Posts by Miss Rosen

Richard Misrach: Destroy This Memory

Posted on August 23, 2016

Photo: © Richard Misrach, courtesy of Aperture.

“The sadness will last forever.”

The last words of Vincent Van Gogh float through my mind as I crack the spine of Destroy This Memory (Aperture). It’s entirely too much, and yet, not nearly enough, but if photographs may be an elegy, Richard Misrach has produced one of the most haunting poems for the dead and gone, the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Eleven years ago today, Katrina began as an interaction between a tropical wave and a tropical cyclone in the Bahamas. It quickly intensified into a Tropical Storm and made its way westward, gaining strength over the Gulf of Mexico. On August 29, it touched down in southeast Louisiana, becoming the most destructive natural disaster in United States history. Ranked one of the five most deadly hurricanes in the nation, with more than 1,800 dead, Katrina decimated the city of New Orleans.

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Categories: Art, Books, Crave, Photography

“Made You Look” at The Photographers’ Gallery

Posted on August 10, 2016

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Sartorial style and splendor is synonymous with black culture. No matter where you go on this earth, rest assured the men and women of African descent have are freshly dressed, so much so others are quick to knock it off, as though copying was not a cardinal sin. Such are the perils of creativity: not everyone can be an originator or a pioneer. But for those who are, one thing is clear. The attention never stops. The heads will turn, the jaws will drop, and the tongues with clack because invariably style dominates.

The Photographers’ Gallery, London, understands this and present Made You Look: Dandyism and Black Masculinity now through September 25, 2016. Curated by Ekow Eshun, the exhibition features works from taken from artists working around the world over the course of the past century, Starting with a rare series of outdoor studio prints made in 1904 from the Larry Dunstam Archive, thought to be taken in Senegal. Taken more than a century ago, the young men are nattily dressed in the latest European clothes, belying a love for the three-piece suit and accessories.

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Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Africa, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Fashion, Photography

William Eggleston Portraits

Posted on August 10, 2016

Photo: Untitled, 1974 (Karen Chatham, left, with the artist’s cousin Lesa Aldridge, in Memphis, Tennessee) by William Eggleston, 1974 Wilson Centre for Photography

American photographer William Eggleston (b. 1939) is deeply attuned to the poetry of life, to the spaces in between the words that bridge mind, body, and soul. His photographs are alive with great swaths of color and mood, of atmosphere and feeling that goes beyond words. They are fragments spun in the web of time, captured by Eggleston with a precision that belies his mastery of the medium.

In celebration, the National Portrait Gallery, London, presents William Eggleston Portraits, the first comprehensive museum exhibition of his work, on view now through October 23, 2016. Showcasing over 100 works, the show features portraits of Eggleston’s friends, musicians, actors and rarely seen images of his family, revealing for the first time the identities of many of the sitters who had previously been anonymous.

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Categories: 1960s, 1970s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography

Mapplethorpe Flora: The Complete Flowers

Posted on August 9, 2016

Photo: Robert Mapplethorpe, Orchid, 1982, Dye Transfer. © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Mapplethorpe Flora: The Complete Flowers, Phaidon.

“Sell the public flowers… things that they can hang on their walls without being uptight,” Robert Mapplethorpe determined. His astute business sense was rivaled only by the subversive delight he took in imbuing the glory of nature with the darker side of life. It was in his pictures of flora that Mapplethorpe found a place contrast showcase the forces of beauty, sex, and death without leaving a trace.

Unlike his nudes and BDSM scenes, the only flesh exposed here are the tendrils cut off from their source of life, consigned to a slow death inside a vase. But for that moment the flowers are fresh and full of life, for that moment that contain all the promise of presence in the here and now, as their petals burst open and perfume fills the air, that is the moment Mapplethorpe captured for eternity.

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Photo: Robert Mapplethorpe, African Daisy, 1982, Dye Transfer. © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Mapplethorpe Flora: The Complete Flowers,

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Crave, Photography

Golden Days Before They End

Posted on August 7, 2016

Photo: © Klaus Pichler, Clemens Marschall, “Golden days before they end”, Edition Patrick Frey, 2016.

Have you ever had a night out that you never wanted to end, so you hopped from place to place hoping they’d stay open ‘til you ran out of steam? Have you ever had a day that turned into a weekend? Or maybe even a week? What is the day became a lifestyle? Then where would you go? These are important questions, people.

Vienna knows this. They know it well. Well enough to give a name to it: Branntweiner. It’s a dive bar, and it’s ready to go. Some spots open at 5 in the morning for their clientele. Othersopen at 9, and still others that don’t get going until later on, but what they all have in common is their willingness to provide 24-hour service to the folks who love themselves some alcohol. Because at a certain point, there comes a turn, and that’s when the liquor takes first place and it won’t ever come down. And that when things take on a grim cast, but, still, the party continues on.

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Categories: Art, Books, Crave, Photography

Into the Groove: The Jazz Portraits of Herman Leonard

Posted on August 5, 2016

Photo: Duke Ellington by Herman Leonard. Gelatin silver print, 1958. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution © Herman Leonard Photography, LLC.

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit and laid to waste so many lives in the city of New Orleans. The home and studio of photographer Herman Leonard (1923–2010) was destroyed when the 17th Canal Levee broke near his home. The storm claimed 8,000 silver gelatin prints Leonard had made; fortunately, Herman’s crew had gathered the negatives and placed them in the care of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. But Leonard’s time in New Orleans had come to a close after nearly a quarter of a century on the local jazz and blues scene. Leonard relocated to Studio City, California, where he spent his final years re-establishing his business.

And what a business it was. Leonard recounted his early years in an interview with JazzWax, recalling, “I opened my first studio on Sullivan Street in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1948. I worked free-lance for magazines and spent my spare time at places like the Royal Roost and Birdland. I did this because I loved the music. I couldn’t wait to be with Lester Young at a club and hear him and photograph him playing his music. I hoped that on film I could preserve what I heard. It didn’t hurt that I got into the clubs for free. My photographs helped publicize the clubs, so owners let me in.”

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Photo: Billie Holiday by Herman Leonard. Gelatin silver print, 1949. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution © Herman Leonard Photography, LLC.
Read more at http://www.craveonline.com/art/1017217-jazz-king-photographs-herman-leonard-national-portrait-gallery#tz6wkDjUMWC5zHPO.99

Categories: 1960s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Manhattan, Music, Photography

Michael Gross: Focus

Posted on August 3, 2016

Richard Avedon © Adrian Panaro

Michael Gross has had his finger on the pulse of high society, documenting their luxurious lifestyles for more than three decades. With a chair in the front row of the fashion shows for a decade, Gross delved into the corners of the world that few had known with his seminal book, Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women (William Morrow, 1995), exposing the underbelly of the industry at the height of the supermodel craze.

The book had been Richard Avedon’s idea. Gross had a column in The New York Times and was writing long form pieces for New York magazine, including a cover story detailing the historic rivalry between Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Gross had been thinking of expanding the story into a book but Avedon, who had been a major source, thought no one cared about ancient beef between Carmel Snow and Diana Vreeland. Instead, he suggested a book on the modeling industry, which no one had ever done before.

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Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Crave, Fashion, Photography

London’s Burning: “PUNK” Returns to King’s Road

Posted on August 1, 2016

Photo: Steve Havoc, Siouxsie Sioux, ‘Debbie’, 1970s. © Ray Stevenson. Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery.

Picture it: King’s Road, London. 1971. Malcolm McLaren starts a shop called Let It Rock, featuring clothes designed by his then-girlfriend, Vivienne Westwood. It was a period piece. The pink signage and “Odeon” wallpaper was designed to put you in the mood to purchase drape jackets, tight pants, and creepers. Needless to say it was here today, gone by 1973, when the show as renamed Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die, as the dynamic duo updated the look to early ‘60s rocker styles that came and went, until they found their truth living in the present tense: SEX.

It got your attention. Loud and clear. The word “SEX” was written in pink foam letters that ran four feet high above the door, the walls covered in graffiti from SCUM Manifesto and chickenwire. Inside was another world, all red carpeting and rubber curtains, fetish and bondage gear. It was just the sort of affront that McLaren enjoyed, while also being a proper honey trap. The shop became the spot for London’s Blight Young Things.

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Categories: 1970s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography

Books | Ridinghouse Presents Linder

Posted on July 30, 2016

Linder Against Interpretation, 2012 Duratrans on lightbox 168.8 x 125.8 cm | 66 1/2 x 49 1/2 ins Edition of 3 plus 1 AP

Linder Sterling makes some of the most extraordinary photomontages the world has ever seen, creating a delectable body of work exploring representations of female sexuality. Equal parts cheeky and chic, Linder puts the sexy back in soft focus centerfolds, while giggling all the way to the bank. By taking pre-existing soft-focus pornography and combining it with flora, fauna, food items (really anything of the sort that conveys the desire to acquire, to have and to hold), Linder reminds us that the image of women is very much a construction for consumption itself. What’s endlessly charming is the simple fact that Linder simultaneously indulges our consumption of this construction while simultaneously deconstructing it. In celebration of a career that spans four decades, the artist has released a sumptuous monograph with 270 pages of pure pleasure. Linder (Ridinghouse) features numerous series made throughout her career, along with a series of interviews that gives insight into mind behind the work.

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Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Exhibitions

On the Verge of Insanity: Van Gogh and His Illness

Posted on July 29, 2016

Artwork: Emile Schuffenecker, Man with a Pipe (after Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait), ca. 1892-1900, chalk on paper, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Stichting)

“Art is to console those who are broken by life,” Vincent van Gogh observed—but in the end it wasn’t enough to keep the great artist alive. Van Gogh died at the age of 37 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. He did a poor job of it, as a rib protected his internal organs from injury. The bullet is thought to have lodged near his spine, without hitting it. The day was July 27, 1990.

After shooting himself, Van Gogh walked back to the Auberge Ravoux, in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, a popular destination for artists of the time, where he had been staying since May 1890. He moved there to be closer to his doctor, trying to find his way back into the world after experiencing an acute psychotic episode while living in Arles.

The story of Van Gogh’s ear continues to this very day, as the story of the woman he gave it to has finally been revealed. Eighteen-year old Gabrielle Berlatier was a farmer’s daughter living in a nearby village who was attacked by a rabid dog on January 8, 1888. The attack was so devastating, the wound had to be cauterized by a red-hot iron, leaving a vicious scar. Despite her condition, Berlatier continued to work as a maid at the Café de la Gare, a brothel in Arles.

Two days shy of Christmas that same year, van Gogh severed his left ear, leaving only the lobe attached to his head. Then he taped up his wound and wrapped his ear in plastic, making a special delivery to Berlatier, bookending what was already a tragic year.

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Categories: Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Painting

David Orr: Perfect Vessels

Posted on July 28, 2016

Milan Joanovits, m, 30 (robber + murderer; executed in Belgrade), 2016 | Archival dye-infused aluminum disc | 30-inch diameter. © David Orr, courtesy The Mütter Museum.

Viennese anatomist Josef Hyrtl (1810–1894) had the touch, such was his ability to work with human bodies after death. As a student, his dissections and injections were widely admired; as chair at the University of Prague, he authored Handbook of Topographic Anatomy, the first textbook of applied anatomy. A man free of mind, if you will, Hyrtl sought to discredit phrenology, an old fad that had come back into vogue, which supposed the shape and size of the cranium indicated the character and mental abilities of the brain within.

Hyrtl collected the skull of Caucasians across Europe, looking for diversity in size and structure to deconstruct pseudoscience with fact. How the skulls came into his possession was a mixed bag: some were criminals, some were poor, and others may have been dug out of their graves. Some are identified by name, profession, and age while others remain unknown, their conditions varying in terms of quality of preservation.

The Mütter Museum, Philadelphia, acquired 139 skulls from Hyrtl’s collection in 1874. Flash forward 130 years: photographer David Orr received access to the lot, creating portraits of a distinct and revealing nature. Each skull has been photographed head-on, then mirrored on one side, to create a vision of perfect symmetry. Orr photographed all the skulls, then made a selection of 22 for Perfect Vessels, at the Mütter now through January 5, 2017.

Speaking with Crave Online, Orr discusses the ways in which the skull meets the ideal conditions for a vessel, being a container, a craft in which to travel, a conduit for powerful energy, and a beautiful form that was once utilitarian but is now regarded as art. There is an elegant eeriness to this, something rather Gothic and Romantic about the idea of discovering a hidden level of beauty in the remains of strangers. We may never know this side of ourselves, never be able to see the face beneath the face and the home of the mind. This is where Orr’s photographs bridge the divide.

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Categories: Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography