Posts from the “Exhibitions” Category

Masahisa Fukase: Private Scenes

Posted on September 28, 2018

Sasuke, from the series Game, 1983. © Masahisa Fukase Archives.

For more than two decades, the work of Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase has been largely inaccessible. Following his death in 2012, the archives were gradually disclosed, revealing a trove of wonders never seen before. Among the most radical artists of his time, Fukase is now being celebrated with Private Scenes, a large-scale retrospective of original prints that will be on view at Foam, Amsterdam, from September 7 – December 12, 2018. Editions Xavier Barral will publish the accompanying catalogue, to be released on October 23.

Born in 1934 in Bifuka, in the northern region of the island of Hokkaido, Masahisa Fukase was destined to a life in photography. As the eldest son, Fukase was groomed to take over the family photo studio, founded by his grandfather in 1908. By the age of six, he was already helping to rinse the prints – and he stayed with the family business until moving to Tokyo in 1952 to study photography.

Fukase was notable for both his choice of subject matter, and his presentation of it. He was remarkably able to translate his personal struggles of loss and depression into playful and lighthearted looks at some of the most difficult aspects of life and death. This first became evident in the 1961 exhibition, Kill the Pig, which brought the young artist public acclaim. Here, the Fukase presented studies of his pregnant wife Yoko and still-born child in combination with photographs made in a slaughterhouse, providing a tender reflection on love, life and death.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Bukubuku, 1991. © Masahisa Fukase Archives.

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Exhibitions, Feature Shoot, Japan, Photography

Martine Gutierrez: Indigenous Woman

Posted on September 23, 2018

Martine Gutierrez, Demons, Xochiquetzal ‘Flower Quetzal Feather,’ p94, from Indigenous Woman, 2018. © Martine Gutierrez; Courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

Martine Gutierrez, Demons, Tlazoteotl ‘Eater of Filth,’ p91, from Indigenous Woman, 2018. © Martine Gutierrez; Courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

Frida Kahlo once said, “I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best.” It’s a sentiment that also eloquently describes Martine Gutierrez, a transgender Latinx artist who routinely performs the triple roles of subject, maker, and muse in her own eclectic body of work.

By establishing a practice of full autonomy, wherein Gutierrez conceptualizes and executes every detail on both sides of the camera, the artist has taken complete control of her narrative. For her latest exhibition, Indigenous Woman, Gutierrez created a 146-page art publication (masquerading as a glossy fashion magazine) celebrating “Mayan Indian heritage, the navigation of contemporary indigeneity, and the ever-evolving self-image,” according to the artist’s “Letter From the Editor.”

“I was driven to question how identity is formed, expressed, valued, and weighed as a woman, as a transwoman, as a Latinx woman, as a woman of indigenous descent, as a femme artist and maker? It is nearly impossible to arrive at any finite answers, but for me, this process of exploration is exquisitely life-affirming,” she writes.

Gutierrez uses art to explore the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, and class as they inform her life experience. The Brooklyn-based artist uses costume, photography, and film to produce elaborate narrative scenes that combine pop culture tropes, sex dolls, mannequins, and self-portraiture to explore the ways in which identity, like art, is both a social construction and an authentic expression of self.

Fashion editorials and beauty features with titles like Queer Rage, Masking, and Demons pepper the pages of Indigenous Woman, alongside advertisements for faux products like Blue Lagoon Morisco sunless bronzer, paired with the tagline “Brown is Beautiful.” Gutierrez subverts the traditional cisgender white male gaze while simultaneously raising questions about inclusivity, appropriation, and consumerism.

While her exhibition is on view at Ryan Lee Gallery in New York, VICE caught up with Gutierrez to talk about her masterful interrogation of identity.

Read the Full Story at VICE Online

Martine Gutierrez, Masking, 24k Gold Mask, p46 from Indigenous Woman, 2018. © Martine Gutierrez; Courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

Martine Gutierrez, Masking, Green Grape Mask, p51 from Indigenous Woman, 2018. © Martine Gutierrez; Courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

Categories: Art, Exhibitions, Fashion, Photography

Don Herron: Tub Shots

Posted on September 20, 2018

Sur Rodney (Sur), 1980. © Don Herron, courtesy of Daniel Cooney Fine Art

When artist Don Herron moved to New York City from Texas in 1978, the fledgling East Village art scene was just beginning to take shape. Soho was the capital of downtown New York, but artists were starting to take up residence in the Lower East Side, where rent was affordable and young artists could find a tight-knit community of peers.

While getting to know New York’s art luminaries, Herron conceived of a project he titled Tub Shots, wherein he would photograph downtown cult figures in their bathtubs. From 1978 to 1993, he photographed art stars like Robert Mapplethorpe, Keith Haring, Peter Hujar, and Annie Sprinkle, along with Warhol Superstars like Holly Woodlawn, and International Chrysis.

Some artists collaborated with Herron to stage a scene, while others opted for a bare bones approach; a few were exhibitionists, while others posed demurely. Each portrait offers a glimpse of the subject as they were rarely seen—in a space that is both private and sensual, vulnerable and daring.

Herron died in 2013, but a selection of his photographs are on view in Don Herron: Tub Shots at Daniel Cooney Fine Art in New York. VICE asked downtown icons Sur Rodney (Sur) and Charles Busch to share their memories of working with Herron and being part of the East Village art scene when the photos were made.

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Charles Busch, 1987. © Don Herron, courtesy of Daniel Cooney Fine Art

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Exhibitions, Manhattan, Photography, Vice

Irving Penn: Paintings

Posted on September 12, 2018

ower of Babel, 2006. © The Irving Penn Foundation.

On September 13, 1984, the first major retrospective of American photographer Irving Penn opened at the Museum of Modern Art. Penn, who had made his name elevating photography to the realm of fine art, worked tirelessly alongside John Szarkowski, director of the department of photography, to examine a massive body of work, making new prints for the show that he has never printed before.

While delving into his archives, Penn rediscovered early works on paper that he had made between 1939 and 1942, while he was a young illustrator working for Harper’s Bazaar – a job that allowed him to save up enough money to buy his very first camera. Following the MoMA exhibition, Penn returned to his young love, and started to draw and paint as a way to reconnect to the creative spirit that fuelled his life’s work in the final decades of his 70-year career.

During this late period, Penn’s gift for precision, focus, and clarity became exquisitely lyrical in both his paintings and photographs, which transformed his platonic ideals into deft, rich, and textured visual metaphors and poetry. Now, on the 34th anniversary of the historic MoMA show, a selection of approximately 30 works made between the late 1980s and the early 2000s will be on view at Irving Penn: Paintings at Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Online

Untitled, New York, ca. 1987. © The Irving Penn Foundation.

Before the Full Moon, 2006. © The Irving Penn Foundation,

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, AnOther, Art, Exhibitions, Painting

THIRTYTHREE

Posted on September 10, 2018

Lavan, from the series Practitioners, 2016 © Éva Szombat

“It’s not enough to have talent, you also have to be Hungarian,” Robert Capa famously quipped, noting the impressive prevalence of his countrymen leaving their mark on photography throughout the 20th century. André Kertész, Brassaï, Martin Munkácsi, György Kepes, and László Moholy-Nagy are just a few of the artists who elevated the form and put their small landlocked country on the global art map.

Although many of these photographers left their homeland to move West, their spirit lives on at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest. It is here, in 1984, that photography was recognised as a discipline for study, following in the spirit, experimentation, and recognition of the permeability between art and life that guided Moholy-Nagy throughout his career.

Now, in THIRTYTHREE (Hatje Cantz), editor Róna Kopeczky provides a survey of 46 of the University’s most impressive alumni over the past 33 years – including Sári Ember, Anna Fabricius, Viola Fátyol, Adél Koleszár, Gábor Arion Kudász, Péter Puklus, Gergely Szatmári, and Éva Szombat. An exhibition of the same name will be on view at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center in Budapest (October 8–December 9,

.2018).

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From the series Outlaw’s Yard, 2010. © Barnabás Tóth

Categories: Art, Books, Exhibitions, Huck, Photography

Jenny Holzer on the Power of the Word in Art

Posted on September 7, 2018

In the beginning was the word, and the word was art – though rarely do we conflate the two. Image and text are largely considered distinct forms that have rendered their application as distinct disciplines. Invariably, though, artists traverse boundaries to question, examine, provoke, entertain, exalt or otherwise engage with new ideas.

The word in art, as art, is a realm all its own, one inhabited by the few who dare to delve into its depths. Visual Language, a bi-coastal group exhibition presented by Subliminal Projects, Los Angeles, and FACTION Art Projects, New York, celebrates the power of the word in art. Here, artists including Jenny Holzer, Guerrilla Girls, Betty Tomkins, Ed Ruscha, DFace and Shepard Fairey present their own take on the word, using it for a wide array of expression, be it political, ironic, poetic, typographic, abstract or conceptual.

Jenny Holzer is perhaps the most renowned and respected contemporary artist to use words as her métier. Hailing from Gallipolis, Ohio, Holzer arrived in New York City in 1976 at the age of 26, becoming an active member of Colab, the downtown artist collective that included Kiki Smith, Tom Otterness, James Nares, Jane Dickson and John Ahearn, among others. Holzer gained early recognition with Truisms (1977–79), a series of epigrams she penned, printed and wheat-pasted as anonymous broadsheets on walls around Manhattan. Her gift for aphorisms was impeccable as she brought together poetry and pithy witticisms with a populist punch, making them available to the general public at a time when graffiti and street art was making its presence felt.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Online

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, AnOther, Art, Exhibitions, Women

Alanna Airitam, Endia Beal & Medina Dugger: How Do You See Me?

Posted on September 6, 2018

Queen Mary. Copyright Alanna Airitam

In the new exhibition at Catherine Edelman Gallery, three artists present a series of vivid colour portraits of black men and women from around the world. The show then asks: How do you see me?

It’s a simple, yet highly effective question that cuts to the quick. Not who, but how, is the issue at hand. Where does perception start? Photographers Alanna Airitam, Endia Beal, and Medina Dugger each explore this idea from their own, distinctive vantage point.

“When I was at Yale in my MFA program, one of the critics was LaToya Ruby Frazier,” Endia Beal remembers. “She said to me, ‘Endia, the history of photography for black women is still being written and you need to ask yourself, ‘What are you adding to the history? What are you doing to tell the stories of black women and photography within the larger context of fine art and photojournalism?’’

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Melanie 2016. Copyright Endia Beal

Teal Suku Sinero. Copyright Medina Dugger

Categories: Art, Exhibitions, Photography, Women

Lola Alvarez Bravo: Picturing Mexico

Posted on September 4, 2018

Unos suben y otros bajan, ca. 1940. Copyright Lola Álvarez Bravo, courtesy of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.

Lola Álvarez Bravo (1903-1993) was a singular figure in twentieth-century art, a woman whose independence defined the spirit of the era. “I had a strange need for something and I didn’t know what it was. I was in intense rebellion against certain things that they thought I should do because I was a ‘little woman’ and a ‘young lady,’” Álvarez Bravo told Olivier Debroise for Sin título [Biography of Lola Álvarez Bravo] in 1979.

“They thought I would respond to a predetermined social plan. But I felt a strange rebelliousness. I wanted to be something… . It was an internal rebellion.”

That something propelled her to tremendous heights, with a career that spans more than half a century as an artist, curator, activist, and educator. As one of the few leading women artists in Mexico during the post-revolutionary renaissance, Álvarez Bravo would become an integral figure in a coterie that included Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros.

Like her contemporaries, Álvarez Bravo blazed her own trail, capturing the spirit of the times in her photojournalism, commercial and portrait work. Now, her legacy comes alive in Picturing Mexico, a magnificent exhibition photographs at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis, MO, from September 14, 2018 – February 16, 2019. The exhibition, accompanied by a catalogue of the same name from Yale University Press, to be released November 27.

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La visitacion, ca. 1934, printed 1971. Brooklyn Museum. Copyright Lola Álvarez Bravo, courtesy of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.

Categories: Art, Books, Exhibitions, Huck, Photography

Richard Bernstein: Starmaker

Posted on September 3, 2018

Cher. Courtesy of The Richard Bernstein Estate Archives

When Interview announced that it would cease publication earlier this spring, a flurry of flawless faces that once graced the magazine covers suddenly began to reemerge – each portrait more entrancing than the one that came before. Grace Jones, Diana Ross, Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, the list goes on. They were all created by the same artist, who rendered them as unforgettable icons of our time – the very same artist who wrote he word “Interview” that appeared over their heads: Richard Bernstein.

Born in the Bronx but raised on Long Island, Bernstein returned to the city to study art at the Pratt Institute in 1958. He adopted a cultured New England accent with a splash of effete-ery, and headed downtown to cavort with the new generation of gay artists like Billy Name, Gerard Malanga, and Danny Williams making their name in Andy Warhol’s Factory scene.

Bernstein travelled to London when the Swinging 60s was at its height, then returned to New York in 1968 and joined the scene as it was taking shape at Max’s Kansas City and the Chelsea Hotel. Bernstein got his start in magazines when he began working with Peter Hujar on Newspaper and Picture Newspaper, a short-lived document of the city’s queer scene. The first issue gave us a taste of things to come: Bernstein’s iconic cover and centerfold of Candy Darling that left nothing to the imagination.

By 1972, Bernstein began what would become a two-decade odyssey as the cover artist for Andy Warhol’s Interview. He joined the magazine just as it was taking shape, transforming from an underground movie magazine to a luscious glossy that brought Hollywood glamour back to life in an effervescent celebration of downtown art, culture, and style. Bernstein’s covers perfectly defined the times, becoming eye-catching emblems of the era.

In celebration of his work, Roger Padilha and Mauricio Padilha have put together Richard Bernstein Starmaker: Andy Warhol’s Cover Artist (Rizzoli), a sumptuous history of the artist’s life and legacy. In conjunction with the launch of the book, Jeffrey Deitch, New York, will host Richard Bernstein: Fame (September 7-October 27, 2018). Here, the authors take us on a whirlwind tour through a singular career.

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Joan Rivers. Courtesy of The Richard Bernstein Estate Archives

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, AnOther Man, Art, Books, Exhibitions, Painting

Jamel Shabazz: Icons of Style

Posted on August 28, 2018

Jamel Shabazz (American, born 1960); Digital chromogenic print; 25.4 x 20.3 cm (10 x 8 in.); EX.2018.7.163

Hailing from Brooklyn, Jamel Shabazz began taking photographs of his friends during the late 1970s. After returning from the Army in 1980, he began to dedicate himself to documenting life on the streets of New York, taking portraits of street legends and regular folks alike, taking an entirely new approach to the art of the fashion photograph.

With an eye for style, Shabazz used the camera as a vehicle for conversations with his subjects, who are predominantly African American and Latinx teens. Focused on helping them to develop a knowledge of self and how to survive in America, Shabazz easily spent hours with his subject before photographing them. The result is a series of portraits that convey a sense of power, pride, and dignity. As an independent artist working outside the fashion and publishing industry for decades, Shabazz has established himself as the rare artist who has been able to crossover long after this body of work was made.

Now a selection of Shabazz’s work can be seen alongside the likes of Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Guy Bourdin, William Klein, Antonio Lopez, and Herb Ritts in the new exhibition Icons of Style: A Century of Fashion Photography, 1911-2011 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, now on view through October 21, and accompanying catalogue of the same name. Shabazz shares his thoughts on the power of fashion photography, the importance of visibility and representation, and the power of staying true to one’s vision.

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Jamel Shabazz (American, born 1960); Digital chromogenic print; 25.4 x 20.3 cm (10 x 8 in.); EX.2018.7.164

Categories: Art, Books, Exhibitions, Fashion, Feature Shoot, Photography

Alex Prager: Silver Lake Drive

Posted on August 16, 2018

The Big Valley: Eve, 2008. © Alex Prager Studio and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong. Courtesy Alex Prager Studio, Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

The Big Valley: Susie and Friends, 2008. © Alex Prager Studio and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong. Courtesy Alex Prager Studio, Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

Hailing from Los Angeles, Alex Prager is a true photograph-auteur. Her cinematic sensibilities are perfectly at home in the single image, expertly making use of the imagination’s inimitable ability to construct fantastical narratives when provoked. With the eye of a director allowing a tale to unfold, Prager stages each photograph with the precision of a blockbuster Hollywood film.

Silver Lake Drive, Prager’s mid-career retrospective currently on view at The Photographer’s Gallery, London, through October 14, 2018, traces the artist’s career over the past decade, exploring the ways that her work crosses the worlds of art, fashion, photography to explore and expose fascinating scenes of human melodrama concealed within some of the most mundane moments of life. The exhibition is accompanied by a book of the same name, published by Chronicle in the United States (on sale October 9) and Thames & Hudson in Europe.

Prager takes us on a masterful romp through scenes that evoke Hollywood luminaries like Alfred Hitchcock and Douglas Sirk. The exquisite grandeur of Prager’s images belies a haunting anxiety: here beneath the luscious trappings of artifice something sinister lurks. An intangible presence can be felt throughout her work, the all-seeing eye that invites the viewer in as an accomplice.

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Categories: Art, Books, Exhibitions, Feature Shoot, Photography