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Japan: The Remains of the Day (8 Photos)

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© Tetsugo Hyakutake. Courtesy of Philadelphia Photo Arts Center.

This month marks the one-year anniversary of the undersea earthquake and resulting tsunami that struck Northern Japan. In observance of the tragedy, the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center (PPAC) is exhibiting “Silent Existence” by the fine-art photographer Tetsugo Hyakutake. Through his images, Hyakutake has said that he wishes to explore “contemporary issues in relation to their historical contexts.” For “Silent Existence,” the contemporary and historical meld into one, as the images show the destruction caused by the tsunami soon after it occurred. The resulting photos have a quiet sadness to them, featuring the things the wave left behind.

Tonight, March 29, PPAC is hosting an artist talk with Hyakutake and reception at its gallery, located at 1400 N. American Street #103 in Philadelphia. Proceeds from the reception will be shared with the Japan Society for their Japan Earthquake Relief Fund. Hyakutake has also donated two prints to be auctioned off during the course of the exhibit with proceeds going to the Japan Society. The exhibit will be open through June 11, 2012.

© Tetsugo Hyakutake. Courtesy of Philadelphia Photo Arts Center.

© Tetsugo Hyakutake. Courtesy of Philadelphia Photo Arts Center.

© Tetsugo Hyakutake. Courtesy of Philadelphia Photo Arts Center.

© Tetsugo Hyakutake. Courtesy of Philadelphia Photo Arts Center.

© Tetsugo Hyakutake. Courtesy of Philadelphia Photo Arts Center.

© Tetsugo Hyakutake. Courtesy of Philadelphia Photo Arts Center.

© Tetsugo Hyakutake. Courtesy of Philadelphia Photo Arts Center.


Philip-Lorca diCorcia: Indecisive Moment

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© Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Courtesy of Philip-Lorca diCorcia and David Zwirner, New York

Philip-Lorca diCorcia is well-known for his carefully planned and meticulously executed photographs involving family members and a variety of “actors,” including anonymous strangers, pole dancers and street hustlers. Over the past decades, he has been influential in reinventing the genre of street photography. Deploying characters in preconceived yet seemingly random poses and contexts, diCorcia’s photographs are far from candid snapshots. They explore the idea of the “indecisive moment” and revolve around a  tension between the casual and the posed, the accidental and the fated.

Alex Prager: Compulsion (4 Photos)

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"1:18pm, Silverlake Drive," 2012. © Alex Prager, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery.

Alex Prager‘s latest exhibit “Compulsion,” which opens April 5 at Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York City, continues to explore the cinematic esthetic she is known for. Like much of her early work, there are detailed and dramatic photos that look as if they were taken on a movie set. But now her “characters” are at a distance or sometimes even missing from the frame, allowing each viewer to determine his or her own version of the events taking place in the photo. Inspired by the grisly scenes captured by tabloid favorites Weegee and Enrique Metinides, the cinema-style photos in “Compulsion” feel almost invasive; as if we are all spectators of a crime we were too late or unwilling to prevent. Further playing on the role of the viewer, each of Prager’s “scenes” are paired with a closely cropped photo of a woman’s eye.

Also on display will be Prager’s latest short film La Petite Mort, which “explores the mystery of death through a woman experiencing the boundaries of her body and those of this world.” For more information, visit yanceyrichardson.com.

"Eye #2 (Boulder)," 2012. © Alex Prager, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery.

"11:45pm, Griffith Park," 2012. © Alex Prager, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery.

"Eye #1 (Flood)," 2012. © Alex Prager, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery.

In the Wake of Mankind (8 Photos)

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Jorn Vanhofen's Gottard #2754“Gotthard #2754,” 2010. © Jörn Vanhöfen, courtesy of Robert Mann Gallery

In his latest exhibit “Aftermath,” German fine-art photographer Jörn Vanhöfen explores the physical, cultural and social forces at work around the world, and how they often collide with the natural world. The large-format color photos, now on display at the Robert Mann Gallery in New York City through May 5, are stunning in scale and detail. But they also evoke beauty, wit, drama and outrage in equal parts.

Jorn Vanhofen's Zurich #367“Zürich #367,” 2011. © Jörn Vanhöfen, courtesy of Robert Mann Gallery

Jorn Vanhofen's Chicago #2767“Chicago #2767,” 2010. © Jörn Vanhöfen, courtesy of Robert Mann Gallery

Jorn Vanhofen's Spanien #48“Spanien #48,” 2003. © Jörn Vanhöfen, courtesy of Robert Mann Gallery

Jorn Vanhofen's Carrara #635“Carrara #635,” 2010. © Jörn Vanhöfen, courtesy of Robert Mann Gallery

Jorn Vanhofen's Duisburg # 111“Duisburg #111,” 2009. © Jörn Vanhöfen, courtesy of Robert Mann Gallery

Jorn Vanhofen's Sudafrika #883“Südafrika #883,” 2008. © Jörn Vanhöfen, courtesy of Robert Mann Gallery

Jorn Vanhofen's Caracanchel Madrid #108“Carabanchel Madrid #108,” 2008. © Jörn Vanhöfen, courtesy of Robert Mann Gallery

Hiding in Art: JR and Liu Bolin Collaborate (10 Photos)

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French photographer JR by Zachary BakoFrench photographer and street artist JR. © Zachary Bako

While doing an artist residency in Beijing, photographer Zachary Bako started documenting the contemporary art scene in China. But it wasn’t until he returned home to New York City that he would meet Liu Bolin, who was working on his series “Hiding in New York.” Bako began photographing Liu’s creative process for the images, which show Liu painted to blend into the background of various sites around the city.

Within six months, Bako relocated to Beijing and began his own series “Liu Bolin: The Process.” Using both still images and video, Bako continues to record and document what goes on behind the scenes in order for Liu to make photographs for his “Hiding in the City” series. Here, Bako chronicles a collaboration between Liu and French photographer JR. For the work, JR photographed Liu, enlarged the image, and pasted it on his studio’s exterior wall and door. Then Liu painted JR to blend into the image and photographed the resulting work.

Liu’s exhibit “Lost in Art” is currently on display at Eli Klein Fine Art in New York City through May 11.

French photographer JRJR photographing Liu. © Zachary Bako

JR and Liu BolinJR and Liu select the image that will eventually be blown up. © Zachary Bako


JR and his team paste the enlarged image to the exterior wall and front door of his studio in New York City. © Zachary Bako

JRJR photographing Liu’s portrait from across the street of his studio. © Zachary Bako

JR Liu BolinJR’s finished portrait of Liu. © Zachary Bako

Liu BolinLiu and his team paint JR so that he blends in with the portrait. © Zachary Bako

JRJR in disguise. © Zachary Bako

Liu BolinLiu on scaffolding, photographing JR from across the street. © Zachary Bako

JR “hiding” in his portrait of Liu. © Zachary Bako

Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Dolls and Masks (7 Photos)

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Ralph Eugene Meatyard“Untitled,” 1960s. © The Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

Ralph Eugene Meatyard is best known for the eerie, masked portraits in his photo book The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater, which was published after his death in 1972. Beginning on Saturday, May 19, 2012, the Philadelphia Museum of Art will exhibit “Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Dolls and Masks,” which explores Meatyard’s early work from the late-Fifties through the Sixties. In the images, his friends and family members wear masks while posing in rundown houses, forests and cemeteries. Dolls and doll parts also figure prominently in the work. The exhibition runs through August 5, 2012. For more info, visit www.philamuseum.org.

Ralph Eugene Meatyard“Untitled,” 1960s. © The Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

 

Ralph Eugene Meatyard“Untitled,” ca. 1960. © The Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

 

Ralph Eugene Meatyard“Untitled,” ca. 1964. © The Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

 

Ralph Eugene Meatyard“Untitled,” ca. 1968. © The Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

 

Ralph Eugene Meatyard“Untitled,” ca. 1961. Courtesy Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum Purchase, John Pritzker Fund. © The Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

 

Ralph Eugene Meatyard“Untitled,” ca. 1962. Courtesy of William Goodman & Victoria Belco. © The Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective (8 Photos)

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Beach Portrait Coney Island New York by Rineke Dijkstra“Coney Island, N.Y., USA, June 20, 1993.” Chromogenic print, 117 x 94 cm. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris. © Rineke Dijkstra

 

Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective opens today at the Guggenheim in New York City. The midcareer survey of the Dutch portraitist’s work was previously on display at SFMOMA. Known for her modern approach to portraiture, many of the subjects in Dijkstra’s large-scale color photos are young adults and teens. The extensive exhibition includes work from many of her series, including “Beach Portraits,” which features portraits of adolescents taken on the beach; “Almerisa,” her long-term project photographing a Bosnian refugee living in the Netherlands; and portraits of women with their newborn babies immediately after giving birth. Also included in the exhibition is her video work. To learn more about Dijkstra and see a slide show of her work, check out our recent profile of her.

 

Vondelpark, Amsterdam, group portrait by Rineke Dijkstra“Vondelpark, Amsterdam, Netherlands, June 19, 2005.” Chromogenic print, 94 x 117 cm. Courtesy the artist and Jan Mot. © Rineke Dijkstra

 

Beach Portrait Dubrovnik Croatia by Rineke Dijkstra“Dubrovnik, Croatia, July 13, 1996.” Chromogenic print, 117 x 94 cm. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris. © Rineke Dijkstra

 

Almerisa 1994 by Rineke Dijkstra“Almerisa, Asylum Center Leiden, Leiden, Netherlands, March 14, 1994.” Chromogenic print, 94 x 75 cm. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris. © Rineke Dijkstra

 

Olivier French Foreign Legion by Rineke Dijkstra“Olivier, The French Foreign Legion, Camp Raffalli, Calvi, Corsica, June 18, 2001.” Chromogenic print, 90 x 72 cm. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris. © Rineke Dijkstra

 

Rineke Dijkstra self portrait“Self Portrait, Marnixbad, Amsterdam, Netherlands, June 19, 1991.” Chromogenic print, 35 x 28 cm. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris. © Rineke Dijkstra

 

Ruth Drawing Picasso by Rineke Dijkstra“Ruth Drawing Picasso, 2009.” Single-channel HD video projection, with sound, 6 min., 33 sec., looped. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris. © Rineke Dijkstra

 

The Krazyhorse by Rineke Dijkstra“The Krazyhouse (Megan, Simon, Nicky, Philip, Dee), Liverpool, UK, 2009.” Four-channel HD video projection, with sound, 32 min., looped. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris. © Rineke Dijkstra

Revisiting The Desert Cantos (5 Photos)

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“Desert Fire #249,” 1985. © Richard Misrach

The Robert Mann Gallery in New York City recently moved to a new location and to inaugurate the space, they are hanging a retrospective of Richard Misrach’s landscape and fine-art photography. The exhibition spans the first 25 years of the photographer’s career and includes his seminal work “The Desert Cantos.” According to the gallery, “Richard Misrach: The Desert Cantos” traces the artistic development of the photographer and starts “with the luscious split-toned works realized with a flash shot into desert night scenes. Eerie and magnificent, these works introduce many of the themes that would occupy Misrach in the years to come: staging the condition of aesthetic beauty of the natural world as mediated by human intervention in the landscape — in this case the photographer’s own invasive flash.” The exhibition runs through October 27, 2012.

All images courtesy of the Artist, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco; Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles; Pace/MacGill, New York.

 

“Desert Croquet #1 (Deflated Earth),” Black Rock Desert, Nevada, 1987. © Richard Misrach

 

“From American History Lessons, Drive-In Theatre, Las Vegas,” 1987. © Richard Misrach

 

“Outdoor Dining, Bonneville Salt Flats,” Utah, 1992.” © Richard Misrach

 

“Dead Animals #454,” Nevada, 1988. © Richard Misrach


King of the Road (5 Photos)

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Mike Broadie #5060

“#5060,” 2006-2009. © Mike Brodie: from A Period of Juvenile Prosperity, Courtesy M+B Gallery, Los Angeles.

 

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” ―Jack Kerouac, On the Road

There’s an excitement and allure to hitting the road with no destination in sight and no route in mind. This is part of the appeal of Mike Brodie‘s recent work. Captured during a three-year period when, as a teenager, he hitchhiked, rode freight trains and lived off the grid with a group of fellow travelers, Brodie’s images have a movement and restlessness to them that celebrates the freedom of the itinerant life. This is the modern-day equivalent of Jack Kerouac’s seminal novel On the Road. But just as Kerouac and his Beat Generation peers had their share of despair, Brodie’s photos show that life on the road is not for the faint of heart. His subjects are soot-covered, sleeping on the side of the tracks and surviving on the food others have thrown away. Yet they ride on, ever curious about what the next spot on the map can bring.

“Mike Brodie: A Period of Juvenile Prosperity” opens at M+B gallery in Los Angeles on Saturday, March 16, with a book signing by the artist, whose first monograph, A Period of Juvenile Prosperity, was published earlier this month by Twin Palms. A concurrent exhibition is also running in New York City at Yossi Milo Gallery.

 

Mike-Brodie-3102

“#3102,” 2006-2009. © Mike Brodie: from A Period of Juvenile Prosperity, Courtesy M+B Gallery, Los Angeles.

 

Mike-Brodie-5065

“#5065,” 2006-2009. © Mike Brodie: from A Period of Juvenile Prosperity, Courtesy M+B Gallery, Los Angeles.

 

Mike-Brodie-0924

“#0924,” 2006-2009. © Mike Brodie: from A Period of Juvenile Prosperity, Courtesy M+B Gallery, Los Angeles.

 

Mike-Brodie-3025

“#3025,” 2006-2009. © Mike Brodie: from A Period of Juvenile Prosperity, Courtesy M+B Gallery, Los Angeles.

Glass-Scapes

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© Virginia Inés Vergara © Virginia Inés Vergara © Virginia Inés Vergara

Virginia Inés Vergara creates images that emphasize their flatness through complex layering. Her intention is to make photographs that are perceived as more akin to a flat plane—specifically, a plane of glass. The multi-layered form of her photographs are mirrored in the form of her camera. The layered form of the camera—one camera made by combining three different cameras—makes reference to the subject matter, namely, the planes of glass through which we view the panoramas in natural history museums.

Vergara’s process is unusual: she sets up a large-format camera in front of a glassed-in nature diorama with a painted background. She then holds a Hasselblad camera in front of the viewfinder of the first camera so that she can see what “it” is seeing. The Hasselblad camera is now positioned to take a picture of what the large-format one is seeing. At this stage, with the Hasselblad at one remove from the scene, the scene looks more two-dimensional and the crosshairs of the target feature of the Hasselblad viewfinder become part of the photograph. She then adds a third camera that “looks into” the Hasselblad’s viewfinder (located on top of the camera) and this camera captures the crosshairs.

Virginia Inés Vergara’s work will be exhibited at Kunsthalle Galapagos in the Fall of 2013.

Color My World

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© Adrien Broom © Adrien Broom © Adrien Broom © Adrien Broom © Adrien Broom

 The inspiration, for Adrien Broom‘s The Color Project, ironically, came from a lack of color. “I was at a friend’s house who was repainting a bedroom, and the only thing the room at the time of her visit were white walls and a chair. I thought it was beautiful,” says Broom. The Color Project is an exploration of the world of color as seen through the eyes of a little girl. “I love telling stories and usually build sets that are meant for a single narrative. This is the first time I’m building 8 sets for one continuous story.” Those 8 sets will comprise the 6 colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple), white and the full spectrum. Every world (there are 4 so far) is created and shot in her New Haven, CT studio. Even with a solid team (set styling by Kristen Meyer, Floral styling by Tony Palmieri, and makeup & hair by DD Nickel) each set takes about a month to design, source, build and shoot. Sometimes up to 10 people were on set helping out.

Making the Ordinary Unordinary

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© Lee Materazzi © Lee Materazzi © Lee Materazzi © Lee Materazzi © Lee Materazzi © Lee Materazzi © Lee Materazzi © Lee Materazzi

Lee Materazzi‘s photographs of every day life have a twist that keep you looking. Materazzi’s models, often herself and her mother, interact with their surroundings in strange ways suggesting that these banal scenes possess greater significance than immediately apparent. “My work is prompted by ordinary routines and objects with my daily life; a chair, my favorite blouse, a living room, or simply eating breakfast in the morning, she says in her artists’s statement, “I am interested in our ability to imbue such everyday practices and spaces with meaning, and equally the emotional impact that these actions and spaces then have on our psyche. Through the manipulation of these relationships my work takes form.” These carefully constructed images make you smile. Materazzi is represented by Quint Contemporary Art in La Jolla, CA.

Mary Mattingly’s House and Universe

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"Floating a Boulder," 2012. © Mary Mattingly/Courtesy Robert Mann Gallery “Life of Objects,” 2013. © Mary Mattingly/Courtesy Robert Mann Gallery “Continent,” 2012. © Mary Mattingly/Courtesy Robert Mann Gallery

In her current exhibition “House and Universe,” American visual artist Mary Mattingly combines digital photography with experimental design to explore environmental issues. In an article about the opening in today’s New York Times author Martha Schwendener explains: “Ms. Mattingly bound up virtually all her possessions, creating what she calls ‘man-made boulders,’ which resemble postminimalist sculptures. One photograph finds her pulling a boulder down a city street, while another, “Ruin in Reverse” (2013), is reminiscent of photographs of Ana Mendieta, the Cuban-American performance artist — except here a gravelike trench is filled with a bundle of castoff objects rather than a woman’s body.”

“House and Universe” is on view at at Robert Mann Gallery in New York City from September 9th through October 19th.

Industrial Landscapeing

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© J. Bennett Fitts/Courtesy Kopeikin Gallery © J. Bennett Fitts/Courtesy Kopeikin Gallery © J. Bennett Fitts/Courtesy Kopeikin Gallery © J. Bennett Fitts/Courtesy Kopeikin Gallery © J. Bennett Fitts/Courtesy Kopeikin Gallery © J. Bennett Fitts/Courtesy Kopeikin Gallery © J. Bennett Fitts/Courtesy Kopeikin Gallery © J. Bennett Fitts/Courtesy Kopeikin Gallery © J. Bennett Fitts/Courtesy Kopeikin Gallery

J. Bennett Fitts’ exhibit “Industrial Landscape[ing]” is currently on display at Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles through December 21, 2013. In a statement about the work Fitts said, “In photography my interest has always been held by landscapes; never the heroic imagery most people have come to associate with the term landscape, but rather the beautifully subtle and banal work of the photographers associated with the New Topograhics movement.”

Matthew Pillsbury: Tokyo

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© Matthew Pillsbury/Courtesy Benrubi Gallery © Matthew Pillsbury/Courtesy Benrubi Gallery © Matthew Pillsbury/Courtesy Benrubi Gallery © Matthew Pillsbury/Courtesy Benrubi Gallery © Matthew Pillsbury/Courtesy Benrubi Gallery © Matthew Pillsbury/Courtesy Benrubi Gallery © Matthew Pillsbury/Courtesy Benrubi Gallery © Matthew Pillsbury/Courtesy Benrubi Gallery © Matthew Pillsbury/Courtesy Benrubi Gallery © Matthew Pillsbury/Courtesy Benrubi Gallery

Artist Matthew Pillsbury created a series of images highlighting the technology and surreal aspects of one of the world’s most populated cities. For over a decade, Pillsbury made black-and-white images using available light and long exposures. However, for his series, “Tokyo,” Pillsbury turned to color and used much shorter exposures. This technique helped him capture the spirit of Tokyo. “Pillsbury moves freely within the vibrant pockets of buzzing Tokyo allowing him to contend with what for him has been a career long fascination with technology, alienation and who we are becoming armed with our electronic tools,” Benrubi Gallery said in a statement. “Tokyo” is currently on display at Benrubi Gallery in New York City through October 25, 2014.


Constructed Identities: Presented by Crusade for Art Brooklyn

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© Liz Arenberg © Maureen Drennan © Charlotte Strode © Sara Macel © Sean Carroll © Tim Melideo © Mia Berg © Minta Maria © Sara Fox © Nicholas Calcott

Constructed Identities, an exhibition presented by Crusade for Art Brooklyn and curated by Liz Arenberg, Sara Macel and Jennifer Schwartz will open at Photoville on September 10, 2015.

The exhibition features the work of the ten Crusade for Art Brooklyn members—Liz Arenberg, Mia Berg, Nicholas Calcott, Sean Carroll, Maureen Drennan, Sara Fox, Sara Macel, Minta Maria, Tim Melideo, Charlotte Strode—and explores the theme of constructed identities, defined by the curators as “how we are all influenced by our environments and how the people, culture, and places around us inform and shape our identities.”

I asked three of the artists how their images reflect personal identity.

Slide 1, by Arenberg, is an image from her series “you see me,” a three year portraiture study of her younger sister at the time of her coming out. Prior to this event, the sisters had a tense relationship due to polarizing personalities, admits Arenberg. She states, “I was very open and she had become very closed off to life. This series is a representation of the time we took to redefine and reconnect to who we are as sisters.”

Strode’s image, slide 3, is from a series called “Songs From the Road.” She began the work in 2011 after her father died and she found herself searching for “a simple way of living that feels humble and pure, rooted in a strong sense of place,” a reflection of the values her father taught her. Strode would come home to Louisville, Kentucky from college in the Northeast to drive down favorite roads, visit the river, and photograph her memories. “I began exploring other parts of the South that made me feel nostalgic and connect to place—this specific image was taken in Memphis. Photography became my own exercise of understanding a loss,” explains Strode.

Slide 4 is from a new series Macel is working on called “What Did the Deep Sea Say.” Macel traveled to Hollywood, Florida to explore the town where her grandmother spent time in 1945 just before she was married, setting the course of her adult life. Macel tells me, “This specific image to me is a metaphor of the different paths life can take based on matters of the heart.”

In addition to exhibiting work at Photoville, the artists are creating an interactive element that uses portraiture to further build on the theme of identity. Each Crusade member will have scheduled sessions during the festival where they will be taking Polaroid portraits of visitors. The portraits will be installed as a mural on the back wall of the exhibition.

Macel says, “Crusade for Art Brooklyn is all about engaging audiences with emerging art photography in new ways, and what better way than by making the audience part of the art-making in real time during the course of the festival?”

Follow Crusade for Art Brooklyn on Twitter, Instagram, and facebook.

—Sarah Stacke

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Ryan McGinley On the Road

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© Ryan McGinley © Ryan McGinley © Ryan McGinley © Ryan McGinley © Ryan McGinley © Ryan McGinley © Rizzoli/Photo by Ryan McGinley

Ryan McGinley’s work has long reflected the wonder of youth, his portraits of untamed beauty evoking a nostalgic innocence, regardless of the viewer’s age. In Way Far, his second book published by Rizzoli, McGinley gathers recent images from the annual summer cross-country road trips he’s taken since the start of his career, packing 30 college-age kids in a bus and setting out to explore the wilderness and make photographs. The photos in the book are a mix of recent portraits, landscapes and environmental portraits. His subjects are all young, beautiful and nude. Some of his subjects, like Petra Collins, are artists in their own right. Many sport tattooed skin, pierced parts and asymmetrical haircuts, and they climb trees, shoot fireworks, and run through fields of grain. McGinley has been known to show the grit and cuts and blood that tend to accompany being naked in the wilderness, but they’re mostly absent from this book, helping maintain the illusion he is moving and photographing in a dream state.

David Rimanelli, a writer and editor who has covered art for Artforum, Interview and The New Yorker, wrote the foreword. Rimanelli draws lines of influence between McGinley’s romantic imagery and the work of such disparate artists as pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse, pictorialist photographer Robert Demachy, and Rihanna. While McGinley is now more than a decade removed from the solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art that made him a star, his work—and his subjects—remain as youthful as ever.

— Matthew Ismael Ruiz

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Anne de Vries Prints It

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© Anne de Vries © Anne de Vries
 © Anne de Vries
 © Anne de Vries
 © Anne de Vries
 © Anne de Vries


Photographers curious about creative digital printing and presentation methods should take an interest in the work of Dutch artist Anne de Vries, whose pieces range from two-dimensional images to multimedia installations. He prints on towels; wraps digital photographs around wood or prints on plastic to create sculptural objects; and sandwiches Forex prints together, cutting the top sheet to reveal images on the print underneath, to list just a few of his techniques. Foam Fotografiemusem Amsterdam is currently hosting the first major solo show of his work as part of their “Next Level” series of exhibitions, aimed at boosting the careers of emerging artists.

“The exhibition is a reflection on the appeal of progress, the position of the individual among the masses and the role of imaging in an increasingly globalized economy,” Foam said in a statement about the show.

For his work “Katanga Bub,” de Vries took a press image from a mineral mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo and re-photographed it underwater, distorting it. He then mounted it on a lightbox and glued onto it mobile phones—which are made using the minerals—whose screens show clear images of portions of the same press handout. For “Image Transfers,” prints of fruit still-lifes are overlaid with text detailing the “production teardown” of the images—the history and technical specs for all the hardware that went into creating them. “Forecast,” a 3D-rendered HD video, takes viewers floating through photographs of blue sky and clouds.

Exhibiting de Vries, a multi-disciplinary artist who at times works with photography and at times doesn’t, is a bold choice for a photography museum. One of Foam’s many strengths, however, is its ability to balance traditional photography with work that presses buttons. This is one of the latter shows, and may give open-minded photographers a lot to think about when considering how to realize their own work.

—Conor Risch

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Deana Lawson’s Intimate Myths

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© Deana Lawson/Courtesy of Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago © Deana Lawson/Courtesy of Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago © Deana Lawson/Courtesy of Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago © Deana Lawson/Courtesy of Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago © Deana Lawson/Courtesy of Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

Photography runs in Deana Lawson’s family—the artist grew up in Rochester, New York, where her mother worked as an administrative assistant at Eastman Kodak; her paternal grandmother cleaned George Eastman’s mansion. “In a sense I feel there’s this mythological influence” that directed her to photography, she said in a 2011 interview. ‘Mythological’ might be a fitting word to describe Lawson’s work, although the stories she tells are intimate rather than epic. Her photos take place in humble settings, often in bedrooms and living rooms. Using subjects who are usually strangers to enact staged scenes, Lawson keeps the interaction improvisational, giving the images an authentic feel. The result looks a bit like a family album, a bit like a dream—subjects enact Freudian dramas and origin stories or pose for provocative portraits, their bodies arranged in carefully specific poses that may or may not reference painting, dance or sex.

A solo show of recent work made in the U.S., Haiti, Jamaica, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo is on view at the Art Institute of Chicago until January 10 in the first installment of their biennial Ruttenberg Contemporary Photography Series. In one image, “The Garden, Gemena, DR Congo,” a nude couple sits in a lush landscape, the dark forest close behind them. Turning toward each other, the man places his hand on the woman’s belly. Adam and Eve come instantly to mind, and Africa’s place as the origin of the first people; the couple’s stiff pose against a jungle backdrop recalls Rousseau’s dense paintings. Despite these grand themes, the couple’s interaction feels genuine and tender. As she often does, Lawson balances allusions and specifics to make something compelling and new.

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Inner and Outer Paul Outerbridge

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© 2016 Estate of Paul Outerbridge, Jr./Courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York © 2016 Estate of Paul Outerbridge, Jr./Courtesy Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York © 2016 Estate of Paul Outerbridge, Jr./Courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York © 2016 Estate of Paul Outerbridge, Jr./Courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York © 2016 Estate of Paul Outerbridge, Jr./Courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York © 2016 Estate of Paul Outerbridge, Jr./Courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York © 2016 Estate of Paul Outerbridge, Jr./Courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York © 2016 Estate of Paul Outerbridge, Jr./Courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York

It’s not unusual today for photographers to move between the worlds of art and commerce, pouring resources and techniques from paying jobs into personal projects and applying their particular esthetic to assignments. Paul Outerbridge was famously one of the first to inhabit both realms, producing high-end advertising and editorial images while hanging out with members of the avant-garde in the 1920s and ’30s. His images appeared in the Modernist “Film und Foto” show in Stuttgart, along with László Moholy-Nagy, Berenice Abbott and Man Ray, as well as on the pages of Vogue and Vanity Fair. In the 1930s he began working in color, using the famously expensive and lush Carbro printing process to make images that ranged from kitchen scenes and still lifes for home magazines, to nudes wearing only stockings or clawed garden gloves, many of which were not shown publicly for years. An exhibition of his work, one of the largest in several years, opens today at Bruce Silverstein in New York City, and runs until September 17.

In his 1940 book Photographing in Color, Outerbridge wrote that a photograph “should do something to its beholder; either give a more complete appreciation of beauty, or, if nothing else, even a good mental kick in the pants.” It’s still a pretty good test today, one that his pictures tend to pass.

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