DAVID CAROL: No Plan B | 1993-2016

 Boy In Lake, Maine

Photograph (c) David J. Carol

  Joe With Fish, Baffin Island, 1997
Photograph (c) David J. Carol

 Turnaround

Photograph (c) David J. Carol

DAVID J. CAROL   |   NO PLAN B

Trade edition - bound in black
Photographs from 1993-2016. Afterword by Jason Eskenazi

DAVID J. CAROL   |   NO PLAN B

Limited edition - Bound in white, and includes a signed and numbered 6"x 8" gelatin silver print of Gorilla. Edition of 99. Photographs from 1993-2016. Afterword by Jason Eskenazi $150.00

In David Carol's own words, "Hey, did you guys know I'm selling my new book, NO PLAN B, for only $35.00? Did you also know I'm selling the same book in a limited edition with a signed silver print for only $150.00?"

David J. Carol’s new book, NO PLAN B, from publisher Peanut Press, is a retrospective of his uniquely humorous and often surreal personal work from the 1990s to the present. The book is a culmination of images from David’s “road trips” from the Arctic Ocean to post-Soviet Russia, from the Mojave Desert to the streets of Istanbul. Consisting of 32 black and white photographs, with an afterward by renowned photojournalist Jason Eskenazi, NO PLAN B is available in two bindings; the “black” trade edition, and a “white” limited edition, which includes a gelatin silver print signed and numbered by the artist. For sale online at Peanut Press.

The book NO PLAN B coincides with a retrospective exhibition on view at the Leica Gallery Soho, New York from February 1 - March 31, 2017. An opening reception and book signing with the artist will be held February 16 from 6:00 - 9:00pm.

DAVID J. CAROL   |   NO PLAN B
Photographs from 1993-2016

Afterword by Jason Eskenazi

Peanut Press

Available in two editions:

Trade edition - bound in black. Limited edition - Bound in white, and includes a signed and numbered 6"x 8" gelatin silver print of Gorilla. Edition of 99. Ships within 2 weeks. 

RUTH GRUBER: PhotoJournalist Humanitarian Author Dies at 105

“I had two tools to fight injustice — words and images, my typewriter and my camera....I just felt that I had to fight evil, and I’ve felt like that since I was 20 years old. And I’ve never been an observer. I have to live a story to write it.”–NY Times

Photographer, journalist, author Ruth Gruber (September 30, 1911 - November 17, 2016) died at age 105. Gruber stumbled into one of the great rescue stories of the Holocaust when the U.S. government appointed her to escort nearly 1,000 Jews across U-boat infested waters to the shores of the United States. I spoke to Gruber for La Lettre on the night she received the International Center of Photography's Cornell Capa Award in 2011 at age 100.

The New York Times Obituary by Robert D. McFadden, November 17, 2016: ….Over seven decades, she was a correspondent in Europe and the Middle East and wrote 19 books, mostly based on her own experiences. Acting for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she escorted nearly 1,000 refugees from 19 Nazi-occupied nations to a safe haven in the United States on a perilous trans-Atlantic crossing in 1944. They included the only large contingent of Jews allowed into America during World War II. As with many of her exploits, the rescue became the subject of one of her books, “Haven: The Dramatic Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees and How They Came to America” (1983). It was made into a two-part CBS mini-series in 2001, starring Natasha Richardson as Ms. Gruber. Read more in The New York Times…..

NARCISO CONTRERAS "Libya: A Human Marketplace" Fondation Carmignac | SKIRA

Narciso Contreras "Libya : A Human Marketplace"

Publishers Fondation Carmignac | Editions SKIRA

(click on images to enlarge)

Narciso Contreras  Sabha, March 2016

The corpses of illegal sub-Saharan migrants lie in the morgue of Sabha City, after having been collected from the streets and the desert during previous days.

Narciso Contreras  Zawiyah, May 2016

A group of sub-Saharan illegal migrants and refugees is crowded into one section of the Zawiyah detention center, a warehouse-like facility holding as many as two thousand detainees at any time, making it the largest of it's type on Libyan soil. The center serves as a distribution facility in the human trafficking supply chain, and from here inmates are resold to other militias on the west coast of Libya.

Narciso Contreras  Tajoura, May 2016

Sub-Saharan illegal migrants and refugees on the Tajoura shore after having been arrested in the Mediterranean Sea by the Libyan coastguard. 

Narciso Contreras  Surman, June 2016

Illegal female migrants queue in the prison yard as they are loaded on to buses to be transferred to another detention center, after having been sold by the militia group ruling the Surman detention center in the west of Libya.

+  +  +

I just received a powerful new monograph from the Fondation Carmignac on the theme of Libya by Mexican photographer, Narciso Contreras, the 7th Laureate of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award. It is an elegantly designed and produced book co-published by Fondation Carmignac with Editions Skira, Paris and printed in Belgium. The overall book, beautifully typeset on magnificent paper, belies the dangerous situations Contreras put himself in to bring us this ongoing chronicle documenting the brutal reality of human trafficking as he traveled through the complex tribal society of post-Gaddafi Libya from February to June 2016.

"Contreras lays bare an unfolding humanitarian crisis in which illegal migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are at the mercy of militias who exploit them for financial gain. Held in detention centres for illegal migrants, they are subjected to inhumane conditions. He weaves a compelling narrative to show how, instead of being a place of transit for migrants on their way to Europe, Libya has actually become a trafficking market where people are bought and sold on a daily basis. He provides us with a glimpse of the complex and horrifying context migrants are faced with."

 Narciso Contreras,

7th Laureate of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award
"Libya: A Human Marketplace"

Texts by Narciso Contreras and Ela Stapley

Hard Cover, 102 pages, English+French

ISBN 978-2-37074-043-4

Publications Fondation Carmignac

Production: Fondation Carmignac, Direction: Gaia Donzet, Carmignac Photojournalism Award Gestion, Direction: Emeric Glayse, Communications manager: Valentine Dolla, Photo Editors: Patrick Baz, Narciso Contreras, Text: Ela Stapley, Photography & Investigation: Narciso Contreras, Publisher: EDITIONS SKIRA, Senior Editor: Nathalie Prat-Couadau, Editorial Coordination: María Laura Ribadeneira

+  +  +

In 2009, the Fondation Carmignac launched the Carmignac Photojournalism Award with the aim to support, each year, a photojournalist in undertaking a photographic and investigative assignment exploring a theme or an area of the world at the centre of geostrategic conflicts. Selected by an international jury, the Laureate receives 50,000 EUR that enable him/her to spend time into the field, as well as a fully-financed monograph and a touring exhibition of the project.

Created in 2000 by Edouard Carmignac and directed by Gaïa Donzet, the Fondation Carmignac has three strands: the corporate collection comprising nearly 250 contemporary works of art, the annual Carmignac Photojournalism Award led by Emeric Glayse, and the Foundation's project to open an exhibition space and a sculpture park to the public on the preserved site of Porquerolles (Var). Edouard Carmignac’s desire to share his passion for contemporary art, promote freedom of expression and increase awareness of contemporary world issues led him to the creation of this Foundation.

Upcoming Carmignac Photojournalism Award exhibition: Saatchi Gallery, London, May 16–June 16, 2017

ANDERSON + LOW: James Bond's SPECTRE

Photograph (c) Anderson + Low

Book Signing "On the Set of James Bond's SPECTRE"

ParisPhoto November 12, 3pm

Anderson + Low
"On the Set of James Bond's SPECTRE"
Book Signing: 12, November, 2016, 3pm
Hatje Cantze stand F4

Paris Photo, Grand Palais

This project is based on the brilliant artifice of the spectacular sets from the latest James Bond movie, SPECTRE. Shooting entirely at Pinewood Studios, UK, we highlight a head-on collision of fantasy and reality by photographing the sets’ massive scale and extraordinary detail. Allowing the bare soundstage to intrude on the images would normally shatter the illusion of the sets. In this case, however, it has the reverse effect and enhances the sense of illusion, artifice and wonder.

Five prints from this project were released to coincide with the film premiere (November 2015) at Phillips, London. The rest of the project was exhibited at CWC Gallery, Berlin in June 2016 to coincide with this book's publication by Hatje Cantz.

SARA JANE BOYERS : DETROIT in PARIS

Photograph © Sara Jane Boyers

Photograph © Sara Jane Boyers

Photograph © Sara Jane Boyers

SARA JANE BOYERS

DETROIT

November 10 – December 24, 2016

Galerie Claude Samuel

69 ave Daumesnil, 75012 Paris

Opening Reception, November 10, 6:30pm (18h30)

MONA KUHN: NEW WORKS in PARIS

Photographs (c) Mona Kuhn

Photograph (c) Mona Kuhn

"MONA KUHN: NEW WORKS"
NOVEMBER 4 TO DECEMBER 17, 2016

Galerie Catherine et André Hug
40, rue de Seine / 2, rue de l’Echaudé
75006 PARIS

KACPER KOWALSKI: Fade To White

 Copyright © Kacper Kowalski. All rights reserved

 Copyright © Kacper Kowalski. All rights reserved

 Copyright © Kacper Kowalski. All rights reserved

Copyright © Kacper Kowalski. All rights reserved

Fade To White 

by Curator Bill Shapiro

Before Kacper Kowalski was a fine-art photographer, he was a pilot . . . and before he was a pilot, he was an architect. So perhaps it’s not surprising that he looks at the world the way an architect looks at his blueprints: from the top down. Of course, in these days of drones and Google Earth, it’s hard to bring people a landscape they haven’t seen before. Which is precisely what makes Kacper’s pictures so remarkable: From his paraglider, 500 feet above the earth, he turns everyday locations into striking ethereal scenes, capturing a symmetry, drama, and dreaminess we didn’t know was there.

We’ve all seen the work of high-flying aerial photographers who travel to exotic locations and bring us back bird’s-eye images of the Great Wall, Great Pyramids, or Great Barrier Reef. But Kacper made the decision long ago to uncover beauty in the humble forests, working farms, and industrial landscapes within driving distance of his home in Gdynia, Poland, a port city on the Baltic Sea. And so he obsessively crisscrosses the area, often during the coldest, most forbidding days of winter when he has the skies to himself.

When I was the editor of LIFE magazine, I was continually nudging the staff to “show us something we’ve seen before in a way we’ve never seen it.” This is actually incredibly difficult, and yet Kacper does it with each image. He can photograph a place we might pass every day, but compose the picture so masterfully as to render it as a never-before-seen abstraction—a visual puzzle open to interpretation. That sense of surprise is one of the reasons I love curating his work: Sometimes you have no idea what you’re looking at even while it feels incredibly familiar. Holding those two sentiments at the same time is exhilarating. In that way, Kacper’s pictures are like moon rocks: prosaic in one sense and at the same time absolutely alien and absolutely thrilling.

Kacper’s previous project, Side Effects, focused on the friction between mankind and nature, and the discordant beauty that that conflict reveals. His latest work, a series titled Over, looks at the land after that struggle has been decided; he captures the traces of mankind upon a quiet Earth where you feel the presence of humans but never quite see them.

Kacper’s photographs (as well as his book, Side Effects) have been honored with numerous awards, and his work has shown everywhere from Paris and Beijing to Copenhagen, Vienna, and Moscow. But his exhibit opening at The Curator Gallery this week is only his second in the United States, and I feel fortunate to be able to bring seen-it-all New Yorker's a little something they haven’t seen before.  – Curator, Bill Shapiro

Fade To White

Photographs by Kacper Kowalski

 The Curator Gallery, Chelsea

520 West 23rd St, NY

November 3 – December 17, 2016

Curated by Bill Shapiro

Kacper Kowalski’s photographs have been honored by World Press Photo (2009, 2014, 2015) and Picture of the Year International (2012, 2014, 2015, 2016), among many others. His first book of photography, Side Effects, received awards from Photo District News and the Moscow International Foto Awards. He lives in Gdynia, a port city in northern Poland.

Bill Shapiro served as the Editor-in-Chief of LIFE, the legendary photo magazine and, later, as the founding editor of the award-winning website LIFE.com.  He is currently the Director of Editorial & New Business Enterprises at Fast Company and sits on the Art Advisory Board for the SXSW festival.