The Cities

Thursday night was the open of The Cities of Jean-Michels Berts at Sous Les Etoiles Gallery. This is an exclusive series printed in carbon ink. This entire exhibition was printed in house by me. I am happy to say the photograph and many others were very please with my work. I enjoyed printing this images in an edition of 5. It brought me back to my time in the darkroom. The process, thought it is digital, is quite close to working with wet prints in that the 'dodging and burning' is very evident. The difference thou is the amount of control on has with digitally adjusting and image and the tonal range of the process. The 7k ink systems allows for a tonal range close to that of platinum/palladium printing. It is quite subtly beautiful and worth seeing in person. The show will be on exhibit though January 2010.

A Million Little Pictures

Somewhere on one of these walls are some of my photos! Art House Co-op's show 'A Million Little Pictures' opened tonight in Atalanta. It would love to see what the numerous entries added up to. Very much a 'sum is great then the parts' type show. Here are some image from the opening. There will be another show in San Francisco, Ca in January 2010. To bad its not in Brooklyn.

Being Like

I went to Yancy Richardson today to see David Hilliard's show 'Being Like.' I love David Hilliard, however, I must say that I was a bit disappointed with this show. First off, I think Yancy is a great space but there are never enough images to satisfy my want to see and Hilliard's work being large takes up a lot of real estate. In total there were only about 7 or so images. That being said they were all new images that I had not seen before and I found that very enjoyable.

The work kept with Hilliard's exploration of what is considered masculine, but I felt while all of the image were beautiful and done in his signature style, some had a more contrived feeling that I am not used to seeing in Hilliard's work.

Bleeder

This image, Bleeder is just such an example. While I like the image and I think it does raise questions about what a adolescent boy might struggle with when faced with conflicting ideas of masculinity, it lacked that subtlety of some Hilliard's earlier images.

Boys Tethered

The show didn't totally have this feeling of over contrived images. Boys Tethered and Letting go of the Day had that feeling of Hilliard walking in on a moment that his earlier images of his father have. While I will say that Boys Tethered is contrived, it to me doesn't have the same push over the top as Bleeder does.

Letting go of the Day

What I did noticed about the work is Hilliard has really expanded his pallet since his book in 2005. While many of those images were of young boys and men, these images had children and in once case Of a Certain Temperance a heterosexual couple in a sexual situation.

Of a Certain Temperance

And he is expanding his format. One image, Ransom Turned Around, was in the for of a cross, not the typical panoramic 3 frame format Hilliard is know for.

In all I did really enjoy the show, it was a great opportunity to see one of my favorite artist's work up close and personal. To see how someone chooses to mount and frame their images is always interesting. I look forward to seeing more new work from Hilliard and do hope he comes out with another book. There are many great image on his website that I would like to see in print, since I can't see them all on a wall at once.

Catherine Opie at the Guggenheim

Shana and I went to see 'Catherine Opie: American Photographer' at the Guggenheim this past weekend. It was really amazing, not only the work but to see someone who is an out and proud 'queer woman' as she puts it, have a major show there. This above images is of her son Oliver. It is from a series about home life and the life of her town and how the media is part of all that.

The work span many of here series from the very famous images of her with Pervert written on her chest to her Ice Houses and Surfers series. There two series, both 14 images were show across a hall-like room from one another. It was a great way to view them, and according to the audio tour, how she always imagined they should be viewed.

However, I think some of the most powerful pieces in the show were the larger-then-life Polaroids. They were images of a performance artist with AIDS named Ron Athey. There was a lot of body modifications in the images including tattoos and different kind of needles. They were very moving and almost intimidating because of their size and confrontation. These images were not something one could casually glance at. They needed to be seen but cause they were 'yelling' and they needed time to be contemplated.

This is Mitch. He is part of the portrait series Opie did of her friend within the community. There was a great verity of people in these images, most of who would be considered part of a sub-culture. I found these images inspiring. They were taking quite a while ago and granted it was on the west cost, these people were living life they way they wanted despite what the main stream though.

All in all it was a great show. I am very glad we braved the freezing cold and wind to go. It was great to see some of Opie's work that is not the really "out there" stuff that she is know for and to see how her work as evolved from that of a passionate advocate to a family woman with children.

Pattty w/ 3 Ts and The Beast

Pattty w/ 3 T's and The Beast

So this image will be in and up coming show in Annapolis, MD, title tba. The curator, one Katie Wright loved it. I am still kind of amazed she chose it.

When Color Was New

when Bess and i were out doing our walking around thing on the 5th, we went to see a show at the Julie Saul Gallery called "When Color Was New, vintage photographs from around the 1970s." now i don't know what Bess thought, but i thought it was kind of awesome and a great representation of big artist taken photos that looked kind of like "oh pretty color let's shoot that!" no really, there were works there by Jonh Pfahl, Joel Sternfeld (Bess's formar Prof...) and a Walker Evens' Polaroid. let's not forget the ladies with works by Helen Levitt, Jan Groover and Nan Golden. but the biggie for me was William Eggleston's NFS gigantic tricycle! it was really cool to see in person. i kind love that image (maybe because i love bikes). i would recommend going to see it if you get a chance.

on second thought i guess just Bess and i will be seeing this one as it came down on the 6th, sorry guys.