1.28.2011

DIANA VREELAND: An Illustrated Biography

Diana Vreeland
Photograph (c) Priscilla Rattazzi /All Rights Reserved


Diana Vreeland in her apartment
Photograph (c) Jonathan Becker /All Rights Reserved



Diana Dalziel, 1911 "I have always had a wonderful imagination, I have thought of things that never could be..." –Diana Dalziel diary


Diana Vreeland
Photograph (c) Louise Dahl- Wolfe /All Rights Reserved

Diana's friend Horst P. Horst photographed her in her "Garden in Hell." As she said in DV, "All my life I've pursued the perfect red. I can never get painters to mix it for me. It's exactly as if I'd said, 'I want Rococo with a spot of Gothic in it and a bit of Buddhist Temple' – they have no idea what I'm talking about. About the best red is to copy a child's cap in any Renaissance portrait." Photograph (c) Horst P. Horst


"There's an excellent profile in Interview in which Jeanne Moreau says: "I shall die very young." "How young?" they ask her. "I don't know, maybe seventy, maybe eighty, maybe ninety. But I shall be very young." – DV

Legendary fashion arbiter, Diana Vreeland, born Diana Dalziel in Paris in 1906 to an American socialite mother and British father, married businessman Reed Vreeland, and with their two young children, moved to London, where they spent six years. Vreeland made frequent visits to Paris; and befriended designers such as Patou, Schiaparelli and Chanel. Returning to the states in 1935, Vreeland wrote an inventive column for Harper's Bazaar, "Why Don't You?" and later became a top editor there. Vreeland photographed models in Frank Lloyd Wright homes instead of in staged studios. In 1963, she became Vogue's editor-in-chief during the "Swinging Sixties" youth quake era, traveling to exotic locales in Africa, India, Turkey, China, Japan, and South America with famed models of the time Jean Shrimpton, Veruschka, Penelope Tree and Twiggy. In 1971, Vreeland became the consultant to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute, creating the most exquisite exhibitions; "The Glory of the Russian Costume" prepared with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; "Diaghilev: Costumes and Designs of the Ballets Russes"; "Imperial Style: Fashions of the Hapsburg Era"; "Yves Saint Laurent: 25 Years of Design"; "The Eighteenth-Century Woman", among many others. Mrs. Vreeland lived an artistic life, always fashionable and immensely creative. She died in 1989.

An illustrated Biography

1.26.2011

A MONKS PHOTO JOURNAL: Preparing For HH The Dalai Lama's Visit to Mundgod


The monks of Rato Dratsang preparing for HH The Dalai Lama's visit

Rato Monastery, Mundgod, Karnataka, India

The monks of Rato Dratsang preparing for HH The Dalai Lama's visit

Preparing for HH The Dalai Lama's visit, Rato Dratsang Monastery

Preparing for HH The Dalai Lama's visit, Rato Dratsang Monastery

Rato Monastery, Mundgod, Karnataka, India

A Monk's PhotoJournalist, Nicholas Vreeland

The monks of Rato Dratsang Monastery, in Mundgod, Karnataka, India, are preparing for His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Inaugurate their Monastery January 31, 2011, followed by Teachings Febuary 1-5th. HH The Dalai Lama Schedule of teachings Here. Many of the new buildings for the Monastery were provided for from the sale of photographs by Nicholas Vreeland through the Rato Dratsang Foundation. Early in his career, Vreeland worked for both Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. An exhibition of his photographs will be shown at the Leica Gallery, New York, April 22- June 4, 2011.

All Photographs (c) Nicholas Vreeland /All Rights Reserved

1.24.2011

2011 CENTER AWARDS: Last Call for Entries

Corridors of Power / New School, New York
CENTER 2010 Project Launch Award, Honorable Mention
Photograph (c) Luca Zanier

Deadline for Review Santa Fe, Project Competition, Project Launch and The Choice Awards is January 27, 2011 VisitCenter.org

1.23.2011

ANTHONY JONES: Urban Environment

Black Dog Portfolio: Street Study II
Photograph (c) Anthony Jones /All Rights Reserved

London Taxis, 1998
Photograph (c) Anthony Jones /All Rights Reserved

Canary Wharf Station
Photograph (c) Anthony Jones /All Rights Reserved

Puddle, London
Photograph (c) Anthony Jones /All Rights Reserved

Man Walking Down a Passageway
Photograph (c) Anthony Jones /All Rights Reserved

"I still have that first roll of film (I ever took), it was of Trafalgar Square, the photographs are of the space, the built environment of the square and not the people. I return there often to photograph."
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Anthony Jones is a London based photographer known for his black and white images of the urban environment. He uses a Hasselblad medium format camera. His work has been exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, London, and through many galleries, including the John Stevenson Gallery in New York.

1.20.2011

HAI BO: Pace/MacGill Gallery

Shadow–2, 2009
Photograph (c) Hai Bo /All Rights Reserved


Shadow–3, 2009
Photograph (c) Hai Bo /All Rights Reserved

Untitled series–6, 2009
Photograph (c) Hai Bo /All Rights Reserved

TODAY! Jan 20th: 4:45pm
Gallery Walk-Through with Hai Bo
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Pace/MacGill Gallery
Jan 20 – Feb 26, 2011

The passage of time and its inevitable conclusion lay at the heart of Hai Bo’s art. The photographs in this new body of work form a simple, yet eloquent and highly personal meditation on man’s fleeting time on earth. The vast landscapes and quotidian portraits wax nostalgic about simpler times and capture the lingering traces of humanity that have been left behind.

Hai Bo, born in 1962 in Changchun, the capital of Jilin Province in northeastern China, received a BA in 1984 from the Fine Art Institute of Jilin, China and a MA in 1989 from the Print Department of the Central Institute of Fine Arts, Beijing, China. "He has been returning to his hometown for decades to photograph the familiar places of his youth. As China's cities grow exponentially, the artist looks poignantly at another aspect of large-scale urbanization: the increasingly desolate and aging villages of rural China. The photographs convey a sense of nostalgia for the beauty and vastness of the Chinese landscape."

Hai Bo's photographs have been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including the China Art Archives and Warehouse, Beijing (2002), Beijing Commune, Beijing (2007, 2008), and the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, DC (2010).
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Other Contemporary Chinese Artists:
Jang Jinsong
Yong Li Ming
Heungman
Wang Xing
Don Hong-Oai

1.19.2011

JONATHAN SMITH: Untold Stories

Photograph (c) Jonathan Smith /All Rights Reserved

Photograph (c) Jonathan Smith /All Rights Reserved

La Lettre de la Photographie 1.18.11
Photographer Sylvia Plachy with Jonathan Smith
Hearst 2011 8x10 Photography Biennial Opening Night

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"Jonathan Smith's use of lighting and décor emotionally augment his true subjects - the colors of night air and the abandonment that floats in it."

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Eight winners and ten honorable mentions were selected for the 2011 Hearst 8x10 Photography Biennial from over 4,600 entries from across the U.S. and 70 other countries. Jonathan Smith was spotlighted as one of the eight emerging photographers, in an exhibition currently at the Hearst Towers Alexey Brodovitch Gallery, for his series Untold Stories.

Jonathan Smith studied in the United Kingdom at the Kent Institute of Design (KIAD) and the International Center for Photography in New York. Smith worked in the studio of the renowned New York photographer, Joel Meyerowitz from 2000 until 2009. He had his first solo show Untold Stories at Rick Wester Fine Art in September 2010. His work has appeared in Metropolis and View magazines, PDN, Art and Architecture and The Royal Photographic Society Magazine.

1.18.2011

BRANDON SCHULMAN: A Portrait of America Left Behind

Sugar Cane Processing Plant, Atchafalaya Delta, LA
Photograph (c) Brandon Schulman /All Rights Reserved

Windmill, Carson City, NV
Photograph (c) Brandon Schulman /All Rights Reserved

Eight winners and ten honorable mentions were selected for the 2011 Hearst 8x10 Photography Biennial from over 4,600 entries from across the U.S. and 70 other countries. Brandon Shulman was awarded an Honorable Mention for his series A Portrait of America Left Behind.

"A Portrait of America Left Behind is a photographic study that I have been conducting over the past two years. The photographs represent the presence that humanity plays on the land even when they are not in view. The objects and buildings that we create for our needs, and our discarding when they are not. Zig-zagging my way thru 13 states, 15,000 miles over 3 trips, 2 months and 100’s of hours in my darkroom it has yet come to an end."

Brandon Schulman Website

La Lettre de la Photographie
Hearst 2011 8x10 Photography Biennial: Part I
Hearst 2011 8x10 Photography Biennial: Part II

1.16.2011

SEAN PERRY: Monolith – Portraits of the New York City Skyline

200 West Street
Photograph (c) Sean Perry /All Rights Reserved

200 West Street
Photograph (c) Sean Perry /All Rights Reserved

200 West Street
Photograph (c) Sean Perry /All Rights Reserved

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"The images are presented metaphorically as cynosures,
the stars that illuminate and define our city."


"Monolith – Portraits of the New York City Skyline" is a sophisticated study of contemporary skyscrapers through the eyes of photographer Sean Perry, recasting the built environment of Manhattan into its most primal forms: concrete, glass, steel, light and air. This work furthers Perry's vision of architecture manifesting the phenomenon of sentience – presence beyond tangible design and mass."

The photographs above of Goldman Sachs new headquarters, known as "200 West Street", are a work-in-progress from Sean Perry's series, Monolith – Portraits of the New York City Skyline, in development with Art Director Greg Wakabayashi. The building, designed by Henry N. Cobb and the architecture firm, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, was profiled in The New Yorker by Paul Goldberger.

1.15.2011

PHOTOGRAPHY AND IMAGING: Exhibition

Waiting for Train
Photograph © Susan May Tell/ All rights reserved

Man and Arm
Photograph © Susan May Tell/ All rights reserved

Gallorus Oratory, Ireland from PORTALS Series
Photograph © Margaret McCarthy/ All rights reserved

Ross Abbey, Ireland from PORTALS Series
Photograph © Margaret McCarthy/ All rights reserved

Wisdom is a butterfly and not a bird of prey– Yeats
Photograph © Clayton Price/ All rights reserved

PHOTOGRAPHY AND IMAGING
MEMBERS EXHIBITION AT THE NATIONAL ARTS CLUB, NYC
15 Gramercy Park South

Jan 5-28

1.10.2011

DORNITH DOHERTY: Svalbard Seed Vault

Dornith Doherty and her view camera, Svalbard


Door, Svalbard Global Seed Vault, 2010
Photograph © Dornith Doherty/ All rights reserved


Boxes Outside, Svalbard Global Seed Vault, 2010
Photograph © Dornith Doherty/ All rights reserved


Interior, Svalbard Global Seed Vault, 2010
Photograph © Dornith Doherty/ All rights reserved


Nordic Genetic Resource Center Seed Vials
Photograph © Dornith Doherty/ All rights reserved
Bag of Seeds, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, 2009
Photograph © Dornith Doherty/ All rights reserved


Cryogenic Racks, National Center for Genetic Preservation, 2009
Photograph © Dornith Doherty/ All rights reserved


Seed Head 1, 2010 from the series Archiving Eden
Photograph © Dornith Doherty/ All rights reserved
Whip It, 2009 from the series Archiving Eden

Arctic Svalbard
Photograph © Dornith Doherty/ All rights reserved

Photographer Dornith Doherty traveled close to the North Pole to photograph the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (also known as the Doomsday Vault, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is the most diverse assembly of the world's food crops). "Seed banks conserve clones or seeds at a certain point of perfection and then “stop time” to try and prevent the botanical materials from changing further," photographer Dornith Doherty explained to me last year when viewing her series Archiving Eden. "Since perfect stasis is not possible, I have used the lenticular process to create powerful images that show the tension between stillness and change. This technology allows for the appearance or disappearance of parts of the image as well as refractive color changes." I spoke with Dornith recently about her expedition to photograph the world's largest seed bank in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago.

EA: What is the background for your series Archiving Eden?

DD: In the process of photographing at the National Center for Genetic Resource Preservation (NCGRP), in Fort Collins, Colorado, I noticed they were using a tabletop x-ray machine to test the viability of accessioned seeds. I was fascinated by the images I saw and this led to my using the x-ray equipment to make images of seeds and tissue samples from their seed and clone collections. Later, I was able to work at the Millennium Seed Bank in England in much the same way. The collaboration with the scientists has been fruitful, and the scientist at the NCGRP grows samples for me to photograph. Upon return to my studio in Texas, I make the collages that are part of "Archiving Eden".

EA: The images in Archiving Eden have a sacred quality to them.

DD: The photographs pose questions about life and time on a micro and macro scale for me. I am struck by the visual connections – some look like astronomical bodies or microscopic cells. When I work with x-rays, you are literally gazing into the plantlets and seeds- things you cannot see with an unaided eye. Tiny (many are the size of a grain of sand or smaller) seeds that generate life remain simultaneously delicate and powerful. The scale of time that is ingrained in the process of seed banking, which seeks to make these sparks last for two hundred years or more, makes the life cycle very much on my mind while I work. I also contemplate the elusive goal of stopping time in relation to living materials, which at some moment, we would all like to do.

EA: What inspired you to travel to the remote archipelago near the North Pole to photograph the Svalbard Global Seed Vault?

DD: Archiving Eden and Vault were inspired by an article I read about the Vault in the New Yorker Magazine two years before I went to photograph there. When I encountered John Seabrook’s article (Annals of Agriculture, Sowing for the Apocalypse) I was inspired by the dichotomous hopeful/pessimistic nature of the project; on one hand volunteers and governments from around the world were collaborating to create a global botanical back-up system, and on the other hand the gravity of climate change and political instability created the need for an inaccessible ark.

I immediately wanted to photograph it.

It was not until two years later; after I had initiated Archiving Eden and had traveled and photographed at other large and comprehensive seed banks, that I received an invitation to photograph the Vault from Cary Fowler, the Director of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. You can't imagine the thrill it was to open that e-mail.

EA: How difficult was it to travel there?

DD: The Vault is only open a few days a year when new seeds are placed in the vault. It took two days to fly there, and although the airport has one scheduled flight each day, it’s the type of place where a small metal staircase is rolled across the tarmac to the airplane door. I arrived on the same plane as the Director Cary Fowler and Ola Westengen, the operation manager for the Vault. Time was short, so I changed into warm clothes in the airport washroom, and we drove directly to the Vault to begin work.

When you travel outside populated areas on Svalbard, polar bears can be a problem, and many people carry guns. As I traveled to photograph the landscape, helpful people I meet would explain how to tell if there might be a polar bear nearby, since they are completely camouflaged. One of the best ways to detect a polar bear, I was told, is that if you are near a place that is frequented by seals, and there are no seals, that means there is a polar bear watching you. I never saw any seals; only reindeer, so apparently I was in constant danger of polar bear attack.

EA: How did you feel when you first faced the actual door of the Vault before going in and on entering the tunnel leading to the storage area?

DD: It was a very memorable moment. I was filled with awe. Standing in front of the vault in the bitter cold was the culmination of two years of work and planning, and surprisingly, the experience of traveling to someplace remote with cumbersome equipment to take photographs of a significant place brought to mind the photographic practice of some of my favorite photographers, for example; Timothy O’Sullivan or E.O. Goldbeck.

The Vault itself looks elegantly minimal; you see the rough rock walls of the mountain fitted with concrete floors and metal doors. I was surprised to see that Ola and Cary unloaded the shipment themselves and rolled the boxes down the long tunnel to a space outside of the vault in a simple wagon.

The tunnel was dark and had thin ribbons of ice flowing towards the base. As you can see from the photograph, the Vault door is covered with ice crystals and has a closed-circuit TV monitor mounted outside. I was captivated by looking at a mediated image of the vault as I photographed it. The door is not on axis with the tunnel, and Cary explained there is a small curved wall in line with the tunnel engineered to disperse a blast radius in case of terrorist attack. Originally, no outsider was allowed into the actual vault, so the TV monitor was installed so that a visitor could see inside without entering the vault. When I entered, the roar of the compressors, the extreme cold, and the systematic organization were in striking contrast to the organic nature of the seeds.

The vault is kept at a very specific low temperature and humidity to ensure the longevity and viability of the collection. However, since the vault is below the permafrost line, if electricity fails, the archive should be okay.

A background note-Since much of my work has to do with landscape, my equipment is optimized for the extreme heat you encounter in the American Southwest. I had to research and purchase almost everything, from boots and gloves to batteries. At the suggestion of several fellow-photographers, I brought a digital slr camera as a back up to my view camera. Surprisingly, because of the twelve hour days working at below freezing temperatures, the digital slr would freeze after 8 hours but my point and shoot and view camera never failed. Since we live in the digital post-film era, I liked how the failure of the digital slr camera and the success of the 19th century technology of the view camera mirrored the operations philosophy of the vault- trying to keep things simple and fail-safe.

EA: The Director, Cary Fowler, has said "This is a Library of Life". Is there a sense of The History of the World' while inside the world's food archive?

DD: Yes, you feel the importance of the place, although it seems more cultural than historical. Some countries do not have an infrastructure that can support their efforts very effectively. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supports the cost of shipping their collections, and it was very moving to see humble paper boxes of seeds that were sent from poor nations, compared to the relatively high-tech shipments of industrialized, wealthy nations.

2015 UPDATE! 

Dornith Doherty: Exchange
Dallas, Texas
February 21 - May 9, 2015 

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VAULT: Photographs by Dornith Doherty
Exhibition to February 8, 2011
The Institute for the Advancement of the Arts, Denton, Texas

Gallery Talk With Dornith Doherty
Jan 19, 2011 7pm

1.08.2011

SNAPSHOTS: Gallery Night Out

A Tooth For An Eye: A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish
Photo Journals

Vince Aletti and Deborah Luster

A Tooth For An Eye: A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish

Artist Reception | Who Was There: Charles Ledray, Matt Weiland, Vince Aletti, Eileen and Michael Cohen, Robin Cembalest, Alexandra Anderson Spivy and Jock Spivy, Kevin Messina and Jim Brown, Charles Griffin, Merry Foresta and Andy Grundberg


4:02 PM, J Train, from Dark Day series

DAVID S. ALLEE "DARK DAY"

Artist Reception | Who Was There: Gretchen Mol, Nicholas Stern, Richard Mauro, Joel Sternfeld, Robert Polidori, Tod Williams & Billy Tsien, Kip Williams, Doug Liman, Richard Maltby, Diane Tuft, Shaun Mader