Monday, December 21, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Photographer Larry Sultan, Dies at 63
Sad news today. Pictures From Home is one of my favorite books. If you've never looked it over, you ought to.
Here is a link to the New York Times obituary....
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Posting Video to Your Blog...
...is a thankfully simple process. With your project open in iMovie, select Share -> YouTube. Add your YouTube account name (you must open an account on YouTube in order to post), and your password. Select a category, and then give your video a title and - if you like - description. This is not an appropriate place for your summary description, however. Your summary should be posted underneath the video on your blog (see below, for example).
Be sure to select either Large or HD as the size for your video (preferably HD, unless you shot your video on a camera without this capability). Once you've posted your video to YouTube, it will be available on the site, although this can sometimes take several minutes to several hours depending on how busy the server is. DO NOT LEAVE THIS TO THE LAST MINUTE.
Once you are logged into YouTube, under your account name, select My Videos, then click on the title of your video. Your video will open and play in a viewing window on YouTube. Notice the box below containing both URL and Embed html codes. Be sure to select the customize icon to the right of the Embed code. Type in a width of 400. The height will be determined automatically. This will ensure that the Blogger window has enough room to show your video and that it will upload quickly. Keep the rest of the boxes unchecked. Please also ensure that your video is not set to "private" as this can cause viewing problems.
Now, highlight/select all of the code in the Embed box and select Copy. Then simply create a New Post on your blog, and paste the code into the text box.
When composing your post, you will only see html code, but when you preview or publish your post, you will see the embedded video file (see above). Your final task is to include the summary paragraphs for your video, which should be at the bottom of your post.
Be sure to select either Large or HD as the size for your video (preferably HD, unless you shot your video on a camera without this capability). Once you've posted your video to YouTube, it will be available on the site, although this can sometimes take several minutes to several hours depending on how busy the server is. DO NOT LEAVE THIS TO THE LAST MINUTE.
Once you are logged into YouTube, under your account name, select My Videos, then click on the title of your video. Your video will open and play in a viewing window on YouTube. Notice the box below containing both URL and Embed html codes. Be sure to select the customize icon to the right of the Embed code. Type in a width of 400. The height will be determined automatically. This will ensure that the Blogger window has enough room to show your video and that it will upload quickly. Keep the rest of the boxes unchecked. Please also ensure that your video is not set to "private" as this can cause viewing problems.
Now, highlight/select all of the code in the Embed box and select Copy. Then simply create a New Post on your blog, and paste the code into the text box.
When composing your post, you will only see html code, but when you preview or publish your post, you will see the embedded video file (see above). Your final task is to include the summary paragraphs for your video, which should be at the bottom of your post.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Joan Jonas Receives Lifetime Achievement Award from Guggenheim
On the occasion of the First Annual Art Awards, the Guggenheim is proud to honor Joan Jonas and Kasper Koenig with Lifetime Achievement Awards for their extraordinary contributions to the field of contem- porary art.Joan Jonas
Getting her start in New York’s downtown art scene of the 1960s, Jonas—like her artistic peers—set out to rethink the status of the artwork in the wake of Pop art and Minimalism. Adopting the idea of art-as-process, Jonas turned to performance, systematically yet intuitively exploring every aspect of how live events could be structured. She moved outdoors, emphasizing the physical properties of sound and vision in real space, and used mirrors to reverse her audience’s gaze, turning spectators into spectacle. Delving into new technology, she forged bold paths for a phenomenology of video, in all its permutations. She donned costumes and appropriated folkloric traditions, unearthing forgotten archetypes of the feminine just as the women’s movement gained power. By the early 1980s Jonas had begun to create complex, nonlinear narratives premised on literary and historical texts, reaching back to medieval Icelandic sagas, the work of the poet H.D., and, more recently, the writings and biography of famed art historian Aby Warburg.
Jonas has been the subject of several major retrospectives organized by the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; and the Queens Museum of Art, Flushing, New York. She has performed and exhibited her work extensively, working internationally with institutions too numerous to list, and collaborating with such contemporaries as the Wooster Group. Most recently, she presented her multimedia installation Reading Dante at this year’s Venice Biennale to much critical acclaim.
Above content from www.guggenheim.org
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
It's MacArthur Fellow Time!!!
Always exciting - this year, digital artist Camille Utterback is among those to receive the "Genius Grant". To find out more about her work, watch the clip below and have a glance at her website - the link to which is available HERE.
Camille Utterback, 2009 MacArthur Fellow
September 22, 2009
Digital artist Camille Utterback was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2009. The Fellowship is a $500,000, no-strings-attached grant for individuals who have shown exceptional creativity in their work and the promise to do more.
For more information, click HERE.
Above content provided by The John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Leighton Pierce at LaViolaBank Gallery in NYC
And the hits just keep on coming! This announcement just came to my inbox today. In THIS instance, I will be fortunate to be in New York right before the shows closes. Finally. Pierce is known for creating lush soundscapes that accompany his equally lush imagery. This will be my first chance to see his video work in an installation format.
I highly encourage anyone who will be in NYC during this event to go have a look.
I highly encourage anyone who will be in NYC during this event to go have a look.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Wow, I'm just running across all manner of interesting stuff this weekend. This volume, although likely not a real page turner, certainly relates to our recent class discussions in ART130 regarding the reproducibility of of digital images and archiving issues.
The Digital Print.
Identification and Preservation.
By Martin C. Jürgens.
The Getty Museum, 2009. 304 pp., 227 color and 49 black & white illustrations, 8x10".
Publisher's Description
This invaluable resource demystifies the complex, rapidly changing, and sometimes confusing world of digital print technologies. It describes the major digital printing processes used by photographers and artists over the past forty years, explaining and illustrating materials and their deterioration, methods of identification, and options for acquiring and preserving digital prints. A removable chart provides a ready reference for identifying specific materials.
Anyone involved in identifying and preserving digital prints-from conservators, curators, archivists, and registrars to photographers, artists, and printing studios-will welcome this comprehensive, one-of-a-kind volume.
Above content from photo-eye newsletter
The Digital Print.
Identification and Preservation.
By Martin C. Jürgens.
The Getty Museum, 2009. 304 pp., 227 color and 49 black & white illustrations, 8x10".
Publisher's Description
This invaluable resource demystifies the complex, rapidly changing, and sometimes confusing world of digital print technologies. It describes the major digital printing processes used by photographers and artists over the past forty years, explaining and illustrating materials and their deterioration, methods of identification, and options for acquiring and preserving digital prints. A removable chart provides a ready reference for identifying specific materials.
Anyone involved in identifying and preserving digital prints-from conservators, curators, archivists, and registrars to photographers, artists, and printing studios-will welcome this comprehensive, one-of-a-kind volume.
Above content from photo-eye newsletter
Kim Boske - Mapping
Image Credit: http://www.kimboske.com/Just came across some pretty interesting work by this artist. This work is useful to consider alongside the next assignment dealing with montage in ART130.
Below is an excerpt from the 1000 Words Photography Magazine Blog about the work.
Boske is fascinated by the system of time and space. In her work she tries to capture this illusive reality by exploring the mutability of things. Her photos incorporate various levels, merging different moments in time together. They reveal phenomena that are impossible to see or witness with the naked eye.
In Mapping, Boske investigates how physical movement in time and space continually changes our perspective on the world. By eschewing individual perspective and instead combining multiple perspectives in a single image, she creates a new, layered reality. Here Boske presents a series of views of trees that she photographed from different angles. She combines the various shots to form a new image that shows each tree in its entirety. All the perspectives of the tree exist simultaneously; they overlap each other and join together to form a single image in a changing world of appearance and disappearance.
Above content from 1000 Words Photography Magazine
Friday, September 11, 2009
Caroline Martel's new installation encompasses archival and classic film footage. Opening @ Dazibao in Montreal this December
Caroline Martel
Image Credit: Caroline Martel, 2009
It is believed that several hundred thousand industrial films were produced in the United States between 1920 and the late 1970s. These commissioned films, with their precise goals and within the constraints of an acknowledged rhetoric, were never meant to be or perceived as works of art. Going against the current of received ideas on the topic, the documentary filmmaker Caroline Martel has carried out a close and thoroughly original study of these fringe cinemas to create works of art out of orphan films and film classics alike.
Cinémas de l’industrie is made up of two separate projections, one of industrial films and the other of films from the cinematic canon. In the break between these two practices thereby revealed, the codes they share are made visible, as well as a subtle play of interference and quotation. Using some twenty works covering a century (1896 to 1991), Martel composes a counterpoint that reveals the clichés and commonplaces of film language—all those techniques whose eloquence transcends genre. Frank B. Gilbreth’s one best way studies, films made by Bell Laboratories and other excerpts found in the course of patient research are seen alongside famous films, they sometimes imitate sometimes inspire, such as Modern Times, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Tron.
In La Chimie du temps, Martel examines the effect on the viewing experience of changes to the film stock over time. Even the worst-preserved films are rarely seen in their real state: the job of technicians in audio-visual archives is to make them “legible”, by restoring their colours for example. What then is the original of an archival image: its filmic source as it has been preserved or the corrected—altered—version that is nevertheless closer to how it first appeared? How should an archive be read?
Above content courtesy of Dazibao
Cinémas de l'industrie
12.09.09 – 17.10.09
It is believed that several hundred thousand industrial films were produced in the United States between 1920 and the late 1970s. These commissioned films, with their precise goals and within the constraints of an acknowledged rhetoric, were never meant to be or perceived as works of art. Going against the current of received ideas on the topic, the documentary filmmaker Caroline Martel has carried out a close and thoroughly original study of these fringe cinemas to create works of art out of orphan films and film classics alike.
Cinémas de l’industrie is made up of two separate projections, one of industrial films and the other of films from the cinematic canon. In the break between these two practices thereby revealed, the codes they share are made visible, as well as a subtle play of interference and quotation. Using some twenty works covering a century (1896 to 1991), Martel composes a counterpoint that reveals the clichés and commonplaces of film language—all those techniques whose eloquence transcends genre. Frank B. Gilbreth’s one best way studies, films made by Bell Laboratories and other excerpts found in the course of patient research are seen alongside famous films, they sometimes imitate sometimes inspire, such as Modern Times, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Tron.
In La Chimie du temps, Martel examines the effect on the viewing experience of changes to the film stock over time. Even the worst-preserved films are rarely seen in their real state: the job of technicians in audio-visual archives is to make them “legible”, by restoring their colours for example. What then is the original of an archival image: its filmic source as it has been preserved or the corrected—altered—version that is nevertheless closer to how it first appeared? How should an archive be read?
Above content courtesy of Dazibao
Dan Graham's Greatest Hits at the Whitney
This retrospective will close soon at The Whitney - I'll just miss it. Of course. Loads and loads of great information about Graham and his work are available on the Whitney website - you can link to that HERE.
About the Exhibition
On view June 25-October 11, 2009
Dan Graham: Beyond surveys the artist's career from the mid-1960s to the present. As one of contemporary art's most innovative and influential figures, Dan Graham has been at the forefront of many of the most significant developments in art, including conceptual art, video and film installation, performance, site-specific sculpture, and musical collaboration. This exhibition—his first retrospective in the United States—examines each stage of Graham's career through his photographs, projects for magazine pages, films, architectural models and pavilions, performances, video installations, prints, drawings, writings, and his work with musicians Sonic Youth, Glenn Branca, and Japanther.
Graham was born in Urbana, Illinois, in 1942 and grew up in New Jersey, a suburban landscape that would inspire him throughout his career. He began his career as a writer, and founded and directed the short-lived John Daniels Gallery in New York in 1964, exhibiting the work of a new generation of conceptual and Minimalist artists—including Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, and Robert Smithson. This experience had a deep influence on Graham's subsequent work, particularly the artist's relationship to his peers and to the culture at large as well as his interest in art’s economic and social framework.
Graham's rejection of the high-seriousness of modern art emerged at the same moment as Pop art in the early 1960s. "I love magazines because they are like pop songs," he once explained about his early conceptual magazine works, "easily disposable, dealing with momentary pleasures." He infused his approach with a wide range of literary, anthropological, and scientific influences, from cybernetics and topology to the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, Gregory Bateson, and Margaret Mead. Graham's performances of the 1970s and his architectural pavilions of the 1980s to the present, with their kaleidoscopic refraction of bodily experience, demonstrate his interest in revealing the private self as part of a social, public context.
The fluid, democratic quality of Graham's work continues to exert a powerful influence on younger generations of artists. His desire for a connection to others mirrors our own; yet his work offers a way to critically explore that desire at a moment when interconnectivity and instant feedback are conditioning our collective consciousness to an unprecedented, global degree.
Above content provided by The Whitney Museum of American Art
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Robert Frank's Elevator Girl Sees Herself Years Later
Pretty great little story - the link is below:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112389032&ft=1&f=1001
Image Credit: Robert Frank/Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112389032&ft=1&f=1001
Image Credit: Robert Frank/Courtesy of the National Gallery of ArtMonday, August 24, 2009
Pat Boas @ Marylhurst's Art Gym in Oregon
I know not many of you will be able to make it out to Portland for this exhibition, but Boas' work is worth having a close look at, especially for those of you in the new Introduction to Digital Media course. You can find out more about her work by reading the press release from Marylhurst and also from the artist's own website - www.patboas.com
Pat Boas — Record Record.
Preview Reception
Sunday, Sept. 13, 3 to 5 PM
Exhibition continues through October 28.
http://www.marylhurst.edu/aboutmarylhurst/pressrelease20090805.php
Gallery Talk
Thursday, Oct. 8 at Noon
Pat Boas is an artist who has intrigued me for a number of years. The artist makes work
that explores and examines language in context— letter by letter, word by word, image
by image. I have long been drawn to the elegance of her ideas and their expression.
The Art Gym exhibition Pat Boas — Record Record includes four series that comment in
very quiet ways on the text and images in The New York Times and a new series of digital
works What Our Homes Can Tell Us that captures language found in the artist’s home and
places of importance to her extended family.
From the series NYT Little People
June 22, 2008 Inside the Interrogation Of a 9/11 Mastermind, 2009 (detail)
Gouache on paper
From the series What Our Homes Can Tell Us, 2008-09, digital prints and projected video
Above content provided by Terri Hopkins, Director and Curator of The Art Gym
Pat Boas — Record Record.
Preview Reception
Sunday, Sept. 13, 3 to 5 PM
Exhibition continues through October 28.
http://www.marylhurst.edu/
Gallery Talk
Thursday, Oct. 8 at Noon
Pat Boas is an artist who has intrigued me for a number of years. The artist makes work
that explores and examines language in context— letter by letter, word by word, image
by image. I have long been drawn to the elegance of her ideas and their expression.
The Art Gym exhibition Pat Boas — Record Record includes four series that comment in
very quiet ways on the text and images in The New York Times and a new series of digital
works What Our Homes Can Tell Us that captures language found in the artist’s home and
places of importance to her extended family.
From the series NYT Little People
June 22, 2008 Inside the Interrogation Of a 9/11 Mastermind, 2009 (detail)
Gouache on paper
From the series What Our Homes Can Tell Us, 2008-09, digital prints and projected video
Above content provided by Terri Hopkins, Director and Curator of The Art Gym
Monday, April 20, 2009
Artist Presentations - Discussion Follow Up
In case any of you are interested in continuing the discussion or posing questions about any of the artists who were presented on today, please feel free to use this blog as a forum. You may post pictures and/or add links in your comments, or you may forward an image on to me if you would like me to post.
Here is a list of the artists who were discussed today and their presenters:
Holt on Axel Hutte
Carly on Bernd and Hilla Becher
Richard on Chan Chao
Lindsey R. on Joan Fontcuberta
Robert on Hiromix
Lindsey S. on Jeff Wall
Sam on Joel Sternfeld
Corinna on John Riddy
Eric on Tatsumi Orimoto, or, Breadman
Walt on James Welling
Stephanie on Fazal Sheikh
Here is a list of the artists who were discussed today and their presenters:
Holt on Axel Hutte
Carly on Bernd and Hilla Becher
Richard on Chan Chao
Lindsey R. on Joan Fontcuberta
Robert on Hiromix
Lindsey S. on Jeff Wall
Sam on Joel Sternfeld
Corinna on John Riddy
Eric on Tatsumi Orimoto, or, Breadman
Walt on James Welling
Stephanie on Fazal Sheikh
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Interesting New Photography Publication to Check Out....
Lay Flat 01. Remain in Light.
Edited by Shane Lavalette. Photographs by various photographers, text by Tim Davis, Darius Himes, Cara Phillips, Shane Lavalette, and others.
Lay Flat, 2009. 40 pp., 20 color illustrations, 5½x7½".
Publisher's Description
Lay Flat is a new print publication devoted to promoting the best in contemporary fine art photography and writing on the medium. Each issue is assembled by Shane Lavalette in close collaboration with a co-curator.
Included in Lay Flat 01: Remain in Light are essays by Tim Davis, Darius Himes, Cara Phillips and Eric William Carroll, an interview with Mike Mandel by Shane Lavalette and a poem by Jason Fulford, all accompanied by 20 unbound photographs from a selection of international photographers: 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 and Yann Orhan.
You can order this publication for only $25! The link is here: http://www.layflat.org/
Above content from Photo-Eye Newsletter
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Upcoming Conference at The University of Plymouth...
...called Framing Time and Place - Repeats and Returns in Photography. I'll be speaking about my series, ...from time to time. The provisional program just came out - looks to be a pretty interesting three days!
(Click on the images below for a larger version to read the text and such)
(Click on the images below for a larger version to read the text and such)
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe - New Work at Phoenix Art Museum
Norton Photography Gallery
March 21, 2009 – July 12, 2009
Arizona's Grand Canyon—natural wonder, national park, tourist attraction, sacred land—is perhaps the world's best “photo op.” The collaborative photographic team of Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe have set out to explore this celebrated place of dramatic beauty, and Phoenix Art Museum is proud to be the first to show a comprehensive look at their powerful, thoughtful, and playful approach to the Grand Canyon.
Drawn from two seasons of fieldwork, Charting the Canyon will include about 30 photographs ranging from a modest 20 by 20–inch print to a panorama nearly 10 feet wide. Mark Klett, a Regents Professor at Arizona State University, and Byron Wolfe, a former student of Klett’s who is now a Lantis’ University Professor teaches at California State University at Chico, have been interested in rephotographing historic images since their collaboration began in 1997.
Now the pair combines their own color photographs with imagery by 19th-century photographer J. K. Hillers and artist William Holmes and by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, who worked at the Canyon in the early 20th century. Klett and Wolfe respond to the historic images and the Canyon itself, yielding artworks that reconsider an icon, challenge how we perceive the land, and bring a new perspective to its portrayals.
Charting the Canyon offers visual delights: the humorous layering of a 19th-century drawing with contemporary photographic details, the extension of an Ansel Adams view into a serene panorama, and the illusion of three-dimensions with a stereopticon viewer built for the twenty-first century, among others to be discovered in this unique exhibition.
Above content from Phoenix Art Museum
Invisible Dragon - Revised and Expanded
...a great book to check out, new version - whoop!
The Invisible Dragon.
Essays on Beauty, Revised and Expanded.
By Dave Hickey.
University Of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2009. 152 pp., 6x7¼".
Publisher's Description
The Invisible Dragon made a lot of noise for a little book When it was originally published in 1993 it was championed by artists for its forceful call for a reconsideration of beauty—and savaged by more theoretically oriented critics who dismissed the very concept of beauty as naive, igniting a debate that has shown no sign of flagging.
With this revised and expanded edition, Hickey is back to fan the flames. More manifesto than polite discussion, more call to action than criticism, The Invisible Dragon aims squarely at the hyper-institutionalism that, in Hickey’s view, denies the real pleasures that draw us to art in the first place. Deploying the artworks of Warhol, Raphael, Caravaggio, and Mapplethorpe and the writings of Ruskin, Shakespeare, Deleuze, and Foucault, Hickey takes on museum culture, arid academicism, sclerotic politics, and more—all in the service of making readers rethink the nature of art. A new introduction provides a context for earlier essays—what Hickey calls his “intellectual temper tantrums.” A new essay, “American Beauty,” concludes the volume with a historical argument that is a rousing paean to the inherently democratic nature of attention to beauty.
Written with a verve that is all too rare in serious criticism, this expanded and refurbished edition of The Invisible Dragon will be sure to captivate a new generation of readers, provoking the passionate reactions that are the hallmark of great criticism.
Above content from Photo-eye Newsletter
The Invisible Dragon.
Essays on Beauty, Revised and Expanded.
By Dave Hickey.
University Of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2009. 152 pp., 6x7¼".
Publisher's Description
The Invisible Dragon made a lot of noise for a little book When it was originally published in 1993 it was championed by artists for its forceful call for a reconsideration of beauty—and savaged by more theoretically oriented critics who dismissed the very concept of beauty as naive, igniting a debate that has shown no sign of flagging.
With this revised and expanded edition, Hickey is back to fan the flames. More manifesto than polite discussion, more call to action than criticism, The Invisible Dragon aims squarely at the hyper-institutionalism that, in Hickey’s view, denies the real pleasures that draw us to art in the first place. Deploying the artworks of Warhol, Raphael, Caravaggio, and Mapplethorpe and the writings of Ruskin, Shakespeare, Deleuze, and Foucault, Hickey takes on museum culture, arid academicism, sclerotic politics, and more—all in the service of making readers rethink the nature of art. A new introduction provides a context for earlier essays—what Hickey calls his “intellectual temper tantrums.” A new essay, “American Beauty,” concludes the volume with a historical argument that is a rousing paean to the inherently democratic nature of attention to beauty.
Written with a verve that is all too rare in serious criticism, this expanded and refurbished edition of The Invisible Dragon will be sure to captivate a new generation of readers, provoking the passionate reactions that are the hallmark of great criticism.
Above content from Photo-eye Newsletter
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Photographer's Showcase Series @ Photo-Eye
This is a great new(ish) series to keep your eyes on - lots of new and interesting work to see. Photo-eye Magazine, Bookstore and Gallery are all GREAT resources. Use them!
Above content from Photo-Eye Newsletter
 photo-eye Gallery Opening | ||
 ©Carlos Tarrats, Jeffris | ||
| photo-eye Gallery, 376 Garcia Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico, is pleased to announce THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S SHOWCASE SERIES KICKOFF, an exhibition of work by photographer's represented by The Photographer's Showcase at photoeye.com. Nearly ten years ago, photo-eye conceived of an online gallery to show the work of talented emerging photographers. Over that time, photo-eye's juried online exhibition space has inspired imitators, but none can boast such a well-rounded and ever-expanding collection of fine art photography. Growing to include outstanding work from photographers across the globe, the Photographer's Showcase has established itself as a resource for curators and galleries, collectors, critics and photography enthusiasts, allowing our audience to discover and purchase exceptional photography. While photo-eye Gallery has at times included work from Showcase artists in exhibitions, the Photographer's Showcase Series marks a new and exciting collaboration between the Photographer's Showcase and photo-eye Gallery. Over the coming year, photo-eye Gallery and the Photographer's Showcase are pleased to announce an on-going series of exhibitions featuring work from the Photographer's Showcase. THE PHOTOGRAPER'S SHOWCASE SERIES KICK OFF will feature work by seven Photographer's Showcase Artists, Erik Boker Jessica Bruah Jeffris Elliott Mihai Mangiulea Hiroyasu Matsui Eric Percher Carlos Tarrats | ||
Above content from Photo-Eye Newsletter
New Website for 35th Anniversary of SF Camerawork
SF Camerawork has a wonderful new website - I highly suggest you add it to your bookmarks and check in with them often (and obviously visit the gallery if you find yourself in San Francisco). They also put out a twice yearly journal, Camerawork - highly recommended, worth the subscription. Info on their 2008 issues is below:
2008 
2008
Fall/Winter 2008, Vol. 35 No. 2
Past is an image we form in the present
Spring/Summer 2008, Vol. 35 No. 1
There is always a machine between us
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Local, Winter Park Gallery - You Should All Visit!
Bold Hype is a new(ish) store/gallery space right next to Stardust Coffee and Video in Winter Park. It is absolutely worth running up there every now and again to see what they've got on the walls that month (not to mention the wonderful hand-made items for sale)...Give it a visit!
Bold Hype: Mythology Mural Show
Bold Hype has a new showing called "Mythology Mural Show" running March 7-31. Ten contemporary artists take on ancient mythology. The opening night party is March 7, 8pm-12am at Bold Hype. 1844 East Winter Park Road, Orlando, Florida. More info: 407-629-2965. Artists: Charles Marklin, Andrew Spear, Dres13, Dustin Orlando, Decoy, Morgan Steele, Dolla, Robin Van Arsdal, Feff Riggan, David Hoskins.(Above post reprinted from The Daily City Orlando)
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Visit and Make Art in Scotland with Professor Hargrove!
(Click on image to see larger version, with full detail)
Monday, February 23, 2009
Jen has some questions for you guys - let the commenting begin!!!
OK! Now that (almost) everyone has their blog up - start making a habit of checking in with your classmates and leaving comments now and then. Let's keep this conversation going outside of the classroom.
As you'll see if you click on the link to Jen's blog - she's asking for some input from you guys. I encourage you all to take this approach anytime you're hoping for feedback.
As you'll see if you click on the link to Jen's blog - she's asking for some input from you guys. I encourage you all to take this approach anytime you're hoping for feedback.
Here's an excerpt from http://jenniferjanehirsch.blogspot.com/
Still not sure if I want to include pictures of man made things...
Still not sure if I want to include pictures of man made things...
the following are some images i may use..
any thoughts??
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Sam Gordon @ Kevin Bruk Gallery in Miami
Just found out about an exhibition at Kevin Bruk Gallery in Miami - if any of you happen to make your way down there, I am sure it is worth a look (and it might be particularly relevant to the discussion we had the other day in class)...
Sam Gordon
48 Hours in Miami
February 14 – March 11
48 Hours in Miami: The Lost Kinetic World, Volumes 1–24 (2005–2008) and Sketchbooks (1995-2008)
Two parallel time lines: 48 hours of video captured with a point-and-shoot digital camera and stored on an iPod; 8 vinyl banners, printed at Kinkos, composed of 640 scanned sketchbook pages.
In both his video and banner works, Gordon employs consumer grade media tools and formats to archive immediate gestures—be they doodles or 15-second video clips—and coalesce them into sites of aggregation and experimentation.
48 Hours in Miami: The Lost Kinetic World, Volumes 1–24 (2005–2008) consists of thousands of video clips: art moments from the recent past edited into a kaleidoscopic, encyclopedic, temporal collage. An earlier 24 -hour version of this work, which is titled according to the city in which it is shown, has been exhibited in New York, London, and Berlin. The fluidity and specificity of its title reinforce the reflexive nature of the piece, a form of portraiture that takes the production and exhibition of artworks, as well as Gordonʼs own experience of art, as shifting subjects. The critic Colin Perry has described The Lost Kinetic World as “a vast archive of art
events, openings, performances and street life—a hyperactive dematerialization of the self: the I-am-you-and- you-are-we of culture.” In its latest incarnation, the work takes on a new urgency and historical dimension as the period of expansion, abundance, and exuberance it depicts is viewed in the context of a changed economic and political climate. Sketchbooks (1995-2008) comprises eight 5 x 12 foot vinyl banners, each printed with a grid of 80 facsimile sketchbook pages. These 640 pages, selected from over 2000 scanned to date, are arranged chronologically, their final size defined by the printer used to produce the banners. Gordon transfers the
intimate contents of a sketchbook to the public medium of a commercial display banner, offering the viewer a window onto his ongoing practice as it unfolds through time. As with his videos, however, this linear presentation belies the circuitous means by which Gordon develops and explores ideas.
The everyday paper trail of an artistʼs life, gathered into three-ring binders, becomes a concatenation of drawing, ephemera, photography, symbols, and text that inform and contextualize Gordonʼs production, while his peregrinations in the art world become the raw material for an epic movie. These are the things an artist does, from making visual notes for future pieces to engaging with the art around him. What Gordon has intuitively done is to make these very practices and experiences the work itself.
Text content from Kevin Bruk Gallery
Image from Ratio 3
Sam Gordon
48 Hours in Miami
February 14 – March 11
48 Hours in Miami: The Lost Kinetic World, Volumes 1–24 (2005–2008) and Sketchbooks (1995-2008)
Two parallel time lines: 48 hours of video captured with a point-and-shoot digital camera and stored on an iPod; 8 vinyl banners, printed at Kinkos, composed of 640 scanned sketchbook pages.
In both his video and banner works, Gordon employs consumer grade media tools and formats to archive immediate gestures—be they doodles or 15-second video clips—and coalesce them into sites of aggregation and experimentation.
48 Hours in Miami: The Lost Kinetic World, Volumes 1–24 (2005–2008) consists of thousands of video clips: art moments from the recent past edited into a kaleidoscopic, encyclopedic, temporal collage. An earlier 24 -hour version of this work, which is titled according to the city in which it is shown, has been exhibited in New York, London, and Berlin. The fluidity and specificity of its title reinforce the reflexive nature of the piece, a form of portraiture that takes the production and exhibition of artworks, as well as Gordonʼs own experience of art, as shifting subjects. The critic Colin Perry has described The Lost Kinetic World as “a vast archive of art
events, openings, performances and street life—a hyperactive dematerialization of the self: the I-am-you-and- you-are-we of culture.” In its latest incarnation, the work takes on a new urgency and historical dimension as the period of expansion, abundance, and exuberance it depicts is viewed in the context of a changed economic and political climate. Sketchbooks (1995-2008) comprises eight 5 x 12 foot vinyl banners, each printed with a grid of 80 facsimile sketchbook pages. These 640 pages, selected from over 2000 scanned to date, are arranged chronologically, their final size defined by the printer used to produce the banners. Gordon transfers the
intimate contents of a sketchbook to the public medium of a commercial display banner, offering the viewer a window onto his ongoing practice as it unfolds through time. As with his videos, however, this linear presentation belies the circuitous means by which Gordon develops and explores ideas.
The everyday paper trail of an artistʼs life, gathered into three-ring binders, becomes a concatenation of drawing, ephemera, photography, symbols, and text that inform and contextualize Gordonʼs production, while his peregrinations in the art world become the raw material for an epic movie. These are the things an artist does, from making visual notes for future pieces to engaging with the art around him. What Gordon has intuitively done is to make these very practices and experiences the work itself.
Text content from Kevin Bruk Gallery
Image from Ratio 3
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Leigh-Ann Pahapill Exhibit Closes Next Week (...in Chicago)
If you happen to be up in the ole midwest, please do have a look. Leigh-Ann is an artist to keep an eye on - her work absolutely relates to many of the issues that we "lens-based media people" concern ourselves with. Lovely stuff...
Above content from DOVA temporary
Rhetorical Situation
A solo exhibition by Leigh-Ann Pahapill at DOVA temporary, Chicago, IL
Opening: Jan. 30, 2009. 6 – 9pm.
Exhibit Runs from Jan. 30 to Feb. 21, 2009.
Gallery Hours: Wed. to Sat. 12 – 5pm.
5228 S. Harper Ave. Chicago, IL 60615
http://dovatemporary.uchicago.
About the Exhibit:
Leigh-Ann Pahapill returns to Chicago for a solo exhibition at DOVA temporary, the new storefront gallery at the University of Chicago. Pahapill creates works that range from deconstructed familiar objects to site interventions, and time-based and two dimensional works concerned with the minutia of knowing and meaning making that informs universalizing epistemologies. Pahapill seeks to dilate the representational moment by studying place, process, objects and experience, dissecting and examining the material, metaphorical, and conceptual components that drive the tendency to move from particular experiences to generalized ideas. Aligning the clichéd object or image and its representational system, her work deconstructs the processes that enable meaning making practices.
Above content from DOVA temporary
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
If You're Wondering What to Get Me for Christmas Next Year....
...this is SO it! Honestly, this is pretty much the best thing ever. I just love it (see below):
The History of Photography in Pen and Ink.
Illustrations by Charles Woodard.
A-Jump Books, 2009. 88 pp., 43 illustrations, 6x4".
Publisher's Description
In a set of forty-three pen & ink line drawings, Charles Woodard levels the history of photography through his own unique brand of stylistic primitivism. Originally produced as study aids for a 19th and 20th century history of photography survey course, these comical (and sometimes tragic) ball-pen ink drawings seamlessly bring together photographers as stylistically disparate as Robert Capa and Ed Ruscha. By shifting these crude renderings into the context of the book format, Woodard asks us to consider not only the humorous aspect of these flash cards, but also the reductive nature of image recall and how that relates to our more profound engagement with the world through memory.
Above content from Photo-Eye Bookstore
The History of Photography in Pen and Ink.
Illustrations by Charles Woodard.
A-Jump Books, 2009. 88 pp., 43 illustrations, 6x4".
Publisher's Description
In a set of forty-three pen & ink line drawings, Charles Woodard levels the history of photography through his own unique brand of stylistic primitivism. Originally produced as study aids for a 19th and 20th century history of photography survey course, these comical (and sometimes tragic) ball-pen ink drawings seamlessly bring together photographers as stylistically disparate as Robert Capa and Ed Ruscha. By shifting these crude renderings into the context of the book format, Woodard asks us to consider not only the humorous aspect of these flash cards, but also the reductive nature of image recall and how that relates to our more profound engagement with the world through memory.
Above content from Photo-Eye Bookstore
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Artists Working With Natural Elements - They're Everywhere!! Great Stuff from Seattle to Boston...
So here’s what happened – I had a classically tangential blogging experience today. I started to get ready to post a follow-up on Western Bridge (Seattle gallery I mentioned earlier this month showing the work of Anthony McCall) when I got swept away by trying to “quickly” research a few of the other artists in their current exhibition (which is wonderful and I’m going to mention in a moment). So of course I become entranced with the work of one particular artist (Tania Kitchell) and start finding all sorts of links to her work and then….I find this wonderful little interview with her on the Nymphoto Blog – here is the link: Nymphoto - A Conversation with Tania Kitchell
One of the images included at Western Bridge is shown below.
Tania Kitchell, Air (www.jamesharrisgallery.com)
Alas, this entry is a little convoluted, but I wanted to share all of this great stuff with you guys. So, what you’ll see below is a blurb about the current exhibition at Western Bridge as well as links to sites where you can find more information about the artists within.
Again, not all of the work is photographic or even necessarily lens based, but still very concerned with light, perception, etc. – as are WE!
Now, if only we could take a field trip to Seattle….
Western Bridge announces the addition of new work to our ongoing,
continually rehung, periodically retitled exhibition Untitled (A Brink of
Infinity). Photographs by Olafur Eliasson, Roni Horn, Tania Kitchell, and
Sarah Lucas, and a book by Ed Ruscha, join the current exhibition,
featuring work by Tauba Auerbach, Dawn Clements, Claire Cowie,
Anthony McCall, and Mary Temple.
First titled Yes or No and/or Yes and No after a print by Auerbach, the
exhibition now takes its title from a newly installed Horn photolithograph.
Building from the work in our fall show Light, Seeking Light, in particular
Mary Temple's large painted light installation Raise, 2008, the winter
show develops and changes over the course of its run. Formal or
conceptual links between works are teased out through additions and
subtractions from the exhibition. In place of a single theme, a series of
associations build in various directions at once. Work seen in previous
exhibitions reappears in new contexts (such as Anthony McCall's video
installation Doubling Back, 2003, and Sarah Lucas's photograph
Summer, 1998), alongside new work entering the collection.
The photographs by Eliasson, Horn, Kitchell, and Lucas playfully address
the McCall installation, in which a beam of light projected through a haze-
filled gallery produces a continuously changing three-dimensional form. In
the photos, steam rises from the ground (Eliasson), mist crowns the roiling
ocean (Horn), wintry breaths float through snowflakes (Kitchell), and a
well-shaken can of beer erupts in the artist's face (Lucas). In each, a
photograph fixes a momentary form out of an almost immaterial substance.
Ed Ruscha's 1966 book Every Building on the Sunset Strip also makes a
permanent document of a moment withint a perpetual flux. Its subject is
the tatty length of LA's notorious Sunset Strip, the sides of which were
shot by the artist in a continual strip of photographs. Lined with buildings
in a variety of fashionable styles from mid-century modern to faux Tudor,
the Strip is a cacophonous mix of the newly constructed alongside (and
sometime identical to) the about to be knocked-down. The Strip exists in
a continuous tug-of-war between of-the-moment and out-of-date. Ruscha's
document shares with Dawn Clement's continuous drawing of an
apartment interior, Middlebury, a fixation on completeness that uses
rational means to make an irrational record.
Sarah Lucas ('Summer')
Iris print, 1998
25 in. x 21 5/8 in. (635 mm x 549 mm)
Above content from Western Bridge
Links to several of the artists mentioned above are provided below:
http://www.anthonymccall.com/
http://www.artdvision.com/ (Solange Fabiao)
http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/artist.php?art_name=Susan%20Philipsz
Susan Philipsz)
http://www.marytemple.com/
One final bit for you all – after looking at the work of Mary Temple (great, great, great stuff – might in fact be useful for those of you in Color Digital who are working on your first assignment) I became aware of an upcoming exhibition at MASS MoCA in Boston that she will be a part of. I highly recommend having a look, the link is right here for you: Badlands – New Horizons in Landscape
One of the images included at Western Bridge is shown below.
Tania Kitchell, Air (www.jamesharrisgallery.com)Alas, this entry is a little convoluted, but I wanted to share all of this great stuff with you guys. So, what you’ll see below is a blurb about the current exhibition at Western Bridge as well as links to sites where you can find more information about the artists within.
Again, not all of the work is photographic or even necessarily lens based, but still very concerned with light, perception, etc. – as are WE!
Now, if only we could take a field trip to Seattle….
Untitled (A Brink of Infinity)
Roni Horn, Untitled (A Brink of Infinity), 1997
Photolithograph, 42 by 58 inches
Untitled (A Brink of Infinity)
Untitled (A Brink of Infinity)
At Western Bridge through May 9, 2009Roni Horn, Untitled (A Brink of Infinity), 1997
Photolithograph, 42 by 58 inches
Untitled (A Brink of Infinity)
Untitled (A Brink of Infinity)
Western Bridge announces the addition of new work to our ongoing,
continually rehung, periodically retitled exhibition Untitled (A Brink of
Infinity). Photographs by Olafur Eliasson, Roni Horn, Tania Kitchell, and
Sarah Lucas, and a book by Ed Ruscha, join the current exhibition,
featuring work by Tauba Auerbach, Dawn Clements, Claire Cowie,
Anthony McCall, and Mary Temple.
First titled Yes or No and/or Yes and No after a print by Auerbach, the
exhibition now takes its title from a newly installed Horn photolithograph.
Building from the work in our fall show Light, Seeking Light, in particular
Mary Temple's large painted light installation Raise, 2008, the winter
show develops and changes over the course of its run. Formal or
conceptual links between works are teased out through additions and
subtractions from the exhibition. In place of a single theme, a series of
associations build in various directions at once. Work seen in previous
exhibitions reappears in new contexts (such as Anthony McCall's video
installation Doubling Back, 2003, and Sarah Lucas's photograph
Summer, 1998), alongside new work entering the collection.
The photographs by Eliasson, Horn, Kitchell, and Lucas playfully address
the McCall installation, in which a beam of light projected through a haze-
filled gallery produces a continuously changing three-dimensional form. In
the photos, steam rises from the ground (Eliasson), mist crowns the roiling
ocean (Horn), wintry breaths float through snowflakes (Kitchell), and a
well-shaken can of beer erupts in the artist's face (Lucas). In each, a
photograph fixes a momentary form out of an almost immaterial substance.
Ed Ruscha's 1966 book Every Building on the Sunset Strip also makes a
permanent document of a moment withint a perpetual flux. Its subject is
the tatty length of LA's notorious Sunset Strip, the sides of which were
shot by the artist in a continual strip of photographs. Lined with buildings
in a variety of fashionable styles from mid-century modern to faux Tudor,
the Strip is a cacophonous mix of the newly constructed alongside (and
sometime identical to) the about to be knocked-down. The Strip exists in
a continuous tug-of-war between of-the-moment and out-of-date. Ruscha's
document shares with Dawn Clement's continuous drawing of an
apartment interior, Middlebury, a fixation on completeness that uses
rational means to make an irrational record.
Sarah Lucas ('Summer')Iris print, 1998
25 in. x 21 5/8 in. (635 mm x 549 mm)
Above content from Western Bridge
Links to several of the artists mentioned above are provided below:
http://www.anthonymccall.com/
http://www.artdvision.com/ (Solange Fabiao)
http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/artist.php?art_name=Susan%20Philipsz
Susan Philipsz)
http://www.marytemple.com/
One final bit for you all – after looking at the work of Mary Temple (great, great, great stuff – might in fact be useful for those of you in Color Digital who are working on your first assignment) I became aware of an upcoming exhibition at MASS MoCA in Boston that she will be a part of. I highly recommend having a look, the link is right here for you: Badlands – New Horizons in Landscape
May 24, 2008 - April 12, 2009
Building 4, First Floor
Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape
Anthony Goicolea, Tree Dwellers, 2004
Building 4, First Floor
Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape
Anthony Goicolea, Tree Dwellers, 2004Tuesday, January 27, 2009
More titles to request from Inter-Library Loan!!!
Dr. Libby just told me about the text below, I've already requested a copy myself but I'm certain there are others out there. Highly recommended.
After Photography.
By Fred Ritchin.
W W Norton & Company Inc, New York, 2008. 160 pp., 50 color illustrations., 6x8¼".
Publisher's Description
After Photography examines the myriad ways in which the digital revolution has fundamentally altered the way we receive visual information, from photos of news events taken by ordinary people on cell phones to the widespread use of image surveillance. In a world beset by critical problems and ambiguous boundaries, Fred Ritchin argues that it is time to begin energetically exploring the possibilities created by digital innovations and to use them to better understand our rapidly changing world.
Ritchin—one of our most influential commentators on photography—investigates the future of visual media as the digital revolution transforms images into a hypertextual medium, fundamentally changing the way we conceptualize the world. Simultaneously, the increased manipulation of photographs makes photography suspect as reliable documentation, raising questions about its role in recounting personal and public histories. In the tradition of John Berger and Susan Sontag, Ritchin analyzes photography's failings and reveals untapped potentials for the medium.
The text below could be useful for students (or other interested parties) in The Photograph as Language course. I'm going to try to find a copy and check it out - could be a nice companion to The Nature of Photographs and The Photographer's Eye.
How to Read a Photograph.
Lessons from Master Photographers.
By Ian Jeffrey.
Harry N Abrams-penguin/ Putnam, New York, 2008. 400 pp., 350 duotone and 50 color illustrations., 6¾x9½".
Publisher's Description
Ian Jeffrey is a superb guide in this profusely illustrated introduction to the appreciation of photography as an art form. Novices and experts alike will gain a deeper understanding of great photographers and their work, as Jeffrey decodes key images and provides essential biographical and historical background. Profiles of more than 100 major photographers, including Alfred Stieglitz, Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Paul Strand, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, highlight particular examples of styles and movements throughout the history of the medium. Each entry includes a concise biography along with an illuminating discussion of key works and nuggets of contextual information.
All content from Photo-Eye Newsletter
After Photography.
By Fred Ritchin.
W W Norton & Company Inc, New York, 2008. 160 pp., 50 color illustrations., 6x8¼".
Publisher's Description
After Photography examines the myriad ways in which the digital revolution has fundamentally altered the way we receive visual information, from photos of news events taken by ordinary people on cell phones to the widespread use of image surveillance. In a world beset by critical problems and ambiguous boundaries, Fred Ritchin argues that it is time to begin energetically exploring the possibilities created by digital innovations and to use them to better understand our rapidly changing world.
Ritchin—one of our most influential commentators on photography—investigates the future of visual media as the digital revolution transforms images into a hypertextual medium, fundamentally changing the way we conceptualize the world. Simultaneously, the increased manipulation of photographs makes photography suspect as reliable documentation, raising questions about its role in recounting personal and public histories. In the tradition of John Berger and Susan Sontag, Ritchin analyzes photography's failings and reveals untapped potentials for the medium.
The text below could be useful for students (or other interested parties) in The Photograph as Language course. I'm going to try to find a copy and check it out - could be a nice companion to The Nature of Photographs and The Photographer's Eye.
How to Read a Photograph.
Lessons from Master Photographers.
By Ian Jeffrey.
Harry N Abrams-penguin/ Putnam, New York, 2008. 400 pp., 350 duotone and 50 color illustrations., 6¾x9½".
Publisher's Description
Ian Jeffrey is a superb guide in this profusely illustrated introduction to the appreciation of photography as an art form. Novices and experts alike will gain a deeper understanding of great photographers and their work, as Jeffrey decodes key images and provides essential biographical and historical background. Profiles of more than 100 major photographers, including Alfred Stieglitz, Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Paul Strand, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, highlight particular examples of styles and movements throughout the history of the medium. Each entry includes a concise biography along with an illuminating discussion of key works and nuggets of contextual information.
All content from Photo-Eye Newsletter
Friday, January 23, 2009
Two More Great Finds Today - Thomas Roma and Alec Soth
Another awesome find of the day - potentially GREAT new(ish) book. And by the way powerHouse books (this book's publisher) is incredible, be sure to go hang out there anytime you find yourselves in Brooklyn (powerHouse).
above content from photo-eye newsletter
AND, a great lil' book put together by Alec Soth - cheap too - only around 17 bucks from littlebrownmushroom.com
Info and an image below:
The Last Days of W - Alec Soth. 2008. More information can be found on the website of Alec Soth
above image from alecsoth.com, text from littlebrownmushroom.com
Robert Coles & Thomas Roma: House Calls with William Carlos Williams, MD
In House Calls with William Carlos Williams, MD, Robert Coles writes: "Dr. Williams would look at buildings, doors, windows, long and hard before he actually entered a place to meet people." When you open the pages of this book, you encounter those same buildings, doors, windows and people in the more than sixty duotone photographs from Thomas Roma accompanying Coles's text...
read the whole review
from Mark Hillringhouse
In House Calls with William Carlos Williams, MD, Robert Coles writes: "Dr. Williams would look at buildings, doors, windows, long and hard before he actually entered a place to meet people." When you open the pages of this book, you encounter those same buildings, doors, windows and people in the more than sixty duotone photographs from Thomas Roma accompanying Coles's text...
read the whole review
AND, a great lil' book put together by Alec Soth - cheap too - only around 17 bucks from littlebrownmushroom.com
Info and an image below:
The Last Days of W - Alec Soth. 2008.
48 page, self-published artist book printed on newsprint.
"During these last days of the administration, what is the point of protest, satire or any other sort of rabble-rousing? In assembling this collection of pictures I’ve made over the last eight years, I’m not really trying to accomplish much at all. But as President Bush once said, 'One of the great things about books is, sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.'" - Alec Soth
above image from alecsoth.com, text from littlebrownmushroom.com
Darren Ell - Between States
Just came across some pretty interesting work that has been shown in the past at Dazibao in Montreal and is currently a traveling exhibition. Wonderful contemporary investigation of portraiture and documentary style.
From the Dazibao website:
Darren Ell is a photographer and activist. His involvement, informed by close collaboration with social justice organizations such as Solidarity across Borders, Justice for Mohamed Harkat and Homes not Bombs, goes well beyond a mere connection to a subject. His close familiarity with his subjects, moreover, is surely at the root of the incredible power of his work. In these large-format portraits—it’s as if he were revealing, larger than life, the hidden face of a society which believes itself to be inclusive, fair and tolerant—there are no victims or heroes. Rather, Ell’s images place us face to face with ourselves. They question our own value system and perhaps our too-passive resistance. Accompanied by a sound track in which the individuals photographed describe their situation, Darren Ell’s work brings the documentary genre up to date.
Mahmoud Jaballah
Metro West Detention Centre, Toronto
Mahmoud was arrested, tortured and released without charge seven times in Egypt’s repression of devout Muslims. His wife’s torture led to a miscarriage. They claimed refugee status in Canada in 1996. A father of six, Mahmoud became the principal of an Islamic school in Scarborough. Relying on information from the Egyptian authorities, Canadian Security and Intelligence Services (CSIS) arrested him on a security certificate in 1999 for alleged involvement in a terrorist organization. The case was quashed, the secret evidence deemed not credible. Mahmoud was re-arrested in August 2001. No new evidence was cited. Mahmoud denied all allegations but has been held without charge or access to evidence since. He has developed chronic back pain, respiratory problems, chest pains, fainting spells and diminished concentration while in detention. The Government of Canada admits that he would face torture or death if deported. In December 2006, he went on a hunger strike to protest his conditions.
From the Dazibao website:
Darren Ell is a photographer and activist. His involvement, informed by close collaboration with social justice organizations such as Solidarity across Borders, Justice for Mohamed Harkat and Homes not Bombs, goes well beyond a mere connection to a subject. His close familiarity with his subjects, moreover, is surely at the root of the incredible power of his work. In these large-format portraits—it’s as if he were revealing, larger than life, the hidden face of a society which believes itself to be inclusive, fair and tolerant—there are no victims or heroes. Rather, Ell’s images place us face to face with ourselves. They question our own value system and perhaps our too-passive resistance. Accompanied by a sound track in which the individuals photographed describe their situation, Darren Ell’s work brings the documentary genre up to date.
Mahmoud Jaballah
Metro West Detention Centre, Toronto
Mahmoud was arrested, tortured and released without charge seven times in Egypt’s repression of devout Muslims. His wife’s torture led to a miscarriage. They claimed refugee status in Canada in 1996. A father of six, Mahmoud became the principal of an Islamic school in Scarborough. Relying on information from the Egyptian authorities, Canadian Security and Intelligence Services (CSIS) arrested him on a security certificate in 1999 for alleged involvement in a terrorist organization. The case was quashed, the secret evidence deemed not credible. Mahmoud was re-arrested in August 2001. No new evidence was cited. Mahmoud denied all allegations but has been held without charge or access to evidence since. He has developed chronic back pain, respiratory problems, chest pains, fainting spells and diminished concentration while in detention. The Government of Canada admits that he would face torture or death if deported. In December 2006, he went on a hunger strike to protest his conditions.
rotest his conditions.
Amparo Torres
Toronto
Amparo was a union organizer and founding member of Colombia’s Union Patriotica, an umbrella organization for left political parties. In the 1990’s, Amparo continued her political work despite the assassination of 4,000 of her colleagues. After being tortured for five months, she fled Colombia. She was granted permanent resident status in Canada. In 2003, Canada added the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to its list of terrorist organizations, an organization whose legitimacy it previously acknowledged. Amparo’s brother and ex-husband were members of the FARC. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service blocked her application for citizenship, saying she was linked to a terrorist organization. Evidence is kept secret, so Amparo cannot defend herself. She denies all allegations, but still faces deportation.
To see more of this work, visit the website of Darren Ell.
Images and text from darrenell.com
Amparo TorresToronto
Amparo was a union organizer and founding member of Colombia’s Union Patriotica, an umbrella organization for left political parties. In the 1990’s, Amparo continued her political work despite the assassination of 4,000 of her colleagues. After being tortured for five months, she fled Colombia. She was granted permanent resident status in Canada. In 2003, Canada added the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to its list of terrorist organizations, an organization whose legitimacy it previously acknowledged. Amparo’s brother and ex-husband were members of the FARC. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service blocked her application for citizenship, saying she was linked to a terrorist organization. Evidence is kept secret, so Amparo cannot defend herself. She denies all allegations, but still faces deportation.
To see more of this work, visit the website of Darren Ell.
Images and text from darrenell.com
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