ALASDAIR MCLELLAN & LEV TANJU – THE PALACE

Posted on 2016-07-04

Photographer Alasdair McLellan presents a collection of archive and unseen images of Palace Skateboards’ renowned team and its extended family in the London skate gang, the Palace Wayward Boys Choir (PWBC). McLellan has been documenting the scene around Palace since its launch in 2009.

The exhibition offers a fascinating insight into the characters orbiting the beloved brutalist home of skateboarding on London’s Southbank. This is accompanied by a new video installation from Palace Skateboard’s founder, Lev Tanju. With an idiosyncratically British edge, Tanju’s anarchic videography and McLellan’s tender portraits come together to provide a dynamic picture of London and skateboarding. The show is a celebration of the deep camaraderie found amongst skaters at the Southbank. It is a testament to friendship, non-conformity and a doing-it-yourself attitude.

Opposite – Olly Todd, 2009

Exhibition runs through to July 24th, 2016

ICA
The Mall
London
SW1Y 5AH

www.ica.org.uk

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WILLIE ANNE WRIGHT

Posted on 2016-07-04

Willie Anne Wright, a Richmond, Virginia native, holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University. She also studied photography at the Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport, Maine and the Visual Studies Workshops in Rochester, New York. Her paintings, serigraphs and drawings were exhibited widely until 1972 when pinhole photography became her primary creative medium.

Opposite – Dorothy’s Pool #3, 1982

Exhibition runs through to August 13th, 2016

Jackson Fine Art
3115 East Shadowlawn Avenue
Atlanta
Georgia
GA30305

www.jacksonfineart.com

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MADE YOU LOOK – DANDYISM AND BLACK MASCULINITY

Posted on 2016-07-01

From studio portraiture to street photography, this exhibition brings together a group of geographically and historically diverse photographers whose imagery explores black masculinity as performance, as play, as invention – in particular through the adoption of a dandy-esque persona.

In the early 21st century, black men are among the most influential trendsetters in fashion, music and global style culture. Yet high visibility for black men is matched by high vulnerability – as illustrated by disproportionate rates of arrest and incarceration for black men in the UK and USA.

Made You Look explores dandyism as radical personal politics, a willed flamboyance that flies in the face of conventional constructions of the black masculine. It proposes that the black ‘dandy’, with his extravagant emphasis on dress foregrounds a hyper-visible identity which counters the heighted vulnerability, the result of a charged history of objectification. In the context of this exhibition, dandyism isn’t simply about sharp dressing but rather, consciously problematising ideas of male identity through dress or deportment that is arresting, provocative, louche, camp and gloriously assertive.

Opposite – Young Man In Plaid, NYC, 1991, copyright Jeffrey Henson Scales

Exhibition runs through to September 25th, 2016

Photographers’ Gallery
16-18 Ramillies St
London
W1F 7LW

www.thephotographersgallery.org.uk

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FRANK HORVAT – PLEASE DON’T SMILE

Posted on 2016-06-27

The exhibition takes its title from Horvat’s recently published retrospective monograph (Hatje Kanz 2015), which documents Horvat’s extensive oeuvre, with a focus on his revolutionary approach to fashion photography. The sensibility of a photojournalist combined with his “refined visual humor”, set Horvat and his sartorial images apart from those of his colleagues.

Horvat took his models out of the studio and onto the street, removing the make-up and staging typically used for photoshoots. A photographer with an approach and a style ahead of his time, Horvat explains, “My photographs got published, because ready-to-wear fashion needed more realistic photography, and because the editors-in-chief knew it”. In turn, Horvat’s images helped redefine the role of modern women in society, showing the world a woman “with both feet in life, a true counterpart”.

Laurent Rouvrais, Horvat’s assistant in the 1970s and 1980s describes Horvat’s process, “He wanted them [his models] to find their own attitudes, and when he was pleased with what they found, he would only suggest some small variation, for instance in the way they held their neck, their shoulders, or their fingers. What he wanted them to find by themselves was what he called a presence. As a result the girls in his photographs never looked dumb”.

Opposite – Shoes and Eiffel Tower, 1974

Exhibition runs through to July 9th, 2016

Fahey/Klein Gallery
148 North La Brea
Los Angeles
California
CA90036

www.faheykleingallery.com

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ANDREW FILLMORE – THIS TIME IS ALWAYS THE PRESENT

Posted on 2016-06-27

The photographs in Andrew Fillmore’s exhibition are still lifes and portraits, all of which depict the objects and scenarios most immediate to his everyday life. Fillmore says he is concerned with “the idea that within the simplicity of these moments, a balance of fragments and associations might disclose the psychological threads of my experience in the present.”

Fillmore (New York, NY) earned a BA from Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI. He has exhibited his work at many venues including Le Festival Voies Off, Arles, France; Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Philadelphia, PA; and Photo Center Northwest, Seattle, WA.

Opposite – Bathroom Apples, 2015

Exhibition runs through to August 6th, 2016

The Print Center
1614 Latimer Street
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
PA19103

printcenter.org

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DIRK BRAECKMAN

Posted on 2016-06-27

First experimenting with photography in the 1980’s, Dirk Braeckman’s work has evolved into a singular form that evokes minds of sensual ambiguity and intimate solitude. Through the use of black and white, analogue photography and dark lab techniques, the artist develops a relationship between what is photographed and post-production manipulation. This relationship allows for the found, often commonplace subject…a row of curtains, an empty doorway or a woman’s crossed legs…to arrest attention and command a space that is ordinarily unobserved.

Braeckman transforms the darkroom into a field of experimentation, working closely with the materiality of the photograph. This intimate relationship with his photographic materials mirrors the intimate perspective when photographing his subjects. By utilizing tonalities of the gray-scale and focusing on acute details, such as the folds of afabric or the curvature of the female form, Braeckman asks the viewer to engage with simple subjects that are often lost in shades of gray.

Opposite – X.L.-I.C.-16

Exhibition runs through to August 13th, 2016

Rose Gallery
2525 Michigan Avenue
Los Angeles
California
CA90404

www.rosegallery.net

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