Posts from the “Photography” Category

Elaine Mayes: Summer of Love

Posted on June 7, 2017

Photo: Elaine Mayes, Rebel, 25, Golden Gate Park, 1968, vintage gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches.

In the summer of 1967, some 100,000 people descended upon the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco to come together as one. Inspired by the Beat Generation of the 1950s who had taken to North Beach, a new wave of nonconformists embraced the counterculture vibes of the times, embracing the ethos of the hippie movement, first espoused by Timothy Leary earlier that year at the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park with the words, “Turn on, tune in, drop out.”

The Summer of Love, as it came to be known, as a natural extension of the Human Be-In, which embraced the principle of “sex, drug, and rock and roll.” In the face of violence and destruction that raged overseas in the Vietnam War and here at home with the Civil Rights Movement, the hippies sought to take a stand against the system through the message of peace and love.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

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

Charlie Ahearn Ft. Grand Wizzard Theodore: Scratch Ecstasy

Posted on June 1, 2017

Photo: Charlie Ahearn, DJ AJ 2 from the series Scratch Ecstasy, 1980. © the artist and courtesy P.P.O.W.

Hip Hop came of age inside the cinderblock walls of the Ecstasy Garage Disco in the Boogie Down Bronx. By 1980, it was the place to be as the flyest DJs and MCs honed their skills among their peers. In tribute, filmmaker Charlie Ahearn has teamed up with Grand Wizzard Theodore, inventor of the scratch, to recreate their weekly slide show as the centerpiece of Ahearn’s exhibition Scratch Ecstasy, currently on view at P.P.O.W. Gallery. Miss Rosen, who worked with Ahearn on his 2007 book, Wild Style: The Sampler, speaks with Ahearn and Theodore about the interplay between sight and sound in the development of Hip-Hop culture during its formative years.

Read the Full Story at Aperture Online

Photo: Charlie Ahearn, Scratch DJ from the series Scratch Ecstasy, 1980. © the artist and courtesy P.P.O.W.

Photo: Charlie Ahearn, Funky Four in their Bronx neighborhood from the series Scratch Ecstasy, 1980. © the artist and courtesy P.P.O.W.

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Aperture, Art, Bronx, Exhibitions, Music, Photography

Irving Penn: Centennial

Posted on May 30, 2017

Photo: Irving Penn, American, Plainfield, New Jersey, 1917–2009, New York. Three Asaro Mud Men, New Guinea, 1970, printed 1976 Platinum-palladium print. Image: 20 1/8 x 19 1/2 in. (51.1 x 49.6 cm.) Sheet: 24 15/16 x 22 1/16 in. (63.3 x 56 cm.) Mount: 26 1/16 x 22 1/16 in. (66.2 x 56 cm.) Overall: 26 1/16 x 22 1/16 in. (66.2 x 56 cm.) Promised Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation IP .154

“Photography is just the present stage of man’s visual history,” Irving Penn (1917-2009) sagely observed, recognizing the infinite possibilities of the human animal to create technology that would advance our ability to document, represent, and re-envision the world. As a master of the form, Penn understood that the only thing that limits us is imagination.

For seven decades he worked, becoming a master of studio photography with the ability to craft pictures of anything he wished. Here was a man who could transform his very first commission for Jell-o pudding into a resounding success, even though, as Penn realized, it was, “a abstract nothing, it’s just a blob of ectoplasm.”

Yet with that formless glob of goop crafted in a laboratory, Penn was able to entice consumers to buy and serve the product en masse. It’s precisely this ability to transcend the particulars that made Penn a master of whatever form he chose to shoot, be in portraits, fashion, still life, food, nudes, or flowers. He understood that the photograph was an invitation to engage, to gaze upon the world without actually having to interact with it.

Through the safety of distance in time and space, Penn asked us to look at the complex and extraordinary beauty of existence in its many forms, whether Miles Davis’ hand, the Asaro Mud Men of New Guinea, or the curious silhouettes of Japanese designer Issey Miyake.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Irving Penn, American, Plainfield, New Jersey, 1917–2009, New York. Two Miyake Warriors, New York. June 3, 1998, printed January-February, 1999. Platinum-palladium print. Image: 21 x 19 5/8 in. (53.4 x 49.8 cm.) Sheet: 23 1/4 x 21 9/16 in. (59 x 54.7 cm.) Mount: 23 1/4 x 21 9/16 in. (59 x 54.7 cm.) Overall: 23 1/4 x 21 9/16 in. (59 x 54.7 cm.) Promised Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation IP .166

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Exhibitions, Feature Shoot, Photography

Best Street Photography of the Last 20 Years

Posted on May 26, 2017

Photo: © Sean Maung

A great street photographer lives in the here and now. Their eyes are always attuned to the nuances of life, their awareness is heightened to suprasensory levels, their reflexes as quick as an athlete. They do more than see: they look, ever vigilant to the cast of light and shadow to create a mood, or the movement of people through the cityscape, careful to capture a fraction of a second forevermore. In celebration of the best street photography of the last 20 years, Crave showcases some of the best contemporary masters of the form.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: Art, Crave, Photography

Larry Sultan: Here and Home

Posted on May 26, 2017

Photo: Larry Sultan, Business Page, from the series Pictures From Home, 1985; chromogenic print. © Estate of Larry Sultan. Photos courtesy Casemore Kirkeby and Estate of Larry Sultan.

Home is a state of mind as much as it is a place. For some it can be a four-letter word of the very worst kind—or it can be synonymous with love. Home can be so many things, all of them deeply personal.

For photographer Larry Sultan (1946-2009), home was where he created work, lush images of suburban California that are as American as Hostess cupcakes. There’s something delightfully unnatural about it all, something that comforts us with soothing visions of a naïve faith in the possibilities of the contrived. Here, the element of control reveals itself, that deeply seductive belief that we run this.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Photo: Larry Sultan, Practicing Golf Swing, from the series Pictures from Home, 1986; chromogenic print. © Estate of Larry Sultan. Photos courtesy Casemore Kirkeby and Estate of Larry Sultan.

Photo: Larry Sultan, My Mother Posing for Me, from the series Pictures From Home, 1984; chromogenic print. © Estate of Larry Sultan. Photos courtesy Casemore Kirkeby and Estate of Larry Sultan.

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

Art/Africa: A Nouvel Atelier

Posted on May 25, 2017

Artwork: Kudzanai Chiurai. Revelations V. 145 x 200 cm. 2011. © Kudzanai Chiurai © Courtesy de l’artiste et Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris et Marian Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg.

In recent years, the arts of Africa have taken the world stage by storm as the diverse peoples and cultures of the continent offer a distinctive vantage point and approach to creativity that is as singular as it is breathtaking. In celebration of the diverse arts of the land, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, presents Art/Africa, le nouvel atelier, a series of three exhibitions currently on view now through August 28, 2017.

Art/Africa looks at the response of artists to the movements of the past fifty years, as independence from imperialist powers restored self-determination and freedom to the peoples whose homelands had been occupied by foreign invaders for centuries. The works look at the responses to colonialism, apartheid, issues of gender, family, and identity, and activism.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Artwork: Moké. Skol Primus. 177 x 131 cm. 1991. © Moké © Courtesy CAAC – The Pigozzi Collection.

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

Jeanette Lee: Private Image

Posted on May 24, 2017

Photo © Jeannette Lee, courtesy of IDEA.

In January 1978, the Sex Pistols finally imploded on stage, with Johnny Rotten calling out the words that would speak to the world for decades: “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”

Then he dropped the mic and walked away. Later that same year, Rotten reinvented himself, resuming use of his government name (John Lydon) and creating a new band, Public Image Limited (PiL), with childhood friend Jah Wobble on bass, former Clash guitarist Keith Levene, and drummer Jim Walker.

Lydon, knowing the nature of the game, approached Jeanette Lee to become the non-musical member of the group—to play the media, as it were. Lee, who went on to become the co-director of independent music label Rough Trade Records, took over the publicity, promotion, and general administration for the band. She also purchased a Polaroid SX-70 camera and took a series of behind-the-scenes pictures that have just been published in Private Image, a limited edition from IDEA.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online-

Categories: 1980s, Art, Crave, Music, Photography

Michael Lavine: The Notorious B.I.G. – Life After Death

Posted on May 20, 2017

Photo: Michael Lavine. The Notorious B.I.G., Life After Death.

Twenty years have passed, but the shock is still fresh — and still incomprehensible. On March 9, 1997, Christopher Wallace, aka The Notorious B.I.G., was gunned down in a drive-by shooting. It remains unsolved.

At 12:30 a.m., Wallace left a Vibe magazine Soul Train Music Awards after-party at Los Angeles’ Petersen Automotive Museum. The SUV in which he was traveling stopped at a red light just 50 yards from the venue. A dark Chevrolet Impala SS pulled up along the passenger side. The driver rolled down his window, drew his weapon and fired. Four bullets struck Wallace. He was rushed to nearby Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and was pronounced dead at 1:15 a.m.

Not long afterward, The Notorious B.I.G. rose again: The double album Life After Death was released March 25. It sold 700,000 hard copies almost immediately, jumping from No. 176 to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in the space of a week. The album’s cover art featured the man formerly known as Biggie Smalls in a long black coat and black bowler. He stared us in the face while leaning against a hearse that bore the license plate “B.I.G.” There were no sunglasses to hide his lazy eye. He wore it full and proud, looking over his shoulder as if he already knew. He wasn’t smiling. But he wasn’t mad. He was just stating the facts from the other side of the grave.

It seemed like a prophecy.

Read the Full Story at The Undefeated

Categories: 1990s, Art, Brooklyn, Music, Photography, The Undefeated

Stephen Shore: Selected Works, 1973-1981

Posted on May 17, 2017

Photo: Stephen Shore, Ginger Shore, West Palm Beach, Florida, November 14, 1977. © Stephen Shore, courtesy 303 Gallery, New York.

In 1982, Aperture published Uncommon Places by Stephen Shore, a collection of large-format color photographs exploring the American vernacular landscape from an entirely new point of view—one that embraced the ethos of mid-century populism. It offered a fresh take on modernism, embracing the spectacle of the mundane, the glorious humdrum of the nation under soaring blue skies and wide open terrain. It enlivened the eye and the mind to a sense of the sheer magnificence of that which we see everyday though we may never really look.

Uncommon Places, which has since been expanded and reissued several times over the past 35 years, has influenced a generation of photographers to look at the landscape where they are. In the past five years Shore has returned to his archive to delve more deeply within the works that he produced during the period from 1973 to 1981. He then brought the unseen works to Aperture, who invited an international group of 15 photographers, curators, authors, and cultural figures including Wes Anderson, Francine Prose, Ed Ruscha, Taryn Simon, and Lynne Tillman to select ten images each to create a series of portfolios collected in the new book Stephen Shore: Selected Works, 1971-1981.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Photo: Stephen Shore, East Fifth Street and Main Street, Fort Worth, Texas, June 17, 1976. © Stephen Shore, courtesy 303 Gallery, New York.

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

Berenice Abbott: Paris Portraits 1925-1930

Posted on May 16, 2017

Paris, 1925: Berenice Abbott stood on the balcony of Man Ray’s Paris studio with his camera in her hands, taking photographs that would become the very first portraits in a long and legendary career.

Four years earlier, she arrived in Paris at the age of 23. Within two years, she was working as a darkroom assistant to her friend Man Ray. With his encouragement she stepped into the light and began producing work of her own. A selection of 115 works from this period now appear in the luxurious tome, Berenice Abbott: Paris Portraits 1925-1930 (Steidl), giving us an unfettered glimpse into the early years of a natural.

“The first [portraits] I took came out well, which surprised me,” Abbott is quoted as saying in the book’s introduction. “I had no idea of becoming a photographer, but the pictures kept coming out and most of them were good. Some were very food and I decided perhaps I could charge something for my work. Soon I started to build up a little business and I paid Man Ray out of the money I made for the supplies I used, but eventually I was paying him more than he was paying me and that’s when it started to become a problem.”

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Categories: Art, Books, Feature Shoot, Photography

Martha Cooper at Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Posted on May 16, 2017

Photographer Martha Cooper has always lived life on her own term. After graduating high school at 16 and Grinnell College at 19, the Baltimore-native decided to see the world so she joined the Peace Corps and traveled to Thailand, where she taught English for a spell. Then she hopped on a motorcycle and hightailed it from Bangkok to London, taking all along the way.

She received a diploma in anthropology from Oxford, which speaks to her truest sensibilities: her passion for documenting the creative fruits of the human experience. In her hands, the camera is not merely a tool to create an image for aesthetic pleasure, it does something more; it bears witness to a time and place that is inherently ephemeral: street art and culture, which is inherently urban folk art.

In 1970, Cooper found herself walking along a street in Tokyo when she spotted a man in a crowd. On his back was a Japanese tattoo, with figures drawn in the style of a woodblock print. Entranced, Cooper followed him until he disappeared, then began asking her friend about tattoos—a touchy subject. Tattooing had been outlawed in 1872, then legalized again in 1948, then quickly became a status symbol for the yakuza and the Japanese underworld. But Cooper is not one to give up when she has her sights set, and so she pursued her quest to completion: entrance to the studio of Horibun I, a tattoo master.

It is here, in his studio that Cooper made the photographs that comprise the earliest work in the exhibition Martha Cooper, currently on view at Steven Kasher Gallery, New York, through June 3, 2017.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Bronx, Exhibitions, Feature Shoot, Graffiti, Manhattan, Photography