Helen Gee's Limelight : Book Highly Recommended

For seven short years, a coffeehouse in Greenwich Village called Limelight was at the center of the art-photography world. There, owner Helen Gee exhibited the works of such luminaries as Harry Callahan, Bill Brandt, Imogen Cunningham, and Lisette Model at a time when photography was not yet considered an art, and the sticker prices on the prints were a mere fraction of what they'd be today. Limelight is Gee's memoir, a story about the coffeehouse she started, the people she knew, and the times in which she lived.

Even without the coffeehouse, Gee's life is like something out of a novel: at age 16 she left home to live in Greenwich Village with a Chinese painter named Yun Gee. The late '30s and early '40s were hardly a time of racial tolerance in the United States, and so their romance was disliked as much for its interracial nature as for the age difference between the two lovers. After the birth of their daughter, Yun Gee developed schizophrenia, leaving Helen to fend for herself and her child. She did this in a variety of ways before finally hitting on the idea of opening a coffeehouse. In Limelight Gee describes the obstacles she faced in starting the place, the people she met while running it, and the eventual problems--both political and personal--that brought Limelight down. This memoir is both Gee's story and the story of the art community in 1950s, both of which are worth telling.
-The New Yorker

The Private Collection of Fern M. Schad

RWFA / Rick Wester Fine Arts

511 West 25th Street

Suite 205

New York, NY 10001

917.348.8485

This is an exhibition of photographs from the Private Collection of Fern M. Schad. Mrs. Schad and her late husband Tennyson co-founded LIGHT in 1971 in New York, the first art gallery devoted exclusively to exhibition, promotion and sale of contemporary photography, where Rick Wester formerly worked. With LIGHT Mrs. Schad developed some long standing relationships with the artists she worked with including: Aaron Siskind, Frederick Sommer, Harry Callahan, André Kertész, Emmet Gowin. LIGHT was the reason these photographers are what they are today - modern masters. This exhibition is the first time this group of pictures has been brought together in a public venue. The exhibition runs from September 24th to October 29th. I highly recommend going to see the show

Note for Taylor: This image is by Emmet Gowin called Edith with berry Necklace, 1971. It made me think of your project through its style and tribal feel.

The Hijinks of the YES MEN

The Yes Men

"SPECIAL EDITION" NEW YORK POST from The Yes Men

More Info about the 9.21.09 NY Post Heist
(you can download a copy here)

Yes Men blog includes interviews
READ the FAQs section before their Oct. 5 visit

The Yes Men’s Andy Bichlbaum Arrested at ‘SurvivaBall’ Demo



and here is a preview of their new movie The Yes Men Fix the World

Alfred Gescheidt at Higher Pictures

Upon walking into Higher Pictures, the only thing I knew about Alfred Gescheidt was that I had never heard of him. Walking into a gallery with little to no knowledge of an artist is not a unique experience for me, but what is rare is how much I enjoyed the work. Often it seems to me that if a gallery shows work by a little known artist, it is often because the artist is newly “discovered” and the work itself often seems too thought out, too serious, and difficult to enjoy if you experience it without knowledge of the artist and his/her intention behind the work. In Gescheidt’s work, on the other hand, each picture is a sly and subtle wink at the viewer, urging them to be entertained by his visualizations of “walking on pins and needles” in the image of a woman teetering on the head of a pin, the reinterpretation of what are bodies are made up of, in a silhouette of a man and a woman collaged with images of salt and water and muscle builders, a baby in wedding clothes in “Young Bride”. Come on, Gescheidt’s images say, have as much fun with these as I did. While his work can be light and entertaining on an individual scale, many of his images also have a distinct tone regarding either politics or culture. A political example is “Politics Make Strange Bedfellows” and the untitled image in which a clenched fist, resembling the “fight the power” gesture, is overlay with an American 10 dollar bill. His graphic style and image combination allows the audience to interpret each image differently, but the possible interpretations are not infinite. It is perhaps the definitiveness of these images which appeals to me as opposed to the art of newer, younger artists, who often are so afraid of their message that they overload their art with vagaries, allowing the audience to speculate the meaning of the piece indefinitely. Or perhaps I simply felt liberated by the surprise of walking into a gallery to see the untitled image of a snake emerging from the fly of someone’s pants. It is rare that an artist allows you to look at their work, get it, enjoy it, and move on, but perhaps that is the key, as that which is rare is also memorable. All I know is what I thought; trouser snake. Hahaha.

While in Amsterdam this past March, I had the opportunity to visit the Richard Avedon exhibit at the Foam gallery. It was an exciting experience to see prints of some of my favorite photographs. I was ecstatic to see the amount of work exhibited, some of which I had never seen before. Revisiting his work at The International Center of Photography (ICP) added to my excitement; it surpassed my expectations as I witnessed his most comprehensive body of work.

As a photographer, Richard Avedon challenged the world of photography by adding life and dynamics to photography after World War II . As I enter the ICP galleries, I was able to observe the evolution of an artist from the interior of a studio to the streets of Paris. "The New Look of Dior" resembles the elegance and the importance of the female model as well as the dress she wears. Both subjects flow together as men are mesmerized by the beauty of what they observe. Moving on from the romantic look of Dior, Avedon captures symbolic moments of the time period. His image of Suzy Parker with Robin Tattersall and Gardner Mckay at the Cafe des Beaux-Arts in Paris, highlights moments in the 1950s when American lifestyle elements (such as the pinball machine) were introduced to European culture. Later on in his life Avedon introduces color to his photographs in his portfolio titled, "In Memory of the Late Mr. and Mrs. Comfort" (1995). This body of work serves as a fable to expose the contemporary ideas of money, death, chaos, ambition and vanity.

I admire the way Avedon embraces a cinematic approach to his images, raising the stakes of what fashion photography was. The lighting and choreographed look gave the images elegance, beauty, and energy. The cinema look enhanced the icons in the image, as well as brought life of the moving image to the static life of print media.

Robert Frank

Looking in Robert Frank's The Americans
Interesting interactive online resource developed by the National Gallery in DC
MET exhibition dates: September 22, 2009–January 3, 2010 

READ: Road Show
The journey of Robert Frank’s “The Americans." 
by Anthony Lane, New Yorker, September 14, 2009

Robert Frank's Elevator Girl Sees Herself Years Later

Another NPR story where Robert Frank speaks

Robert Frank's America by Philip Gefter
in The Daily Beast, September 17, 2009

Juergen Teller at Maupin Gallery

Paradis by Juergen Teller

Maupin Gallery

540 W. 26th Street

I've never really been a fan of Juergen Teller's work. Not unlike how I feel about Jill Greenberg's work, I find that the photographer's style--that amateur flash wash-out--has become too much of a gimmick that I can't see past and that I have trouble connecting/relating to the subject. After a while I've started to feel that I've seen them all after having seen one. (Though at least Jill Greenberg's work can be humorous.) That said, I'm always up for checking out the cross-section between the commercial art world--especially fashion photography--and the fine art world, so when I heard Teller was having a show in Chelsea, I had to check it out. And, well, the photographs were probably the most interesting that I've seen from him in a while (how much my low expectations contributed to that, I can't say).

Most interesting to me, after reading Groys's 'On the New,' was how the museum space, under Teller's flash and with his figure composition (nudes casually lounging around artworks), ceases to become that vacuum partitioned from the "real world" (to preserve unique works, to re-present the profane and mundane as unique works, blah blah, etc.). The museum presentation lighting is washed out. The models stand within the guard rails (naked, no less) intended to protect the works. The space becomes just another personal, intimate place where we go about our business--and in this case, be naked.

And then there's the juxtaposition of nude, recognizable subjects with old masterpieces of art (particularly nude sculptures and the Mona Lisa). Pretty cool, I guess.

Then there was also the occasional shot of a painting or sculpture, subjected to Teller's flash, without the model and framed closely in on just the exhibited work. These seems to further show the effect of his "amateur style" on the clean, formal and public space that is a museum, but as individual images, I don't think they'd be so interesting if Teller's visual style--that flattening orb of light--hadn't become something of an icon of its own. Though I guess there's something to be said about that.

Reaction to Avedon Show

Richard Avedon was known for his ability to continually revolutionize and redefine the photographic medium. He began his career in the post World War II era moving away from static, dull images of typical commercial photographic past and instead injecting a vibrancy and elegance to his own work. The exhibition at the International Center of Photography is the most comprehensive body of his photographic work to date displaying images from his time at Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and The New Yorker. The mix of prints, contact sheets and magazines creates an intimate look at his body of work and how it progressed from 1944 to 2000, as he continued to stay on top of the commercial photography market and pushing conventional ideas of how to display beauty and the art of the magazine.

At the beginning of the exhibition, the text mentions Avedon’s awareness of the difference in displaying photographs on a wall versus in print. He acknowledges how the editing, cropping, and sizing of photographs may have a substantial effect on the way the image is read depending on its context and the way it is displayed. This idea influenced my perception of the show, my ability to see images intended for print in the space of a museum created an elevated sense of understanding, which in reality may have been artificial. His images were created with the intention to sell a look, a lifestyle. Glamour and sex ooze from each picture. Sunny Hartnett in a white evening gown leaning suggestively over a table of gamblers in a soft and smoky light with a confident and almost smug expression; Dovima staring out of a rain speckled window with an intense gaze accented by her signature skinny and slanted eyebrows as she dons a hat by Balenciaga; Penelope Tree on a gray backdrop in a simple black shirt and pant ensemble with a gust of wind slightly blowing her shirt open and her hair back.

As I looked at each photograph and their titles I knew the images were intended to display a designer’s clothing or specific hairstyle but because of the context of a museum and the body of work being curated with that in mind, I more often than not looked at the images as symbols of successful artistic merit. Avedon’s ability to create cinematic lighting, a movement and narrative in a single still frame, and his versatility to produce compositionally simple and stunning images both inside the studio and on the streets drew me in and had me continue to look onward. Previous experience in museums with large prints and controlled lighting made me immediately recognize these images as “fine art”. Although I believe that Avedon has successfully transcended the lines of fashion and art, as this exhibition clearly illustrates, I still found it curious how form so strongly informed the content. His production quality and image making process create a flirtation with the viewer, an invention into a reality many do not experience. In this sense, his work is both victorious in the world of art and fashion, constructing an image that both reflect upon society as it is and projects what me become.

Avedon at ICP

Viewing the Richard Avedon fashion exhibition at the International Center for Photography was the most comprehensive collection of his work I have seen in person. I especially enjoyed seeing the iconic “Dovima with Elephants” in person, which was strategically placed at the beginning of the exhibition. Although having the layout span chronologically seems to be the most obvious choice, as both a viewer and a student of photography I appreciated it from an educational perspective. Having the chance to see how a photographer develops, grows, explores, and gains confidence in his own work over time was both consoling and inspiring. Throughout the decades I began to notice emergence of different themes (or the expansion of old ones) and consistent points of interest (such as circus costume and makeup). I began to recognize visual quirks that, for me, distinguishes his work from others in fashion photography. By the conclusion of the exhibition it was amazing to see how much he had expanded conceptually and visually while at the same time staying steadily interested in the same situations and visual motifs. I think today the name Avedon speaks just as much as his work does (thanks to a raging reputation and a celebrated lifelong career). Walking through decade after decade of his work at ICP began to show me in a large way why this is.

Bowery Artist Tribute

check this out:
Bowery Artist Tribute at The New Museum

a related project: Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems by Martha Rosler

Jaimie Warren at The New Museum

I would like to extend an invitation to meet Higher Pictures artist Jamie Warren at the opening of The New Museum of Contemporary Art's fall photography show SHOOT. The event is held tomorrow, September 17th at 7:00 p.m..

Jaimie Warren's work consists largely of self portraiture that "ride[s] the boundaries between snapshot happenstance, the seemingly set-up and deadpan portraiture" (if you could imagine a love child of Martin Parr and Cindy Sherman). She has a book published by Aperture (Don't You Feel Better, 2008) and has already been curated into many shows around New York City. After having had the opportunity to work with Jaimie, tomorrow promises to be a entertaining Thursday evening.
For more information on the artist, please visit - www.higherpictures.com

Thoughts on "On the New" by Boris Groys and Juergen Teller's "Paradids"

I read our required article and went to Juergen Teller's show in Chelsea on the same day on accident. It just happened that the images and the article would draw so many parallels from each other: Critical analysis of the museum space, references to antiquity, pushing boundaries, etc. I also saw parallels between the article and my work as well as between Teller's show and my work.
I love making references to the past; past glamor, tribal themes, religious iconography. I love mixing the old with the new, as I had done in my large format class with the female deities images. Simplicity in the presence of decadence intrigues me, so it's no wonder that I was intrigued by "Paradis;" I have always been drawn (both in good and bad ways) to Juergen Teller's aesthetic. It interests me that he blurrs the line between "proffessional aesthetic" and "amateur aesthetic." I also like exploring that idea. I tend to dislike "perfect," commercial, sleek images.
In terms of "On the New," I disagree with Boris Groys when he writes, "Artists and art theoricians alike are glad to be free at last from the burden of history, from the necessity to make the next step, and from the obligation to conform to the historical laws and requirements of that which is historically new." Are you kidding? I love referencing art history; I have never seen it as a burden. I see it as inspiration. He goes on to say, "The museum doesn't dictate what the new has to look like, it only shows what it must not look like..." I agree to some extent with this statement, at least from a curators point of view. But I think the trick is to mix and match. Because isn't that what art is anyway?

more Uptown and Downtown Shows to See

UPTOWN:
Sally Mann: Proud Flesh

Gagosian Gallery
980 Madison Avenue (77th St)
until Oct. 31

Lothar Osterburg: Upstairs

Leslie Heller Gallery
16 E. 77th  St, ground floor
(between Madison & 5th Ave)
until October 17





DOWNTOWN:

Intersections Intersected: The Photography of David Goldblatt @ The New Museum, 256 Bowery
Over the last fifty years, David Goldblatt has documented the complexities and contradictions of South African society. His photographs capture the social and moral value systems that governed the tumultuous history of his country’s segregationist policies and continue to influence its changing political landscape. MORE

reactions

Alfred Gescheidt at Higher Pictures:

I have to agree with Erin on this one, this exhibition was refreshingly unique - the 85 year old artist's first show was held at Higher Pictures. He made images by cutting photos and creating composites by hand, then finally rephotographing them to show as one image. This show is definitely working checking out. I especially liked this one on the right of the little girl dressed as a bride.






Jacques Henri Lartigue at Howard Greenberg:

The images in the show were beautiful, but they didn't surprise me the way Gescheidt's images did. Many of them were very 'Cartier-Bresson'-esque, like this one of his cousin jumping over stairs.





Richard Avedon at ICP:

Chris Phillips was right when he said the fashion shows at ICP were a big hit this year. The museum was overcrowded with people (mostly twenty-something girls) when I visited the exhibition, 'Avedon Fashion'. The show does a great job of showing the world how much of a genius Avedon was when it comes to photographing beauty. This show was one of the best fashion shows I've seen.. but I'm not quite sure it beats the Met's 'The Model as a Muse: Embodying Fashion' show.

Top 4 Must See Shows in Uptown & Chelsea

Nicolai Howalt:

Car Crash Studies

September 10th - October 24th 2009

Bruce Silverstein

535 W 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

ph: 212 627 3930

This is one of two shows that Bruce currently has on exhibit, the other being Todd Hido's landscape series 'A Road Divided'. Nicolai Howalt is a young Danish photographer who lives and works in Copenhagen. His work is considered primarily documentary, where his previous series include 'Boxer' which documented young boys before and after a boxing match along with 'How to Hunt'. 'Car Crash Studies' is a photographic study of cars that have been involved in severe and potentially fatal accidents. What particularly attracted me to the photographs was that although they are documentary, they are perceived as abstract. The most interesting pieces were the very large 70inch prints of the cracks in the paint on the damaged cars. These particular photographs have a distinct connection to Aaron Siskind's peeling paint photographs, wherein the subjects loose their origin and rather become a composition of shapes and lines.

Anthony Pearson

September 11th - October 10th 2009

Marianne Boesky Gallery

509 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

ph: 212 680 9889

This is Anthony Pearson's first solo exhibition in New York. His work is very conceptual and combines bronze sculpture and photography. I have seen his work before at Lisa Cooley Gallery and Harris/Liebermann Gallery both on the LES last year and have become a big fan. This show is composed of two series: Flares and Opaques. The Flares are orb like photographs that are the result of light leaking in his camera, while the Opaques are solarizations of the backside of his bronze sculptures. What interests me is that his work could be interpreted as paintings or silkscreen prints, but are in fact photographs.

Alfred Gescheldt:

Photographs 1949-1979

September 10th - October 24th 2009

Higher Pictures

764 Madison Ave.

New York, NY 10065

ph: 212 249 6100

At 85, this is Alfred Gescheidt's first solo exhibition in New York. He is known for his genius technical skills in collage, montage and retouching all before Photoshop, as well as for his humor. His work has been reproduced through advertising, postcards, album covers, magazines, etc. Gescheidt is famous for a series/book he did called '30 Ways to Quit Smoking' where he illustrated the Surgeon General's Report on Smoking in 1964. The exhibition is divided into three parts: the smoking series, his nudity series from OUI Magazine and other selected works. Thank you Kim for this incredible exhibition and for introducing me to Alfred, a man with such an imagination.

Elements of Wonder:

Group Show

August 4th - 24th 2009 (the show is still up???)

Danziger Projects

534 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

ph: 212 628 6778

This is a small group show of ten images that took its title 'Elements of Wonder' as the central theme. Danziger Projects states that the goal of this exhibition was to express "how the element of wonder so often manifests itself in photography". By including photographers from the last 130 years such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Annie Leibovitz, Adam Fuss (photograph on the right), Sze Tsung Leong, Mario Giacomelli, Edward Weston, etc. they have done just that. Each photograph is about a different type of 'wonder' which was what particularly attracted me to the show. Be it wondering how Adam Fuss created his photogram, or Sze Tsung Leong's Parisian landscape from his 'Cities Series' where one wonders, do we really live in a world where this exists. Making one wonder is something I try to push with my photography.

The Adventure Begins

Some Museum/Gallery Suggestions to see this week:

Dan Graham @ the Whitney

• read/listen/watch - Dan Graham on UbuWeb

Richard Avedon and John Wood at ICP

Icons of the desert: Early Aboriginal Paintings from Papunya at the Grey Art Gallery
**This is a truly inspiring exhibition - an absolute MUST SEE this semester.
Related exhbition at the NYU 80 Washington Square East Gallery down the street from the Grey: Nganana Tjungurringanyi Tjukurrpa Nintintjakitja: We Are Here Sharing Our Dreaming, link to more information about these artists

P.S.1 - lots of fantastic exhibitions - only up for a few more weeks. For those of you interested in experimental video, Kenneth Anger a must see

Roam around Chelsea - I recommend all the shows from Time Out's Chelsea Top Ten
check listings before you go - see ArtCat, ArtLogs, TimeOut links on right. Here are some of my suggestions.

And if it is sunny on Sunday: This World & Nearer Ones on Governor's Island
While there, look for the Sculptors Guild at Governor's Island exhibit

Post information and reactions to what you saw on the blog
(and photos if you took any)