Amy Stein - Stranded

MakingRoom Magazine

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ADC Young Guns 6

ADC - Young Guns 6

The Art Directors Club continues with its mandate of recognizing and fostering new work and emerging talents in multiple creative fields. Since 1996, Young Guns has chosen to honour people doing outstanding multidisciplinary work. This year’s competition is now open until June 2nd.

ADC Young Guns exists to identify the vanguard of creative professionals who let loose their imaginations, shattering conventions and breaking boundaries with a dash of brilliance and personal flair. Those of you who’ve set your minds to making a name for yourself, raising new standards from within cubicles, conference rooms, cramped apartments, and studios across the world—this is your chance to put those battle cries in action. If you’re age thirty or under and have two years of the working life under your belt, we’d like you to show us what it’s all about. — ADC

adcyoungguns.org

Davin — May 8th, 2008
Posted in Exhibitions, Organizations — Comment
William Greiner - Fallen Paradise

Fallen ParadiseKlompching Gallery has released a limited edition book of images from William Greiner’s exhibition Fallen Paradise currently running at the gallery until June 27th.

$125.00 — 100 signed and numbered examples, hardbound , 28 pages , 26 color plates, 11 ½ x 15 1/8” , each book includes an original signed c-print 4 x 6”.

klompching.com
111 Front Street, suite 206 Brooklyn NY 11201

Davin — May 7th, 2008
Posted in Books, Exhibitions, People — Comment
Zoe Strauss I-95.08

Zoe Strauss I-95.08On Sunday, May 4 2008 at Front and Mifflin Sts. in Philadelphia, PA Zoe Strauss presents the 2008 incarnation of her serial I-95 show. 231 photographs will be attached under I-95 from 1pm to 4pm and those same photos can be removed by those attending after 4pm.

Strauss wrote recently about how feelings surrounding the show’s transient nature has come under some challenge as the market value of here work increased.

“After the I-95 show two years ago, right after I was in the Whitney biennial, I felt that some people didn’t understand that the show wasn’t a ‘give away,’ but rather it’s just that when the show is done the photos are left to the elements and people can take them if they want. I had some consternation regarding how I saw the taking of the photos after the show was done. I did want people to take them if they wanted them… but I wanted someone to take them on the basis of their engagement with the show, not on the promise of a piece of the show having monetary value.” — Zoe Strauss

The perspective she’s gained leading up to this year’s show is an interesting balance to the photographic print as the authorized tradable product of the art market.

Davin — May 2nd, 2008
Posted in Exhibitions, People — Comment
Moving Still: Derek Shapton’s Here

Heather Morton has posted a video she produced with Derek Shapton. It gives a further narrative glimpse into the childhood memories that are crystalized in his series Here.

“For the past year, I have been revisiting and photographing the locations of vivid early memories, ranging from the sidewalk in front of my childhood house to the park I used to play in to the former location of the pool where I first learned to swim. The images in Here are selections from this ongoing exploration.” — Derek Shapton on heathermorton.ca

Shapton’s series shares some of the visual language of location-based studies like Joel Sternfeld’s On This Site but adds a layer of personal remembrance and emotional response. I’m also reminded of projects like Gayla Trail’s Not Now, Not Ever which also takes childhood location as a jumping off point for creating new images with their own set of possible emotional reactions.

“Because I started this particular project while revisiting my childhood geography, time and place is very important to me. I try to create imagery that is difficult to date, capturing something that isn’t ‘right now’ but isn’t any specific time that has ever been or ever will be.” — Gayla Trail

I hope to see more of these videos from Heather Morton. I really like getting insight into an artist’s practice (which should be clear from from MakingRoom’s mandate) and even brief videos can shed a lot of light on how people work.

Derek Shapton has a show at The Gladstone Hotel here in Toronto (1214 Queen West) running until May 31st.

heathermorton.ca
derekshapton.com

Davin — May 2nd, 2008
Posted in People, Video — Comment
Christian Patterson - Sound Affects

Spotted over at Shane’s site, Christian Patterson has posted a video teaser for his forthcoming book Sound Affects.

christianpatterson.com

Davin — April 26th, 2008
Posted in Books, People, Video — Comment
Remain in Light Vol.1 Photographers Announced

Shane Lavalette and Karly Wildenhaus have announced the photographers to be featured in Vol. 1 of their contemporary photography project, Remain in Light. The photographers chosen are varied and unique and should make for an incredible portfolio of images.

Andreas Weinand
Anne Lass
Coley Brown
Debora Mittelstaedt
Ed Panar
Estelle Hanania
Gustav Almestål
Hiroyo Kaneko
Kamden Vencill
Mark McKnight
Michel Campeau
Nicolai Howalt & Trine Søndergaard
Nicola Kast
Nicholas Haggard
Shawn Records
Raimond Wouda
Richard Barnes
Thobias Fäldt
Whitney Hubbs
Yann Orhan

Vol.1 of Remain in Light will also include a booklet with the texts: One Credo After Another by Tim Davis and A Telephone Conversation with Mike Mandel by Shane Lavalette

remaininlight.org/

Davin — April 17th, 2008
Posted in Books, Magazines, People, Websites — Comment
Women in Photography

This has been posted fairly widely at this point, but just in case… Amy Elkins and Cara Phillips have come together to act as curators of a new site which will present the work of female photographers on a monthly basis.

“There are more women working in the contemporary photo world then ever before. Their methods, choice of subject matter, visual language, and processes run the gamut of artistic possibility. What unites them is their passion and the effort they devote to creating extraordinary bodies of work. Women in Photography is a showcase for this work. It is also a resource for photographers, editors, curators, gallery owners, and viewers alike to discover and enjoy the work of female artists. By mixing the work of emerging photographers with artists that have achieved high levels of success within fine art and commercial worlds, the project is designed to open a visual dialogue and create a venue to share work, support, and ideas.” — Women in Photography

The site is currently seeking submissions and will launch in earnest with the first chosen photographers in June 2008. To submit, follow the guidelines below and send to womeninphotography at gmail dot com.

- 5 jpegs from a cohesive project or a work in progress.
5×7 @150 dpi named “myname_title.jpg”
- short statement/bio

There has been some discussion around the merits of websites, exhibitions, and projects which focus on women—whether it’s exhibitions organized around gender or support systems aimed at the needs of women only. Some have suggested that there is an isolationism, or worse a form of bigotry, in making the assumption that art created by women or the practices of female artists share a context simply because of gender. Another argument has been that there isn’t really a gender divide in contemporary photography and that talking about the possibility actually does a disservice to women by creating a schism.

I tend to disagree with both arguments and do believe that gender (plus race and class) bias is quite alive and unwell in society at large and certainly so in the photography world be it fine art or commercial. Recent exhibitions such as Humble’s 31Under31 may have featured only the work of younger female photographers but I don’t believe that an argument could be made that the curatorial process in their case simply involved choosing any work as long as it was created by a woman. The suggestion has been that grouping work simply because its creators are women is too thin and too arbitrary a context. But I have yet to see any real example of curators only looking at gender, even when gender is a primary focus of an exhibition.

There are a growing number of examples of women gaining reputations in contemporary photography and there is certainly a huge amount of incredible work being created by women. But because more female photographers are becoming known (often online), it doesn’t mean that they don’t face gender bias leading to warped expectations and different treatment related to male artists.

All that as a long-winded way of saying that I totally support efforts like Elkins and Phillips’ Women in Photography and also the related “Ask Me. I’ve got answers” badge campaign that Liz Kuball initated.

Davin — April 16th, 2008
Posted in Organizations, People, Websites — Comment
Pause, to Begin - 15 photographers selected

Pause, to Begin has selected the 15 photographers that will become the focus of the project’s first year.

Colin Blakely; Ann Arbor, Michigan
Timothy Briner; Boonville, California
Alejandro Cartagena; Monterrey, Mexico
Hin Chua; London, England
Tealia Ellis-Ritter; Barrington, Illinois
Matt Eich; Athens, Ohio
Matthew Gamber; Savannah, Georgia
Shawn Gust; Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
Shannon Johnstone; Cary, North Carolina
Erika Larsen; Hoboken, New Jersey
John Mann; Tallahassee, Florida
Thomas Prior; Brooklyn, New York
Brea Souders; New York, New York
Sonja Thomsen; Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Shawn Records; Portland, Oregon

Starting May 1, 2008, David and Ethan will depart the state of Maine with documentary filmmaker Bruno Toré for 1 month to meet the aforementioned photographers. Upon returning in June, 2008, Pause, to Begin will begin to unveil one photographer’s complete series of work per day at www.pausetobegin.com.

Davin — April 15th, 2008
Posted in Organizations, People, Websites — Comment
Click! at Brooklyn Museum

“Click! is a photography exhibition that invites Brooklyn Museum’s visitors, the online community, and the general public to participate in the exhibition process.”

“Click! … begins with an open call—artists are asked to electronically submit a work of photography that responds to the exhibition’s theme, Changing Faces of Brooklyn, along with an artist statement.”

Brooklyn Museum has entered the public evaluation phase of Click!. The work of each artist (chosen in the project’s first phase) is presented with a short statement and a sliding rank tool. I’m not sure about the granularity of the evaluation slider — I think that an out-of-five Likert scale may have worked better but that’s not overly important.

“Click! culminates in an exhibition at the Museum, where the artworks are installed according to their relative ranking from the juried process. Visitors will also be able to see how different groups within the crowd evaluated the same works of art. The results will be analyzed and discussed by experts in the fields of art, online communities, and crowd theory.”

brooklynmuseum.org

Davin — April 15th, 2008
Posted in Exhibitions, Websites — Comment
Amy Stein - Stranded

Recently presented as part of SMoCA’s Car Culture exhibition, Amy Stein’s on-going Stranded series visualizes American social and political isolation. Stein’s extensive travels across the US to purposefully witness motorists stranded in America’s in-between spaces form a unique look at another middle America. I talked with Amy about Stranded and her motivations.

Read the Interview

Davin — March 22nd, 2008
Posted in Interviews, People — 1 Comment