Jessica Todd Harper

INTERIOR EXPOSURES

Cohen Amador Gallery
April 2 to May 10, 2008

Self Portrait with Christopher (Easter Dinner)

The Cohen Amador Gallery is pleased to announce “Interior Exposure,” an exhibition of work by the American photographer Jessica Todd Harper, from her newly published book of the same title. Harper’s sensual and luminous interiors trace the complex psychological connections among an extended web of family and friends….(more of press release here).

DANIEL BAUER at Andrea Meislin Gallery

THE COMBINATION OF LIMITS

Andrea Meislin Gallery
March 22 to May 3, 2008

Sans Personne á Qui Parier, 2008

The exhibition will feature an assembly of photographs, accompanied by a ‘found’ video, commenting on boundaries and borders in the Israeli spatial, temporal and conceptual continuum. Works divide roughly into the geographic polarities of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the new city of Modiin, an amorphous sprawl in the foothills midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Ritual eruv demarcations become the recurring element of the Modiin pictures. Nearly invisible itself, the eruv twine makes visible other ‘invisibilities’ in the landscape. In the triptych Sans Personne à Qui Parler, the eruv activates the tell tale foliage evidencing the one-time Palestinian village, El Burge. Axes, situated several hundred yards to the east, catches the old north/south road that skirted the green line before it too fades into the landscape. As the road disappears on the horizon, infrastructures such as pylons and newly strung power lines, as well as the eruv, create a new dominating east/west axis. In the untitled black and white photograph from the western edge of Modiin, the eruv frames a terrain dotted with saplings planted by the Jewish National Fund, another form of demarcation – memory forests.

Two pictures from Bauer’s Domino/Backgammon series depict the unfinished villa constructed by King Hussein of Jordan on the northern outskirts of Jerusalem. The first image, a manipulated one, is suspended in a whimsical state between high modernism – structurally mimicking Le Corbusier’s Maison Domino – and the inevitable hybrid orientalist pastiche that would have been the ornamental end result had the villa been completed. The second image shows the view from the veranda of the villa, interwoven neighborhoods of greater Jerusalem settlements and Arab villages. With the detailed ceiling framing the scene in the foreground we are caught between utopian fantasia and ‘facts on the ground.’

Bauer further investigates architectural specters in Gains/Losses. Large exaggerated panoramas of a mega-structure in the heart of Tel Aviv, Israel’s first indoor shopping mall, are juxtaposed with a film loop of found footage showing the construction of the Bar Lev Line (Israel’s Maginot Line-like fortifications on the Suez Canal that were overrun in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.) Both military line and civilian bunker (shopping mall) were built by the same contractors one after the other in the early seventies. Made of sand and cast concrete, they were resolute attempts to attain stability, to dig in, and to give assurance.

Composed View #2, situated just beyond greater Jerusalem in the Etzion settlement block, is a composed ‘cropped’ panorama. Here all ‘framing’ details are removed leaving only the juxtaposition of the Arab village with the Israeli settlement. The ‘organic’ Arab village blend into the hills, while the settlement rides the crest of the wavelike form of these same hills. The image masks the crime in the sublime. (Press release)

Domino and Backgammon, 2006

Daniel Bauer has shown in numerous international exhibitions including Gains/Losses, Art Focus, International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Jerusalem (1999), Borderline Disorder, the Israeli Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture (2002), Territories: Islands, Camps and Other States of Utopia, Kunst Werke, Berlin (2003), Metamorphosis, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2003), Utopia and Other Facts on the Ground, Malmo Konsthaal (2004). He is a recent recipient of an MFA from Columbia University and currently teaches at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. This will be his first solo show in New York.

JEM SOUTHAM

Upton Pyne

Davis Museum and Cultural Center
Wellesley College, Massachusetts
March 19 to June 8, 2008

The Pond at Upton Pyne, March 1999

One of the most significant photographers working in Britain today, Jem Southam creates photographic narratives of landscape transformed by time and humans. Upton Pyne chronicles the evolution of a small pond, the result of industrial waste on the site of a former manganese mine near his home in Cornwall, England. The artist describes the series as a “collection of histories,” which he gathered during regular visits to the pond during 1996-2003. The photographs detail a very particular place and the passing of time. They also address broader concerns about the relationship between humans and the natural world, from questions about the environment to debates on urbanization. Fundamentally, Southam’s work meditates on the human longing for an Arcadian past. (Excerpts from press release)

CREWDSON @ Aperture online

Copyright Gregory Crewdson

Crewdson is interviewed by Aperture to talk about his ideas behind his elaborate process of creating his images.

ART REVIEW | Raymond Meeks @ Candace Dwan

By CHRISTOPHER SCHUCH

Raymond Meeks’ photographs in his latest show Topsoil depict a vast and barren landscape. Photographs of overturned soil seem to be taken from a perspective that suggests Meeks himself was lying on the ground. Repetitive images are only differentiated by their titles, indicating an exact date and time when the photograph was taken. Many of the photographs, often printed on vellum, speak of a cold, dormant ground which is, in reality, in a constant state of transition.

Left: Untitled I, Romania 1993
Copyright Raymond Meeks

The viewer can deduct that in just months life will spring from this churned soil. The suggestion of continuous transition is relayed in further images depicting people within the landscape. Some present figures standing around a fire in the Untitled 1-3, Romania series while others reveal delicate moments with Meeks’ children and his immediate surroundings (some images resonating with those produced by Sally Mann).
Blackbirds appear frequently in the images proving, perhaps, that the soil remains fertile even in a dormant state. Their integrity is questioned, however, as one finds recurring figures and formations and sometimes an overwhelming amount of birds Meeks has been able to get so close to. Did these winged creatures exist in the landscape he photographed, or were they added later?

Right: An Observation Winter Garden, 2008, Copyright Raymond Meeks

Meeks comments that the photographs in the show are inspired, in part, by the works of Rick Bass who writes: “You can rot or you can burn but either way, if you’re lucky, a place will shape and cut and bend you, will strengthen and weaken you. You trade your life for the privilege of this experience-the joy of a place, the joy of blood family: the joy of knowledge gotten by listening and observing.”

The show is a glimpse into a period of joint dormancy and transition both in the landscape and in the individual. The show is accompanied by a few artist books, two of which are exceptionally beautiful and complete with toned silver gelatin prints. These seem to be the hidden gems of the show and are a treat to find resting quietly in the rear of the gallery.

December 13, 2007 1:16 p.m.
Copyright Raymond Meeks

Christopher Schuch is a graduating senior at the Art Institute of Boston. His recent photographs investigate the harvest of natural resources and what becomes of the land during and after the process. For more information about his work visit www.christopherschuch.com.

Visiting Artist NICK NIXON

THE ART INSTITUTE OF BOSTON
March 25, 2008

Nick Nixon
Ruth Bernett, Dorchester 2005

(above)
Nick Nixon
The Brown Sisters 2004

(left)
Nick Nixon
The Brown Sisters 1975

Nicholas Nixon, born in 1947, is known for the ease and intimacy of his large format photography. Nixon has photographed porch life in the rural south, schools in Boston, cityscapes, sick and dying people, the intimacy of couples, and the ongoing annual portrait of his wife, Bebe, and her three sisters (which he began in 1975). Recording his subjects close and with meticulous detail facilitates the connection between the viewer and the subject. (Excerpt from Fraenkel Gallery)

Solo exhibitions include Museum of Modern Art, NY, Detroit Art Institute, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, St. Louis Art Museum, San Diego Art Museum, Dallas Art Museum, Chicago Art Institute, Musee de la ville de Paris, Toledo Art Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, LA County Museum and Cleveland Art Institute.

Nixon is the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships (1977, 1987) and the author of several monographs, Nick Nixon: Pictures of People (Museum of Modern Art), People with AIDS (text by Bebe Nixon, Godine), Family Pictures (Smithsonian), School (Robert Coles co-author, Little Brown), and Nicholas Nixon (TF Editores, Madrid). He recently received a grant to photograph the city of Luxemburg’s new immigrant population in 2004-5.

NEW ENGLAND SURVEY

Photographic Resource Center
Curated by Leslie K. Brown
March 28 to May 11, 2008
Opening reception, Thursday, March 27
5:30 to 7:30pm

Barbara Bosworth
Untitled 2004/ 2008
From series Meadow, Carlisle, Massachusetts

Paul Taylor
Untitled Connecticut River Landscape #18 2000

This exhibition surveys contemporary work from, of, and about the New England landscape, featuring one artist from (or project based in) each of the 6 New England states: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont. Notably, this exhibition is not a complete study of New England landscape photography, but more of a cerebral survey. It serves as an occasion and a location in which we can meditate upon the grander, ineffable “sense of place” unique to this area. Perhaps what is “New England” about our land, culture, or mind cannot ultimately be defined, yet it seems universally understood. Many of the series highlighted often begin with and focus on a very specific locale within our regional landscape. The artists play off the idea of “surveying” in their modus operandi—crawling through bracken, wading through water, or meandering through fields—as well as 19th century landscape surveys. While several of the artists evoke a sense of nostalgia in their subject or aesthetic approach, the landscapes and artworks show signs of our times and are both timeless and startlingly new.
-Leslie K. Brown (excerpts from PRC’s New England Survey website)

Artists featured:
Barbara Bosworth
Tanja Alexia Hollander
Janet L. Pritchard
Thad Russell
Jonathan Sharlin
Paul Taylor

LECTURE Andy Grundberg/ PRC

Collecting Photographs, Collecting the World
Thursday, March 20, 7pm

Boston University College of General Studies
Jacob Sleeper Auditorium
871 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston

Andy Grundberg is one of the most significant voices in art criticism of this generation. During his tenure at the New York Times , Grundberg’s critical writing helped establish a general understanding of contemporary photography. His book, Crisis of the Real: Writing on Photography, 1974-1989, is a venerated text outlining the complex nature of photography as it entered the postmodern era. As an author he has also lent his considerable insight to countless artist monographs and exhibition catalogues. As former director of The Friends of Photography in San Francisco and a freelance curator, Grundberg has also curated many highly acclaimed exhibitions. He is currently the Administrative Chair of Photography at the Corcoran College of Art + Design, and has previously taught at institutions such as Dartmouth College, the San Francisco Art Institute, the School of Visual Arts, and the University of Maryland.
(PRC press release)

Sketches on Glass: Clichés-Verre

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
Humanities & Social Sciences Library
Stokes Gallery
March 7 to June 28, 2008
Théodore Rousseau
Cherry tree, 1855

Cliché-verre is a technique that combines aspects of printmaking and photography. Developed around 1839, this process begins with a glass plate on which an artist either paints a design or scratches a design on a prepared ground. The glass plate is then treated as a negative and placed on top of light-sensitive paper and exposed to the sun. Artists of the Barbizon school were the first, and most prolific, experimenters with this technique. These artists, who lived and worked near the forest of Fontainebleau, celebrated the natural world. They turned away from both classical and romantic treatments of landscape and chose to depict humble scenes based on their direct observations of nature. This exhibition draws from the extraordinary holdings of French 19th-century prints in the Samuel Putnam Avery Collection and features cliché-verre landscapes by Camille Corot, Théodore Rousseau, Charles-François Daubigny, and Jean François Millet.
(Press release)

Visit
New York Times Review Sleight of Camera, Capturing Fleeting Impressions
by Karen Rosenthal

LEE FRIEDLANDER’s Ramble in Olmsted Parks

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
The Howard Gilman Gallery
Until May 11, 2008

Central Park, New York City, 1992
Gelatin silver print
Copyright Lee Friedlander and Fraenkel Gallery, SF

Lee Friedlander returns to New York with Ramble in Olmsted Parks, which features an array of photographs taken in public parks and private estates that were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The exhibition also marks the 150th anniversary of Olmsted’s design for New York’s Central Park (1858). The approximately 40 silver gelatin prints are further testament to the extraordinary oeuvre Friedlander has developed over the past decades and his contributions to American photography established him as one of the most important photographers of our generation.

-Dana Mueller