Josef Breitenbach

Josef Breitenbach... A Woman and Her Conscience, New York (c. 1945, Vintage toned gelatin silver print). From Works by Josef Breitenbach at Gitterman Gallery in New York. "...Josef Breitenbach created a unique visual vocabulary by incorporating both traditional and experimental processes within a variety of genres throughout his career. Raised with a profound respect for the history of art and culture, he worked with a conscious understanding and appreciation for many different styles of artistic expression, including Modernism, Surrealism and even Pictorialism. Breitenbach explored form and abstraction as well as the sensual and psychological side of his subjects. His photographs exist as aesthetic objects that are also artifacts of a highly innovative period of our history."

Rising Waters: Photographs of Hurricane Sandy

Rising Waters: Photographs of Hurricane Sandy at the ICP. "...Drawn from an open call for submissions from the public that drew over 7,000 entries, the exhibition includes 100 works by more than 90 professional photographers, community members, and bystanders who photographed the effects of the devastating storm and the subsequent recovery efforts. The exhibition also showcases video from Gideon Mendel's Drowning World series on flood zones around the globe, and a slide-show of the photo submissions from faculty, students, and alumni of the School at ICP."

FAME

FAME at Throckmorton Fine Art in NYC. "...Portraiture has a lengthy, rich, and diverse history in art. In our era, portraits of the famous have a pleasant association: they are familiar and frequently serve as cultural and temporal markers. These portraits, though, can be enigmatic, showing recognized faces but only hinting at complex personalities and the quixotic flow of fortune and tragedy. An effort has been made to exhibit images that are not well known (and some have, in fact, never been printed or publicly shown), in a bid to add something unexpected to what is otherwise familiar."

L'Étoile de Mer

L'Etoile de Mer (Flash Video 15:55). "...L'Étoile de Mer (English: The Sea Star) is a 1928 film directed by Man Ray. The film is based on a script by Robert Desnos and depicts a couple (Alice Prin and André de la Rivière) acting through scenes that are shot out of focus."

Hot Summer, Cool Jazz: The Photographs of Herman Leonard

Hot Summer, Cool Jazz: The Photographs of Herman Leonard at Robert Mann Gallery. "...Leonard's most enduring pursuit was quintessentially American: jazz. He established a studio in the heart of Greenwich Village in 1949, and with his passion for the music and kind respect for those he photographed, he was accorded an unprecedented inside view of the New York jazz scene. Making use of techniques like backlighting, strobe lighting, and smoke, his photos dissolve the space between subject and lens, ensconcing the viewer in ambient gradations of shadow and light. Within his illuminated figures, Leonard exacts moments of delicate detail—an upturned lip and crinkled eye, the glint of a spotlight on a microphone—to grasp energy and emotion. Off-kilter framing accentuates the here-and-now feeling of the photographs: it's as if we've been dropped into the scene, hiding in the hazy dark at the base of the microphone or blasted with the trumpet's effervescent air."

Snap Noir: Snapshot Stories From the Collection of Robert E. Jackson

Snap Noir: Snapshot Stories From the Collection of Robert E. Jackson at Pace/MacGill Gallery.

Lars von Trier Three Early Films (1970-79)

Lars von Trier Three Early Films (1970-79) at UbuWeb Film & Video. "...Von Trier began making films at the age of eleven. Von Trier suffers periodically from depression, as well as various fears and phobias, including an intense fear of flying. As he quipped in an interview, 'basically, I'm afraid of everything in life, except filmmaking.' His first publicly released film was an experimental short called The Orchid Gardener (1977) and his first feature film came seven years later with The Element of Crime (1984). Among many prizes, awards and nominations, he is the recipient of the Palme d'Or (for Dancer in the Dark), the Grand Prix, and the Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival."

Epoch Of Murder Madness

Midnight Eye... Epoch Of Murder Madness. "...Kihachi Okamoto was no longer a fledgling B-movie helmer when he made the little-seen (and long overlooked) Epoch of Murder Madness (aka The Age of Assassins) in 1966 (released in 1967); the talented director was forty-three years of age and making his twentieth film at Toho for producers viewing him as "unpredictable", due to films like The Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman (Eburimanshi no Yuga na Seikatsu, 1963) and Oh! Bomb (Aa Bakudan, 1964)."

The Residents: Eyes Scream

The Residents: Eyes Scream (1990) at UbuWeb Film & Video. "...This irreverent pseudo-documentary about the band The Residents blends comedy with live clips, music videos, interviews and documentary footage. Spanning the years 1972 to 1990, and including clips from the recent album The King and Eye and fragments of the band's 'media mercenary' work."

Malaika

"Malaika" by Angélique Kidjo (Flash Video 03:12).

Amy

Happy Birthday to my daughter Amy - 20 years old today.

AMMO

Lens Culture... AMMO - photographs and text by Sabine Pearlman. "...This series of ammunition cross-sections was photographed inside a WWII bunker in Switzerland in October of 2012. The entire series consists of 900 specimens. I was originally intrigued by the ambiguous nature of the subject matter. The cross-sections reveal a hidden complexity and beauty of form, which stands in vast contrast to the destructive purpose of the object. It is a representation of the evil and the beautiful, a reflection of the human condition."

Jan Švankmajer - Grafika, kresby, koláže

Jan Švankmajer - Grafika, kresby, koláže at Galerie ART Chrudim. "...Výstava v chrudimské Galerii ART představuje méně známou, ale přesto významnou část díla světově proslulého umělce Jana Švankmajera. Grafika, kresby či koláže již svým malým rozsahem, jakoby stály stranou umělcova filmařského díla. Přesto všechno právě práce na papíře jsou souběžnou a důležitou linií jeho tvorby a pozorný divák v grafických listech či kolážích dokáže najít mnohé odkazy na filmovou tvorbu. Kresby, které umělec nazývá "mediumní" pak plní roli jakési "dílny podvědomí", během jejichž tvorby umělec promýšlí svá další díla. Mediumní kresba se stává pojítkem mezi umělcovým vědomím a podvědomím a kresby se tak stávají nejintimnějším záznamem procesu vzniku umělcova surrealistického díla."