Posts from the “Photography” Category

Flint Gennari: Inside Art & Design

Posted on July 9, 2018

In 1936, four art teachers banded together to create what would become New York’s High School of Art & Design inside a former WPA Federal Theatre Project. Although the walls were ripped apart and there was no school furniture, a little ingenuity transformed orange crates and plywood into student desks and cupboards.

Over the past century, Art & Design has become one of the most pre-eminent public schools in New York, with a list of distinguished alumni that includes fashion designers Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein, photographers Peter Hujar, Steven Meisel, and Sheila Metzner, artist Lorna Simpson, supermodel Pat Cleveland, Andy Warhol Factory denizens Jackie Curtis and Gerard Malanga, downtown icon Fab 5 Freddy, and a host of graffiti legends including Lee Quiñones, Lady Pink, and Roberto “FLINT” Gennari.

Gennari began writing graffiti in 1965, after his social studies teacher introduced him to the famed World War II doodle “Kilroy Was Here” in class one day. Inspired in equal parts by advertising slogans, psychedelic artist Peter Max, and the ability to be famous yet anonymous at the same time, Gennari began tagging “FLINT” on walls and trains around his native Brooklyn. He added pithy phrases like “For Those Who Dare” and “For Ladies Only” to let the public know just what was on the menu.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Categories: 1970s, Art, Huck, Manhattan, Photography

Marc H. Miller and Bettie Ringma: Paparazzi Self-Portraits

Posted on July 3, 2018

Angela Davis, c. 1975-79, from ‘Bettie’s FemmeFolio’ © Marc H. Miller and Bettie Ringma

Dictators from ‘Bettie Visits CBGB, 1976-87’ © Marc H. Miller and Bettie Ringma

In the mid-70s, the term “paparazzi” was beginning to seep into the cultural consciousness through a dazzling combination of art and life. While Federico Fellini’s 1961 film La Dolce Vita introduced the word “paparazzi” (Italian for “mosquito”), it was not until American photographer Ron Galella showed the world just what a paparazzo was willing to do to get the shot that it truly become part of everyday parlance; in 1973, Marlon Brando broke his jaw with a single punch; one year later Jackie Onassis sued him, managing to secure an order of protection that did not stop Galella from getting his most famous image.

Intrigued by this new phenomenon coming into its own, American artist Marc H. Miller and Dutch artist Bettie Ringma started making Paparazzi Self-Portraits in 1975. Here, they posed for snapshots alongside personal heroes including Angela Davis, Susan Sontag, William S. Burroughs, and Patti Smith, as well as bands from the emerging punk scene at CBGB including Talking Heads, the Dead Boys, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids.

The project reached new heights in 1978 when Curt Hoppe, their downstairs neighbor, offered to create a large format photorealistic painting of Ringma with the Ramones, which was unveiled in Punk Art, the first exhibition to showcase the visual artists of the scene. Miller looks back at the sweet spot where pop culture and conceptual art met, and pays tribute to Ringma, who died on March 8 of this year.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Online

Richard Hell and Voidoids from ‘Bettie Visits CBGB, 1976-87’ © Marc H. Miller and Bettie Ringma

Patti Smith from ‘Bettie Visits CBGB, 1976-87’ © Marc H. Miller and Bettie Ringma

Categories: 1970s, AnOther Man, Art, Manhattan, Photography

Joshua Lutz: Mind the Gap

Posted on June 27, 2018

House of Cards. © Joshua Lutz

Ever since he was a child, Joshua Lutz has dealt with the reality of mental illness. When he was five years old, he realized something wasn’t right as he watched his mother struggle with schizophrenia. Fear that he would inherit the disease or pass it along to his children became an ever-present fixture in his life.

Lutz turned to photography as a way to explore the impact of mental illness on his mother, his family, and his sense of self. In 2012, he published a book about his relationship with his mother; Hesitating Beauty (Schilt) is a poignant encapsulation of the woman who gave him life. To create it, Lutz stepped into a netherworld, a space where reality is filtered through an irrational lens, where quiet moments of lucidity are like rays of sunshine breaking through the clouds.

The book allowed Lutz to both explore and separate himself from the dark shadow schizophrenia cast across his life. This ability to be both insider and outsider at the same time led him further into the dark corners of the soul. This month, Lutz released another book grappling with similar subject matter; Mind the Gap (Schilt) is a poignant search for truth that explores the spaces between coherence and confusion that exist for those living with mental illness.

Lutz spoke with VICE about his personal journey and what it’s like delving into the murky, muddled realities of living with mental illness.

Read the Full Story at VICE Online

Paukers. © Joshua Lutz

Categories: Art, Books, Photography, Vice

Daybreak: New Affirmations in Queer Photography

Posted on June 25, 2018

Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. Complex Occupation, 2016

As photography evolves, a new generation is coming of age, pushing the formal and conceptual properties of the medium beyond their existing boundaries.

With these advancements, fresh perspectives about how to represent not only the self but also the very nature of the queer experience have come to the fore in the exhibition Daybreak: New Affirmations in Queer Photography now on view at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York, through September 2, 2018.

The genesis for the exhibition began in 2016, when curators Matthew Jensen and Ka-Man Tse witnessed an explosion of young artists in schools around New York City, whose range of styles and techniques were as diverse and expansive as the LGBTQI lives themselves.

They chose 12 emerging artists, including Kevin Aranibar-Molina, Elliott Jerome Brown Jr., Ryan James Caruthers, Ryan Duffin, Andrew Jarman, Mikaela Lungulov-Klotz, Groana Melendez, Vanessa Rondón, Alexis Ruiseco-Lombera, Matthew Papa, Jess Richmond, and Elias Jesús Rischmawi, each of whom is forging ahead in the genres of portraiture, self-portraiture, documentary, and conceptual photography.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. The company of her shadows,
2016

Categories: Art, Exhibitions, Huck, Photography

Jean Pigozzi: The Unofficial Creator of the Selfie

Posted on June 20, 2018

ME with Ai WeiWei and Maurizio Cattelan, 2016. Copyright Jean Pigozzi

Photographer and philanthropist Jean “Johnny” Pigozzi was a student at Harvard University in 1973 when he spotted actress Faye Dunaway at a party and asked to take a picture with her. “Every year the Hasty Pudding, a Harvard theater club, invites a famous movie star [to visit],” Pigozzi explained to VICE. “Everyone wanted an autograph, but I felt autographs can be fake.”

So when Dunaway said yes to a photo, Pigozzi did something extraordinary (for the time). He stood beside her, held his arm forward, pointed the camera back at the two of them, and pressed the button—snapping a selfie with a celebrity decades before the invention of Instagram. “Now, you have an iPhone and a screen and you can look at yourself and take many photographs. But when I started doing selfies, I only had the chance to take one picture, so I had to get it right,” Pigozzi said.

After college, Pigozzi became an insider in a rarefied world. In 1974, he exhibited photographs in the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. Soon after, his close friend Bianca Jagger helped him land a small part in a film (though it was never released). One night, Jagger invited Pigozzi to an intimate dinner with Liza Minelli, who told him about a new nightclub in New York called Studio 54. Nights at the club yielded selfies with celebrities like Grace Jones, Andy Warhol, Helmut Newton, and Ai Weiwei. Then in the 80s, Pigozzi began throwing lavish pool parties at his house in Cannes and turned his lens on his guests, capturing candid moments between famous friends.

Ahead of an exhibition of Pigozzi’s work at IMMAGIS Fine Art Photography in Munich from June 22 to August 4, VICE caught up with the photographer to gripe about modern selfie culture and chat about using a camera to collect mementos of his glamorous life.

Read the Full Story at VICE Online

Naomi Campbell, Villa Dorane, Antibes, 1993. Copyright Jean Pigozzi

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

Jess T. Dugan and Vanessa Fabbre: To Survive on This Shore

Posted on June 18, 2018

Duchess Milan, 69, Los Angeles, CA, 2017 © Jess T. Dugan

From 2012 through 2017, photographer Jess T. Dugan and social worker Vanessa Fabbre travelled across the United States to meet with older trans and gender non-conforming people who live on their own terms, surviving and thriving despite all of life’s unexpected turns.

Understanding the power of representation, Dugan and Fabbre assembled an incredible collection of portraits and stories of people who live within the complex intersections of gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, geographic location, and age for the incredible new book To Survive on This Shore (Kehrer Verlag). The result is a phenomenal portrait of people from all walks of life who have lived to tell their tales – a feat unto itself given the fact that the average trans life expectancy is just 35 years old.

“From the beginning, we were mindful of trying to include as wide a range of experiences as possible,” Dugan explains. “Some people may think of LGBTQ as one community, but each person featured in the book approaches their identity in a different way.”

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Dee Dee Ngozi, 55, Atlanta, GA, 2016 © Jess T. Dugan.

Categories: Art, Books, Huck, Photography

Fabio Sgroi: Palermo 1984-1986, Early Works

Posted on June 18, 2018

Picture it: Sicily, 1984. A young man named Fabio Sgroi is coming of age in Palermo, while a mafia war rages around him. The city is dark and desolate, but Sgroi and his friends find solace in the town’s nascent punk scene that – at this time at least – is strictly underground.

Over the next two years, Sgroi documents the punks, anarchists, surly drunkards, and melancholy monsters who gather regularly in Politeama Square or in each other’s homes, playing music and plotting schemes. Theirs is a teen rebellion filled with adolescent angst, the final chapter of a life of sex, drugs, and rock and roll; the last moment before the realities of adulthood begin to set in.

With the publication of Palermo 1984-1986, Early Works (Yard Press), Sgroi’s second book, we are transported to this Palermo – “an apotheosis of anarchy, where anomaly is normalcy,” as Francesco De Grandi describes it in the afterword. Ahead of the book’s release this Friday, Sgroi tells us more about this moment in subcultural history and the unique nature of Palermo punk.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Categories: 1980s, AnOther Man, Art, Books, Music, Photography

Represent: Hip-Hop Photography

Posted on June 14, 2018

Salt’n’Pepa, outside Bayside Studios, Bayside, Queens, Feb. 6, 1989: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Photo by Al Pereira, © Al Pereira

“Rap is something you do. Hip hop is something you live,” KRS One memorably said, reminding fans that the culture of hip hop is more than just an MC on the mic. Hip hop is a style, an attitude, and a way of life that transcends all boundaries, be it cultural or political, and brings people together in celebration of black power, pride, and principles.

At the foundation of hip hop are DJs, MCs, B-boys and B-Girls, and graffiti – which represent the music, literature, dance, and visual arts. Although MCing (aka rapping) has become the most famous element, it’s the fruit of a tree with much deeper roots, one that Rhea Combs, curator of photography and film, and director of CAAMA, explores in the new exhibition, Represent: Hip-Hop Photography.

Represent takes work from Bill Adler’s Eyejammie Hip Hop Photography Collection as its departure point, visually sampling from the seminal archive that includes more than 400 iconic photographs by 60 leading artists including Charlie Ahearn, Harry Allen, Janette Beckman, Al Periera, and Jamel Shabazz. For the exhibition, Combs has paired these works with historical photographs and other objects from the museum’s permanent collection, to illustrate the ways in which the innovative practices can be found in African-American history decades before hip hop was born in the Bronx.

Read the Story at Huck Online

Queen Latifah, NY, June 23, 1991. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Photo by Al Pereira, © Al Pereira

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Exhibitions, Huck, Music, Photography

Remembrances of Studio 54

Posted on June 13, 2018

Pat Cleveland and Andre Leon Talley. Photo: Copyright Dustin Pittman

Glitz, glam, and glory – Studio 54 had it all. The epicenter of the New York disco scene in the 1970s, the infamous nightclub was a symbol of hedonism – a potent brew of celebrity, sex, drugs, and decadence.

In 1977, co-owners Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, two friends from Brooklyn, converted an old CBS television studio into a magical space where Hollywood stars, fashion designers, performers, socialites, artists, models, and street legends would dance the night away.

For 33 months, Studio 54 made headlines for its outrageous stunts, becoming the stuff of legend until it all came crashing down when Schrager and Rubell were arrested for tax evasion and ended up serving 13 months in prison. In 1989, Rubell died from complications due to AIDS, while Schrager turned his life around, becoming one of the most significant hoteliers of our time. After being pardoned by President Barack Obama in January 2017, Schrager broke his 40-year silence, finally telling the true story of Studio 54.

On Friday (June 15), Studio 54, the first documentary about the famed nightclub will officially release. In celebration of this film, we spoke to its director Matt Tyrnauer and a host of Studio 54 insiders, who share their memories of the endless nights spent partying, rubbing shoulders with everyone from Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and Diana Ross to Michael Jackson, David Bowie, and Karl Lagerfeld.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Palmoa Picasso. Photo: Copyright Dustin Pittman

Categories: 1970s, AnOther Man, Art, Fashion, Manhattan, Music, Photography

This is No Dream: Making Rosemary’s Baby

Posted on June 13, 2018

In 1968, film director Roman Polanski brought Rosemary’s Baby to life and forever changed the way we imagine horror films. In a genre best known for its gruesome and grisly tropes, Rosemary’s Baby made the realm of the supernatural all too plausible in a delectable mixture of the mystical and the mundane.

The exquisitely cinematic film, which moves at a dreamlike pace, takes place inside New York’s stately Dakota building on 72nd Street and Central Park South, where a coven of witches decides to impregnate a young Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) with the child of Satan. Rosemary’s Baby is meticulously crafted so that every moment slowly unfolds in an exquisite tension that denies release until a denouement so quiet you realise there is no escape.

Yet, despite – or perhaps because of – the aesthetic perfection of Polanski’s work, the film production was a horror story all its own, one that is meticulously recounted in This Is No Dream: Making Rosemary’s Baby by James Munn (Reel Art Press). Set for release on June 12, the 50th anniversary of the legendary film, the book takes behind the scenes and on to the set, where drama was ever present.

“There was never a dull moment,” set photographer Bob Willoughby observes, as his photos help to convey the dark undercurrents at work. Although Polanski was riding high, at the height of his stardom while making this film, his countless scheduling delays put his job in jeopardy. At the same time, actor John Cassavetes, who co-starred as Guy Woodhouse, was ready to fight Polanski over creative differences.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Online

Categories: 1960s, AnOther, Books, Photography

Stanley Kubrick: Through a Different Lens

Posted on June 13, 2018

Stanley Kubrick was just 17 years old when he became a staff photographer for Look, one of the biggest large format photo magazines of the ’40s. The Bronx native was a natural behind the camera, capturing scenes of everyday life that perfectly prefigured the intense sensibilities that would come to define his films.

In the era when Weegee ruled the New York photo scene, Kubrick began to carve out a space for himself, shooting the common man and woman as they went about the business of modern life in the years immediately following World War II. Although the scenes could be pedestrian, his photographs were anything but – as Kubrick skillfully crafted a palpable sense of intensity, drama, and tension that made every picture vibrate with life.

Rarely seen photographs from Kubrick’s work for Look at the subject of Through a Different Lens, a new exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York and book published by Taschen. Here, we travel with Kubrick over a period of five years, as he traverses the streets of New York, bringing us onto the movie set, under the big top, into the boxing ring, and backstage on Broadway to get a look at extraordinary lives as they unfolded.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Categories: Art, Books, Exhibitions, Huck, Manhattan, Photography