RICHARD BARNES: Murmur + Refuge at FOLEY

Murmur no. 1, 2005. 44 x 44 inches, Pigment print

Murmur no. 13, 2006. 44 x 44 inches, Pigment print

In Murmur, Barnes observes the flocks of starlings that cloud the skies of EUR, a suburb of Rome.  In this series, Barnes depicts nature as it behaves on it’s own, alive and breathing.  The photographs capture the birds’ aerial displays, which seem to take on the form of suspended mesh sculpture, and the uncontrollable fluctuation of nature as it moves on its own.

Green Leaf Nest, 2000. Pigment print

Refuge examines the complex architecture of bird nests, constructed from elements of the natural world and debris discarded by humans.  The nests are intricate structures, unique in shape and form. Murmur and Refuge are part of Barnes' larger series, Animal Logic.

 

Richard Barnes: Murmur + Refuge

FOLEY GALLERY
through February 23, 2014

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Elizabeth Avedon: Is your work collaborative or do you work resolutely by yourself?

Richard Barnes: I enjoy working collaboratively. While in Rome, I entered into what was perhaps the most fruitful collaboration of my career to date. I produced “Murmur” with Alex Schweder, an architect and video artist, and Charles Mason, a composer. “Murmur” forms another chapter in my book (Animal Logic, Princeton Architectural Press) and is an investigation into the flocks of starlings which every winter fill the evening sky over Rome. No one is quite sure why the starlings stopover in Italy but before roosting for the night, they converge on the city from the countryside in flocks numbering in the hundred of thousands. This would be impressive enough in it’s own right, but they also do these incredible aerial displays that resemble drawings or computer animation written large overhead. The effect is awe-inspiring, though the Romans detest this “invasion of the starlings”.

Elizabeth Avedon: There is a surreal quality to these images. Do you regard yourself as a Surrealist or feel an affinity with the notion of the images as a kind of dream?  

Richard Barnes: I certainly have an affinity for surrealist imagery. I don’t see how it can be avoided as it’s so ubiquitous in our time, from movies and books to advertising. What sets my work apart is that it grows out of a documentary tradition and from this straight ahead or forensic approach I subvert the document through either juxtaposition or de-contextualization of an object from its surroundings, thereby rendering it hyper-real. I believe real life is strange and surreal enough if one looks a little longer and harder than to attempt to make something surreal on purpose, which usually comes off as contrived. As far as my images conjuring up the realm of a dream reality in someone, I would take this as an indication that they are working. 

My complete Interview With Richard Barnes here

Murmur Installation, 22 4th St at Market, San Francisco
Permanent installation commissioned by Jamestown LP

TOD PAPAGEORGE: Opera Città in Rome

TOD PAPAGEORGE - OPERA CITTA' | PUNCTUM PRESS

Photographs Copyright (c) Tod Papageorge /All Rights Reserved

TOD PAPAGEORGE | OPERA CITTA'
MACRO The City of Rome Museum of Modern Art
September 23 to October 24, 2010

This past summer, Tod Papageorge, the Walker Evans Professor of Photography and Director of Graduate Studies in Photography at the Yale School of Art, was invited to Rome to work for a month on the Rome Commission. (Josef Koudelka and Martin Parr, among others, were commissioned during its nine-year history). The end result is a solo exhibition of about 30 prints, made with a digital Leica M9, to open on 23rd of September in the City of Rome Museum of Modern Art. A small, beautifully produced accordion-style book, OPERA CITTA, was published by Marco Delogu of Punctum Press in Rome to accompany the exhibition.

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"Tod Papageorge (born 1940) is an American art photographer whose career began in the New York City street photography movement of the 1960s. Papageorge started taking photographs in 1962 as an English literature major at the University of New Hampshire. He is the recipient of two Guggenheim fellowships and two NEA Visual Artists Fellowships. His work is in public collections including the Museum of Modern Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. Since 1979, Papageorge has directed the graduate photography department at the Yale University School of Art, where his students have included Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Lois Conner, Abelardo Morell, Andrew Bush, Susan Lipper, Gregory Crewdson, An-My Le, Anna Gaskell, and Katy Grannan. In the summer of 2007, Steidl published Passing Through Eden, a collection of images he took over 25 years in Central Park. In the fall of 2007, Aperture published American Sports, 1970: Or How We Spent the War in Vietnam, a volume of photographs Papageorge took during his 1970 Guggenheim Fellowship." Papageorge also spent six weeks in Rome last summer as the American Academy in Rome Photographer in Residence.

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The Rome International Festival of Photography (FotoGrafia Festival Internazionale di Roma - IX Edizione.) The theme of the ninth FotoGrafia Festival is Futurspectives, “Can Photography Interpret The Future?” (Read more about the Festival here and here.) Visit the Testaccio branch of MACRO (the City of Rome Museum of Modern Art).

VANESSA SOMERS VREELAND: Mosaics

Vanessa Somers Vreeland Mosaic

Vanessa Somers Vreeland: An Illustrated Talk on Mosaics Through the Ages
John Cabot University–Via della Lungara 233–00165 Rome
October 15, 2009– 19.00. RSVP 066819121

VANESSA SOMERS VREELAND trained with professor Odoardo Anselmi, art director of the Vatican Mosaic Studio in Rome and taught at Corning Museum of Glass, Penland School of Crafts, and the Columbia Museum of Art. She has had gallery shows in Paris, Rome, London, Brussels and North Africa. Vreeland's artistic path to mosaics began with painting on canvas, then on glass. She independently developed a fused glass mosaic technique and also works in marble and cold glass in traditional Roman style.

Vanessa edited My Colorful Life, an autobiography of her remarkable aunt, British Portraitist Juliet Pannett. Pannett had her own seat in the House of Commons, from which she sketched Britain's political milestones - including the debates on the Profumo affair in 1963 and Winston Churchill's last appearance in 1964. When Juliet died in 2005, she left a legacy of commissioned portraiture throughout Britain including 22 portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Vanessa Somers Vreeland Mosaics, Marrakech, Morocco 2009

A film by Director Fabienne Strouve
Play Video Here
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FREDERICK VREELAND, former U.S. Ambassador and U.S. Senior Diplomat to Rome and wife Vanessa's Key To Rome: A Guide Book reflects the Eternal City's layers of cultural history, from ruins of antiquity and Christian Rome to the splendor of the Renaissance and the Baroque. "Their book guides travelers through layers of time, exploring major sites and revealing insider secrets. Written in a brisk, anecdotal style, this beautifully illustrated handbook is packed with photographs, historical drawings, sidebars, foldout maps, and floor plans. The guidebook's site descriptions are framed by historical timelines and punctuated by special "must-see" highlights. A comprehensive reference section at the back details day trips of interest, a guide to Italian food, specialty shops, "Rome by Night," and "Rome for Kids," as well as transportation, hotel and restaurant suggestions."