Barbara Kalina, Entered On 10/8/2007: Displaced In Place: personal curation of the Great Recession, levered on the photographer’s home foreclosure
Lissa Rivera,Incantations of a Doll Collector: weird combination of 21st century niche with a 19th century stage craft
Craig Stokle, Bearing Darkness: exploring the nighttime landscape with the help of car headlights.
MFA Photography, Video & Related Media Thesis Exhibition
Through June 27 at School of Visual Arts Gallery
601 West 26 Street, 15th floor
New York, NY
(212) 592-2145
When people ask me what they need to do to understand the world of fine art photography, I tell them: go to galleries, preview auctions, and read the photography criticism in The New York Times.
Unfortunately, my current location limits gallery-going, but Gefter’s essays are always good.
I immediately thought it was strange that after toppling Saddam Hussein, the US Army would set up various headquarters inside Saddam’s palaces. It seemed too symbolic of “the more things change, the more they stay the same”, swapping one overlord for another. Better to demolish them, in my opinion. Richard Mosse has documented the new lives these formerly lavish palaces are living as quarters for American operations in the country. As US forces prepare to hand over security of Iraq to the local government, FlavorWire has interviewed Mosse about these strange arcitectural remnants of the deposed regime. BLDGBLOG also interviewed Mosse in May.
If you’re in NYC this week, you might want to check out the Aperture Summer Party on Thurs. Basic tickets are $50, but $150 gets you this 8″x10″ Thomas Allen print, created specifically for this event:
Thomas Allen, Beachcomber, 2009, edition of 250
There’ll be live music and a raffle for a Matthew Pillsbury print as well.
Thursday, June 18, 8:00-11:00 p.m
at Aperture Foundation Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor (between 10th & 11th Ave)
New York, NY
Hunting stirs up passionate feelings in America. Seems pretty much anyone random person has an opinion about it, usually stridently for or against. It’s not a passive topic. Sometimes an outside pair of eyes might shed a new perspective on things.
I received an all-too-brief email last week from hassla books, announcing “First, jay comes”, photographs by Takashi Homma. Based on Google search, Homma seems to be mostly known for pictures of Tokyo and this is a departure from that vein. Hassla offers only two images from the work on its site, usually too brief to make any judgment, but this line made me think this might bring something different to a project about hunting:
The deer hunter shoots its prey and immediately opens the deer with a cleaver. Jays fly down first to consume the remains of the deer.
Web-denizens have been inundated by examples of this technique, which mimics macro photography of railroad models. The Times‘ general audience is perhaps not so familiar, so the editors have helpfully included a guarantee of reality:
“All photographs for this article were taken from a helicopter.”
The tilt shift technique deliberately makes an unrealistic image. Coupled with this article, it underlines the message that French presidents consider Paris a sort of personal toy box, constantly adding and rearranging through their terms in office. I’m wondering what discussion at the Times resulted in adding that little innocuous line that drags the images back towards straight documentation.
The NY Times blog “Lens” has a great post about “The Tank Man”, four different photographs of the anonymous protester standing in front of Chinese tanks sent to quash the protests in Tiananmen Square twenty years ago. Four photographers positioned in a high rise hotel took similar, but different photos of that brave man. If you ever question the efficacy of government censorship, know that few Chinese are familiar with these photos. Many young Chinese deny the government massacre of protesters even happened. Today, the Chinese government’s “Great Firewall” is blocking access to major Internet sites in an attempt to erase memorial of these events.
UPDATE: Photographer Terril Jones has come forward with an altogether different, street-level picture of The Tank Man taken just moments before the long-range shots referred to above. This picture has never before been published. Why? It more powerfully describes the scene, the terror and the bravery of that lone protester and yet Jones kept it private, only showing it to friends.
Tina Brown’s Daily Beast has launched its art and photography section, or “vertical” as the PR email called it. How 1997. In any case, right now, its wholly focused on the Venice Biennale. Paul Laster of Art Krush has the first feature post, Art’s Biggest Party. Not much about photography yet, though the page is dominated by a nude photo of France’s first lady, Carla Bruni, with passing mention of its immenint auction. Quick! The bidding starts at $3k!
The NYTimes is reporting on new revelations concerning a shooting of a student protester in 1967 West Berlin. The article is accompanied by a photo of the student lying on the ground, “the shot that changed the republic.” It’s a photo I’ve never seen nor heard of. We are all in our own little bubbles no matter how hard we try to expand our horizons.
