11.27.2019

FRACTURED : photo-eye Juried Exhibition


CITIZEN 13, 2015 © CHRISTOPHER COLVILLE
(click to enlarge)

F R A C T U R E D
AN EXHIBITION CURATED AND 
PRESENTED BY PHOTO-EYE GALLERY

Photo-eye Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico: This year marks the 40th Anniversary of photo-eye and they are celebrating with their first-ever juried Open Call looking for photographic submissions for a gallery exhibition in Santa Fe (and online) entitled: "F R A C T U R E D." They invite the submission of photographic works exploring the concept of “fractured.” The exhibition will take place in their physical gallery and online from February 28th to May in 2020.  Read more here

Submitted photographs may come from photojournalistic or documentary projects, commercial assignments, as well as photographs made as expressive artworks. Artists are encouraged to be creative in their interpretation of the theme. Read more here

This exhibition will be juried by the photo-eye Gallery staff. The gallery is looking for new work, and submissions to the open call are also considered for future representation in our online Photographer’s Showcase. Standard artist contract applies. Read more here

Deadline to submit work: 1/12/20



11.25.2019

JONATHAN BLAUSTEIN: Extinction Party Kickstarter

 © Jonathan Blaustein

 © Jonathan Blaustein

 © Jonathan Blaustein

 © Jonathan Blaustein

 © Jonathan Blaustein

© Jonathan Blaustein
 
Images and text by Jonathan Blaustein
Published by Yoffy Press, with an essay by Kevin Kwan
A limited edition photo book about over-consumption
and its impact on the planet

Photographer, writer and educator, Jonathan Blaustein, is asking for your support to help publish his new limited edition photography book that is about to go into production with Yoffy Press in Atlanta.
Check out Jonathan's KICKSTARTER and View his Video for full details on how to support this project by purchasing a book and/or a limited edition print (images above) in the next 11 days. 
Extinction Party
www.kickstarter.com

My 2014 Interview on L'Oeil de la Photographie / The Eye of Photography with Jonathan Blaustein about this project in it's earlier stage just before an exhibition of this work opened at The Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico:

The Eye of Photography
Jonathan Blaustein Talks To Elizabeth Avedon

“I’ve lived in cities on both coasts, and have found that the man-made landscape leads people to over-consider the power of humanity…. When you’re staring at skyscrapers all day, and traveling via underground train or high speed elevator, it’s easy to overestimate our capabilities.”– Jonathan Blaustein

Jonathan Blaustein is an artist, writer, and educator based in Taos, New Mexico. His photographs have been exhibited widely in the US, and reside in several important collections, including the Library of Congress, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He also writes about photography for the New York Times Lens blog and APhotoEditor.com, and has taught at the University of New Mexico-Taos for many years.

His series, “The Value of a Dollar,” was published by the New York Times in 2010, and subsequently went viral on the Internet. Ultimately, the conceptual series was seen by millions of people around the world, creating dialogue about the manner in which food represents deeper issues of wealth, class, power and health.

Opening February 22, Blaustein‘s photographs will be part of a three person contemporary art exhibition, “The Mindless Consumption of Animals,” at the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico.
    
I spoke with Jonathan recently about his work and his upcoming exhibition:
  
Elizabeth Avedon: We first met several years ago during CENTER’s Review Santa Fe, while you were working on what eventually became your very successful series, “The Value of a Dollar.” Please explain your works point of view.
   
Jonathan Blaustein:
My point of view is informed by my background and my experiences, like anyone else. “The Value of a Dollar” was a project that was born out of my obsession with food, many years in the restaurant business, my conceptual art training, and my economics education.

The Great Recession was imminent, as I was shooting the project in early 2008, and I began to pay more attention to how much healthy food costs. When I started buying less fruit, berries in particular, because my income was dropping, I felt that it was something worth exploring.

Furthermore, where I live in the American West, there are semi-trucks and billboards everywhere, showing these lacquered up, shiny Fast Food hamburgers. Everywhere, we see artificial visions of what we eat. And that visual language is a huge driver for America’s obesity epidemic.

Eventually, I got the idea to go shopping for food, as a part of my artistic practice. I’d buy things, based upon their aesthetic and symbolic potential, and then measure out $1 of each item, before photographing it on my stark studio table. I wanted to make up my own visual language that examined the incredibly complex underpinning of the global economy, via a simple and clean image style.

I photographed everything without any artificial lighting, packaging, or styling, so that the food items could stand alone and speak for themselves.

EA: And you followed this series with “MINE”?

JB:
Sort of. I actually spent a year and half working on a cultural landscape project in Southern Colorado. But I had a hard time making the pictures what I wanted them to be, so I put that to the side.

In 2011, I got the idea for “MINE,” which felt like a proper follow up, once “The Value of a Dollar” had been so well received. Like a lot of artists, I wanted each project to make sense in an evolving continuum.

After commodifying my food, I wanted to take a look at another primary element of human existence: territory. I actually live on 3.5 acres of land at the base of the Rocky Mountains, and it’s filled with all sorts of nominally worthless natural resources. Rocks, trees, grass, flowers, snow, ice, and, of course, animals.

The concept of private property gives me the right to do whatever I choose with that which is “MINE.” So I decided to turn those natural artifacts into art, in my studio, and then photograph them. In that way, the process was much like “The Value of a Dollar”. I went shopping for free nature on my land, rather than food in a grocery store.
   
EA: How did that work lead to your latest project “The Mindless Consumption of Animals.”

JB:
Well, I put a lot of effort into turning “MINE” into a solo show in Santa Fe over the course of 2012. And then, once it opened, I kind of abandoned my studio. I write from home, and teach at the University in town, so I began to spend less and less time in my photo studio after the massive production of the “MINE” exhibit.

Unfortunately, my studio was pretty expensive, for a small town. So eventually, I realized I needed to give it up. It was costing too much, and I’ve got two young children. It seemed like my priorities needed a re-ordering.

The studio was filled with crap. Piles and piles of waste paper, and worthless objects that I’d accrued over 8 years time. Facing it all, it seemed so daunting.

Then it struck me that I could photograph my junk, and imbue it with value through the artistic process. So it connected perfectly with the two previous projects, which were based upon presenting my own resources, and using them to make grander statements about life in the 21st Century.

Since I was excited about mining the trash for goodies to photograph, it made the process of culling through the clutter kind of a fun game. Each day, I forced myself to take at least one full trash bag out of there, so the piles gradually shrunk.

And then I was left with a blank space, and a trove of images to cull through.
   
EA: You studied Economics and History at Duke University. What led you into Photography?
    
JB:
In retrospect, I got a decent education at Duke, but I was miserable the whole time. Eventually, I learned I had enough credits to graduate early, so I came to hang out here in Taos, where my folks had moved. During that semester, I began to explore my creativity for the first time, and felt like there was something out there for me.

After college, I worked on a couple of movie productions in New York, before deciding to move back here to the mountains. Just as I was leaving on a solo, five day, cross-country drive, I bought a few rolls of black and white film for a little point and shoot I owned, but never used.

It was just a random idea, and I still don’t exactly know where it came from. But I was hooked within minutes, and shot hundreds of images along the way. By the time I got to Texas, I jotted in a notebook that I wanted to be a photographer. That was it.

So I threw myself into it, and studied undergraduate at UNM in Albuquerque, before a stint in San Francisco. Then I went to Pratt in Brooklyn, where I got my MFA. It’s been 17 years since I picked up a camera, and I still can’t believe how it all turned out.
   
EA: What inspired you to move to New Mexico?

JB:
I was very fortunate growing up, in that my parents discovered Taos when I was still a child, and brought me here when I was 14. We came back once or twice a year, and then they built a house and moved here permanently, when I was still a teenager.

I loved it from the very beginning. I met my wife while I was in Albuquerque, and she was born and raised here. Her folks live here, as do mine, so it was a natural place to settle down and raise a family.

I’m glad I grew up in New Jersey, because the East Coast does impart a certain drive in most people. But since I came here at such a young age, it’s become home in a way that Jersey could never be. The sunshine and the landscape are most definitely addictive.

EA: Were you always so environmentally or economically concerned or has this developed since living on the land in New Mexico?

JB:
That’s a great question, Elizabeth. The answer is that my time here has informed the way I think about the manner in which humans interact with the planet. It’s inescapable, as I see a two million year old extinct volcano out one window, and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains out the other.

I’ve lived in cities on both coasts, and have found that the man-made landscape leads people to over-consider the power of humanity. It can’t be helped. When you’re staring at skyscrapers all day, and traveling via underground train or high speed elevator, it’s easy to overestimate our capabilities.

I definitely didn’t set out to make political work, or work with an environmental bent, but those themes crept in while I wasn’t looking. And then, when this exhibition opportunity arose, it gave me a chance to consider the deeper roots of my artistic practice.

EA: How did the upcoming exhibition come about?

JB:
I spend most of my time showing my work, and engaging with community outside of Taos, because our art scene is a little insular, and perhaps regional. But I struggle with that, as I’m a big believer in the power of community in general.

Early last year, the Harwood curator Jina Brenneman reached out, and said she wanted to get my work on the wall, to introduce it to Taos. It’s the best museum north of Santa Fe, by a long margin, so I was very excited. They have an amazing collection of Agnes Martin’s work, and it draws a good crowd.

Once she told me the premise of the show, and the title, “Art for a Silent Planet,” it really forced me to think about what I’ve been doing. I read the title as a metaphor for the Lorax: we speak for the trees [Dr. Seuss — ‘I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues.’ ]

So I decided to find a through line in my work from the last six years, and lo and behold, the environmental themes were right there. As Jina pushed me to try do say something unique, I thought hard about how to best present what I’d been working on.

Eventually, I decided that as the new work was about “repurposing” my trash, I’d repurpose my older work alongside it. There will be a grid of four meat pictures from “The Value of a Dollar,” for instance, but for this show, it’s been retitled as a single piece called “Cow farts cause Global Warming.”

Subscribe to TheEyeofPhotography.com
https://loeildelaphotographie.com/en/jonathan-blaustein-talks-to-elizabeth-avedon/

http://harwoodmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/129
http://jonathanblaustein.com


Help Support this Project
Buy a gorgeous print from the images above

 Extinction Party : Jonathan Blaustein
Yoffy Press



11.14.2019

MEXICO – BEYOND THE WALL : Scheinbaum & Russek LTD, Santa Fe, New Mexico

 Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1902 - 2002)
Frida Kahlo Con Globo de Vidrio 
(In Manuel Alvarez Bravo's Studio), 1938
Gelatin silver print
Image: 9 1/2 x 7 1/2"

 Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1902 - 2002)
Senor De Papantla, 1934, printed 1995
Gelatin silver print
Image: 9 5/8 x 6 5/8”

 Ellen Auerbach (1906 - 2004)
Queretaro, Mexico, Xmas Market, 1955
Vintage gelatin silver print
Image: 5 5/8 x 8 1/4”
 

Aaron Siskind (1903 -1991)
Durango 8, 1961
Gelatin silver print
Image: 12 3/8 x 22 3/4”

 Manuel Carrillo (1906 - 1989)
Boy Watering Horses, Catemaco, 1956, Printed c. 1970s
Gelatin silver print
Image: 8 1/8 x 10 7/8”

 Mexico – Beyond the Wall
November 23, 2019 – December 28, 2019
 
Scheinbaum & Russek Ltd
369 Montezuma Avenue
Santa Fe, New Mexico

Opening Reception
Saturday, November 23rd, 2-4 pm

Ellen Auerbach (1906 – 2004)
Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1902 – 2002)
Manuel Carrillo (1906 – 1989)
Eliot Porter (1901 – 1990)
Aaron Siskind (1903 – 1991)
Paul Strand (1890 – 1976)
 

BLACK LIVES 1900 : W. E. B. DU BOIS AT THE PARIS EXPOSITION from Redstone Press

 

W. E. B. Du Bois, the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895, became the most influential Black civil rights activist of the first half of the twentieth century, in his office at Atlanta University, 1909.


"The photographs in the 1900 Paris Exposition were drawn from African American communities across the US. Both the photographers and subjects are mostly anonymous. They show people engaged in various occupations, in study and training, and posing formally for group and studio portraits."

 ‘The American Negro Exhibit’ 
1900 Paris Exposition

"At the 1900 Paris Exposition the pioneering sociologist and activist W. E. B. Du Bois organized an exhibit demonstrating the progress of African Americans since the abolition of slavery. In striking graphic visualizations, hand-drawn charts, maps and photographs he showed the changing status of a newly emancipated people across the United States and more specifically in Georgia, the state with the largest Black population."




W. E. B. Du Bois became the most influential Black civil rights activist of the first half of the twentieth century. As a scholar and historian, his exhibit at the Paris Exposition continues to resonate as a powerful affirmation of the equal rights of Black Americans to lives of freedom and fulfillment. This beautiful new book, edited by Julian Rothstein, reproduces the photographs alongside the revolutionary graphic works for the first time, and includes an essay by two celebrated historians, Jacqueline Francis and Stephen G. Hall, foreword by Sir David Adjaye Obe and a note on the photographs by Henry Louis Gates Jr. 


7a St Lawrence Terrace
London W10 5SU
0208 968 4302


*photos and text courtesy of Redstone Press

11.08.2019

THE 14th JULIA MARGARET CAMERON AWARD FOR WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS : Winners Announced

PEOPLE / SERIES WINNER: MEG BIRNBAUM

  PORTRAIT / SERIES WINNER: LORETTA AYEROFF

  NUDE + FIGURE / SERIES WINNER: MONA KUHN

 N.A. VAGUE 
N. A. VAGUE. Recipient of the Julia Margaret Cameron Award in the Non-Professional Section for her Series #read#me#ad, and Winner in Fine Art Photography

 CULTURE + DAILY LIFE / SINGLE WINNER: YUKARI CHIKURA

 NUDE + FIGURE / SINGLE WINNER: SARAH SCHOR
 
 SELF PORTRAIT / SERIES WINNER: AGNIESZKA SOSNOWSKA


This 14th Edition of The Julia Margaret Cameron Award has been juried by Elizabeth Avedon, Rebecca Robertson, and Analy Werbin. A total of 805 photographers from 67 countries have submitted 6,240 photographs for consideration of the pre-selection team of the Worldwide Photography Gala Awards, and the final selection of the jurors. In this occasion, the Worldwide Photography Gala Awards has waived or discounted entry fees of around 30% of the total amount of submitters. . . . An exhibition of many of these works will be in Barcelona at the FotoNostrum Gallery, March 2020


CLAY PATRICK McBRIDE: BANGERS BRICKS + GOLD @ The.DPP Austin Texas November 15th


 https://claymcbride.eventbrite.com

 Floyd Mayweather © Clay Patrick McBride

The.DPP hosts notorious photographer and director, Clay Patrick McBride on Bangers, Bricks + Gold in another installment of The Picture Review · In Conversation with Sean Perry at The Department of Professional Photography. Austin Community College, Austin, Texas.

McBride’s portraits of celebrities, top athletes, and musicians such as LeBron James, Allen Iverson, Metallica, Norah Jones, Jay Z, and Kanye West have appeared in countless magazines, among them Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated and New York Magazine. His commercial work includes hundreds of album covers for Sony, Def Jam, Universal, Blue Note and Atlantic Records, as well as print campaigns for Pontiac, Boost Mobile and Nike. 

 https://claymcbride.eventbrite.com

Austin Community College
11928 Stonehollow Drive
Austin, Texas 

 Willy Nelson © Clay Patrick McBrid

Tickets: https://claymcbride.eventbrite.com