JEFF BARK – GOLDENBOY

Posted on 2014-05-12

The photographic tableaux in Jeff Bark’s newest body of work, GOLDENBOY, exist in an eerily ambiguous time of day, somewhere between the burning, first rays of dawn and the last glow of sunset. Suffused by a warm, languorous light that evokes the close heat of Southern California, and set amidst colors and textures that recall the 1980s, the series was inspired by aspects of Bark’s own autobiography. It was in a Southern California backyard in the ‘80s that he made his first photographs, and GOLDENBOY’s protagonist, is the same age as Bark was during those very years. But the similarities end there, as these works take viewers through a compelling though confounding journey, refusing at every turn to provide satisfactory answers as to what, exactly, is taking place in this young man’s life—and who he will become.

Although most of the photographs appear to take place outside, and have an authentically rich, saturated West Coast palette, every one of them was actually taken inside Jeff Bark’s New York garage, on a meticulously constructed set meant to replicate the California backyard in which he made his first photographs. Bark’s insistence on building these complex, intricate sets from the ground up—working in the controlled environment of his studio, rather than at the whim of the elements—is an essential element of his meticulous, time-consuming process. In that spirit, the exhibition includes a site-specific installation that offers a wholly sensory and immersive experience.

Opposite – Blow up, 2014

Exhibition runs through to June 14th, 2014

Hasted Kraeutler Art Gallery
537 West 24th Street
New York
NY 10011

www.hastedkraeutler.com

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POLLY PENROSE – A BODY OF WORK

Posted on 2014-05-12

These Self Portraits are my body’s response to a space and its contents. They are never pre-meditated, often I’ve never seen the location before, and I never enter a space with an idea of a finished picture. The final image is entirely dictated by the location and how my body can fit within it.

It’s often a fight to ‘fit in’, to become a part of that space. The process of taking the pictures is punishing. It leaves me bruised and aching. Every picture is taken on self-timer, which makes for a repetitious, highly physical process of running between the camera and the pose, making adjustments as I go. It feels like I’m hammering my body into the landscape of the room, one picture at a time.

Although the pictures are an immediate unrehearsed response to a space, with little emotional consideration at the time of shooting, as a body of work, they have become deeply emotive for me. As well as showing the physical journey of my body over time, they also reveal an emotional one. Each picture candidly portrays a moment, like marks in the calendar of my life.

The tedious despair of temp work in the city laid bare on a boardroom table. A ball of excitement on a yellow chair on my engagement. The red fabric of grief stretched around me as I watched my husband slowly lose his mother. The overwhelming calm poise and balance of pregnancy 9 days before my first child is born and the almost sacrificial, exhausted pose two months into motherhood.

Polly Penrose

www.pollypenrose.com

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MINORU HIRATA – ACTION, THE 60’S

Posted on 2014-05-12

The exhibition will include 41 images selected from the vast archive of photographs that Hirata took of Japanese avant-garde artists’ actions in the 1960s.
In the 1960s, when postwar Japan went through many fundamental changes, there was an explosive movement of young artists who left their studios and staged “actions” in the streets to critique the state of society and to challenge the stagnant art world.
Holding a camera in my hand, I witnessed the “charged moments” created by these artists whose actions were at once fresh and photogenic.
What I saw through the lens became Photo Art when transferred onto paper.
Minoru Hirata

Minoru Hirata was born in Tokyo in 1930. As a freelance photojournalist, he documented the activities of avant-garde artists of the 1960s, such as Jiro Takamatsu, Genpei Akasegawa, and Natsuyuki Nakanishi (Hi Red Center), Yoko Ono, Ushio Shinohara and Zero Jigen. At times, Hirata proposed photography-based projects to the artists in an effort to create a broader recognition and understanding of their works. He was thus more of an intimate collaborator than an outside documenter.

Exhibition runs through to May 31st, 2014

Taka Ishii Gallery Photography/Film
AXIS Building 2F, 5-17-1
Roppongi, Minato-ku
106-0032 Tokyo
Japan

www.takaishiigallery.com

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