FAKING IT: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop at The Met

 

Man on Rooftop with Eleven Men in Formation on His Shoulders

Unknown, American, ca. 1930

Group of Thirteen Decapitated Soldiers 

Unknown, ca. 1910

 New York City, New York City, ca. 1959

Weegee (American, born Hungary, 1899–1968)

 The Pond - Moonrise, 1904

Edward J. Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1933

 

 Le simulateur, 1936

Dora Maar (French, Paris 1907–1997 Paris)

 Faking It: 

Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop

Organized by Mia Fineman
Asst. Curator, Department of Photographs

Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the first major exhibition devoted to the History of Manipulated Photography Before the Digital Age.

"Featuring over 200 visually captivating photographs created between the 1840s and 1990s in the service of art, politics, news, entertainment, and commerce, the exhibition offers a provocative new perspective on the history of photography as it traces the medium’s complex and changing relationship to visual truth."

"The photographs in the exhibition were altered using a variety of techniques, including multiple exposure (taking two or more pictures on a single negative), combination printing (producing a single print from elements of two or more negatives), photomontage, overpainting, and retouching on the negative or print. In every case, the meaning and content of the camera image was significantly transformed in the process of manipulation. Faking It is divided into seven sections, each focusing on a different set of motivations for manipulating the camera image. The exhibition was made possible by Adobe Systems Incorporated" –The Met

Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop

 October 11, 2012—January 27, 2013

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

+   +   +

After Photoshop: Manipulated Photography in the Digital Age
September 25, 2012—May 27, 2013

An addendum to Faking It, After Photoshop exploring various ways in which artists have used digital technology to alter the photographic image over the past 20 years.

ALSO VIEW:

Faking It: The Show

Faking It: The Curator | Faking It: The Opening

EDWARD CURTIS: In Honor of Columbus 'Discovering' America

 Hastobiga, Navaho Medicine-Man

Photograph by Edward Curtis

 Tobadzischini Navajo 

Photograph by Edward Curtis

Cheyenne Warriors

Photograph by Edward Curtis/Library of Congress

 

Apache Man with Wife

Photograph by Edward Curtis/Library of Congress

Piegan Camp

Photograph by Edward Curtis/Library of Congress

 

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: 

 The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis

Book Review by Petra Mayer on NPR

Catching The Shadow of a Lost World

  

ERIKA DIETTES: Sudarios

SUDARIOS: Exhibition

Photographs (c) Erika Diettes

SUDARIOS: Exhibition

Photographs (c) Erika Diettes

SUDARIOS: Exhibition

Photographs (c) Erika Diettes

 SUDARIOS: Exhibition

Photographs (c) Erika Diettes

"The rivers of Colombia are the world´s largest graveyard."

I first met Colombian photographer Erika Diettes several years ago when she was exhibiting her very moving project SILENCIOS. Silencios was an ambitious project Erika compiled of portraits and testimonials of the Jewish population in Colombia that had survived the concentration camps of Nazi Germany during World War II. Please read more and view photographs of Erika's human rights projects on her website.  

Erika Diettes: SUDARIOS 

Capilla de Los Remedios

Santo Domingo, República Dominicana

September 4 - 30, 2012

 DRIFTING AWAY: Clothing of the Disappeared
Photographs (c) Erika Diettes

Clothing of the Disappeared
Photographs (c) Erika Diettes

In DRIFTING AWAY my intention is to draw attention to the victims of forced disappearances of the Colombian armed conflict. The project is a response to a number of press reports and news broadcasts which explain how the paramilitaries and the guerrillas torture people, mutilate them and make them disappear by throwing their bodies into a river. This is the source of the saying "the rivers of Colombia are the world´s largest graveyard".

To create an expression of this horrible situation, I decided to submerge pieces of clothing or personal objects of the victims in turbulent water, and then photograph them. I print these photographs on glass to convey the feeling of the ethereal and fragile character of life in those parts of our country.

These very large glass photographs are then displayed upright in the ground, like translucent tombstones in a cemetery. This way people can walk in and around them, and begin to experience the grief of loss. It has been very difficult for the families of the disappeared to feel the healing power of grief, especially since there is often no certainty whether one of the disappeared is actually dead or alive.

I started in Bogotá by looking for clothing or objects belonging to people who had disappeared. Then I continued my search in other areas of conflict, including Eastern Antioquia, Caquetá and Medellín, amongst other places.

During these macabre visits I was able to talk to the families of the victims, who are indeed the voice of all Colombia, clamouring not only for the respect for life, but also for the right to be able to bury their dead. — Erika Diettes

 Erika Diettes 

LAURIE LAMBRECHT: China 2009

Hangzhou (#2), 2009

Photograph (c) Laurie Lambrecht

 

Hangzhou Koi, 2009

Photograph (c) Laurie Lambrecht

Hangzhou Pond, 2009

Photograph (c) Laurie Lambrecht

These places are something I am curious about - to be experienced. A lot of these pictures have to do with relationships formed in my mind and known from art history or painting from China... At the same time, there were unexpected things, aspects that provided an intimate relationship with my experience of these places. - Laurie Lambrecht on China, 2009 

"Of her experience photographing in China in 2009, Ms. Lambrecht states, "...the thousands of years of visual artistry and poetry that preceded these scenes. I wanted to feel that landscape for myself that others had interpreted for eons, with some sense of feel for a newer time frame. How we perceive time is a real cultural difference."

"While Ms. Lambrecht is best known for her extended portraits of artists, particularly her work with Roy Lichtenstein in the early 1990s (Roy Lichtenstein in His Studio, The Monacelli Press, 2011) she has applied the same dedication to her landscape work for over 25 years."–Rick Wester Gallery

LAURIE LAMBRECHT: CHINA, 2009

RWFA Rick Wester Fine Art

September 20 - November 3

ICP: Rise and Fall of Apartheid

Nelson Mandela, Treason Trial, 1958. Photograph by Jurgen Schadeberg, Courtesy the artist.

 

Part of the crowd near the Drill Hall on the opening day of the Treason Trial, December 19, 1956. Unidentified Photographer, Times Media Collection, Museum Africa, Johannesburg. 

 

This landmark exhibition includes the work of nearly 70 photographers, artists, and filmmakers; and  encompasses the entire museum, including the exterior windows at The International Center of Photography (ICP).  

 

Nelson Mandela portrait wearing traditional beads and a bed spread. Hiding out from the police during his period as the “black pimpernel,” 1961. Photograph by Eli Weinberg, Courtesy of IDAFSA.

"Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life is an unprecedented and comprehensive historical overview of the pictorial response to apartheid that has never been undertaken by any other museum. This exhibition explores the significance of the 50-year civil rights struggle, from how apartheid defined and marked South Africa’s identity from 1948 to 1994, to the rise of Nelson Mandela, and finally its lasting impact on society."

"Curated by Okwui Enwezor with Rory Bester and based on more than six years of research, the exhibition examines the aesthetic power of the documentary form – from the photo essay to reportage, social documentary to photojournalism and art – in recording, analyzing, articulating, and confronting the legacy of apartheid and its effect on everyday life in South Africa."

"Apartheid was the political platform of Afrikaner nationalism before and after World War II. It created a political system designed specifically to promote racial segregation and enshrine white domination. In 1948, after the surprise victory of the Afrikaner National Party, apartheid was introduced as official state policy and organized across a widespread series of legislative programs...the system of apartheid grew increasingly ruthless and violent towards Africans and other non-white communities. Apartheid transformed institutions, maintaining them for the sole purpose of denying and depriving Africans, Coloureds, and Asians of their basic civil rights."

"...South African photography, as we know it today, was essentially invented in 1948. No one else photographed South Africa and the struggle against apartheid better, more critically and incisively, than South African photographers. It is the goal if this exhibition to explore and pay tribute to their exceptional photographic achievement."–The International Center of Photography

Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life was made possible with support from Mark McCain and Caro Macdonald/Eye and I, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, Deborah Jerome and Peter Guggenheimer, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation in honor of 30 years of committed ICP service by Willis E. Hartshorn.

September 14, 2012 – January 6, 2013 

International Center of Photography

1133 Avenue of the Americas, NY

NY BOOK FAIR: MOMA PS1 This Weekend!

  Self Publish, Be Happy 

Book Club 1, 2012

Self Publish, Be Happy 

2nd floor, Q42

 

Self Publish, Be Happy, Q42

Antonio de Luca (left), Art Director, and Bruno Ceschel (right), Director of Self Publish, Be Happy. Check out their selection of remarkable, rare contemporary books at the NY Book Fair, 2nd floor, Q42!

Bruno Ceschel, "Self Publish, Be Happy" Founder/Director, talks to photography students from my School of Visual Arts "Professional Community" class.

"Self Publish, Be Happy is an organization founded by Bruno Ceschel in 2010 with the aim of celebrating, studying and promoting self-published photo books through events (such as exhibitions, displays and talks), publications and online exposure. Self Publish, Be Happy also organizes workshops that help artists and photographers make and publish their own books." selfpublishbehappy.com

A-Jump Books,  R15

"A-Jump Books is a small publishing house dedicated to producing photo-based books that challenge convention through understatement and artistic rigor. a-jumpbooks.com/Home.html

 Little Big Man Books, R04

Limited edition (100) silk-screened box, hand numbered and signed by the artist. Contains additional 11×14 traditional c-print, and loose silkscreen cover image.

 Photography Critic Vince Aletti at the NY Book Fair

There are literally hundreds of incredible book publishers to check out at the New York Book Fair this weekend at MOMA's PS1 in Long Island City. Easy to get to on the M, G, 7 trains. 

New York Art Book Fair

September 28-30

iPhone snaps © Elizabeth Paul Avedon/all rights reserved.

HOWARD GREENBERG: The Interview

  Dorothea Lange, Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Arizona, 1940 

© Library of Congress, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery

                           

 Dorothea Lange, Plantation Overseer And His Field Hands, Mississippi Delta near Clarksdale, Mississippi, 1936 © Library of Congress, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery

"I really enjoyed getting “Plantation Overseer And His Field Hands” by Dorothea Lange. It’s not the most valuable FSA print, but it’s such an interesting picture. Read pages 48-49 in my book [An American Gallery, Twenty-Five Years of Photography]; you’ll see why I have it. You can read so much into this photograph. The white farm owner, the ex-slave workers, their relationship to each other; it has a kind of universal symbolism. That’s the way I knew it. But then I came across this FSA print one day. On the left, almost out of the frame, is her husband Paul Taylor. It speaks to the issue of what is truth in a photograph, what’s real in a real photograph. [View the traditional cropping here.  Her husband is cropped out in the well known image] I found this to be such a fascinating example because this photograph is one that always stuck in my head as just a great amazing photograph." 

"Do you know the picture “White Angel Breadline”? I have a variant of that. It’s the picture immediately before or after. It’s all the same people in the picture, the same spot she photographed in; but the way the people move and the way it’s structured; it becomes a very different picture. It’s really amazing. I think it’s in the show, so you’ll see it. That is another one; I sold it and then bought it back and I kept it the second time. That kind of thing has happened a lot more than once because I do fall in love with these things and a lot of times I sell them and miss them." – Howard Greenberg from my original Le Journal de la Photographie Interview

Howard Greenberg, Collection opened at the Musée de l’Elysée September 2012. Exhibited for the first time were a selection of 120 photographs from Howard Greenberg’s private collection.

2014-15  UPDATE

September 10, 2014 – January 11, 2015

 "Masterpieces from the Howard Greenberg Collection" 

Joods Historisch Museum / Jewish Historical Museum

Nieuwe Amstelstraat 1, 1011 PL Amsterdam

Howard Greenberg Photo © Elizabeth Paul Avedon

"Howard Greenberg Talks To Elizabeth Avedon" 

 The Interview: Le Journal de la Photographie

It’s not an encyclopedic history of photography...it’s the magic of photography when the right picture printed the right way just grabs you. – Howard Greenberg

Howard Greenberg’s name has been synonymous with great photography for over thirty years. A leader in the modern photography market, Greenberg early on established himself as one of the pillars of the New York photography scene. Now a selection of photographs from Greenberg’s personal photography collection will be exhibited for the first time at the Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne in September and the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, Paris in January.

I sat down with Howard Greenberg last week and came away bedazzled by his contagious enthusiasm and love for photography and descriptions of some of my favorite photographers work.

Elizabeth Avedon: I’m curious why it took so long to show your Collection?

Howard Greenberg: First of all, I have to say my collection is really, truly personal. There are many known photographs, classic photographs, in the collection to be sure. But there are more than that many photographs which are unknown or hardly known or certainly not what you would consider important - but they are important to me for my own personal reasons. It’s my life and just like in your life you’ll see certain pictures you can relate to, you want it because of your experience. So it’s that way with my collection.

And also, I started as a photographer and I was like most photographers earlier on, a darkroom junkie, I loved to print and I was completely enamored of printing. When I started to learn about the history of photography and saw older prints that were beautiful prints - that was something yet again. A lot of the photographs in my collection got there because the print of the image was truly special to me. It’s really about the magic of photography. That’s how I see it. In so many pictures that I fall in love with, that I bought for myself, display that magic....

"Howard Greenberg Talks To Elizabeth Avedon" 

 The Interview: *Le Journal de la Photographie

The Howard Greenberg Gallery

 Unfortunately *Le Journal de la Photographie has since closed
The complete Interview is not posted online

KALPESH LATHIGRA: Projects

Coriolanus • Film Set Tableaux • Directed by Ralph Fiennes
Photograph (c) Kalpesh Lathigra

Coriolanus • Film Set Tableaux • Directed by Ralph Fiennes
Photograph (c) Kalpesh Lathigra

Road Trip • EuropePhotograph (c) Kalpesh Lathigra

Anglo - Afghan War • Afghanistan
Photograph (c) Kalpesh Lathigra

Lost in the Wilderness • Pine Ridge Reservation • South Dakota
Photograph (c) Kalpesh Lathigra

Lost in the Wilderness • Pine Ridge Reservation • South Dakota

Photograph (c) Kalpesh Lathigra

Kalpesh Lathigra (b. 1971 London) is regularly commissioned to shoot documentary essays and portraits of actors, authors, film directors for a variety of clients. After receiving his Certificate in Law from the University of Hertfordshire, UK, he completed his PgDip in Photojournalism from the London College of Printing. His many awards include the Taylor Wessing/NPG Portrait Prize, Descubrimientos PhotoEspana, Winston Churchill Fellowship, W. Eugene Smith Fellowship, Amnesty International Award, World Press Photo 1st Art, Magazine Photographer of the Year(UK). His clients include The New Yorker, New York Times, etc...I'm just saying! He continues to work on long term personal projects. Check out his incredible portraiture and photojournalism work on his website.

KALPESH LATHIGRA

SAUL LEITER: ICP Book Signing 9.21.12

The Book: Saul Leiter (Kehrer Verlag, 2012, 296 pages)

Book Signing: Saul Leiter's Retrospective
ICP Store, 1133 Avenue of the Americas
Friday, Sept 21, 5:45pm–7:15pm

Join Saul Leiter for a signing of his retrospective book Saul Leiter

"This book, published to mark the first major retrospective of Leiter's work anywhere in the world, features for the first time, in addition to his early black and white and color images, his fashion photography, the overpainted nudes, as well as his paintings and sketchbooks.

Saul Leiter (b. 1923 in Pittsburgh) saw himself for a long time mainly as a painter. After coming to New York in 1946, he exhibited alongside abstract expressionists like Willem de Kooning before beginning in the late 1940s to take photographs. Like Robert Frank or Helen Levitt, he found his motifs on the streets of New York, but at the same time was visibly interested in abstraction. Edward Steichen was one of the first to discover Leiter's photography, showing it in the 1950s in two important exhibitions at New York's Museum of Modern Art. Back then color photography was regarded as "low art," fit only for advertising. Leiter accordingly worked primarily as a fashion photographer, for magazines such as Esquire and Harper's Bazaar. Nearly forty years would go by before his extraordinary artistic color photography was rediscovered." Publishers description

ICP: Signed books will be available on a first-come, first-served basis only, on the night of the signing. Mr. Leiter will be signing his new book only, and proof of purchase from ICP will be required. And as per the artist's request, no flash photography, please. Limit of two signed copies per customer.

This event takes place during voluntary contribution hours at the museum. Free Friday night programs in the Museum are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn.

Saul Leiter

LYDIA PANAS: Exhibitions Here + There

Fish
Falling From Grace...
Photograph (c) Lydia Panas

Pig
Falling From Grace...
Photograph (c) Lydia Panas

A Group Exhibition with Lydia Panas

MORE PHOTOS ABOUT BUILDINGS AND FOOD
Gallery 339, Philadelphia
September 12 - December 22

Lydia Panas

A Suspended Moment
Photograph (c) Lydia Panas

It's a Matter of Perspective, Mr.President
Photograph (c) Lydia Panas

Our earliest relationships factor considerably in determining whom we turn out to be. For three years, in hot weather and cold, I invited families of various forms to stand before my lens. I asked them not because I knew what to expect, but because I was curious to see what would happen. These groups and occasional individuals stood graciously before me. I watched how they arranged themselves and then began to photograph them with my view camera.

In these pictures of family relationships, the details matter most. Although they portray engaging people, verdant landscapes and beautiful light, the photographs also provide more subtle clues for understanding the nature of my work.

These images depict specific people, but they go beyond portraits to explore the universal questions of how we feel. The pictures ask that we look deeper than the surface for what lies underneath: that complex part of our own personalities we often don’t see. – Lydia Panas

LYDIA PANAS

THE MARK OF ABEL
Rayko Photo Center, San Francisco
September 5 - October 7

+ + +

Monograph: The Mark of Abel
Essays by Maile Meloy and George Slade
96 Pages, 52 Color Photographs
Kehrer Verlag

MARIA MARTINEZ-CAÑAS: Photo Paintings

Untitled 004 [PC], 2012
Julie Saul Gallery, 535 West 22 Street, New York

Untitled 001 [FB+EM], 2011 (left) and Untitled 004 [PC], 2012 (right)

Julie Saul Gallery is exhibiting Maria Martinez-Cañas large-scale works, described as “Photo Paintings”. "This body of work stems from an inversion of Francis Bacon's process, which originated in cinematic formats and photographic sources that were then turned into paintings. Martinez-Cañas takes his paintings as a reverse starting point; each unique work is of mixed media, incorporating image transfer, painting and collage onto wood veneer, measuring either 96 x 96 or 36 x 48 inches. Her new series, as those that have come before it, wrestles with origins, identity, perceptions and ideas of source, translating the inspirations that have empowered and informed her work into physical manifestations."

MARIA MARTINEZ-CAÑAS
PHOTO PAINTINGS
September 6-October 20
Julie Saul Gallery, New York

Julie Saul: Le Journal de la Photographie