Recollection: Thirty Years of Photography at The New York Public Library

Recollection: Thirty Years of Photography at The New York Public Library. "...Henri Cartier-Bresson compared portraits to a visual reverberation, in which 'the people come back to you like a silent echo. A photograph is a vestige of a face, a face in transit.' His definition of portraiture (appealing to themes of recall, repetition, and return) also applies more generally to photography itself, describing a medium that has been repeatedly renegotiated over its short history, whether in terms of mechanical reproduction, documentary evidence, or as an independent art. Recollection, along with its online multimedia presentation, celebrates thirty years of photogaphy at The New York Public Library."

Lalla Essaydi: Harem

Lalla Essaydi: Harem at Edwynn Houk Gallery. "...Born in Morocco, Lalla Essaydi has been examining the role of the Muslim woman by incorporating layers of Islamic calligraphy applied by hand with henna, in tandem with poses directly inspired by 19th Century Orientalist painting. By appropriating this imagery, the works reflect the 'complex female identities' found in Morocco and throughout the Muslim world."

Christian Cravo: In The Gardens Of Eden

Christian Cravo: In The Gardens Of Eden at Throckmorton Fine Art. "...Christian is a living homage to his father. Christian established himself with a series of penetrating yet mystical photographs of the poor, northeastern region of Brazil, infamous for its droughts. This region has long captured the attention of Brazilian intellectuals and artists (including film directors). Christian’s celebrated book of photographs of the region, Irredentos, focuses on the religious fervor of the people of the region. Brazil is the largest Catholic country in the world, but it is also home to more people of African descent than any other country except Nigeria—and Brazilians of African descent have imbued their country’s Christianity with permutations of African religious practices."

Pedaling: Bicycle Photographs from Then to Now

Pedaling: Bicycle Photographs from Then to Now at Charles A. Hartman Fine Art. "...a survey of photographic images that examines our life with, and affection for, the bicycle. Ranging in style from social documentary to modernist abstraction and in impulse from charming to studious, the photographs that make up this exhibition spotlight the many ways in which bicycles are a part of our lives. From transportation to sport to simple fun, this historic and elegant technology continues to play a vital part in our contemporary culture." Also... a nice photograph of my Firestone Vagabond taken by my nephew Steve.

American Pioneers of Color: Stephen Shore, Joel Meyerowitz, William Eggleston

American Pioneers of Color: Stephen Shore, Joel Meyerowitz, William Eggleston at Edwynn Houk Gallery. "...Although the technology to produce color prints was widely available as early as the 1940s, for many years black and white remained the only accepted medium for fine art photography. Serious photographers held color in low esteem, seeing it as the language of the family snapshot, the tourist postcard or the consumer advertisement. Intrigued and inspired to develop a new vocabulary, Shore, Meyerowitz, and Eggleston began to actively explore the medium of color photography in the late 1960s and early 1970s."

Arkady Shaikhet: Selected Photographs 1924-1941

Arkady Shaikhet: Selected Photographs 1924-1941 at Nailya Alexander Gallery. "...Arkady Shaikhet (1898-1959) was born in the city of Nikolaev (Ukraine) into a lower middle class Jewish family (his father was a wholesale beer trader and his mother had a seamstress shop). He moved to Moscow in 1922 where he found work as a re-toucher at the Rembrandt studio. His first photographs were published in 1923, and he soon joined a group of young talented photographers who helped establish the USSR’s most important illustrated magazines. In 1924, at the age of 26, he became one of the leading photojournalists for the newspapers Krasnaya Niva and Moscow Proletarian. The following year, Shaikhet joined the staff of the national magazine Ogonyok and from the very beginning his photographs were used for the covers. Shaikhet was one of the founders (together with famous journalist Mikhail Koltsov) of Soviet Photo in 1926 and from 1930 on, he actively contributed to USSR in Construction. Because of his close collaboration with Mikhail Koltsov, Shaikhet’s career skyrocketed between 1924 and 1931, and he became a leading photojournalist in the country."

Daido Moriyama: Photographs from Five Decades

Daido Moriyama... Tokyo Ringway - Route 16 (1969, Gelatin silver print). From the exhibition Daido Moriyama: Photographs from Five Decades at Charles A. Hartman Fine Art in Portland, OR. "...Spanning five decades, the photographs in this exhibition include many of the artist's iconic images as well as lesser known, but equally compelling, pictures."

Yvon's Paris: Vintage Photographs from the 1920s

Yvon's Paris: Vintage Photographs from the 1920s at Higher Pictures. "...an exhibition of vintage prints by postcard photographer Pierre Yves Petit. Yvon, as he considered himself, though virtually unknown by name, helped to shape the idea and physical understanding of the evolution of Paris. Through his company, Éditions Yvon, he became what David Dunlap calls 'the best-known unknown photographer in France.'"

Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road

Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road at the J. Paul Getty Museum. "...In a peripatetic career that spanned five decades, the photographer Felice Beato (1832–1909) covered a wide swath of East Asia. Following in the wake of Britain's vast colonial empire, he was among the primary photographers to provide images of newly opened countries such as India, China, Japan, Korea, and Burma.
A pioneer war photographer, Beato recorded several conflicts: the Crimean War in 1855–56, the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny in 1858–59, the Second Opium War in 1860, and the American expedition to Korea in 1871. His photographs of battlefields, the first to show images of the dead, provided a new direction for that genre."

Hard Workin' Man

Captain Beefheart... Hard Workin' Man (.mp3 audio 03:23). From the film Blue Collar (1978, Directed by Paul Schrader).

Joyeux Noël

Joyeux Noël et très bonne Année de gmtPlus9(-15). Photograph... Kris Kringle Song (1920). "...A holiday card that looks like a miniature record in an album jacket. The jacket has text that reads: 'Kris Kringle Song, A Song of Old Friendship on Christmas Day.' On the record it reads: 'Kris Kringle' and hand written is, 'This is a reminder that you have one coming.'"

Selections from a Collection

Selections from a Collection at Gitterman Gallery in New York, NY.

American History Through Christmas Cards

American History Through Christmas Cards at the WHS. "...Americans have been exchanging holiday cards for more than 150 years, and thousands of them have made their way into correspondence donated to the Wisconsin Historical Society. For the last several decades, archivists have set aside especially beautiful or evocative cards in a separate collection that now fills eight large boxes. This year, just in time for the holidays, they have scanned and posted more than 200 of the most interesting Christmas cards in a Wisconsin Historical Images gallery."

Rita Bernstein: Ghost of Summer

Rita Bernstein: Ghost of Summer at Gallery 339. "...The scale and intimacy of these remarkable photographs belie the complexity and daring of Bernstein’s work. Her images walk a delicate tightrope; they evoke a sense of memory and of keenly felt private thoughts, yet their poignancy is controlled and perfectly modulated by their austerity and ambiguity. They are tender and mysterious, yet never stray into the sentimental. Bernstein further explores this dichotomy of heart versus mind through her print-making process, which demands a high level of skill yet remains uncertain and serendipitous. The process involves liquid silver emulsion applied to delicate Japanese Gampi paper." More... Works by Rita Bernstein at her personal site.

The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs

The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs at the Met. "...This is a small, scholarly focused exhibition of about fifty pieces of the distinctive 'artistic furniture' and related objects produced by the workshop of Charles Rohlfs (American, 1853–1936) in Buffalo, New York. His unusually inventive forms and imaginative carving combined many influences, from the abstract naturalism of Art Nouveau to the bold forms of the Arts and Crafts movement. The exhibition explores Rohlfs's work in the context of new research that reveals his success in Europe as well as in America, and traces his influence on other twentieth-century furniture designers. The exhibition will draw from many public and private collections."

Ken Kitano: Our Face

Ken Kitano: Our Face at Galerie Priska Pasquer in Cologne, Germany. "...Ken Kitano, who was born in 1968, has been working on the ‘Our Face’ project since 1999. Beginning in his native Japan, he portrays members of social groups, associations, clubs or professions – for instance lawyers, athletes or ricksha pullers.
A conceptual approach such as this was pioneered by August Sander, whose Weimar typology ‘Face of our Time’ was published back in 1929. Unlike Sander, however, Ken Kitano’s work does not depict individuals belonging to a group, but rather compresses portraits of a group into a single print, in which the portraits (up to several dozen individual shots) are copied upon one another, layer upon layer." More... Works by Ken Kitano
 at his personal site.

In Jesus' Name: Taking Up Serpents

In Jesus' Name: Taking Up Serpents - a film by Al Clayton (1991). "...'At these church services, snakes were taken up,tongue talking or speaking in tongues, strychnine drunk , flaming torches passed under hands and feet, loud, loud music, dancing, rolling on the floor, really exciting stuff. Services started in a mild, restrained way but the tempo went way up, really quick. I can remember thinking that I could keep count of all the snakes and who had which snake but at one service, I felt something brushing against my elbow. I looked around a some guy had a four foot rattlesnake by the tail and its head was brushing my elbow. I left the service quickly and went outside to lean against my truck, gather my wits, or whatever, thinking like Fred Sanford...this might be the big one.'"

Orson Welles - The One Man Band

Orson Welles - The One Man Band (1995, directed by Vassili Silovic) at UbuWeb Film & Video. "...a fascinating glimpse at this extraordinary man's final years - made with the cooperation of Oja Kodar, Welles' longtime companion, to whom he bequeathed a wealth of unedited films and fragments when he died in 1985. Granted exclusive access to Welles' heretofore unseen archives - and drawing from almost two tons of film cans containing fragments, shorts, project ideas, and sketches - the filmmakers are led by Kodar through the rich but unfulfilled Welles legacy. Far from being the gloomy megalomaniac that Hollywood has sometimes branded him, Welles emerges here a protean creator, at times vulnerable and lonely, but always unshakeably optimistic and unfailingly innovative."

Judit Reigl: Unfolding Unfolding

Judit Reigl: Unfolding Unfolding at Ubu Gallery in New York. "...Considered one of the most original figures of post-World War II art, she is hailed for discarding boundaries and rules once deemed absolute. Reigl defies traditional and often antagonistic dichotomies as she obliterates the distinction between the front and back of the canvas, utilizing both sides of the work, alternates between figurative and non-objective and reconciles aspects of Surrealism and abstraction."