Posts from the “Exhibitions” Category

Witness at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Posted on January 6, 2017

Photo: Larry Clark, American, b. 1943 Untitled 1963 Gelatin silver print Sheet: 11 × 14 in. (27.9 × 35.6 cm); image: 8 × 10 in. (20.3 × 25.4 cm) Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Gift of Herbert and Lenore Schorr 2002.85.2 Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago

Although the photographer usually stands behind the camera, they are present in every shot they make, from the choice of subject matter and the framing to the moment of release and the selection of the print from hundreds, if not thousands, of others that remain unseen in the archive. Every photo taken and shown bears the eye of the photographer, just as every painting and sculpture bears the hand of the artist. We can consider the photographer many things: provocateur, mastermind, or more “objectively,” witness to scene they are recording for posterity.

The photographer as witness is a popular conceit celebrated in Western art as it embraces the impossible ideals of detachment, neutrality, and independence from the subject and the creation of the image. It carries the noble, even heroic, connotations that elevate the photographer to a status all their own. This response was most recently seen after Associated Press photographer Burhan Ozbilici took a picture of Turkish police officer Mevlut Mert Altintas moments after he assassinated Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov. While the world lay agog at the perfectly orchestrated act of a cold-blooded killer, many in the photography and art worlds took the opportunity to disassociate, waxing rhapsodic about the aesthetics of the image and the valor of Ozbilici.

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Photo: Dawoud Bey, American, b. 1953 The Birmingham Project: Mathes Manafee and Cassandra Griffin 2012 Archival pigment prints mounted on Dibond Diptych, each sheet: 40 × 32 in. (101.6 × 81.3 cm) Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Restricted gift of Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida, and Mary and Earle Ludgin by exchange 2014.8.a-b Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago

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

Focus: Lorna Simpson

Posted on January 3, 2017

Artwork: Installation photograph of FOCUS: Lorna Simpson, courtesy of The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Growing up in Brooklyn, Lorna Simpson (b. 1960) came of age at a spectacular time in the city’s history. As the flames of the 1960s turned to amber embers, in its wake a new culture was taking form and shape. The first post-Civil Rights generation came to the fore, inheriting the mantle of the past and striving for more.

Simpson began her career in art as a street photographer before hitting the studio to explore ideas of race, gender, culture, history, and memory—the very foundation of our identities. She began expanding beyond the photograph to discover new ways to communicate, integrating elements of film and video, assemblage, and painting. In doing so, she collapsed the space between artist and subject so that the sense of “otherness” was entirely erased. And in its place came complete and total being: the sheer presence that representation affords when the creator shares of themselves.

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Artwork: Detail from installation photograph of FOCUS: Lorna Simpson, courtesy of The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Categories: Art, Crave, Exhibitions

Iwan Schumacher: 1972

Posted on January 3, 2017

Photo: © Iwan Schumacher, courtesy of Edition Patrick Frey.

The beauty of liberation is that it is a deeply personal affair, requiring none but ourselves to realize. In many ways, it is a test of courage more than anything else: do we have the faith and the will to choose freedom from the known? For artists, the answer is always, “Yes!” That’s what makes them who they are; they cannot be contained by preexisting ideologies. Pablo Picasso knowingly advised, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them alike an artist.” And sometimes all it takes to break the rules is to discard them hand over fist.

In early 1972, Iwan Schumacher had been living in south London, where he had been teaching photography at an art school. He bought a Canon half-frame camera that allowed him to take 72 pictures, as opposed to 36, on a regular 35mm roll of film. The camera was small enough to travel everywhere he went, quickly becoming a diary of his daily experiences. Later in the year, Schumacher returned to Switzerland to assist on a documentary movie and started to work on his first film. All the while, he continued to take photographs, amassing an archive of more than 3,000 images.

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

CONTACT at Fahey/Klein Gallery

Posted on January 2, 2017

MONTGOMERY- MARCH 25: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. seen close from rear, speaking in front of 25,000 civil rights marchers, at conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery march in front of Alabama state capital building on March 25, 1965. In Montgomery, Alabama. (Photo by Stephen Somerstein/Getty Images)

For a photography aficionado, there is nothing quite so thrilling as looking at contact sheets. It is like reading a diary, delving into private realms that were not meant for public consumption. Like the old drafts of a novel or the prior recordings before the master tape, the contact sheet tells the story of how it happened—how we got to this place. It is a narrative all its own, one that few will ever know, unless the photographer blesses us with a view.

Then, what we see is magical: that heart-stopping, breathtaking moment like in the theater when an actor breaks the fourth wall. It is an acknowledgement of the very construction of it all: the recognition that everything we see has a history and a reality that we rarely ever know. The contact sheet seduces with what it reveals—all that has been hidden from our sight now appears.

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Contact Sheet featuring MONTGOMERY- MARCH 25: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. seen close from rear, speaking in front of 25,000 civil rights marchers, at conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery march in front of Alabama state capital building on March 25, 1965. In Montgomery, Alabama. (Photo by Stephen Somerstein/Getty Images)

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

Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb: Violet Isle

Posted on December 30, 2016

Photo: Sancti Spiritus, Cuba, 1993. Photo by Alex Webb.

Cuba, the Violet Isle—a name known to few for the rich color of its fertile soil, is an island that has captivated the imagination of the world through a tumultuous history that has played a significant role in the political machinations of the twentieth century. It is a land has emerged in the twenty-first century as a complex nation coming to terms with a fate that is yet unforeseen. As we reflect upon the country’s future, we may look to its recent past, to its people and its landscape.

Over the course of 15 years, photographers Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb made 11 trips to the Violet Isle, each of them documenting different corners of the country. While Alex Webb focused on the country’s street life, Rebecca Norris Webb turned her attention to the displays of animal life, exploring tiny zoos, pigeon societies, and personal menageries. Together, they published Violet Isle in 2009 with Radius Books and while the book has since sold out and gone out of print, they continue to share the work in exhibitions around the world.

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Photo: Havana, 2008. Photo by Rebecca Norris Webb

Categories: 1990s, Art, Books, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography

William Kentridge: Thick Time

Posted on December 28, 2016

William Kentridge, The Refusal of Time with collaboration of Philip Miller, Catherine Meyburgh and Peter Galison, Film Still 2012, 5-channel video projection, colour, sound, megaphones, breathing machine 30 minutes. Courtesy William Kentridge, Marian Goodman Gallery, Goodman Gallery and Lia Rumma Gallery.

William Kentridge was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1955 and grew up under the system of apartheid. His grandfather was a member of Parliament for 40 years; his parents were both lawyers who defended victims of the regime handling historic cases including the inquest into the Sharpeville Massacre, the death of Steve Biko, and one of the trials of Nelson Mandela.

With the politics of his country an everyday part of his life, Kentridge could not affect cognitive dissonance that so many to enjoy their privileges free from the burden of responsibility of being complicit in a corrupt and unjust system based on the exploitation and oppression of their fellow wo/man. Instead Kentridge, who exhibited tremendous promise as an artist from an early age, was steeped in the knowledge of the socio-political climate of the times and explored the dark duality of humanity in his work.

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William Kentridge, Second Hand Reading, 2013, Flipbook film from drawings on single pages of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, HD video, colour, sound. Courtesy William Kentridge, Marian Goodman Gallery, Goodman Gallery and Lia Rumma Gallery.

William Kentridge The Refusal of Time with collaboration of Philip Miller, Catherine Meyburgh and Peter Galison Film Still 2012. 5-channel video projection, colour, sound, megaphones, breathing machine 30 minutes. Courtesy William Kentridge, Marian Goodman Gallery, Goodman Gallery and Lia Rumma Gallery.

Categories: Art, Exhibitions

Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design

Posted on December 24, 2016

Photo: Omar Victor Diop Aminata, 2013, Photograph from the series The Studio of Vanities © Victor Omar Diop, 2014, Courtesy Magnin-A Gallery, Paris

Since its launch last year at the Guggenheim Bilbao, Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design, has been touring the world, showcasing contemporary African design in an extraordinary new light. Now on view at Kunsthal, Rotterdam, through January 15, 2017, this landmark exhibition features the work of more than 120 artists and designers working today, introducing a new generation of creators to the global stage.

Featuring object and furniture designs, graphic art, illustration, fashion, architecture, urban design, handicraft, video, film and photography, Making Africa reveals how design relates to and reflect the economic changes across the continent today. Many of the artists featured work in different disciplines and skillfully break with conventions to create an entirely new approach that is equal parts innovative and compelling.

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Vigilism, Idumota Market, Lagos 2081A.D., 2013 from the Our Africa 2081A.D. series, illustration for the Ikiré Jones Heritage Menswear Collection © Courtesy Olalekan [vigilism.com] and Walé Oyéjidé [ikirejones.com

Categories: Africa, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Painting, Photography

Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight

Posted on December 23, 2016

Portrait of Carmen Herrera in front of Blue Monday, 1975, acrylic on canvas, as installed in “Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight” (September 16, 2016—January 2, 2017), Whitney Museum of American Art, N.Y. Photograph © Matthew Carasella (September 14, 2016).

At the tender age of 101, Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera is receiving her due with Lines of Sight, the first museum exhibition in New York City in nearly two decades. Currently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art, now through January 9, 2017, the exhibition focuses on the years between 1948 and 1978, when Herrera developed her groundbreaking style that revolutionized modern and contemporary art.

The exhibition features 50 masterworks including paintings, three-dimensional pieces, and works on paper that embody her signature hard-edged style, which she pioneered throughout the twentieth century. Following the Whitney, the show will travel to the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Oho (February 4-April 16 2017).

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

Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art

Posted on December 22, 2016

Artwork: Amy Sherald, High Yella Masterpiece: We Ain’t No Cotton Pickin’ Negroes, 2011. Oil on canvas; 59 x 69 inches (149.86 x 175.26 cm). Collection of Keith Timmons, ESQ, CPA. Image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, Illinois. © Amy Sherald.

The American South: a land shrouded with myth and mystery, wrapped in layers of illusions and untold history. Novelist William Faulkner suggested that the South is not so much a “geographical place” as an “emotional idea,” furthering the disjunction between the reality and illusion that has permeated the South throughout its existence.

Place is the foundation upon which culture is built and from this culture comes ten thousand things that shape and influence the human experience, from the physical and the spiritual to the intellectual and the emotional realms. To understand the multifaceted nature of the South, it behooves us to take a more nuanced view, taking in the many elements that make the South its own complex and fascinating world.

Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art, currently on view at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC, through January 8, 2017, does just this, approaching the subject from the perspective of its aesthetic progeny. The exhibition presents the work of 60 contemporary artists including Romare Bearden, Sanford Biggers, William Christenberry, Thornton Dial, Sam Durant, William Eggleston, Jessica Ingram, Kerry James Marshall, Richard Misrach Gordon Parks, Ebony G. Patterson, Fahmu Pecou, Burk Uzzle, Kara Walker, and Carrie Mae Weems, among others.

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Rachel Boillot, 38765 Panther Burn, MS from the series Post Script, 2014. Archival pigment print, edition 2/12; 20 x 25 inches (50.8 x 63.5 cm). Courtesy of the artist. © Rachel Boillot.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Crave, Exhibitions, Painting, Photography

The Color Line: African-American Artists and Segregation

Posted on December 20, 2016

Artwork: David Hammons, African American Flag, 1990, 142.2 × 223.5 cm, © David Hammons, Courtesy of L’oeuvre de David Hammons prêtéedans le cadre de l’exposition est la suivante : U.N.I.A Flag, 1990, New York, Hudgins Family Collection

“Few evils are less accessible to the force of reason, or more tenacious of life and power, than a long-standing prejudice. It is a moral disorder, which creates the conditions necessary to its own existence, and fortifies itself by refusing all contradiction. It paints a hateful picture according to its own diseased imagination, and distorts the features of the fancied original to suit the portrait. As those who believe in the visibility of ghosts can easily see them, so it is always easy to see repulsive qualities in those we despise and hate,” Frederick Douglass wrote in “The Color Line,” an essay published by The North American Review in June 1881.

In the essay, Douglass brilliantly traces a history of tribalism across Europe before it washed up on the shores of the United States where it took on a new corrupted form, using the construction of race to undermine and call in to doubt the veracity of every word written in the Declaration of Independence. Here, the expansion of tribalism projected onto race created psychopathic ideologies that provided a pretext by which the government could create of a nation founded on the twin engines of slavery and genocide.

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Categories: Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Painting

László Moholy-Nagy: Future Present

Posted on December 19, 2016

Artwork: László Moholy-Nagy, A 19, 1927. Oil and graphite on canvas, 80 x 95.5 cm. Hattula Moholy-Nagy, Ann Arbor, MI.

“Designing is not a profession but an attitude’ László Moholy-Nagy asserted in his 1947 book Vision in Motion, which was published a year after his death, with the cool self-assurance that came from a life dedicated to the integration of technology and the arts.

Born in Hungary in 1895, Moholy-Nagy moved to Vienna in 1919, then Berlin the following year. In 1923 he began teaching at the Bauhaus, a celebrated German art school that became famous for utilizing design as the bridge between crafts and fine art. The schools influence was so strong it became a style in its own right, influencing Modern design, architecture, and art.

It was here that Moholy-Nagy perfected his approach, allowing him to work in media as diverse as painting, photography, film, sculpture, advertising, product design, and theater sets with the ultimate goal of putting art to use. Believing that “The experience of space is not a privilege of the gifted few, but a biological function,” Moholy-Nagy set forth to create work that served the people.

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Categories: Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Painting, Photography