The Day the World Turned Day-glo

Dane Patterson

2011-12-06T08:55:00.006-05:00

AGAIN, AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN...

I am loving these beautifully drawn, collage-honoring, graphite delights. The piling up of objects over the figure is just what I'm up to. Amazing to have seen this. There are no coincidences.

The Proposition
2 Extra Place
New York, NY 10003

Exhibition: NOVEMBER 4 – DECEMBER 18

Viviane Sassen

2011-12-05T14:31:00.004-05:00

New Photography 2011 MOMA

Viviane Sassen's work spoke to me the most out of the 6 artists chosen. Her background in fashion graphically ground the images with strength and power. She seems to use patterns and cloth to tell the story of her subjects identities, beautifully done.

René Magritte: Dangerous Liaisons at Blain Di Donna Through December 1, 2011

2011-11-15T09:55:00.004-05:00

René Magritte: Dangerous Liaisons at Blain Di Donna
Through December 1, 2011

"Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see
what is hidden by what we see." - René Magritte

This show managed to collect some of the best and most unique Magritte paintings into one light-filled gallery on the Upper East Side. On entering I almost fell to me knees seeing Elementary Cosmogony. I had seen it once in LA in 2006 and wasn't expecting to see it here. It was even more amazing than I remembered and much larger. There was also an exquisite little collage in the back that Baldassari must have seen early on. A rare gem of a show.

Yuki Onodera at Yossi Milo

2011-06-12T21:29:00.004-04:00

I know she showed several months ago but I have been wanting to blog about her ever since. Having a baby means very little time to sit and reflect so I'm just going to say that these images have stayed with me in their beauty, size and simplicity.

Her process is described in the Press Release:

The carefully selected figures from various printed materials are first cut out, placed on a mirror stage and photographed against strong back-lighting. Through physical and digital collage, the figures are filled with image fragments from old photographs, magazines, video and other material, dating from the invention of photography through the present day. Printing and processing the gelatin silver prints in the dark room, the final result is iconic silhouettes. As composite images, each figure transcends and embraces the world around it.

Her other projects are equally impressive. The Baldessari-esque street photography with the dainty carefully crafted doilies on top instead of his simple colored circles, and the Portraits of Used Clothing is just perfect.

I Am Zundel!

2011-02-26T16:23:00.002-05:00

Liminal Space: Self Portraits during Pregnancy

2010-11-25T12:14:00.016-05:00

Balancing the external world with an ever expanding internal eco system, this series tracks my fluctuating emotions and experiences tied to pregnancy and its hormonal shifts.

Exploring the subject of growth and the uniqueness of sharing my body with another human being, I encounter feelings both natural and foreign coalescing in a fertile, primal, territory that dominates my sense of self as I transition into the new role of motherhood.

Peter Freitag: Private Stages

2010-10-05T11:51:00.008-04:00

Is it possible to imagine an absence without reference to the principle of presence? This is a question Derrida poses. In many ways, once a presence is known, its absence is often felt more intensely than its original.

That is at least one reason why these images by Peter Freitag from his series Private Stages work so well. By collaging over images of nudes found on the internet, the staging area of the image becomes the center of attention, and all the clues that these stages inform us with become the main presence. Just knowing that something has been obfuscated, and knowing what it was, in this case a nude photo found online, catalogs the evidence of what could be an innocent rug or chair, into an absence, more profoundly than its presence.

As though touching the unsuspecting nudes with his magic wand, these absent shapes take on anime-like spirits made up of waves of bubbles, beautiful and playful as images that stand on their own. I also love Freitag's nod to the original models by leaving their names as titles of each work.

Tracy Baran: intimate beauty in everyday life

2010-07-21T09:29:00.005-04:00

RUN, Tracy Baran, 2005

The photography of Tracy Baran is brave and honest, introspective, and simply beautiful no matter what her subject. A keen eye for color, light and composition her work sticks with you like a good film.

Sadly Tracey died in 2008 at the young age of 33. The Tracey Baran Award was created soon after and is now accepting applications.

“The Tracey Baran Award was established to honor the memory and achievement of Tracey Baran, a young photographer who died after a short illness in 2008. This annual award, with a fellowship grant of $5000, will be given to one emerging female photographer who is a citizen of the United States.”

Me, Myself and You, 2007

Who's Leda? 1999

From an essay written for Tracey Baran’s 2002 solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, curator Karen Irvine wrote:

Tracey Baran creates visual journals, using color photography to record and refine her experiences into images that reference fundamental themes such as love, death, and regeneration. Rarely preconceiving her pictures, Baran works in an intuitive manner, casting her photographer’s eye on the world until something sticks. Thus a photograph can occur at any moment, in any place, in a practice that starts with instinct and results in the communication of very universal experiences.

Through a process of careful extraction and editing, Baran creates lyrical images that invite open interpretation. Her photographs function with a cumulative intensity. Like a written diary, in which each entry is better understood upon reading further, the true spirit of Baran’s photographs is discovered when they are considered as a part of the whole. Each photograph informs the others and in that interplay of images, their meaning fluctuates and expands.

Jessica Labatt

2010-06-07T08:10:00.006-04:00

Jessica Labatt recently won a solo show on the esteemed Humble Arts website. She's a Chicago based photographer who "engages photography’s potential as the link between physical and immaterial worlds." The work has a painterly approach and reminds me both of John Baldassari and Sarah Sze. I particularly enjoy the "actionable objects" in the work, the way the inanimate artifacts come to life in a world of their own.

From her Statement:

My photographs are formalist explorations of everyday objects and materials that engage the subjectivity and experiential qualities of matter. Juxtapositions of content, form, and color imbue dynamism into the still life tradition in their ability to place a still object into a state of becoming. In this state of action, the images have an autopoietic, or self-generating visual rhythm established within the composition’s architecture. Perspectival manipulations created with the large format camera shift and tilt the picture plane, creating a confusing sense of depth and scale. These images play with the illusionistic tendencies of photography and its potential to simultaneously reveal truths and spin falsehoods...These mind- bending forms result in pleasurable questioning that provokes an active looking.

Richard Tuttle

2010-05-16T11:00:00.010-04:00

Recently I saw the documentary Herb and Dorothy which was wonderful. It's about a working-class couple that become major art collectors on very small means. It describes their passion and openness to all types of art, and the way they are really able to see and make wise choices because they are really looking. "The art world was their habitat." - Pat Steir

That kind of attention is so nurturing for artists. For the first three years out of grad school I had gallery representation and it was an enormous help. In that time I had two solo shows and participated in 15 group shows. Sadly, the gallery changed direction and all of us video and photo artists were let go in favor of abstract painters and sculptors. It was a huge blow to me and my work not to have that support anymore.

I wish I had known Herb ad Dorothy because I flourish under that kind of attention but also because they have no video or photography in their collection. It was something I really missed there. The only photo based piece I saw was a process piece by Vito Acconici which is important and wonderful but that was the only photographic work in a collection of almost 5,000 pieces.

One of the most intriguing parts of the film is to learn that the Vogels had rules for their collecting that were predicated on meeting the artist and in may cases become very close to them. They would often come by their studios and look at everything. They would never buy a piece of work where they didn't know the artist and hadn't made their own selection from their work.

One of the artists they loved was Richard Tuttle. In the documentary Richard makes wonderful connections between the Vogels and art, the way they really see and are so in tune with artists work. He had a great line about the relationship between animals and art, that he couldn't explain the reason for it but it was a strong connection.

Here are some more musings and insights by him I thought were good. I find his way of thinking inspirational.

These simple things that any child could do, these sort of “rules of art.” Like the famous rule of negative capability, or whether it’s “to be or not to be.” That has so much energy. It doesn’t say anything, but it has so much energy in it that generations and generations of human beings have pondered it. In some sense the best art or the aim of the best art is to just let it. You know we should just let things happen that want to happen. You know it’s not about making something happen but about allowing something to take place.

Kirsten Kay Thoen

2010-04-21T21:58:00.010-04:00

Kirsten Kay Theon recently won the new Humble Arts Foundation Grant and she deserved it. I love the three dimensional quality of her images and the way her images relate to their newly formed geometric shapes. I am stirred by her concern with human interaction and the physical world, as it diminishes and is put aside for video games and life spent on the computer. But she will tell you all of this much more eloquently.

“Many pictures turn out to be limp translations of the known world instead of vital objects which create an intrinsic world of their own.” – Robert Heinecken (1932-2006)

Metamorph

The words of the self-proclaimed ‘para-photographer’ evoke the grounds for my formal explorations with photography. My creative process is largely informed by my concern with the impact of accelerating technologies on human perceptions of and relationships to nature.

My relationship to photography is a transformative one. The images in this portfolio document my experimental process of reworking nature-based imagery into nature-inspired, three-dimensional, forms. I am particularly attracted to creating an elevated experience of photography. Sacred geometry, alchemy, and architectural philosophies of visionaries such as Rudolph Steiner are key to the development of my work. Together my pieces assemble a personal vision of a contemporary nature culture.

B is for Baroness

2010-04-14T08:01:00.011-04:00

One of my favorite bands B is for Baroness starring Molly White put out their debut album recently and will be playing from it this Friday night, April 16, at Pete's Candy Store. An exciting guest star appearance will be made by the ravishing Ms. Sandra Malack from The World/Inferno Friendship Society who will be singing and playing bass.

B is for Baroness takes a stab at the dramatic incantations of the original torch songs, breaking them over bended knee, pulling out the venom, and kneading them into recognizable shapes; some sweet and simple, others traditionally filled out and conforming to the warmest parts of a French chanson, a Mexican ballad, a retrofit samba or grrrl rock classic. Lush vocal harmonies mix together with stories of love, loss and affection.

I photographed Molly for her record last summer in the Hollywood Hills where she wrote and recorded the album. Many of these images made it into the final packaging I am happy to announce!

Bellona: Destroyer of Cities

2010-04-07T08:44:00.020-04:00

Jay Scheib is at it again so hang on to your belly: turning our insides outside and upside down, demanding, questioning, tickling, fumbling, destroying. His latest addition to the Trilogy, Simulated Cities, the first of which was a hilarious and raucous trip to Mars, is again focused on the psychological and physical effects of an apocalyptic environment.

Without law or structure, without a place to escape to - physically or figuratively - the world dramatically shrinks, as do the rules we live by. Every normalizing social more is thrown out the window because there is no one left to watch or judge, we are alone. It is this intersection of events that Scheib is after - the moment that everything else is stripped away, and we are left only with ourselves. How would we respond? What would we not be able to live without?

I got to photograph Jay when he was rehearsing for the first part of the trilogy in an old bank vault in Lower Manhattan provided by a grant through the LMCC. The Village Voice's review includes one of my images and has an interview with Jay and review of the play.

Bellona: Destroyer of Cities is playing at The Kitchen and on one night is followed by a discussion with the eminent photographer Carrie Mae Weems and Jay Scheib. I highly recommend this roller coaster of a performance - an athletic, intelligent, thunderstorm of a performance told through live video streams, dance and poetry.

The Snow: I Die Every Night

2010-03-11T08:49:00.021-05:00

Two years ago I photographed The Snow for their debut album, True Dirt. Together with stylist Tara Sharpe we created an old English tea party garden set. The band wore all white and we made a mud pit for the boys to somersault through to autheniticate the situation: who's afraid of a little dirt?

Recently I had the honor of photographing The Snow again for their second album, I Die Every Night. Working within the theme of transformation, thinking about the way our dreams and the passage of sleep transform us, we took over the guest room in my apartment and turned it into a decadent, Victorian slumber party that goes from tame to wild, a boisterous, melodic, inventive journey, like their music.

Playing at The Livingroom Saturday night March 13 at 9pm. I wouldn't miss it!

Here's the line-up:
7PM - Vicky Emerson
8PM - Fionn Ó Lochlainn
9PM - The Snow
10PM- Ben Arnold
11PM - Quintus
12AM - Rawles Balls

The Snow is: Pierre de Gaillande (guitar, vocals) Hilary Downes (keys, vocals, pianohorn) David Spinley (clarinet, saxophone) Jeffrey Schaeffer (drums) Christian Bongers (bass)

Alex Prager and the Anxiety of Water

2010-03-07T20:24:00.019-05:00

I am a big fan of Alex Prager. I love the exploration of female identity within an eerie Hitchcock-ian world. Self-aware in its play with "camp" through the use of obvious wigs and vintage fashion and make-up, her storytelling relies on subtle expressions, and our ability to read a fevered, worried, or troubling look. Her use of water elements in her images help bring certain dramas to life even more.

"The convergence of the Faustian bargain, the envy of others, the symbol of failing in a sexual competition, and of course, death by drowning all converge around the swimming pool," says Dr. Garrard, a psychiatry professor at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and an author of Psychiatry and the Cinema.

Born and raised in LA (among other places) where going to the beach or someone's swimming pool is an everyday activity, Prager does not seem to take water for granted. Instead, she commonly casts bodies of water as major elements of foreboding or loss, curiosity and sexuality in her images.

I grew up with a pool and ever since JAWS always thought there was a shark at the bottom just waiting to eat me, even when I was looking straight down through the clear emptiness. "There is something about water that suggests a loss of control, not being able to stand in it, with your head vulnerably sticking out," said Dr. Judith Beck, director of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research in Bala Cynwyd, Pa. "There is an anxiety of pools, of them being a danger area. Intellectually, people know they are not in danger, but their gut tells them that they are."

Prager uses our anxieties about water and the ambiguity they offer to further develop her exploration of female identity, where water acts on characters to reveal change - a violence of some kind, a search, then discovery, and even if it's not witnessed, there is the expectation of transformation.

Now on view at M+B gallery in Los Angeles: 612 North Almont Drive
Los Angeles, California 90069, T 310 550 0050

M+B is pleased to present the exhibition Week-end, the latest body of work by 29-year old photographer ALEX PRAGER. Completely self-taught and recognized for her trademark vision that trumps any formal training, Prager’s Week-end is a collection of 18 color photographs as dazzling as they are bizarre. The exhibition opens January 30, 2010 and will run through March 6, 2010, with an opening reception for the artist on Saturday, January 30 from 6 – 8 pm.

Roderik Henderson

2010-02-28T09:59:00.007-05:00

I saw these images a few weeks ago and have been surprised how vividly they've stayed with me. Henderson photographed people in hard times living in their cars or spending a lot of time there, at a time when he himself was on the road.

The quality of the light is so dense, packed with a wide latitude of tonal ranges that give the images an eerie underwater feeling. The way he chose to light his subjects accentuates a sadness, a disappointment, a sense of foreboding, like a storm gathering right before your eyes. Each face as rich in story as any book, each straight-to-camera stare so intensely present its hard to look away, this work is both haunting and strident in its simplicity and courage.

Photographic Memory

2010-02-14T11:11:00.020-05:00

Until recently I had a distinct memory of laying on a blanket by my grandparent's pool in Pasadena, California, when I am one years old. It was a memory I've had for a long time but hadn't really thought about the uniqueness of before.

One day in a conversation with my family about our earliest memories, I told them about my memory at one years old. None of them believed me. I described the warmth of the cement on my belly, the light being thrown around on the blue water of the pool in front of me, the large feet walking by. My mother found an old album and showed me a picture of myself within this memory: I am 1 years old, laying on my belly on a blanket by the pool, at my grandparent's house.

Had I seen this photo before and forgotten about it - then misremembered it as my own memory? Or was it a real memory of mine that was only further validated by the photo? Can a photograph evoke that strong a sensation as to make you forget the photographic part of it? Or was I just seeing a photo of a moment I actually remembered?

Memory is a very slippery beast, with abilities to haunt as easily as it can bring pleasure. It also has a frustrating tendency to slip away. As soon as I saw this photograph of myself I lost my old memory. It was like the photo replaced the deep, warm, fuzzy, film in my mind with its sharp lines, bright colors and exact square shape.

Memories and photography are inextricably linked, and our expectations of what a photograph is are hinged on its inherent ability to record reality, which in the end is a memory.

Maybe this is because memories, like photographs, are visual. They're not graphical or textual, they're pictures of how we see. But they are reality made magical, memorialized, glamorized, galvanized, archived. As Susan Sontag said photographs are "clouds of fantasy and pellets of information." Memories don't seem to capture incidents and happenings as they actually occur but as they are when they're slowed down, repeated, stilled, and in that process they gain something, and reality is transformed. This seems to also be true of photography - that it has the power to make the everyday into something unique and magical.

The Crisis with Food

2010-02-03T08:26:00.023-05:00

Everything is connected. So it's not a surprise that when you raise crops and animals in a respectful way they are healthier (because they don't need antibiotics or pesticides) and they taste better.

For several years my husband and I have been trying to figure out the best way to eat - for ourselves, for the planet. We talk to local butchers, we read Michael Pollan, we soul search. Do you buy only organic, and if so, only local organic? Do you exclude all meat and fish because they're so often raised inhumanely, or because they're fed meat when they are really herbivores? or because it's just cruel to eat animals? Or do you eat locally, humanely raised, grass-fed/ grass-finished animals because they are a good source of protein and that way you aren't importing tofu or beans from half-way across the globe? And if you do that is that enough???

When I talk about this crises with my meat-loving friends their eyes glaze over, and they wave their hands like "I'm so sick of this." I sense that either they feel bad about eating meat so they don't want to talk about, it or they just think I'm a softy because 'I love animals,' not really understanding how everything is connected. So the following video from Dan Barber at TED (Chef and owner of Blue Hill) was a beacon of light: even the manliest meat-eater cannot argue against taste.

Even if you don't care about global warming, and you don't care about animals, and you don't care about your health, you will probably still care about taste! I am hopeful this will help create deeper and more widespread understanding of the food/planet/health crises in order to bring about change.

FEED: Digital Brand Experience Report 2009

2010-01-28T13:43:00.001-05:00

Great art direction, useful content and data on advertising now and how to use and think about the web

FEED: Digital Brand Experience Report 2009

View more presentations from Al Haqq Network.

Haitian Dance Performance for Earthquake Relief

2010-01-23T12:03:00.005-05:00

Kriye Bode presents RASIN SAN BOUT, "Endless Roots"

TONIGHT January 23rd don't miss the fund-raising performance at Alvin Ailey for Haiti earthquake relief. All proceeds will be donated directly to relief efforts. Alvin Ailey has generously donated the theater for two shows tonight. There is an amazing lineup of Haitian, Brazilian, Flamenco, African, Hip Hop, Break-dancers and more. Tickets are available online or at the door.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 23RD at 7:00 and again at 9:30pm
ALVIN AILEY THEATER
405 W. 55th Street, New York, NY 10

The WB features Naomi White

2010-01-21T21:23:00.004-05:00

Williamsburg Greenpoint News & Arts is featuring five images from my eco-fashion project Spirits in the Material World: Portraits of Sustainability.

Spirits in the Material World began as a response to the disastrous 1957 oil spill in Newtown Creek, an offshoot of the East River between Brooklyn and Manhattan. The work focuses on local, women designers working within the strict Vegan/Green/Eco guidelines to make imaginative, environmentally earth conscious clothing as a counterpoint to chemically dependent consumerism and the toxic ramifications it hazards.

Set in the polluted and construction-laden neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Greenpoint in Brooklyn, these images juxtapose the purity of Eco-clothing with the industrialization of the neighborhoods. Using reflections in cars and windows to tell two stories at once, the clothing and recycled trash couture offers a solution to staving off climate change amidst the chaos of forsaken Mobil stations, the abundance of smoke stacks and polluted rivers.

Designers active in this project are:
Ryann
Mociun
Nature Vs Future
Sublet Clothing
Stylist: Tara Sharpe
Make-up: Talya Siegel

Martin Luther King: Saving the Soul of America

2010-01-17T11:51:00.015-05:00

Very moving speech by Dr. King on the injustices of the Vietnam war and the violence of America who continues to wage war on other countries, sucking money and energy away from its own growing poor people.
To listen click here

For those who ask the question, "Aren't you a civil rights leader?" and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: "To save the soul of America." We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier:

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath --
America will be!

Roy DeCarava: Master Photographer

2009-11-18T08:06:00.015-05:00

I first saw Roy DeCarava's work at his retrospective at the MOMA in 1996 when I was visiting New York and thinking of going to graduate school here. I couldn't believe how prolific his work was: he had been everywhere in Harlem, at every time of day and night. He had captured every jazz and blues club, performers and singers, all types of workers, family life, street life, city life, that Harlem was about. It was like going to see a movie without words.

"He photographed for himself, and ultimately produced a body of work that enshrined the social contradictions of the '50s, the explosion of improvisational jazz music in the '60s, the struggle for social equity, the bold faced stridency of the '70s and '80s, only to turn to even more contemplative realities during the later years of his life," his wife, art historian Sherry Turner DeCarava, said in a statement. "His contribution to American photography and culture is manifold," she added.

The show soon traveled to SFMOMA where I was then living and I went to see it again. Later, living in New York and working for a stint at JPMorgan in desktop publishing, I would often tour their vast collection on the upper floors of over 30 of DeCarava's beautiful, fiber based prints.

Originally a painter and illustrator DeCarava chose photography for it's ability to get right to the heart of a thing. “I didn’t know what I wanted to paint, but photography told me right away,” he said in a 1986 interview with The Washington Post. “I was very shy, scared to death of people, and somehow the camera gave me a license, a way of relating to people."

The emotional quality of his images, the nuanced use of black and white, added a deep tenderness to even the roughest or bleakest of images. I love how he privileged the dark tones in his images, exploring every shade of black, with very little white allowed in. “His most enduring pictures dare you to see in the dark,” critic Richard Lacayo wrote in Time magazine. “They’re so heavily shadowed that your eyes have to adjust to the carbon-tone depths.”

Phillip Toledano Will See You Now

2009-11-07T12:37:00.007-05:00

Phillip Toledano follows through. His ability to commit to a subject and take it to its logical end conclusion, mixed with his technical aptitude for lighting and detail make his work crisp and memorable. I especially appreciate his writing about his work - both from him and his subjects. Currently on view at Hous Projects is his make you laugh and give you nausea at the same time show American Gift Shop.

Video Portrait

2009-10-27T13:21:00.008-04:00

I stumbled upon this lovely video portrait advertising K-swiss shoes from Partners and SPADE.

Simen Johan - Until the Kingdom Comes

2009-09-27T22:18:00.005-04:00

It may just be the strength of the title but the subjects in Simen Johan's series Until The Kingdom Comes seem so regal and timeless, portraits not just of animals but spiritual overseers, waiting for a visitation. Beautifully rendered and artfully put together this work pulls at me with both hope and melancholy.

Amy Stein at Clamp Art Tonight!

2009-09-10T16:34:00.007-04:00

If you've never seen Amy Stein's Domesticaed series at a gallery or seen her book by the same name you must go see the show at Clamp Art tonight! I had the pleasure of seeing her work a year ago in Los Angeles just randomly walking into a gallery on LaBrea. Since then reading her blog has become a daily high point full of inspiration and great new work. A keen sense of space in her images and fast-paced humor. A definite must see!

Hellen Van Meene

2009-08-30T11:14:00.007-04:00

I love the weirdness of these poses in the portraiture of Hellen Van Meene. They seem natural to that phase in a young woman's life: awkward, curious, shy, courageous, all at once. And yet they are original in each portrait, faithful to their own unique voice.

New iPhone Series: Walking to Work, January - July 2009

2009-08-01T16:59:00.019-04:00

Franz Ferdinand Strikes Again

2009-07-29T14:50:00.000-04:00

Completed Books

2009-07-24T08:18:00.012-04:00

I am pleased to announce the published books of my collaboration with Peggy Rice and her fascinating collection of Little Red Riding Hoods. The books come in two volumes and showcase her 65 years of collecting from around the world. You can preview the first 15 pages of each book here. Enjoy!

Driving in the Sun: Portraits from Los Angeles

2009-07-10T08:51:00.012-04:00

Little Red Riding Hood

2009-06-03T07:34:00.002-04:00

Part of an ongoing collaboration with Peggy Rice, a wonderful 90-year old collector of everything about this fairytale.

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas

2009-05-26T10:21:00.001-04:00

This is a compilation of shots taken with my favorite camera the Canon EOS-5D. William Castleman made a picture every 20 seconds over nine hours in Fort Davis, Texas.

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

Julia Galdo + Cody Cloud = JUCO

2009-05-15T12:57:00.010-04:00

Julia Galdo Photography and Cody Cloud have been making pictures together for several years. They recently launched a joint website called JUCO.

Magritte comes to Berlin in the Shape of Thorsten Brinkmann

2009-05-11T08:10:00.007-04:00

Famous for his Dadaesque self portraits Brinkman has a wonderful sense of humor and play in his work. I love these still lifes that make small objects feel grand. Currently on exhibition at Kunstagenten May 2 through July 11, 2009.

Birthe Piontek

2009-03-20T08:14:00.007-04:00

Birthe Piontek currently online at Women in Photography has a striking body of work about finding yourself in the North, an exploration of a place spiritually and physically.

The Idea of North: Individuation is a recurring theme in my photographic work: the ways people struggle to belong yet be different at the same time. Sometimes, people’s quests for identity lead them to leave the beaten path, and take the road less traveled. And for them, the quest for self-discovery becomes a journey in every sense of the word. - Birthe Piontek

Dana Boule: A New Sensation

2009-02-13T09:41:00.013-05:00

I met Dana Boule on the slippery, sweaty floor of our martial arts studio, my elbow in the back of her neck, her hands wrapped around a chunk of my hair, the usual girl encounter. After class she would perform in one of several punk bands and throw kicks on stage while she screamed and glared at you, then turn around and play an incredibly complex tune on the piano, standing up. Last summer a bunch of us followed Dana and her talented cohort Corey Tatarczuk to New Jersey to work on French Boy, her hilarious pop sensational music video. Miguel Drake and I filmed the action while Corey directed hilarious dance routines which also star another talented film maker Adrianne Jorge as well as Miss Lucy Stein and of course Dana doing her special Dana magic. Dana is also an excellent writer. I promise you will split your side laughing if you read her blog: Kung Fu Dana: An American in Paris. Dana now lives with her adorable, Princeton-scientist French husband in an apartment in Paris with a grand piano. Quelle Vie!

Commercial: School of Visual Arts: Naomi

2009-02-11T18:12:00.013-05:00

I am happy to announce Hillman Curtis' new SVA shorts featuring myself and a graphic designer that both went to graduate school at SVA. Hillman Curtis is an amazing artist and we had a wonderful time collaborating on this project. Watch it! and other great films HERE!

January New York City 2009

2009-02-07T15:21:00.002-05:00

Obey Plagiarism? I don't think so.

2009-02-05T09:12:00.016-05:00

"What initially disturbed me about the art of Shepard Fairey is that it displays none of the line, modeling and other idiosyncrasies that reveal an artist’s unique personal style. His imagery appears as though it’s xeroxed or run through some computer graphics program"

HA!

Now that we understand Mark Vallen's definition of machine art doesn't count as art, (sorry Louis Daguerre, Paul Strand, Cindy Sherman) and anyone who can't (or chooses not to) draw is also not an artist, (sorry Marcel Duchamp, Bruce Nauman, Chris Burden, Barbara Kruger), I can predict this article will be annoying, self-righteous, and seeped in jealousy over Fairey's success.

First of all, "expropriation" has the stated purpose of establishing social equality, which Vallen professes to have stake in on his own website with his "I've been creating socially conscious artworks since I can remember." Not that I agree that Fairey is expropriating anything. Hasn't Vallen heard of Appropriating? The Conceptualist movement, Surrealism, Fluxus? And how does he know Fairey's intentions, background, personal history, and knowledge base? Furthermore, how can he hold History up on such a high pedestal? History is written by the victors, the top dogs, and is therefore subjective. I have found meanings of images and language to shift radically in my own lifetime, from one decade to the next. Meaning is never fixed, it is constantly changing and adapting, like everything else.

Shepard Fairey is an artist expressing himself with materials and found images that move him. He has added to general public consciousness, and brought out art and important historical figures through the ages that would have not been seen by so many otherwise. He has especially contributed to all of us with his work for the Obama campaign. Mark Vallen claims on his own website: "I have faith in the ability of art to heal, transform, educate, and uplift." Really? His seething criticism of another type of artist other than himself disproves this statement.

Super Touch does this topic more justice than I ever could. And thanks to Jörg Colberg's weblog Conscientious and C-Monster for bringing the whole debate to my attention.

Listen to The Dogwoods play

2009-01-26T13:52:00.016-05:00

The Dogwoods is a fabulous Bluegrass/Americana band with two stand-out banjo players including front man Phillip Roebuck, known as the Banjo Ninja, as well as Morgan O'Kane from Casa De Chihuahua. Other players include Zeek, Domino and on the drums is my good friend Semra Ercin (World/Inferno, Kid Casanova, Casa de Chihuahua) keepin' the beat.

Inauguration Day Portrait Project

2009-01-22T08:32:00.009-05:00

Our expressions are formed by feelings, consciously or unconsciously, and tell a story of who we are now. We all have an emotional response to Inauguration Day 2009: it ends eight years of nightmare, and begins the first African American Presidency in the United States. On Inauguration Day Shanna Maurizi, Rose Callahan and myself photographed New Yorkers around the city, culminating in a euphoric celebration at White Box Gallery. As a collaboration between three photographers, the Inauguration Day Portrait Project intended to capture the cultural zeitgeist at an individual level.

In addition to shooting through out the day, we invited participants from 6:30 - 11pm to have their portrait taken at the gallery. There was also streaming Inauguration speech and coverage of the event, MC Larry Litt Politeral Satyrist keeping the energy high, live music by Apollo Heights and Spontaneous Underground, and a beautiful Russian burlesque dancer who created a special Inauguration Day piece to "We Won't Get Fooled Again!" by the Who.

Click to see the photos:
password: Obama!

The Hillman Curtis Treatment

2009-01-17T07:23:00.009-05:00

This week I had the honor of being filmed by Hillman Curtis and his talented crew for a commercial for the School of Visual Arts, my Alma Mater. Known for his prolific books on web design, Hillman has been creating amazing short films for the web, commercials for SVA, and an insightful artists series.
The crew came in and laid track down in my temporary studio - an empty apartment across the hall - and filmed while I photographed. Arianna Orland, Web Designer and Photographer, and Carrie Lincourt, Video Artist and Director of SVA Alumni Affairs, were also present.

The World/Inferno: Front and Center

2009-01-08T08:04:00.027-05:00

The World/Inferno Friendship Society changed my life. Their songs welcome you into a world of possibility, a place of fevered inspiration and pure, unrefined hope. Besides my delight at discovering their intelligent, optimistic, euphoric music, the band introduced me to my husband, their original drummer Ben Kotch.

They have definitely paid their dues. Inferno has been touring the punk scene in North America and Europe regularly for the past ten years, surviving exploding airhorns, bad wine, scheisse mit rice, and other pleasantries that go along with being a touring musician.

They have continually sidestepped much of main stream attention in order to stick to their ideals and get famous on their own terms. I was delighted to see them front and center of the New York Times website with beautiful photography by Damon Winters. The article talks especially of their upcoming Peter Lorre's 20th Century show playing in Manhattan for the first time tomorrow night at Webster Hall.

This is a theatrical rendering of their latest album about the life and times of Peter Lorre. I had the pleasure of working with director Jay Scheib on the video design for the show last summer when, together with Jack and the band, we developed a video narrative for this unique marriage of live punk show meets theatrical performance. Culling from hours of Peter Lorre films we collaged a video which echoed threads and ideas found in Jack's complex lyrics over a large three piece panel that stretches along the upper half of the stage, just above the band's heads.

A dazzling array of energy and light. Catch it if you can!

A Tommy Kriegsmann and ArKtype Production.

Driving in the Sun: Images from California

2009-01-03T10:22:00.022-05:00

Sandra Ackermann: To Die For

2008-12-11T11:07:00.011-05:00

This just in from Retitle!
Galerie Voss presents Sandra Ackermann:
Die Wirklichkeit ist nicht die Wahrheit
With a wonderful essay by Thomas W. Kuhn Reality is not Truth

Women serve as a guiding theme , who, more often than not, are adaptations of fashion photography and possess a specific, unique pathos. They serve as orientation for the viewer, perhaps even as identification figure, and operate similarly to a personification in an allegory. These elegant women embody society’s self-image, serving not merely as vicegerents of the beautiful, but as condensates of desires.

Don't be sad
Oil on canvas / 2008 / 190 x 150 cm

Hochstromspannung
Oil on canvas / 2008 / 150 x 220 cm

Leere
Oil on canvas / 2008 / 180 x 150 cm

Wohin verreist die Zeit
Oil on canvas / 2008 / 140 x 210 cm

Wanda: A Woman on the Verge of Herself

2008-12-01T19:18:00.032-05:00

James Hosking, (co-worker, filmmaker, art director), and I were recently discussing the brilliance of Don Dellilo. I had just finished End Game, which managed to alter the most extreme situations into comedic genius: each character sees the world through a distinct philosophic lens as he bumbles through football, college, nuclear bomb explosion fantasies, and girlfriends. Neither sports fan nor nuclear bomb expert, I could relate to the subtle yet meaningful dialects within the language of grunting, the mirror-like effect of inanimate objects,and the euphoria found in losing oneself to the game. James recommended Delillo's recent review of the film Wanda. As expected, Delillo's article was a fabulous mixture of personal history and keen insight into the film and its larger context.

This is not film noir. There is no mingling of atmospheric suspense and fateful resolution. The bank robbery is not paced differently from the rest of the film. It is ordinary, with guns. This is the dark side of the moon of Bonnie and Clyde, flat, scratchy, skewed, without choreographed affect but not without feeling.

Wanda wears a shroud of uniquely 1970's era depression: part panic, part cynicism. From the endlessly bleak landscapes where Wanda appears like an alien on a dying planet, she plods through her life as if she isn't there. Her inability to care about anything including herself verges on astonishing. As Delillo says: "She is simply the empty space designed to accommodate a man's self-doubt and flaring rage." To me this statement epitomizes the suffering felt on both sides of the burgeoning gender divide that went on so violently in that decade.

“She doesn’t keep the house good and the kids are all dirty!” was grounds for divorce in 1970. Women's sole purpose, according to men and society, was caring for their husbands and children. No wonder then that Wanda feels so apathetic towards her own life and that it is impossible for her to feel anything binding towards her husband and children. She is so accustomed to being treated as if she has no intrinsic value of her own that she’s started to believe the charade.

But when someone does see her – albeit a sexist, neurotic, pill-popping criminal – she comes alive. And the test he sets up for her to take becomes the springboard which delivers her from a depressive state that dead-ends (apathy) into something that at least holds potential for growth: the self realization of who she is and what she is capable of.

Alone in Four Walls

2008-11-18T07:55:00.028-05:00

This past weekend I saw Alone in Four Walls by Russian filmmaker Alexandra Westmeier. The film was part of the Margaret Mead Film Festival curated by my friend Ariella Ben-Dov, also the directer of MadCat Film Festival. This film is a portrait of Russian, disadvantaged, teenage boys, who are sent to a reform school/prison that seems a welcome break from the violence and alcoholism of home. In the post-Perestroika era, things have gone terribly wrong: a boy who steals jam is sentenced to the same amount of time as the boy who commits murder. The irony is when faced with children growing-up in hardship, prison terms are awards not sentences.

Because they come from seemingly dysfunctional, rural and impoverished families it is amazing how articulate they are able to be after just a short while at the school. They write letters home that astonish their parents, parents who never visit them. One father is shamed by his son's letter which implores his father "not to turn his back on his son!," at which the father says "Oh, he's gotten so clever!" It seems these boys have never been asked how they feel about themselves or their situation - their experience, their crimes, their life - and in turn give stunningly vulnerable and heartfelt descriptions of what their lives are like.

Life in this particular reform school allows these boys time for reflection, possibly for the first time. Although unfortunately formal therapy is not offered, spending 2-3 years in a safe place where daily life is structured, seems to do them a lot of good. One child who had killed another for ratting him out to the police for thievery, says when he first arrived at the school he didn't talk to anyone because he was so angry inside. But he found that talking made him feel better, and now he talks to everyone.

Ingo Westmeirer, the director's husband, is the cinematographer and the way the film is shot is nothing less than stunning. Using his HD video camera like a film camera, namely by having a camera assistant pull focus for him while he shoots, and the use of gels and sophisticated lighting, he achieves remarkable and sustaining imagery. The lighting is so soft and flattering even an old lady rubbing her guilt-ridden, calloused hands looks handsome and sympathetic.

I was often reminded of a German photography sensibility while watching this film, the way it positions itself a-politically, quietly allowing the subjects to bloom, like a Becher photograph. The narrative follows several boys through their years behind bars, also documenting glimpses of what they will face when they get out: loitering boys beating each other up, poverty, depression. The editing parses poetically between overview and interview, personal circumstance and the narrative of a country in turmoil, to great effect.

OFFICIAL SELECTION - 2008 Sundance Film Festival
OFFICIAL SELECTION - 2008 Berlin International Film Festival

Iraq War Ends! Troops to Return Home Immediately!

2008-11-12T11:18:00.019-05:00

Get your very own printed copy of this site-for-sore-eyes
(fake) New York Times!

Troops to Return Home Immediately!
Nationalized Oil to Fund Climate Change Efforts!
Health Insurance Act Clears House!
Bush to Face Charges!
Ex-Secretary Apologizes for W.M.D. Scare!
Maximum Wage Law Succeeds!
Nation Sets Its Sights on Building Sane Economy!
USA Patriot Act Repealed! Evangelicals Open Homes to Refugees!

This made me so happy. To see the world in print as you wish it could be is like turning your face away from a hail storm only to find a fresh, balmy breeze.
I love that they took it all the way in recreating the New York Times exactly, including the advertisements: De Beers funding the creation of prosthetic hands for the Africans who lost theirs in the search for diamonds? Priceless.
Though the paper may sadly be fake, what it states in the fine print on A2 is true: "Today that better world is finally possible...but only if millions of us demand it." Thank you Yes Men for helping us visualize a better world to live in. It's a great start. Here's to new beginnings!

Barack Obama Has A Posse

2008-11-04T20:13:00.002-05:00

Thank you Shepard Fairey!

OBAMA!

2008-11-04T09:04:00.001-05:00

VOTE!

2008-11-04T08:22:00.002-05:00

Jeff Whetstone: Post-Pleistocene

2008-10-27T07:54:00.016-04:00

Jeff Whetstone wandered for days at a time with an 8x10 camera, tripod, lights, lens, film , food and water and 1 assistant to make these pictures. Here, in now abandoned saltpeter mines used for making gunpowder during the Civil War, he records our ongoing primordial urges to paint pictures on rocks, engrave our names in the land, make our mark before we die. The conversation between people after 140 years of tagging, drawing, and inscribing initials into the cave walls becomes a breathtaking piece of art, although I can't say that for the parts individually. It's not so much what the pictures or words mean, most of it is indistinguishable, but that like a long chain letter people have kept up the tradition and in so doing, bring the cave to life with their voices.
It's a very different experience seeing the prints than seeing the images online. The scale of the prints at the Julie Saul gallery makes great use of the dizzying amount of detail that an 8x10 negative can pack into an image, and I highly recommend swinging by to see them in person.

Julie Saul Gallery - 535 West 22 street, ny.

Julia Fullerton-Batten

2008-10-23T08:36:00.026-04:00

I first discovered Julia Fullerton-Batten's photography on the cover of a Joan Didion book my husband gave me - Play It As It Lays. The image seemed timeless, at once descriptive of a woman searching for meaning in the chaos of the '60's, or someone resting after an out of town wedding in her hotel room in 1985. Or she is there now waiting for her lover to fly in and join her.

A girl in repose on a window mantle, her face mostly obscured by a curtain, hands moving to hold on to each other, the motion proving her not to be asleep but alert. I love the quietness of it, which is present throughout Fullerton-Batten's work. She captures the enormity of a person's inner life in a single frame just by hinting at it, her sitters becoming characters on a spiritual journey that takes place in the everyday. There is a strong sense that she has taken a lot of time working with her subjects, pushing through inhibitions to get to something on the other side of boredom: revelation!

Here are some of my absolute favorites:

The Power of Photography

2008-10-19T21:15:00.018-04:00

Colin Powell announced his support of Barack Obama this morning on national television. His speech focused on the intolerance he witnessed within his own party, and the photograph that made this frustrating human pit-fall coalesce for him. The photographer, Platon, recently hired by the New Yorker, captures a range of emotions from people whose fates are tightly bound to the United States military.

"I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian Cross. It didn't have a Star of David. It had a crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American."
-Colin Powell

Samantha

2008-10-13T21:14:00.017-04:00

Nicolai Howalt

2008-10-10T08:30:00.004-04:00

Nicolai Howalt's portrait project on young boy boxers before and after their matches is mesmerizing - beautifully rendered, simply lit, straight forward, fun. However his next project about a family living in a suburban apartment at a city's fringe is almost the opposite in its complete surprise and unpredictability, its emotional range and expression, its fabulous weirdness. I love that he is successful at both.

The two projects have little in common except extremes, but the family images give you everything in the middle too. Howalt is able to work in different modes of photography - and possibly different cameras? - by choosing the approach that makes the most sense for his objective. To me that is the sign of a great photographer. It's the project that should dictate the approach and the medium, and not the other way around.

I love not really knowing anything about this family, just that it is a family somewhere on earth. This is all you really need to know in order to relate to the inherent human drama contained in these beautiful and poignant images.

Martha Rosler: Great Power

2008-10-07T08:05:00.001-04:00

Since the 1960's Martha Rosler has been making photo montages that combine the gruesome reality of war with the tranquility of the home - to original effect. In 2008 the message is no different. In each new war she has returned to this brilliant device to show (again) the enduring contradictory nature of the United States to create chaos and violence elsewhere in the world while selling order and beauty for the home, at home. All images taken from contemporary magazines and newspapers, Rosler's return to this original juxtaposition act as a mirror that history is doomed to neglect.

"The photograph is not mute, it speaks to people and people speak back to it, and all kinds of conversations can occur around it and the photo montage even more so because it speaks about a rupture or a displacement, and that is really interesting to me."

-Martha Rosler

Great Power at Mitchell-Innes and Nash on view through October 11, 2008. 534 West 26th Street, 10-6pm Tuesday through Saturday.

Confronting Racism

2008-10-05T13:46:00.000-04:00

Nothing to do with photography but this is a critical, perfectly articulated, voraciously delivered, amazing speech by the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka. May the bells ring out all over this land!

Semra and Erik

2008-10-04T16:34:00.002-04:00

Our good friends Semra Ercin, (percussionist and drummer for the World/Inferno, Kid Casanova) and Erik Proft (lead singer of Planned Collapse) in my studio two weeks ago.

Today Semra delivered their new baby boy: Roman Hassan Proft!

TOMMY! RIP

2008-10-03T08:59:00.002-04:00

TOMMY! was an original; a cantankerous and creative artist and friend. He directed Angels? and The Dutchman, among many other films and projects. He was also known to hang upside down with a note written on his belly saying "Tickle Me!"

One of my favorite memories of TOMMY! was at a bar in San Francisco. There was a small space where a microphone had been set up in the corner. The singer was late, apparently, and Tommy walked over to the pianist and asked if he knew a certain Frank Sinatra song. Without ever putting his drink down or taking his shades off, Tommy sang the entire song - every word, every verse. A spot light fell on him. The bar was enraptured. People cheered! Then he casually ambled back over to us at the bar, and after a few minutes of just staring at him he said nonchalantly "What!?"

TOMMY!, you were an inspiration to me and many others. I am so sad you had to leave us so early, but I hope wherever you are, you have found a way out of the darkness.
You will be greatly missed. May you rest in peace.

Autumn in New York

2008-09-29T06:49:00.001-04:00

Autumn in New York..there is nothing like it. It's straight out of a Diane Arbus photograph.

Shelly Silver: in complete world

2008-09-28T15:49:00.000-04:00

In complete world is a new film by one of my favorite artists Shelly Silver. I had the pleasure of assisting Silver by interviewing some of the people who appear in the film. Following Silver's script we engaged New Yorkers of all classes, colors and creeds on subjects as far ranging as the Iraq War, What IS enough money?, and Does Global Warming exist? Weaving intimate personal questions ("Are you happy?") with political ones ("Do you feel personally responsible for the government?"), Silver creates an illuminating portrait of a people caught up in an uncertain time. Silver's perfect edits parse dense jungles of topics and voices to form something of great value that plays not like a narrative but like a song.

Newtown Creek

2008-09-25T08:01:00.000-04:00

Recent work: Spirits in the Material World

2008-09-22T22:20:00.001-04:00

Spirits in the Material World began as a response to the 195o's oil spill in Newtown Creek, near where I live in Brooklyn. The Newtown Creek is an offshoot of the East River between Brooklyn and Queens. For over a century this creek has been flanked by oil refineries, but the spill was not detected until 1978. The area of the spill is in excess of 52 acres, and the total spill volume is approximately 17 million gallons of petroleum product. That is almost 6 millions gallons more than the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 which poured 10.8 million gallons into the Prince William Sound in Alaska.

As a counterpoint to chemically dependent consumerism and the toxic ramifications it hazards, this series of photographs focuses on local, women designers working within the strict Vegan/Green/Eco guidelines to make imaginative, environmentally earth conscious clothing.

Set in the polluted and construction-laden neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, these images juxtapose the purity of Eco-clothing with the industrialization of the neighborhoods. Using reflections in cars and windows to tell two stories at once, the clothing and recycled trash couture offer a solution to staving off climate change amidst the chaos of forsaken Mobil stations, the abundance of smoke stacks and polluted rivers.

Designers active in this project are: Ryann, Mociun, Nature Vs Future, Sublet Clothing. Stylist: Tara Sharpe and Make-up: Talya Siegel. More information about the Newtown Creek oil spill and recovery process.

X-ray Specs: The Prescience of Poly Styrene

2008-09-21T12:14:00.005-04:00

I clambered over mounds and mounds
Of polystyrene foam
Then fell into a swimming pool
Filled with fairy snow

And watched the world turn
Day-glo you know you know
The world turned day-glo you know

I wrenched the nylon curtains back
As far as they would go
Then peered through perspex window panes
At the acrylic road

I drove my polypropolene car
On wheels of sponge
Then pulled into a wimpy bar
To have a rubber bun.

I named this blog after a Poly Styrene song because I love her and find her inspirational; for her song's concern for an over stressed planet; for its relationship to my current photography project "Spirits in the Material World." It also makes me think of the moment that photography moved from black and white into color, and from being considered a recording mechanism to an art form. And of course there would be no photographic images without light: day-glo, neon, strobic, ambient or otherwise. Plus its cool she just invented a word like day-glo!