 The photography, video and performance works of artist Kelly Nipper proclaim the material proof that is inherent to photography and lens-based media at a time when most artists are determined to prove the falsities of the medium. Nipper explores the human relation to time, space and dimension, usually carried out through the choreographed acts of her subjects. The artist often works against normal photographic expectations, leaving her viewers void of the satisfaction that comes from the release of a climax or the capturing of a spectacle. Instead, Nipper engages her viewers with quiet, unassuming, though philosophically rich, images that investigate the empirical nuances of life. Nipper lives and works in Los Angeles and is an M.F.A. graduate of the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Calif. This year, the artist will present an exhibition with the Anna Helwing Gallery in Los Angeles. Previous exhibitions include "Bending Water into a Heart Shape" at the Galleria Francesca Kaufmann in Milan, Italy, and "shotgun and a figure 8" at the Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Santa Monica, Calif., which was reviewed by Artforum (2001). The artist has performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in California, PERFORMA07, and she has received the Alberta Prize for Visual Art from the Alberta duPont Bonsal Foundation. | |||||
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 The large-format chromogenic prints created by Robert Polidori depict a grand sense of destruction and desolation. The interrupted landscapes are hauntingly void of humans and offer only traces of previous human existence. Polidori has traveled internationally to find these forgotten cities where natural or man-made circumstances have caused everyone to flee. New Orleans, Havana, Versailles and Chernobyl are among the cities that the artist has photographed. Polidori is a staff photographer for The New Yorker and has exhibited with Marti-Gropius-Bau in Berlin and Lombard-Freid Fine Arts in New York City. Last fall, Polidori exhibited documentary photos of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans at The Met in New York City, and the exhibition was reviewed in The New York Times. In 2003, Art in America reviewed the artist's exhibition at Pace/MacGill in New York City. | |||||
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 Galerie Michael Janssen is currently showing a three person exhibition titled Heaven, Hollywood, and Hitchcock until June 14th. Tom Allen, Kristian Burford, and Christoph Steinmeyer are all interested in mixing motifs and media culled from the history of film and European painting traditions. Los Angeles-based artist Tom Allen references works from the German Romanticist and European Baroque traditions of painting and then transforms this imagery into fantastical worlds. He uses reproductions from the history of painting and obscures them into visual landscapes, maintaining some reference to the original imagery. Allen has previously exhibited at Richard Telles Fine Art in L.A. and Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York. Los Angeles-based artist Kristian Burford, whose installation Christopher is seen above, mixes hyper-real sculpture and filmic backdrops to create compelling installations. Christopher depicts a naked man (made of wax) lying on a disheveled bed with his hand dangling over the edge as his fingers graze a glass of water, referencing the popular tale that if you fall asleep with your hand in tepid water, you will wet the bed. Burford has shown her work at I-20 Gallery in New York and at The Happy Lion in L.A. Berlin-based artist Christoph Steinmeyer also combines motifs from European painting traditions with film qualities. After selecting his motifs, Steinmeyer uses a multiple transformation process to morph the image, thereby alienating the original motif. For example, Hitchcock's film The Paradine Case provided the the basis for his new large format painting Maddalena, which is included in this exhibition. He has previously shown at Galleri K in Oslo and Elizabeth Dee Gallery in New York. | |||||
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 Currently at OKOK Gallery until May 4th is "While," a two person show with works by Mauro Altamura and Anna Von Mertens concerning the passage of time. Both artists examine political and historical occurrences from various perspectives. Altamura is exhibiting 144 (out of 1000) photographs from his series, "Anonymous," which he began during the presidential elections of 2000. Altamura collected images of anonymous people in the background of published pictures in the Friday New York Times. The artist then re-photographed and enlarged these faces, displaying them in a grid-like pattern, reminiscent of institutional methods of photographic indexing. Together they become a shrine of anonymity and obscurity, with the enlargement of the faces causing the original image to dissolve into a dot pattern. This partial portraiture creates a sense of loss and powerlessness, familiar feelings in our current political atmosphere. Von Mertens will be exhibiting three works from "As Stars Go By," a project that displays the star rotation patterns above violent and dramatic events in American history. The artist hand stitches the patterns into quilts, with each stitch becoming a marker of time and a silent reminder of past and future. Events depicted include the Civil War Battle of Antietam, Hiroshima, and the morning of September 11th. All took place during the daytime hours, thus concealing the star patterns above from those affected below. The stars serve as passive spectators and suggest nature's transcendence above human interactions and indiscretions. Altamura received an M.F.A. from the Visual Studies Workshop/SUNY Buffalo and a B.A. from Ramapo College of New Jersey. He has received several grants, including those from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Von Mertens received a B.A. from Brown University in 1995 and her M.F.A. from the California College of the Arts. She has displayed her work at Jack Hanley Gallery in San Francisco, the Berkeley Art Museum, and White Box in New York. | |||||
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 Kate Schermerhorn was born in 1966 and raised in Malibu, California where she began taking photographs at age six. She studied with Joel Sternfeld at Sarah Lawrence College and graduated in 1989. She has traveled extensively, having lived and worked in New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Florence, and London. However, her work displays distinct West-Coast elements. Schermerhorn incorporates imagery from the entertainment world and desert wildlife, all while playing with the boundaries between real and fantasy. In her photographs, a naturalistic rock is actually a stereo speaker, and an artificial cactus sits on the sand of a real desert. Her work is the result of critical observation of our contemporary American culture. Her first book, America's Idea of a Good Time, investigates through a camera lens why we play bingo, hit golf balls, stack Oreo cookies, bungee jump and the like. She is working on a second book that will examine the idiosyncrasies particular to Los Angeles. | |||||
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 An evocative collection of works by Dutch photo-journalist, Robert Knoth is currently on show at The Australian Centre for Photography, Paddington. Entitled Certificate no. 000358/ Nuclear Devastation in the Former Soviet Union, this display highlights the devastating consequences of radiation, by photographing the affected victims. Case studies include the Patuchenko sisters who both suffer from brain tumours, Vadim Kuleshov- an eight year old mentally retarded boy with bone disease and Nastya Eremenko a young girl who was diagnosed with cervical cancer at only three years old. Knoth has been photographing these subjects in black and white since the early nineties, continuing to make us aware of the repercussions experienced by such innocent victims. He names each photo after the people depicted, followed by where they are from. When noticing all the different countries included, we are able to see just how far spread the devastation really lies. Knoth studied at the Urecht School of Arts over the duration of a year before earning his way as a rock photographer in the early nineties. He has since documented various war torn destinations including Burkina Faso, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Sierra Leone. Certificate No.000358/ is a global traveling exhibition, which is estimated to have already been viewed by over 200,000 people. It is set to travel to Queensland and South Australia next. | |||||
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 Peak Gallery in Toronto presents Susy Oliveira's first solo exhibition at the gallery, The Girl and The Bear. Oliveira graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2000 and holds a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Waterloo. She currently lives and works in Toronto. The Girl and the Bear includes three photographic sculptures, one collage series and one print. The girl and the bear, composed of C-prints on archival card and foamcore, is shown above, and comments on our reproduction of nature. The artist's intent is to form a simulated reality to remind us of our habit of replacing the natural world with our own fabricated versions. She mentions the garden in her artist statement, a domestic metaphor for things we create composed of organic elements, but for our own enjoyment. In Oliveira's three dimensional works, there exists a playful dynamic between the flat characteristics of photography and the round aspects inherent to sculpture. Their angular rendering recalls computer graphics from the 1980s or an over-sized origami project. Her collages depict outdoor scenes and are perforated with various sizes of cuts. In her photographic print, she placed holes in the sky, allowing real sunlight to shine through. Oliveira has exhibited at Niagara Gallery and A.W.O.L. Gallery in Toronto and has been reviewed by NOW Magazine and ECHO Weekly. The Girl and The Bear will remain at Peak Gallery until April 26, 2008. | |||||
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 Matt Mullican has been busy creating his own world in a multitude of different media since graduating from Cal Arts in 1974. His current exhibition at Galerie Micheline Szwajcer continues this constructive process. The front room is filled with banners and scale models done under hypnosis, that investigate the workings of the subconscious. The short lived Abstract Expressionist movement pursued a similar process, but, theirs was an unquestioned outpouring of the inner spirit. Mullican and his dreamscape contemporaries such as Johnathan Borofsky, Jim Shaw, and Mike Kelley reject this notion. Instead, they continually question, trying to come to an understanding of our motivation. In his black and white banners, Mullican tries to make metric conversions that just don't seem to make sense. But, at least he's trying. Being a concerned citizen, he outlines a path to follow should an emergency develop. This too sputters and spurts along with wry humor. And, in the end, suggests it's probably best to call 911 for help. Matt Mullican at Galerie Micheline Szwajcer through May 3, 2008 | |||||
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 A series of works by late Indigenous artist Michael Riley are currently on show at Stills Gallery, Paddington. Entitled flyblown the photographic series portrays a range of imagery depicting the loss of Indigenous culture through forced assimilation. Christian iconography including wooden crosses and bibles reference the way Western religion was forced upon their civilization, while images of dead birds and heavenly skies refer to the death of their own identity. Riley grew up in regional New South Wales as his heritage lied with both the Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi Indigenous communities. He later came to Sydney where he attended Koori photography classes at the Tin Sheds Gallery. His passion for new media art practices led him to become one of the founding members of the Boomalli Aboriginal Artist Co-operative, the only Aboriginal owned and operated contemporary art space in Sydney. His work has been displayed both locally and internationally within exhibitions and events including The 8th Festival of Pacific Arts, Noumea, The 2003 Istanbul Biennale and a solo retrospective held at the National Gallery of Australia. He was awarded grand prize at the 11th Asian Art Biennale, Bangladesh in 2004, while his legacy lives on by the creation of The Michael Riley Foundation. | |||||
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 Portland, Oregon-based photographer Mark Hooper is currently exhibiting ten large-scale color photographs for the exhibition Here:There at Quality Pictures in Portland. The artist was included in the 2006 Oregon Biennial, held at the Portland Art Museum, for his acclaimed series "Lewis and Clark, Quantifying Nature," and has worked commercially for such advertising titans as Nike, Microsoft, and Miller Brewing. He has been published in several periodicals, including Esquire, Newsweek, and Vanity Fair. The exhibition at Quality Pictures contains ten 48" x 60" photographs that comment on the ideas of change and it's affect on man's physicality, psychology, and spirituality. Hooper photographs abandoned architectural spaces, vacant parking lots, nature, and any site he feels evokes an awareness of entropy. He occasionally adds props, such as an upturned chair or a pile of rope ascending vertically out of the frame. Through expert lighting and careful staging, the artist creates meditative images that have a sense of desolation. The artist often includes a solitary figure, thus referencing the passage of time and mortality. Also at Quality Pictures is Interspace, a video installation by Laura Fritz. Both exhibitions will be on view until April 26th. | |||||
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 In his current exhibition at Simon Lee Gallery in London, the American Artist/filmmaker Larry Clark takes a departure from the focus of his previous works. While his earlier series "Tulsa", "Teenage Lust" and the film, "Kids", took a hard unblinking look at teenage sex and drug use. This new series entitled simply, "Los Angeles 2003-2006", follows the life of Jonathan Velasquez, a teenage Latino skater from East Los Angeles, through his adolescent years. Velasquez seems comfortable allowing the "old man", (Clark is 36 years his senior), to hang out with him and his friends as they go about having their fun. Remember your own youth, don't we all wish we could still have this much fun. Clark's previous series work in a similar vein to that of his photographic contemporaries such as Nan Goldin and Dash Snow. Each of them investigates the culture of sex and drugs. The departure that Clark makes with this new series is that no overt sex or drug use can be seen. In their previous works Goldin, Snow and Clark, left one with a feeling of hopelessness and despair. This time Clark closes in on his subject, snapping close-up photos that seem to reveal the inner workings of the teenage mind, showing the hope and belief of a promising future that comes with new freedom. The rebel attitude is still evident however, especially in the tee shirts they wear. Their shirts pronounce themselves as, "Misfits", "Ramones", "Gringo" "Zero", "Lower Class Brats", these kids seem certain that they can make a difference. They probably don't realize the weight they are taking on their shoulders, but this sort of confidence is to be encouraged. Maybe that's what comes from finally being able to grow a little mustache. Larry Clark is also represented by Luhring Augustine, New York. | |||||
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 An exhibition of Martin Schoeller's photographs will open at Ace Gallery on March 5th. Schoeller, who won the Life Magazine Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for new talent in 2000, makes each feature of his subjects vividly distinctive. The show at Ace Gallery will feature Schoeller's photographs of female body-builders, large format images in which each woman is pictured from the stomach up. With vapid, grey backgrounds, the photographs are all about the women's grippingly well-defined features. Schoeller worked with Annie Leibovitz from 1993-1996. Like Leibovitz, he often photographs celebrities and has shot for a variety of high-profile magazines, including Rolling Stone, GQ and Vogue. Unlike Leibovitz, whose images often create environments around their subjects, Schoeller's work has less to do with context and more to do with staring his subjects in the eyes. In addition to Ace, Schoeller has shown work at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Boston, at Bernard Toale Gallery, also in Boston, and at Hasted Hunt in New York. His most recent show at Hasted Hunt, which included piercing photographs of Justin Timberlake, Kanye West, and Terence Howard, closed on February 23, 2008. Schoeller, who was born in Munich, Germany, currently lives and works in New York. "Female Bodybuilders" at Ace Gallery will run through April. The exhibition's exact closing date has not yet been announced. | |||||
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 Pakistani artist Bani Abidi will be exhibiting a collection of video and photographic works with Green Cardamon for her first UK solo exhibition. Standing Still Standing Still Standing... will feature the artist's documentary style short films and photographs that examine the collective political culture held in Pakistan, but only to serve as a universal metaphor for oppression and political dominance. For the exhibition, two new works Reserved, a video produced for the 2006 Singapore Biennial, and The Address, a series of prints and video stills will be shown. Both works will be linked by a new series of digital drawings. Abidi received her BFA from the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan in 1994 and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999. In 2000, Abidi attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Last year, the artist exhibited in Art Miami with Gallery Haines, Simulasian: Refiguring "Asia" for the Twenty First Century at the Asian Contemporary Art Fair in NY. | |||||
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Restricting oneself to the exploration of "Interiors" could seem a bit stifling. But the current exhibition at gallery "Fifty One" demonstrates how much room one can force into a confined idea. It can certainly help when you bring together a group of internationally acclaimed artists. The limitless expansiveness of Interiors is clearly addressed in the work of Claudia Hoffer, Andreas Gursky, and Karl Hugo Schmolz. Interiors can be cleaned up, sterilized and sanitized as evidenced in the work of Kate Schermerhorn, or you can use the interior to reflect what's outside, witnessed by the inverted camera obscura of Abelardo Morell. But things get most interesting when we focus on the inner light, as in the work of Matthew Pillsbury. While the world outside is bright and light, it's the inner glow that focuses our attention. It's that same inner warmth that James Casebere focuses on, having pioneered the field of the constructed photograph. Casebere who graduated from California Institute of the Arts in 1979, here presents us with a zen like prison. Clearly illustrating that before we can venture out we must build an inner peace, only then are we able to explore the potential that lies before us. "Interiors" 24 January - March 8 | |||||
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Rocky Schenck's first solo exhibition at M+B Gallery in Beverly Hills features eerie Los Angeles inspired photographs. Schenck's highly composed and manipulated images evoke the haziness of blurred vision. His photographs of Hollywood interior and palm trees have the feeling of films stills that have been intentionally distorted, evidencing the interactions between his dual interests in film and still photography. A self-taught artist, Schenk withdrew from college as a young man in order to move from Texas to Los Angeles, where he hoped to become involved in the filmmaking world. His venture eventually paid off, as he now has a thriving career as an artist. In addition to M+B Gallery, Schenck has also shown at Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago, Stephen Clark Gallery in Austin and Jackson Fine Art in Atlanta. His monograph, Rocky Schenck: Photographs was published by University of Texas Press in 2003. John Berendt, who wrote the foreword, is the novelist who authored The City of Falling Angels and Midnight in the Garden of Food and Evil: A Savannah Story. Schenck's work has also been featured in Artweek, Aperture, and Art in America. This current show at M+B Gallery will continue through March 1st. | |||||
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 Kicking off this February at the Australian Centre for Photography Paddington, will be the exhibition "William Yang: Claiming China". Held in conjunction with the City of Sydney's Chinese New Year Festival and the 2008 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, the display celebrates the work of acclaimed Chinese-Australian artist William Yang. While open about his homosexuality, Yang's work often controversially touches on issues regarding both his heritage and sexual preference. Within this exhibition Yang's photos explore his forced assimilation into Australian culture and the repossession of his Chinese background. Yang was born in Queensland as a third generation Australian. He is a multitalented individual, having worked as a playwright, a photographer and performance artist. He has been awarded several prizes including the 1993 International Photographer of the Year Award at The Higashigawacho International Photographic Festival, Japan as well as numerous awards, nominations and special mentions for his poignant documentary "Sadness". He earned a Bachelor of Arts - Architecture and an Honorary Doctorate of Letters both from the University of Queensland, and has widely exhibited both locally and internationally at institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Torch Gallery, Amsterdam and the San Diego Museum of Art. | |||||
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 "I'm The Most Normal Person I Know" is the title of a new exhibition featuring the photographs of Los Angeles-based artist Chris Anthony. This exhibition, which is on view at the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, is the second solo show for the artist and the gallery. For the show, Anthony created a series of images that are based on childhood dreams and manifest into surreal narratives and haunting portraits. The images are created from a variety of materials including cheesecloth, paper mache, velvet, doll parts, mannequins and worn down clothes. The artist was awarded this year's Grand Prize in American Photo's Images the Year Competition. Anthony was born and raised in Stockholm and has exhibited internationally in Los Angeles, Stockholm and San Francisco. | |||||
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 On view through next week at Found Gallery in Los Angeles is "Tenebrous: The Photography of Steve Gullick." The exhibition features over 30 rare, never exhibited before photographs of famous musicians shot over the past two decades. The London-based photographer has worked with groups such as Nirvana, the Flaming Lips, Elliot Smith and Bjork, capturing unique and insightful moments from these artist's lives. Gullick's photographic interests are rooted in over 20 years of the UK punk scene, however his career has allowed him to shoot a wide range of subjects from all over the world. His first collection of photographs "Pop Book Number One" was published in 1995 and in 2002 Gullick created the music magazine "careless talk costs lives" which was then followed by "loose lips sinks ships" in 2004. The exhibition at Found Gallery was featured in LA Weekly on Wednesday January 16th. | |||||
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In her tender novella Tumble Home, Amy Hempel wonders what drives us to preserve parts of our lives. She recounts a disturbing yet endearing news clip, a clip that has an uncanny resemblance to the exhibitions currently hanging in Gagosian's Beverly Hills Gallery: "A woman in West Virginia carried her unborn baby for more than forty years. It calcified outside the uterine wall. When questioned by reporters, the woman said, 'As long as the child is inside of me I haven't lost it.'" While Hempel isn't referring to the work of Y.Z. Kami and Sally Mann, she certainly could be. Her narrative describes what the two artists are doing: preserving and remembering in a way that taps into the mysterious nature of physiology, the sort of mysterious nature that allows an unborn baby to become a meaningful keepsake. Continue reading for DailyServing's review of the show.
Continue reading "Physical Keepsakes: Y.Z. Kami and Sally Mann at Gagosian " » | |||||
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 Art director turned professional commercial and editorial photographer Phillip Toledano turns out personal projects that get picked up left and right. His newest body of work titled "HOPE&FEAR" is no exception to the rule that he has created for himself. "HOPE&FEAR" is the physical manifestation of the desires and paranoias that are adrift in american society today. The suits are our dreams and nightmares made real. Toledano graduated from Tufts University, Boston and has shown with Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York. He has been published in New York Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, and Vanity Fair and at the top of his portfolio is the famous Absolut vodka bottle. You can read a full feature interview that discusses process and ideas with Toledano and The F Stop here. | |||||
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 Fette's Gallery in Los Angeles' Culver City asked artists to take a new approach to self-portraiture. Fette's has invited 25 artists to use a self-portrait to represent someone else. The quirky and provocative results of the project will be exhibited from January 11th through February 8th. The exhibition, titled u=____, includes the work of an impressive span of internationally acclaimed artists. French photographer Raphael Neal, whose romanticized portraits have appeared in New York Magazine and Rolling Stone, contributed a vibrant, sultry image of himself as a woman: Me As Her Being His. Melanie Bonajo, originally from The Netherlands, has exhibited in unconventional spaces like the Winston Kingdom in Amsterdam and her contribution to the show is a faceless, neutrally colored image of herself in lingerie. U.S. photographer Amy Elkins also participates in the exhibition; Elkins works primarily in portraiture and she recently created a series in which deliberately posed young men standing before flowered wallpaper or curtains. Fette's Gallery, which opened in October, 2006, has already established itself as space that consistently organizes innovative group exhibitions and u=____ will be no exception. | |||||
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 The American Typologies, an exhibition of found vintage photographs, opens January 5th at D3 Projects in Santa Monica, CA. Artists and collectors Gail Pine and Jacqueline Woods have been working collaboratively for the past decade, composing thematic "typologies" of 20th Century America. Pine and Woods have exhibited in Close to Home at The Getty and their work also belongs to corporate collections. Since D3 Projects, which opened in June of 2007, is a venue that promotes interactive and community-friendly work, The American Typologies has found a fitting home. Pine's and Woods' composites of vernacular photographs have everything to do with history, memory and re-discovery. The artists spend hours sifting through the abandoned photographs they find at thrift stores or flea markets; their composites are thus carefully orchestrated preservations of shared histories. Pine and Woods openly reference artists Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose well-known photographs of water towers documented an era of construction, and German photographer August Sander, who ambitiously sought to document the people of the 20th Century. The American Typologies is likewise an attempt to document the cultural temperament of a century and it will remain on view through February 23rd. | |||||
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 Tim Hawkinson's first Australian exhibition "Mapping the Marvellous," is currently on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. In addition to photo collages and drawings, The Los Angeles based artist is best known for creating theatrical sculptural and installation works through the use of mundane materials. Works on display include a bat constructed from plastic bags and an iris made of green biros. Hawkinson initially graduated from San Jose State University before later earning his MFA at the University of California. Exhibitions in which he has previously displayed his work include the 1999 Venice Biennale, "Zoopsia" - a solo exhibition at the Getty in Los Angeles and "How Man is Knit" at the Pace Wildenstein, New York earlier this year. | |||||
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 The current exhibition at Dean Project, "Guys & Dolls: Seeing Stars", is a two-person exhibition of photographs by Rose Hartman and Holger Keifel that juxtaposes revealing moments of boxing personalities with those of social celebrities. Dating from the 1970's through today, Rose Hartman and Holger Keifel's photographs include world known figures, such as Jackie O, Donatella Versace, Naomi Campbell, Oscar de la Hoya, Evander Holyfield, and Don King. Displayed in one room, the portraits raise questions about social class, beauty, power, and contemporary society. Moreover, Rose and Holger's photos capture intimate "behind the scene" moments that belie the idealized image represented to the public. Both photographers have had their work published and exhibited extensively worldwide. Rose Hartman's work has been featured in publications including the New York Times, Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Vogue, W magazine; she has also exhibited in group shows including The Museum of the City of New York, The Paterson Museum, and The Whitney Museum. Holger Keifel's work has been published in Playboy, The New York Times Magazine, Der Spiegel, The Observer Sports Monthly and his work has been exhibited at The Corcoran Gallery, The Butler Museum of Contemporary Art, Florida Atlantic University, his work is in several museum collections including The Museum of the City of New York. | |||||
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 M+B Gallery in West Hollywood is currently presenting Alison Jackson: Confidential. Alison Jackson, known for her unnerving depictions of celebrity look-alikes, has never before shown in the Los Angeles area. Confidential features charged photographs of public figures, often politicians or pop-culture icons depicted in less-than-flattering poses. Though Jackson uses 'look-alikes' rather than real-life celebrities, her photographic fictions closely resemble the figures they satirize. At first glance, Bush seems to be playing with a rubick's cube in the oval office, Bill Gates seems to be happily dancing around with his ipod, and Halle Berry seems to be intently painting her Oscar black. Jackson wants her audience to see what they imagine before they recognize the images as fictional. The artist, a graduate of London's Royal Academy of Art, gained notoriety when she staged a photo of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed fondling a mixed-race love child. Since then, Jackson has won a BAFTA for her work on the BBC Two series Doubletake and has also directed a film about Tony Blair, titled Blaired Vision. The exhibition at M+B runs from December 15th through Janurary 26th and will be accompanied by a monograph published by Taschen. | |||||
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 Concrete Color is a new body of work by artist and photographer Sarah Charlesworth on view at the Baldwin Gallery in Aspen. Living with artist Joseph Kosuth during a greater part of the 1970's, Charlesworth has said that what was "gained from this period was a sense of the need for artists to reflect critically on their practice, acknowledging both the internal dialectic of art and the external ground of social and economic conditions" (Find Articles). With Kosuth, Charlesworth founded 7We Fox in 1975 , a magazine devoted to art theory; it only survived three issues. She received her BA from Barnard College and has shown with SITE Santa Fe and Margo Leavin Gallery. | |||||
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 Opening this week in Seoul at the Gallery Hyundai will be Korean-born artist Sung Jin Kim's second solo show. Created in photorealism and exploring the mouth as the battlefield of the face, the artist's looks at the subject as a sensory organ as well as a means to consume and communicate. Using a large scale to present the lips while omitting the rest of the face in negative space the artist brings the viewer up close and personal with the only part of the human body we can see outside of as well as inside of. Sung Jin Kim received an MFA from Hongik University, Seoul and has also shown with doART Gallery. | |||||
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 In a new exhibition opening yesterday at Spruth and Magers in London is "Where is the Nearest Camera?" by New York-based artist Louise Lawler. The artist has become known for her body of work, which has been developing since the 1980's, that examines the life of a work of art post studio creation. Lawler raises interesting questions of authorship and identity as she photographs works in galleries, museums, auction houses and private homes. The artist is interested in the discourse that a work can instigate when viewed in multiple contexts, and when the work itself is not the focal point of the imagery. Her current exhibition takes place in some of the London-based auction houses and the title "Where is the Nearest Camera?" asks the viewer directly to consider their own point of view within a display environment. Lawler currently lives and works in NYC and has completed solo exhibitions with the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C., Portikus, Frankfurt and at the Kunstmuseum Basel (2004). A major retrospective of her work was held last year in Ohio at the Wexner Center for the Arts. | |||||
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 Currently showing at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney is Julie Rrap's retrospective "Body Double". Spanning the last 25 years of the artist's career, this exhibition is an evocative exploration of the human body. With particular emphasis on the female form, Rrap's photographic, sculptural, video and installation pieces explore issues of feminism and identity. Rrap uses herself as a key figure in many of the works, creating casts of her own body, photographing herself and even utilizing her own hair and bodily fluids. Appropriation is a tool widely used by Rrap as her early works include a photomontage of herself as Christ, while others include her own naked body fused with artworks created by the 'great masters,' such as Rembrandt and Munch. Rrap currently lives and works in Sydney. Her work has been displayed on a global scale, appearing within solo exhibitions at the Galerie Eric Franck, Switzerland and Ecole des Beaux Arts, France. | |||||
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 Slater Bradley's second solo exhibition at Los Angeles' Blum & Poe Gallery uses video, sculpture, and drawing to rephrase outmoded and forgotten histories. The exhibition, titled "Hope From a Dark Place," began as a drawing project and grew into a multi-media collaboration. Since False Killer Whales, a species of dolphins, are highly trainable and have a tendency toward suicidal behavior, Bradley explored the idea of lost identity by using scrimshaw to carve drawings of False Killer Whales into the ivory keys of a 1860s piano. The artist then collaborated with musician Max Seigel to compose a soundtrack for the exhibition and a tuxedo clad pianist will play the score at 3 PM every Saturday and Sunday until the exhibition's end on December 22nd. "Hope From a Dark Place" also features two films, one a rephrasing of Thomas Edison's 1903 panoramic view of Blackwell Island and the other a farce in which Bradley's doppelganger changes from a 19th Century gentleman into Gene Kelly. The exhibition as a whole functions as an eerie environment of sounds, movements and historicisms. Bradley has exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum, and the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany. In 2005, he received The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in Video. | |||||
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 Opening at the end of this month is the exhibition "Saved with water," by Finnish artist Susanna Majuri. Galerie Adler will present the work in Majuri's first solo exhibition in New York. The artist's photographs are rooted in narritive and usually depict an interaction between subject and landscape. When speaking of her work the artist has stated, "I follow the logic of colours when I combine places, people and clothes. To me, the most important quality of photography is its capability to convey emotions. I want to start secret love affairs with places." Each scenario is loaded with psychological possibilities and symbolism that successfully commingles fiction with fact. Majuri currently lives and works in Helsinki, Finland, and has exhibited in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Germany and France. She is a graduate of the Turku Arts Academy (2004), and received her M.A. in photography from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. In 2005, the artist won the photography prize Gras Savoye Award in Arles, France. | |||||
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 In his eighth solo exhibition with the Andrea Rosen Gallery in Los Angeles, German-artist Wolfgang Tillmans is currently presenting a new series of photographic images titled "Atair." Tillmans continues his investigation in the nature of photography through the reinterpretation of portraits, still life and landscape imagery. Tillmans equally concerns himself with exhibition strategies that challenge traditional notions of display within a particular space. When speaking of his work the artist has stated "Accepting the insolvable nature of certain questions whilst continuing to research relentlessly is, for me, a viable way to engage reality." While the artist's content can change radically from piece to piece, what remains consistent is Tillman's ability to elevate mundane images to offer new insight through shifts in scale, layout and presentation. The artist has exhibited world-wide with recent exhibitions at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York City, Helsinki-Festival, Taidehalli, Helsinki, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Next year, the artist will exhibit at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, Mexico. | |||||
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 Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago is currently presenting a solo exhibition of new photographs titled "Security" by Minneapolis-based artist Paul Shambroom. The show leads the viewer through a reductive documentation of various power structures that represent the current state of democracy. The photos are taken at different facilities financed by the Department of Homeland Security. Shambroom's work is frozen somewhere between reality and fiction, depicting scenes that are isolated and sterile. Previous work for the artist has investigated democracy through civic duties being carried out in municipal buildings across Middle America. Shambroom has exhibited though out the US and Europe with solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York City. The artist has a mid-career survey exhibition with full catalog that is being organized by a three-museum consortium (Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Weisman Art Museum, Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, University Art Museum, Cal. State, Long Beach) and was recently awarded support by the Warhol Foundation. | |||||
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 Indigenous Australian artist, Destiny Deacon presents issues of fanatical patriotism within her current exhibition "Whacked," at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney. Within the confrontational series, Deacon addresses misconceptions and stereotypes associated with racial prejudice. While exploring her fascination with new media practices including photography and video, Deacon also utilizes more traditional art forms, creating carpets and cushion covers imprinted with the sinister faces of her disturbing characters. Reflecting on recent events such as the racially motivated 2005 Cronulla riots, Deacon through her use of black humor, reflects on the increased sense of xenophobia caused by the fear of terrorism. Deacon's contemporary art practice often deals with issues of social stigma faced by Indigenous Australians, while the inclusion of black dolls as kitsch representations of Aboriginal people symbolize the way in which they have been silenced and forced into submission. The dolls often act as substitutes for real people and are able to both depersonalize and globalize the issues projected in her art. She has showcased her works on an international scale, becoming the only Australian artist to be selected for Documeta II in Germany, 2002. | |||||
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 Los Angeles artist Dawn Kasper is currently exhibiting a morbid series of photographs, Life and Death, at Hollywood's Circus Gallery. The sleek photographs in the exhibition document performances in which Kasper compulsively enacts her own death. Kasper's preoccupation with life's temporality has led to a diverse span of mock deaths over the last three years: she has enacted her own impalement, choked herself, bled herself, and imagined her body's decomposition. She staged a fatal car crash at Anna Helwing Gallery in 2004 and she was thrown out with the trash in a 2004 performance for Zurich's Migros Museum. Life and Death is the first exhibition to show all the documentations of her gruesome performances in the same space. When seen together, the photographs each read as scenes in a surreal drama and the show's glitzy, theatrical aura nicely accentuates Circus Gallery's Hollywood locale. Kasper received her BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1999 and graduated from UCLA's MFA in New Genres program in 2003. Since then, she has shown in Los Angeles, New York and Zurich. | |||||
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 New York-based photographer Dan Eckstein works as a documentarian, simultaneously creating editorial and fine art imagery. In a recent project "Picture China," Eckstein traveled over 10,000km documenting the rapid growth of a contemporary China over an eight week period. The artist visited both metropolitan and rural areas, capturing the people and places of that country and the issues that impact their life. Other photographic series include, "West 4th Street Handball," an investigation of New York City's popular street sport, and "Air Guitar," exploring the fringe culture of air guitar contests which have recently developed as an international sport conducted in front of large crowds. Eckstein received a BA in Fine Arts from Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY in 2002, and currently lives and works as independent editorial photographer in NYC. When not traveling, he teaches photography for Common Ground, a non-profit arts organization in NYC. | |||||
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 New York-based photographer, video, and performance artist Laurel Nakadate has developed a series of ongoing projects that began during her graduate studies at Yale University School of Art in which she involves middle-aged single men in a series of uncomfortable scenarios. The artist's work successfully mixes voyeurism, awkwardness, and manipulation with ideas of feminism, the male gaze and power. Often she will invite men who hit on her in parking lots, grocery stores and the on the street to come to her apartment or she will go to their homes and ask them to participate in events such as a fake birthday party for her or dancing to Britney Spears songs with a Hello Kitty boombox. More often than not the men, out of desperation, blindly follow Nakadate's requests to perform in the videos, regardless of how uncomfortable they may be. In another project, the artist, as an adult, dressed in an authentic Girl Scout uniform and went door to door with a secret camera selling countless boxes of cookies, attempting to enter the home of the buyer. Nakadate's work began as an undergraduate student at School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston when she would document young women at wild parties in the Boston area. Later at Yale, the artist began conducting her projects through video which eventually led to several successful works that drew attention at the 2002 Armory Show in NYC. In 2005, Nakadate presented "Love Hotel and Other Stories," which was featured in the New York Times and the Village Voice. This was followed by an acclaimed video in the 2005 "Greater New York" exhibition at P.S.1 in NYC. The Believer Magazine conducted an excellent interview with the artist in October of 2006.
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 Opening this weekend at Samson Projects in Boston, Massachusetts, is a series titled "Self Portraits" by artist Gabriel Martinez. For this exhibition, the artist's "self portraits" are not of himself, as the title would suggest, instead he conducted several photo sessions with supposed heterosexual men who he lends his camera equipment to photograph their feet at the point of sexual climax. The artist initially presented the series in 1998 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art where he displayed over a 100 images. The work is an attempt to redirect and record the intimate act of pleasure as it relates to the gay male gaze, and to open the imagery to larger social concerns. Martinez lives and works in Philadelphia and received his MFA in Photography from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University in 1991. He has exhibited and performed at White Columns in NYC, Exit Art, NYC, and Institute of Contemporary Art in Pennsylvania. For the exhibition, Samson projects as developed a catalogue with an essay by Richard Torchia. | |||||
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 Well known filmmaker and installation artist, Isaac Julien came to prominence in the film world with his 1989 drama-documentary "Looking for Langston." By incorporating themes of sexuality and race, Julien's work expands conventional strategies of narrative and beauty to explore stereotypical cinematic portrayals of gay and black subjects. Julien's work addresses issues of class, sexuality, and artistic and cultural history, creating a cinematic experience that draws form different artistic disciplines. He comments on film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting and sculpture to construct a powerfully visual narrative. Julien founded the Sankofa Film and Video Collective in 1984 and was a founding member of Normal Films in 1999. In 1991, Julien received the best film prize at the Cannes Film Festival. He has won many other prestigious awards such as the MIT Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts, Frameline Lifetime Achievement Award and an Andy Warhol Foundation Award. Julien's work has recently traveled from the Pompidou Centre in Paris, to the MoCA Miami and Kestner Gesellschaft, in Hanover and many other locations. | |||||
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 The Moti Hasson Gallery in New York City is currently presenting "Waking the Dead," a new body of work by Canadian-born, New York-based artist Jillian McDonald. The exhibition will include a special performance on Halloween night. Within the show, the artist has produced several videos and a series of photographs which feature images that are derivative from a variety of horror films. In the work above, "Horror Makeup (2006), McDonald films herself transforming into a zombie as viewers gaze upon the transformation on an otherwise 'normal' subway ride. In reference to placing herself in the work, Mcdonald states "My presence in the work is not autobiographical. I think it's clear that my image serves as a deliberate subject who enacts shared fantasies or fears." McDonald received funding the exhibition in part by a grant from Pace University, and created the work through residencies in New York at The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Workspace Program, The School of Visual Arts, and The Western Front in Vancouver, Canada. The artist received her MFA from Hunter College in NYC, and has complete exhibitions worldwide including works with Jack the Pelican Presents, NYC, Soap Factory, Minneapolis, and upcoming exhibitions with 1708 Gallery in Richmond, VA, and Bjornson Kajiwara Gallery in Vancouver. | |||||
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 "The Searchers" is a series of photography conducted by the collaborative duo Sasha Bezzubov and Jessica Sucher which investigates Western spiritual tourism in India. The project, which is currently on view at the Noorderlicht Photofestival 2007 in The Netherlands, developed from a year-long trip that the artists took throughout ashrams, retreat centers and pilgrimage destinations of India. What was discovered through that religious landscape was varied and was stated by the artists as "a more nuanced relationship than we expected between India and the Westerners." Other related projects for Bezzubov include "Things Fall Apart," a photographic series that illustrates the aftermath of natural disasters in India, California, the Midwest, Florida, and Indonesia and Thailand, and "The Gringo Project," which is a series of portraits of Western travelers in third world countries. "Things Fall Apart" has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, and has been exhibited in the Front Room Gallery in Williamsburg, NYC, and with Taylor De Cordoba in Los Angeles. Bezzubov received her MFA from the Yale University School of Art and her undergraduate degree from the State University of New York, Purchase. The artist has received two Fulbright Scholarship Awards, one from travel to Cambodia (2000-01) and one for travel to India (2005-06). | |||||
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 "the return of the real" is a new exhibition opening this week at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London that will feature the outcome of artist Phil Collins' Tate Tuner Prize nominated work that features true stories of television betrayal. The artist investigates the post-documentary culture that has become known as reality TV, and the surrounding issues of authenticity and illusion, intimacy and inaccuracy, expectation and betrayal. For the past four years Collins has been engaging with the media through reality TV formats, taking testimonials from former show participants and industry professionals that reveal televisions exploitations. Through this process the artist is able to introduce performance and conceptually grounded approaches to video and photography through popular culture and low-budget production. The artist received his undergraduate degree from the University of Manchester and his graduate degree from the University of Ulster, Belfast, and now lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland.
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 The photographic works of young Korean Artist Myoung Ho Lee have gained international acclaim for their simple concept and potent outcome. The artist has been developing an ongoing series that take trees in their natural environment and isolates them by placing a white ground behind the tree elegantly altering the viewer's perception. The subject begins to appear in graphic terms much as photograph would on an immense billboard, inspiring questions of reality, existence, and identity in relation to the surrounding environment. The artist's work has been featured in several magazines and online publications such as Juxtapoz, Design Boom, Lens and Culture, and Everyoneforever.com. | |||||
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 The new exhibition and book titled "Hybrids" explores various subcultures through photographs taken by Klaus Thymann from 2003 - 2007, investigating gay rodeos, an underwater striptease, snow polo and religious theme parks among many others. The sociological documentation is the material for a new 144 page book that the artist is debuting at the end of next month. The book is printed in a limited edition of only 500 copies, each containing an original print. Thymann will launch the book through several international galleries such as V1 Gallery in Copenhagen and DreamBags Jaguar Shoes in London; a date in New York City is to be determined for November. The artist lives and works in London as a professional photographer and filmmaker shooting for magazines such as ID, Flaunt, and GQ and clients like Depeche Mode and Greenday. | |||||
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 Opening just last week at Danziger Projects in New York City is the highly talked about photographic series "Sentry," by artist Andy Freeberg. The series characterizes the New York Art world through its intentional distance and lack of humility. The artist has stated, "It was an odd moment when I walked into that first gallery in Chelsea and saw a large white desk with a head poking up from the top edge of the computer screen. I set my camera, carefully framing and exposing the scene, and the head never moved or took notice of my gaze..." Freeberg's work is interested in the intersection of art, architecture, and environment especially in its relation to human presence. The artist began his career as a photojournalist completing assignments for Rolling Stone, TIME, and Fortune magazine. The "Sentry" series was recently used for the novel "Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him." The artist's work, though not often shown in a gallery setting, has been acclaimed by critics and was selected as the lead images in a recent show curated by Charlotte Cotton, the new director of photography for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. | |||||
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