KLEA MCKENNA – GENERATION

Posted on 2018-11-05

The exhibition presents McKenna’s most recent work Generation alongside work from two of her previous series Automatic Earth and Web Studies. With each series, McKenna uses the photogram process innovatively to create unique gelatin silver prints that contain both vivid detail and ethereal abstraction. She pays homage to her subject’s histories while re-animating them through her engagement, revealing nuance, depth and energy.

Unlike a photograph created with a camera, a photogram is a one-of-a-kind object that involves physical contact between a subject and the light sensitive printing surface, representing the mark of that interaction. McKenna emphasizes the physicality of this process and builds on it by forcing the paper to record texture as well as light. Working in near darkness she applies pressure on her subjects to physically imprint their texture into the photographic paper and then selectively exposes the paper to light creating what the artist calls “photographic reliefs.”

Opposite – Snakes in the Garden (1), 2018

Exhibition runs through to November 10th, 2018

Gitterman Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York
10022 NY

gittermangallery.com

   Tweet

STANLEY KUBRICK – THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS

Posted on 2018-10-29

Stanley Kubrick was just 17 when he sold his first photograph to the pictorial magazine Look in 1945. In his photographs, many unpublished, Kubrick trained the camera on his native city, drawing inspiration from the nightclubs, street scenes, and sporting events that made up his first assignments, and capturing the pathos of ordinary life with a sophistication that belied his young age. Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs features more than 120 photographs by Kubrick from the Museum’s Look Magazine archive, an unparalleled collection that includes 129 photography assignments and more than 12,000 negatives from his five years as a staff photographer. For any fan of Kubrick’s films, the exhibition explores a formative phase in the career of one of the 20th century’s most renowned motion picture directors.

Opposite – Stanley Kubrick for “Look” Magazine. “Rosemary Williams, Show Girl,” 1949

Exhibition runs through to January 6th, 2019

Museum of the City of New York
1220 5th Avenue
New York
10029 NY

www.mcny.org

   Tweet

TODD HIDO – BRIGHT BLACK WORLD

Posted on 2018-10-29

For nearly three decades, Hido has crafted narratives through loose and mysterious suburban scenes, desolate landscapes, and stylized portraits. He has traversed North America capturing places that feel at once familiar and unknown; welcoming and unsettling. Nordic mythology, specifically the idea of Fimbulwinter, which literally translates to ‘the great winter’, influenced many of Hido’s new images, which allude to and provide form for this notion of an apocalyptic, never-ending tundra.

Exploring the dark topography of the Northern European landscape enchanted Hido, calling him back on several occasions. This newest publication highlights the artist’s first significant foray extensively photographing territory outside of the United States, chronicling a decidedly new psychological geography.

Opposite – #11798-4172, 2017

Exhibition runs through to November 3rd, 2018

Bruce Silverstein Gallery
529 West 20th Street
New York
10011 NY

www.brucesilverstein.com

   Tweet

DON HERON – TUB SHOTS

Posted on 2018-10-29

In November 1982, a 24-year-old, career budding Keith Haring climbed into his bathtub to be lensed by photographer and friend, Don Herron. Appearing for the camera half-naked, the resulting image gives us access to Haring in a moment of blissful intimacy, in what is now arguably one of the most personal portraits of Haring ever taken. Everything from the bathroom’s walls that crawl with Haring’s iconic raving men to the rubber duck that floats near his waist hint at a young artist whose innocence was beginning to merge with the intensity of the outer East Village art scene which he would soar into just years later. It’s this intimacy that transcends Don Herron’s entire Tub Shots series which consists of 65 portraits of famous artists in their bathtubs: a space the photographer liked for its arc and its art historical references.

Exhibition runs through to November 3rd, 2019

Daniel Cooney Fine Art
508 – 526 West 26th Street
New York
10001 NY

danielcooneyfineart.com

   Tweet

BETH DOW – PREDICTION ERROR

Posted on 2018-10-22

Throughout her career, Beth Dow has explored the dual nature of the photograph as both an image you see and an object you handle. For her exhibition, Prediction Error, Beth plays with our perception and expectations. Without signals (like flower stems, blue skies, or natural colors) which ground our understanding of the images, we might become uncomfortable. The absence of what we expect to see in a photograph creates a disconnection within our perception that can result in abrupt adjustments within ourselves—physically and mentally. We begin to question our vantage point within the image and, ultimately, the nature of the photograph all together.

Opposite – The Valley 2, 2018

Exhibition runs through to October 28th, 2018

Minneapolis Institute of Arts
2400 Third Avenue South
Minneapolis
55404 MN

new.artsmia.org

   Tweet

SID GROSSMAN – PHOTOGRAPHY, POLITICS AND THE ETHICAL IMAGE

Posted on 2018-10-22

This exhibition presents a series of humanizing and intimate photographs by Sid Grossman (b. 1913, New York; d. 1955, Provincetown, Massachusetts). Grossman was a founding member of the Photo League (1936–51), a group of primarily Jewish photographers active in New York, who used their medium to shed light on issues of social inequality in the urban environment following the Great Depression. The league ceased to function in 1951, four years after it was blacklisted as a subversive political group during the second Red Scare—a period in American politics and culture that centered on an intense fear of communism.

Grossman focused his camera on his immediate environment. He understood photography as a tool for social awareness, imbued with the moral imperative to provide new ways to see and capture reality. He urged his students from the Photo League to cultivate personal and ethical reflections on their surroundings, encouraging their development of more than just a strictly documentary eye. This personal and political ideology pushed Grossman to produce captivating images portraying the poor and the underprivileged and eventually placed him under FBI investigation.

Opposite – Untitled (apartment windows and wash lines), ca. 1940

Exhibition runs through to October 28th, 2018

Pérez Art Museum Miami PAMM
101 W Flager Street
Miami
33130 FL

www.pamm.org

   Tweet