Works by Shinji Abe

Works by Shinji Abe at Japan Exposures. "...Japan Exposures is pleased to present the work of Shinji Abe, who at 26 is one of the youngest — if not the youngest — photographers we’ve featured. It may come as something of a surprise to readers of this website, but Abe is one of a rather sizable group of young photographers who not only embrace film, the darkroom, and the vagaries of the street as their subject, but who also don’t have an online presence. In Abe’s case, he doesn’t even have a personal computer. Whether by design or happenstance, this makes Abe the ideal type of photographer we hope to feature even more on Japan Exposures as we begin 2010 — young, up and coming, and to borrow a phrase coined by noted street photographer Nick Turpin, 'virtually invisible.'"

Ride

Ride - photographs and text by Claire Bayrasy at Lens Culture. "...This series of photos was taken in Beijing over the course of one year in 2009 during my daily morning rides to work. On those mornings, I let myself slip into reverie. Enclosed in a narrow vehicle, I acted as a quiet observer. My visual curiosity turned the taxi into a portable laboratory where I got to examine and dissect the ever-changing environment which surrounded me. I saw people, they saw me, but we never met. I silently observed the chaotic ballet of cars, bikes and people. Between voyeurism and contemplation, my focus on insignificant objects and anonymous people seemed to amplify their significance."

Our Year In Pictures, 2009

Our Year In Pictures, 2009 at Lost Art. Bravo!

Standing In My Doorway Crying

Jessie Mae Hemphill... Standing In My Doorway Crying (.mp3 audio 04:43). From the album She Wolf (1981, Vogue/Blues Today 513.501).

Seventy Years Grandma Moses: A Loan Exhibition Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Artist's 'Discovery'

Seventy Years Grandma Moses: A Loan Exhibition Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Artist's 'Discovery' at Galerie St. Etienne in New York, NY. "...On October 9, 1940, the Galerie St. Etienne opened an exhibition with the unassuming title, 'What a Farmwife Painted.' It featured thirty-four relatively small paintings [checklist nos. 4-12] by an obscure self-taught artist, Anna Mary Robertson Moses, from Eagle Bridge in upstate New York. Mrs. Moses, who had recently celebrated her 80th birthday, declined to attend the show. October was a busy month on the farm, she said, and besides, she had already seen the pictures. In an early review of the exhibition, The New York Herald Tribune noted that the elderly artist was known locally as 'Grandma Moses.' The name stuck, and the seeds of a lasting legend were sown."

Zoe Beloff - The Dream Films

Zoe Beloff - The Dream Films (2009) at UbuWeb Film & Video. "...In 2009 the Coney Island Museum invited Zoe Beloff to create an exhibition to celebrate the centennial of Sigmund Freud's visit to Coney Island. She titled the show 'Dreamland: The Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society and its Circle 1926-1972.' The Society might be considered something of an urban myth. They were mostly working people from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Beloff describes them as 'visionaries, who, undeterred by lack of finances or professional training, decided to explore their inner life, to share their dreams with each other and in doing so attempted to free the psyche from the constraints of class and of cultural and sexual mores of their time.' Featured on Ubu are the ten films from this series."

RIP: Lynn Taitt

RIP: Lynn Taitt. LT has always been a favourite here at gmtPlus9(-15).

Miroslav Tichý

Miroslav Tichý at the ICP in New York, NY. "...This is the first American museum exhibition devoted to the work of the reclusive and mysterious Czech photographer Miroslav Tichý. Now over eighty years old, Tichý is a stubbornly eccentric artist, known as much for his makeshift cardboard cameras as for his haunting and distorted images of women and landscapes, many of them taken surreptitiously. Tichý began photographing in the 1950s, in part as a political response to the social repressions of Czech communism. However, it is only in the past five years that his intensely private work has gained public attention."

Chant Jah Victory

Vivian Jackson (Yabby You)... Chant Jah Victory (.mp3 audio 03:26). From the album Jesus Dread (1972-1977) (1997, Blood and Fire BAFCD 021). RIP: Vivian Jackson.

Sitting On Top Of The World

The Mississippi Sheiks... Sitting On Top Of The World (1930, Okeh 8784 .mp3 audio 03:05).

Frottage

Frottage at Miguel Abreu Gallery in New York. "...In many ways, frottage seems the most passé thing. Its focus on the action of the hand, its close alliance with pencil and paper and its interest in rubbing and touching all make it look a touch dated. Who does it anymore? Who really did it ever?
That said, there are a number of qualities particular to frottage that make it of interest: its indexicality, its taint of memory, the way it translates a thing into an image (like a rudimentary photocopier). Perhaps frottage’s association with texture and tactility seems outmoded because, contrary to the smooth world of surfaces and signs that has become our natural habitat, it searches out cracks and fissures and imperfections. In this way it sheds light on overlooked interstices in our environment, even if it only offers them up again as artifacts and relics."

William Hawkins: Architectural Paintings

William Hawkins: Architectural Paintings at Ricco|Maresca Gallery. More in the January|February issue of fluence.

When Nixon Met Elvis

When Nixon Met Elvis at the National Archives. Via Coudal Partners.

Taking The City By Storm

The Haskels... Taking The City By Storm (1980, Milwaukee Hits .mp3 audio 02:17).

My Girlfriend's Ghost

Oil Tasters... My Girlfriend's Ghost (.mp3 audio 03:14). From the album Oil Tasters (1982, Thermidor Records).

Christopher Thomas: New York Sleeps

Christopher Thomas: New York Sleeps at Steven Kasher Gallery. "...Treading in the footsteps of Charles Marville, Brassaï and Atget, German photographer Christopher Thomas creates black and white images of cities in a state of repose, as if only the viewer's gaze could animate these empty streets. After years of photographing his native Munich, Thomas turned his camera on his adopted city, New York. The resulting exhibition of 30 large- scale cityscapes feels both nostalgic and contemporary, offering an elusive glimpse of 19th century tranquility while hinting at a cryptic apocalyptic ending just around the bend."

Dreaming

Amy Speace and The Tearjerks... Dreaming (.mp3 audio 03:17). From the album Songs For Bright Street (2006, Wildflower WFL 1309).

‘Kamikaze’ New Year’s cards (1937)

‘Kamikaze’ New Year’s cards (1937) at Pink Tentacle. "...This high-spirited set of vintage New Year’s cards celebrates the historic flight of the Kamikaze, a Mitsubishi Ki-15 aircraft that became the first Japanese-built plane to fly from Japan to Europe. Sponsored by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper and piloted by Masaaki Iinuma (who came to be known as 'the Japanese Lindbergh'), the Kamikaze made its momentous 51-hour flight from Tokyo to London in April 1937. The New Year’s cards were printed later that year by Tanaka & Co."

I Wanna Be Sedated

Allo, Darlin'... I Wanna Be Sedated (2009, .mp3 audio 04:15). From a soon to be released Ramones tribute album.

Soaky In The Pooper

Lambchop... Soaky In The Pooper (1994, Merge Records MRG066 .mp3 audio 04:15).

They remembered he had said
You're never lonely when you're dead
And as the final rights were read
The angels start to sing
Soaky in the pooper

Happy New Year

Happy New Year from gmtPlus9(-15).