Mark Cohen: Lost/Found

Mark Cohen: Lost/Found at Bruce Silverstein Gallery. "...Lost/Found, features Cohen’s work from the 1970s and ‘80s that focuses on the artist’s extensive fascination with minute, cast-off elements of human effects—garbage or other small details—which Cohen makes monumental through his stimulating compositions possessing emotional weight and ineffable meaning. Renowned for his images of cropped figures shot at close range and strobe lit, previous exhibitions have portrayed Cohen as fixated on the human form. Lost/Found focuses on images that are non-figurative, an aspect of the artist’s work that has never before been the subject of an exhibition."

Patriotism Through the Mail: Civil War Envelopes

Patriotism Through the Mail: Civil War Envelopes at the WHS. "...A collection of colorful, ornate and patriotic illustrated envelopes produced during the Civil War constitute the latest image gallery in Wisconsin Historical Images. This collection of Civil War-illustrated envelopes provides a window into the politics and culture of a society at war. Most of them reflect the attitudes of the Union since the North printed the majority of envelopes. Archivists have selected 163 images for this gallery out of a collection of about 1,110 envelopes, representing a wide range of different viewpoints and various styles. This gallery is part of the Wisconsin Historical Society's commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War."

Love on the Left Bank

Lens Culture... Love on the Left Bank - photographs by Ed van der Elsken. "...Artists, hipsters, bohemians, actors, dancers, jazz musicians, writers and poets in 1950s Paris lived a wildly romanticized life — much as their contemporaries in America, the Beatniks, were finding a wild new way to live after the second world war.
Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken was part of the scene in Paris at the time, and in 1956, he published a ground-breaking photobook called Love on the Left Bank. His gritty, sexy, black-and-white photos of bohemian life in Paris captured a reckless, carefree, decadent and hedonistic love for life. A fictional text and captions (corny, for sure), accompanied the photos in the book." More... Works by Ed van der Elsken at his personal site.

Francis X. Pavy: New Roads

Francis X. Pavy: New Roads at Barbara Archer Gallery. "...A lifelong resident of Louisiana, Francis X. Pavy was born in Lafayette on March 2, 1954. As a child, Francis studied art under the direction of Elemore Morgan Jr. In college he studied music, ceramics, animation, painting, printmaking and sculpture, graduating in 1976 with a fine arts degree in sculpture. In 1977 Pavy started working in a glass shop, making leaded and beveled glass windows. In 1982 he opened his own glass studio. He adopted painting as his primary medium in 1985 , but still works in a variety of media.
Francis Pavy's works vibrate with life, color and musical rhythm. The abstract dimension in his works are always profoundly grounded in southern motifs and culture. Pavy touches on many subjects in his work including ,mysticism, love, loss and separation, humor, betrayal ,friendship and loyalty as well as many other themes.Pavy works in many media including paintings,prints, constructions and sculpture." More... Works by Francis X. Pavy at his personal site.

Pretty On The Inside

Pretty On The Inside - works by Todd James, KAWS, Tony Matelli, Erik Parker, Joyce Pensato, Peter Saul, and Karl Wirsum at Paul Kasmin Gallery. "...At first glance, these artworks challenge the viewer through their visual intensity, but upon closer inspection, they reveal an inner beauty. Many of the artists included make ironic or subversive works, hijacking the language of cartoons and comics to both celebrate and criticize contemporary culture."

The Films of Joseph Cornell (1936-1960)

The Films of Joseph Cornell (1936-1960) at UbuWeb Film & Video. "...The films of the reclusive artist Joseph Cornell are as unique as his famous box constructions. Though rarely exhibited during his lifetime, these mysterious works nonetheless have had a deep and lasting influence on the world of avant-garde filmmaking . His entire body of film numbers some thirty-odd works, encompassing the incomplete and the fragmentary. It can be said that Cornell made two kinds of films in two distinct periods of activity: collage films, made by recombining found materials, and directed films,where he worked with cinematographers (including Stan Brakhage, Rudy Burckhardt and Larry Jordan) to document his fantasy/experience of wandering in New York. -Bradley Eros and Jeanne Liotta. Included here are 12 of Cornell's films."

Verdi Cries

10,000 Maniacs... Verdi Cries (.mp3 audio 04:21). From the album In My Tribe (1987, Elektra 60738-1).

Daido Moriyama: Memory Of My Eyes

Daido Moriyama: Memory Of My Eyes at Galleri Riis in Oslo, Norway.

tread. boy

tread. boy. "...I love using old Diana-type cameras and Holgas. Unruly, unpredictable, and so far from perfect. Could there be a better tool to photograph youth as it fades? Hell, the cameras are best when they do their worst. Vignetting, blurring, and slipshod framing. The results require that I remember the moment even better that it was in many instances. There’s so many half-truths contained in the images that the narrative becomes the viewer’s as much as mine. To the kids, these shots don’t really even make sense. They are so accustomed to the instant gratification of digital cameras that by the time they see themselves or their friends or these objects of theirs, they hardly recall the whens and wheres of it all — but I bet someday they might. I guess that is what I am trying for anyway." More... Works by tread at his personal site.

A Revolutionary Project: Cuba from Walker Evans to Now

A Revolutionary Project: Cuba from Walker Evans to Now at the Getty Center. "...A Revolutionary Project: Cuba from Walker Evans to Now looks at three critical periods in the nation's history as witnessed by photographers before, during, and after the country's 1959 Revolution. The exhibition juxtaposes Walker Evans's 1933 images from the end of the Machado dictatorship with views by contemporary foreign photographers Virginia Beahan, Alex Harris, and Alexey Titarenko, who have explored Cuba since the withdrawal of Soviet support in the 1990s.
A third section bridging these two eras presents pictures by Cuban photographers who participated in the 1959 Revolution, including Alberto Korda, Perfecto Romero, and Osvaldo Salas."

Glenn Barr: Faces

Glenn Barr... Tomorrow (Acrylic on wood). A portrait of Gabrielle Drake as Lt. Gay Ellis on UFO. From the exhibition Glenn Barr: Faces at La Luz de Jesus Gallery. "...Faces explores the images that permeate our collective consciousness and define the iconic. Like the painting of a poised face looking out at us, hidden from the light in a dark pub, or the tattered advertisement hanging forgotten in the back of a garage, they've always been there... and not there. We tend not to see things that have lived with us day in and day out. Once these iconic images of the 'ideal' are gone, we miss them, as though trying to remember an old friend whose name escapes us."

Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography

Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography at the Victoria & Albert Museum. "...Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography highlights the work of 17 South African photographers, all of whom live and work in the country and whose images were made between 2000 and 2010. Each photographer is represented by one or more projects that are linked by the depiction of people and a self-conscious engagement with South Africa's political and photographic past.
Photographs showing figures raise pertinent issues of identity: how the gaze of the camera, photographer and viewer is returned by the subject, and the balance of power which that interaction implies. The 'figure' also implies not only the human figure but also the metaphorically figurative. Photographs can be like a 'figure' of speech, composed of familiar words but containing an ambiguity between literal and figurative interpretation."

Sabelo Mlangeni: Ghost Towns

Sabelo Mlangeni... Piekweik Dry (2011, Digital silver gelatin print). From the exhibition Sabelo Mlangeni: Ghost Towns at Michael Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town, SA. "...The Ghost Towns series depicts small South African towns that have been abandoned and forgotten, left on the edge of nowhere, while transformation takes place in the country's urban areas. Mlangeni describes them as follows: 'Quietness; emptiness; grass on a pedestrian pavement, cracked roads, closed-down shops; these images suggest both fiction and non-fiction, past and present scars left unattended. The suggestion of death. Forgotten towns with a rich history that has been lost in the fast-moving pace of a South African landscape. Most of the people have left and migrated to bigger towns and cities; attracted by economic opportunities, only returning for funerals of their loved ones. The photographs document [these] small towns today, the shift that has taken place, and where freedom and opportunity have somehow skipped past these towns.'"

Flesh & Metal, Bodies & Buildings: Works from Jonathan Hyman's Archive of 9/11 Vernacular Memorials

Flesh & Metal, Bodies & Buildings: Works from Jonathan Hyman's Archive of 9/11 Vernacular Memorials at Duke University Libraries. "...As a body of work, Hyman’s archive constitutes a complex process of artistic, social, and political mediation. Having earned an MFA in painting in addition to his photographic training, and counting artists like Leon Golub among his friends and mentors, Hyman is no stranger to the non-photographic media that appear framed within his pictures. His work bridges the medium of documentary photography with painting, sculpture, tattooing, and other media employed by hundreds of individuals who created the WTC memorials represented in their specific social contexts. Unlike much other work produced and compiled around 9/11/2001, Hyman’s archive enables a multi-layered dialogue about issues that go far beyond this specific subject, such as public and private memory, violence, corporate spectacle and vernacular aesthetics, art and social class, race and sexuality, patriotism and nationalism."

Friday Night

Lens Culture... Friday Night - photographs and text by David Pace. "...Friday night at Le Cotonnier. The evening calm is shattered by distorted bass blaring through blown speakers. The insistent beat sends a message across the village and into the fields beyond:
There is a ball tonight at Le Cotonnier!
Tonight we will pound our feet on the concrete slab where millet was drying in the midday sun only hours ago. Tonight we will be transported by the ecstatic music from Cote d’Ivoire and Niger. Tonight we will drink warm beer and, as if in a trance, we will forget about yesterday. And dance, dance, dance..." More... Works by David Pace at his personal site.

Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945

Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945 at the ICP in New York. "...After the United States detonated an atomic bomb at Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the U.S. government restricted the circulation of images of the bomb's deadly effect. President Truman dispatched some 1,150 military personnel and civilians, including photographers, to record the destruction as part of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey. The goal of the Survey's Physical Damage Division was to photograph and analyze methodically the impact of the atomic bomb on various building materials surrounding the blast site, the first "Ground Zero." The haunting, once-classified images of absence and annihilation formed the basis for civil defense architecture in the United States."

Lieko Shiga: Canary

Lieko Shiga... Pink House (2007, c-print, mounted on Alu-Dibond). From the exhibition Lieko Shiga: Canary at Galerie Priska Pasquer in Cologne, Germany. "...Galerie Priska Pasquer is pleased to present the 'Canary' series by Japanese artist Lieko Shiga, for which she won the 'Infinity Award (Young Photographer)' from the International Center of Photography, New York, in 2009. In 'Canary', Lieko Shiga combines personal accounts of people and local myths with her own personal memories, feelings and experiences to create fantastic, often perplexing scenarios. The works interact to form a complex, dramatic tableau that vacillates between dreams and reality." More... Works by Lieko Shiga at her personal site.

Charles Swedlund: Circa 1955

Charles Swedlund: Circa 1955 at Stephen Daiter Gallery in Chicago, IL. "...Charles Swedlund, Chicago born and bred, attended Lane Tech High School before he discovered the city's renowned Institute of Design, America's answer to the great German Bauhaus. As an artist Swedlund spent his life combining aesthetics and technologies to create a stunning body of photographic works both beautiful and intellectually rigorous. Until now, Swedlund has remained largely unknown to the collecting public, despite his inclusion in countless exhibitions and museum collections, and a thirty-year teaching career that included authorship of one of the standard texts in the field, Photography: A Handbook of History, Materials,and Processes."

Ganbare Japan!

Ganbare Japan! - Photographs by Kiichi Asano, Horace Bristol, Shirley Burden, Paul Caponigro, Rolfe Horn, Eikoh Hosoe, Hiroshi Osaka, Marc Riboud, Yoshiro Soga, Brett Weston and Don Worth at Scott Nichols Gallery.

Kate Moss At The Beginning

Karen Kilimnik... Kate Moss At The Beginning (undated) at UbuWeb Film & Video. "...An astonishing deconstruction of the vapidity of supermodel Kate Moss at the beginning of her career. Kilimnik's trigger-finger on the VCR found footage disrupts the seamless montage - and thereby the illusionary life and times -- of perhaps the most famous supermodel of the past two decades. It's as if a fashion magazine is torn asunder, revealing the mere pulp from which it is made. Simple and thereby devastating... the power of the pause button."

The Peculiar Art of Mr. Frahm

The Peculiar Art of Mr. Frahm - A study of the effects of celery on loose elastic. "...It is unfair to judge Art Frahm by these illustrations. He did many that were much, much worse. (And better, too.) But the falling-panty theme is a staple of his work. These pictures aren't taken from a calendar he did when hungry and desperate, chafing against the dictates of some gnomish pervert who wanted a year's worth of falling-panty pictures. These date from throughout the 50s. It's a theme to which he returned again and again - and you have to wonder why."

Smells Like The Street

Smells Like The Street - works by Eron, JB Rock and Mr. Wany at Mondo Bizzarro Gallery in Rome. "...Autobiography, emotion, intimacy and spirituality are the cross cutting themes of Eron, JBRock and Mr. Wany’s entire expression. In the nineties these artists liberated the movement of graffiti and street art in Italy, leaving their mark on the walls of an otherwise grey metropolis.
Smells like the street is an experience that offers the possibility of getting to the numb of an artistic production which ranges from figurative lettering, placing closely related scents captured by the artists on the road within the defined space of a canvas. Their urban iconography and experiments with techniques get to the heart of an art history derived from the streets."

John Mack: Revealing Mexico

John Mack: Revealing Mexico at Robert Mann Gallery. "...Rendering this complex country in black and white, Mack has assembled what critic Teresa del Conde calls a 'mosaic of identities.' Expansive urban and rural landscapes, enigmatic street scenes and views of contemplative or poetic moments all conspire to sketch an intricate text of the nation. At once testament to the richness of contemporary Mexican intellectual culture, with portraits of seminal figures such as Graciela Iturbide, and Chavela Vargas, this body of photographs also does not shy from the contradictions inherent to Mexico's status in the twenty-first century as a place seemingly mystical, mysterious and modern." More... Works by John Mack at his personal site.

Miss Van: Bailarinas

Miss Van: Bailarinas at Jonathan LeVine Gallery in New York, NY. "...The joie de vivre pleasure principle, innate in French culture, informs much of Miss Van’s body of work. In Bailarinas, a series of pastel works on paper portray isolated figures in nostalgic poses inspired by vintage erotic portraiture. Additional acrylic and mixed media works on canvas and wood panel feature subjects inspired by dancers, driven by the sensually liberating experience of self-expression through physical control and movement of the body. The performance aspect of dance and the act of putting on a seductive show for a viewer or audience reinforces themes of fantasy and desire while also offering an interesting parallel to the artist’s craft, as both are forms of visual storytelling."

Strange But True: Oddities Of The World - Alive!

Strange But True: Oddities Of The World - Alive. Color Polaroids by William Wegman at Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago, IL. "...In 1998, Carl Hammer Gallery loaned a large number of vintage sideshow banners to the renowned photographer, William Wegman. Based on his creative interpretation, the artist photographed his favorite subjects against these banners in his inimitable style and titled the newly developed series of color Polaroid photographs Strange But True. We are pleased to pair this remarkable body of work with select examples of vintage sideshow banners by master banner painters Fred Johnson and Snap Wyatt in offering up a summer exhibition by the same title. The resulting effects achieved in this pairing not only portray Wegman's brilliant sense of humor, but display an aesthetic kinship with the imagism of artists uniquely outside of the mainstream and pushes beyond the constraints - formal, social, and personal - that weigh on Western art and society."

Crash 1971

Crash 1971 (Part 1 of 2, Flash Video 08:41). Directed by Harley Cokeliss, based on J.G. Ballard's short story Crash! Starring J.G. Ballard and Gabrielle Drake. Gabrielle Drake is singer Nick Drake's sister and starred as Lt. Gay Ellis on the TV series U.F.O.

Rebels With A Cause

Belomor Canal Cigarettes. From the exhibition Rebels With A Cause - An exhibition commemorating the 75th anniversary of the IISH. "...The IISH was founded in the turbulent 1930s at a time when, following Hitler's seizure of power, many documents and archives of opposition movements were threatened with becoming irredeemably lost. Vital archives that were brought to safety in Amsterdam in the early years include: the archive of the German socialist movement (including the manuscripts of Marx and Engels), the archives of revolutionaries at risk from Stalin, and the archives of the Spanish trade unions, threatened with falling into Franco's hands.
After the end of World War Two, the IISH successfully continued collecting documents. With the exception of Dutch emancipation movements such as Provo, and internationally active movements such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International, endangered archives of organizations and individuals from countries like Turkey, Iran, Burma and Indonesia were safely housed at the Institute.
A selection of the unique documents that have been collected by the IISH in Amsterdam in the last 75 years is shown on this website. This fascinating collected history of one of the world's oldest and largest institutes in the field of social history will be displayed, organized around five themes: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Near- and Middle East, South- and Southeast Asia, and Globalization."

Yelena Yemchuk: Gidropark

Yelena Yemchuk: Gidropark at Gitterman Gallery. "...Yelena Yemchuk’s photographs of Gidropark, Kiev, Ukraine were taken in the summers of 2005 through 2008. The exhibition is concurrent with the release of Gidropark (Damiani, 2011). Gidropark, which Yemchuk likens to a 'Soviet version of Coney Island,' was built in 1968 on the River Dnieper as a recreational complex.
Best known for her fashion and portrait photography, this series is very personal to Yemchuk, who was born in the Ukraine in 1970 and spent her summers as a child visiting this park. Her images made on the beaches, sports grounds and woodlands that populate the park capture characters and an atmosphere that is Felliniesque. There is a timeless quality about this place; it is both caught in the past, while at the same time, full of the life of today."