The site doesn't have but one example of what's on display, but that one shot was interesting enough to me to put it on the list. About 80% of the photographers included in the show are unknown to me, so that's always a good opportunity to broaden my view.
Through Sept 8 at Peer
526 W 26th St, Suite 209
(212) 741-6599
Roswell Angier
Highway 66, Gallup, 1979 by Roswell Angier
A black and white companion to Shore's color photography, taken in roughly the same era and in similar environs. Which is not to say there is any actual connection between them; that's just a lazy late-night analysis.
Through July 28 at Gitterman Gallery
170 E 75th St
(212) 734-0868
Chen Jiagang
Through Aug 4th at ChinaSquare Art Center
545 W. 25th St, 8th Flr
(212) 255-8886
Wow, talk about getting a bee in your bonnet. Alec Soth has been on a Tod Papageorge kick all week. Honestly, it seemed a little odd to be shining so much high power light on a living photographer with the aura of Papagoerge. But it has culminated this morning in a fascinating interview with Papageorge himself.
Meat is Murder 2007, Hrad Kuzyk
Much has been made of the amateur documentation of the Iraq War by soldiers on the ground, particularly in contrast to the professional coverage. The photographic evidence from Abu Ghraib is the most significant, but in the long run, perhaps more important is the day to day vernacular record opportuned by the presence of digital point and shoot and camera phones in the war zone. "Junk Camera Soldier" represents an interesting counterpoint to this phenomenon. Captain Hrad Kuzyk has created an archive of black and white photography shot while on an Iraq tour of duty, using a variety of cheap toy cameras.
Hrad claims these are neither pro- or anti-war. It's hard to look at a photograph of a "Mistake" candy bar and believe there's no point of view behind it.
(via aphotoaday.org)
A few months ago, I'd read a small item in a photo newsletter that long-time MoMA photo curator, theorist and photographer John Szarkowski had suffered a stroke and was hospitalized. Since I was unable to verify this from any traditional news source, I left it unmentioned as a rumor. As it turns out, the rumor was true. Szarkowski passed away on Saturday due to stroke-related complications.
From the Times' obituary:
When asked by a reporter how it felt to exhibit his own photographs finally, knowing they would be measured against his curatorial legacy, he became circumspect. As an artist, “you look at other people’s work and figure out how it can be useful to you,” he said.“I’m content that a lot of these pictures are going to be interesting for other photographers of talent and ambition,” he said. “And that’s all you want.”
It has become popular to post links to "photographs that changed the world", often accompanied by such uncritical commentary as "When you look through these, you're reminded of how truly powerful a single still image can be - how it can capture and convey an idea and tell a story."
On the contrary, in almost every case, these pictures hold very little story content. We only know the story because of the surrounding text, captions, larger news context. Were that context to be lost, say some far-future archaeologist finds this data cache, its difficult to imagine how anyone would be able to tease out much more than broad generalizations, mostly negative. about humanity from such images.
This is a great danger today, when people increasingly learn their news only through visuals, never acquiring the greater context of events. We are easily and happily duped through the manipulation of visual language. Without understanding root causes of such events, how can we possibly be equipped to find lasting solutions?
The photo book review blog 5B4 has posted a review of Bernd and Hilla Becher: Life and Work. If you are unfamiliar with the Bechers' work, this is a good place to start.
Their approach to photographing was to reduce every aspect of personal style in order to emphasize the impersonal aesthetics of the buildings.
I'm not sure I would go along with this description, perhaps I'm misunderstanding the wording. When I look at the various catalogs of forms that the Bechers' created, "impersonal aesthetics" seems counter to the evidence. Most of the structures they photographed had a strictly utilitarian purpose (grain silos, water towers, gravel plants lime kilns etc.) and while there is a consistent familiarity of form across the structures of any type there is also an amazing variation within any particular type.
The Ryan McGinley hype machine has been operating full tilt over the past weeks, so it was only a matter of time before the backlash began. Metropolitan Museum of Art research associate Mia Fineman has written an essay for Slate (another one of their annoying slide show essays) that questions the longitudinal value of McGinley's work and whether the commercial nature of this work devalues it as art.
This line, to me, is as imaginary as a national boundary. It's there in our minds, but you can't actually see it even when you walk right up to it. Film, for instance, is considered to be art, despite its commercial aspects. So why not commercial photography? It's not as if there is not a monetary component attached to photographs created purely for the gallery market.
(via muse-ings)
