STUDENT SHOWCASE: Roman Anaya

 My 85 year old Grandfather came here from Mexico as a migrant worker.
Photograph © Roman Anaya

My Grandfather captures the essence of a hard working man.
Photograph © Roman Anaya

"My family came here from Mexico as migrant workers. These images represent the hard work and obstacles my family has had to overcome to get to where we are today."–Roman Anaya

Roman Anaya is this month's Student Showcase choice. He is currently a student in the School of Visual Arts BFA Photography program.

MONROE GALLERY: AIPAD Booth 419

  I Am A Man

 Sanitation Workers Strike, Memphis, Tennessee, March 28, 1968

Photograph © The Withers Family Trust

Roller Coaster, Seaside Heights, New Jersey, Hurricane Sandy, 2012 

Photograph © Stephen Wilkes

Apple Tree illuminated by gas flaring, Susquehanna County, 2011 

("Fracking The Shale Play")  Photograph © Nina Berman

 Empire State Building During Black-Out in Lower Manhattan, 

Hurricane Sandy, 2012.  Photograph © Nina Berman

The Monroe Gallery of Photography Booth 419

And Photographer Bill Eppridge will be in attendance 

during the AIPAD Photography Show

 AIPAD
April 4 - April 7
Park Avenue Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street

SCHEINBAUM + RUSSEK: AIPAD Booth 307

Georgia O'Keeffe, Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, 1968

Photograph by Eliot Porter, Gelatin silver print

Retrato de lo Eterno, 1935

Photograph by Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Gelatin silver print

Scheinbaum & Russek will be exhibiting works by
Ansel Adams
Manuel Alvarez Bravo
Walter Chappell
Harry Callahan
Laura Gilpin
Yousef Karsh
André Kertész
Beaumont Newhall
Arnold Newman
Eliot Porter
Sebastião Salgado
Aaron Siskind
Alfred Stieglitz
Jerry Uelsmann
Minor White

AIPAD

April 4 - April 7

Park Avenue Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street

JAIME PERMUTH: Yonkeros

 Yonkeros. Photographs © Jaime Permuth

 Yonkeros. Photographs © Jaime Permuth

In his first monograph, Yonkeros, Guatemalan photographer Jaime Permuth documents “The Iron Triangle”: Willets Point, a small and often overlooked enclave of New York City that is home to junkyards and scrap metal businesses. “Permuth’s beautiful black-and-white photographs highlight local workers, and their tools and materials.”

 

 

Jaime Permuth: Yonkeros  | Interview by Elizabeth Avedon

LE JOURNAL DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE

Elizabeth Avedon: In the past, you've documented the circus performers of El Circo Rey Gitano in Guatemala. What drew you to photograph in Willets Point?

Jaime Permuth: The Guatemalan poet Alejandro Marre recently described my work as coming from the “B-side of life”. Considering these two projects, I would have to admit that there is some truth to that statement!

Circus life is like a revolving door, with people walking in and out of it constantly. The same is true of the mechanics that work in Willets Point. There is an essential mystery and poetic richness in this kind of human community. People tend to live on the margins of society and play by their own rules. In my experience, photographers are not that different. We go from one project to the next. We arrive, set up camp, and then inevitably pick up and leave so we can move on to our next destination.

For the past 40 years the mechanics in Willets Point have been locked in a battle for survival with the City of New York, which wishes to evict them and redevelop the area as mixed residential and commercial neighborhood. Occasionally there is a flare up in tensions that make it to the newspapers. One fine day in spring of 2010, curiosity got the best of me and I took a ride on the 7 train to take a look for myself. What I saw there was absolutely surreal; I felt like I had stepped back in time and found myself a figure standing in a Walker Evans landscape from the Great Depression of the 1930’s...read Jaime Permuth's Interview here on Le Journal de la Photographie.

MATTHEW AVEDON TRIO: Gypsy Jazz At The Club Room at The Soho Grand

 MATTHEW AVEDON TRIO - FRIDAYS AT THE SOHO GRAND
with Matthew Avedon, Jordan Hyde and Jay Sanford
The Club Room at The Soho Grand 7 - 10

"It is with great pleasure that we are able to introduce The Matthew Avedon Trio into our weekly program at The Club Room at The Soho Grand. The Trio have proven their ability to bring a uniquely beautiful sound to wherever they play, but we like to think that when they step into The Club Room a little bit of magic happens."

We spoke with Matthew Avedon, guitarist of the trio about his influences, growing up around great music and the current state of jazz in NYC:

GrandLife: Growing up, how big of a role did music play in the Avedon household?

Matthew Avedon: Music was always a big part of my family but in very specific ways. I don’t think my dad ever played anything besides the Beatles my entire childhood, which is why I can’t ever listen to the Beatles anymore! I can sing every lyric to every song but I haven’t listened to any of it for years. My mom was more of a Doors fan and I feel the same way about their music; I love and can’t stand it! However, these are definitely the foundation on which my love for music was built even if I’ve moved away from them.

GL: Clearly, Django Reinhardt is a big influence on your music. How did you discover him?

MA: Django entered my life almost by accident. Every now and then I’ll go and buy a bunch of records from bands or artists that I’ve never listened to or even heard of just to find new music I like. I’ve spent a fortune on crap music but it’s all been worth it for those few records that stuck with me, and in Django’s case changed my life. I had read his name in guitar magazines and decided to check him out, this was before I had ever played any jazz, but the music struck a chord immediately. It’s got all the elements for good music: strong melody, strong rhythm, and virtuosity. It’s just so much fun to listen to and even more fun to play.

GL: How did you develop your style? Would you consider yourself more comfortable as a soloist or in an ensemble?

MA: I’ve definitely used Django and gypsy jazz as a foundation from which I developed my style. I play modern jazz, blues, rockabilly and used to be in some punk and metal bands (!) but my playing at its most basic form comes from what I’ve learned playing Django’s music. I do like to think that I’ve built on it significantly though, I play a way more modern version of gypsy jazz than Django did; it’s 2013, I’m not a strict traditionalist so much as a fan of this music which happens to be 70 years old. My band mates Jay Sanford (upright bass) and Jordan Hyde (guitar) are much the same. We all listen to the old recordings for inspiration and filter them through our own personal styles, that’s why we get along so well and play so well together.

GL: What makes for a perfect gig?

MA: A perfect gig for me is one where everyone in the band is feeling good and really listening to each other. When we’re connecting musically we push each other to play better, this is when I’m happiest. We’ve all played high paying gigs that just sucked because the music was boring or there was no energy or something; a good gig comes from good music and that requires everyone in the band to be on point.

GL: If you could go back to any period of New York jazz, which would it would be and why?

MA: Like most jazz musicians I’d love to be in NYC in the mid 40′s when bebop was really coming together as a new style of music. Even though I don’t really play that music so much the creative energy that formed it was so intense I’d just love to be involved or witness it at least. Now that music is considered completely normal, square and stale even, but at the time it was so revolutionary that it was unheard of, like a musical wild west. So exciting!

GL: What future plans for performing and recording can we expect in the future?

MA: We’ve just finished our first album in classic Django and swing tunes, which should be available for purchase at our gigs soon and plan on recording an album of originals in the gypsy jazz style in a few months. As for gigs we’re going to continue playing the Soho Grand every Friday, it’s been a great gig so far with a beautiful ambiance and fun receptive clientele as well as having great acoustics. We sound great in that room! We play around the city about four nights a week and encourage everyone to visit our website at kingscountyswing.com to keep up to date on our schedule!

aka: King's County Swing

Tuesday Nights: MOTO, 394 Broadway, Brooklyn

Friday Nights: The Club Room at The Soho Grand, NY

MIKE BRODIE: A Period of Juvenile Prosperity Book + Exhibitions

 Photograph © Mike Brodie

  Photograph © Mike Brodie

  Photograph © Mike Brodie

 Photograph © Mike Brodie

 

  Photograph © Mike Brodie

Mike Brodie Talks To Elizabeth Avedon 

for Le Journal de la Photographie

"Mike Brodie doesn’t have a telephone, so I asked someone who asked someone who asked Mike Brodie a few questions..." Read Brodie's Interview

“Mike Brodie spent years crisscrossing the U.S. amassing a collection, now appreciated as one of the most impressive archives of American travel photography. At 17 he hopped his first train close to his home in Pensacola, FL thinking he would visit a friend in Mobile, AL. Instead the train went in the opposite direction to Jacksonville, FL. Days later, Brodie rode the same train home, arriving back where he started. Nonetheless, it sparked something and he began to wander across the U.S. by any means that were free - walking, hitchhiking and train hopping. Shortly after, he found a Polaroid camera stuffed behind a car seat. With no training in photography and coke-bottle glasses, the instant camera was an opening for Brodie to document his experiences. As a way of staying in touch with his transient community, he shared his pictures on various websites gaining the moniker “The Polaroid Kidd”. When the Polaroid film he used was discontinued, Brodie switched to 35mm film and a sturdy 1980’s camera.”–Twin Palms

Book

Mike Brodie: A Period of Juvenile Prosperity

First Edition, Casebound
Twin Palms Publishers

 

Exhibitions
Mike Brodie: Period of Juvenile Prosperity

March 7–April 6, 2013
Yossi Milo Gallery, New York

Mike Brodie: Period of Juvenile Prosperity

16 Mar - 11 May 2013
M+B Gallery, Los Angeles

PATRICIA P. PERINI-LONG: Life Story

(l to r) Elizabeth P. Avedon, neighbor Texas Wagstaff and Pat P. Perini. Bar-B-Q celebrating Richard Avedon's exhibition "In The American West" at the Amon Carter Museum. Perini Ranch, Buffalo Gap, Texas, 1985.

Patricia Perini-Long with looka-like daughter, 

Dallas Gourmet Chef Elizabeth Perini

Patricia P. Perini-Long, July 6, 1944 - February 21, 2013

New York, Houston, Dallas, Napa Valley, St. Helena

Unfortunately my sister, Pat, an extremely accomplished person, passed on to broader skies this month. In her 30 year career as a production executive, producer, director and writer, she created many award-winning PBS programs. These include: the four hour film documentary LBJ, which she developed and executive produced for PBS' The American Experience (two Emmy nominations, duPont-Columbia Broadcast Journalism Award, Ohio State Award); The West of the Imagination,  six hour documentary series on the American West as told through the eyes of its artists, which she developed based on the work of Pulitzer Prize winning historian William H. Goetzmann (Best History Program, American Film and Video Festival); Katherine Anne Porter: The Eye of Memory, a 90-minute special for the PBS series American Masters; The Fig Tree, a dramatization of Ms. Porter's short story for the WonderWorks series; Facing Evil with Bill Moyers, a 90-minute documentary; The Aspern Papers, a new American opera, based on Henry James' story, for the Great Performances series; and three specials on the quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (Emmy Award). She was production executive of the feature film The Killing Floor and Mark Twain's 'The Diaries of Adam and Eve' for American Playhouse; Strokes of Genius, a series profiling five American Abstract Expressionist artists; and the original 26-part series With Ossie and Ruby, a showcase for multicultural performances, starring Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.

Pat also produced self-help, medical and health programming.  Her credits include: the acclaimed two-hour special Straight Talk on Menopause; its two-part sequel, More Straight Talk on Menopause and Women’s Health; the 90 minute special, Straight Talk on Prostate Health; the one-hour special, A Conversation with Thomas Moore, best-selling author of Care of the Soul and Soul Mates; Parenting for Today - Who's in Charge?; the 26-part medical series Life Matters, the 10-part Good Health from Jane Brody's Kitchen, and the one hour special The National Nutrition Quiz.  She brought to PBS two programs on personal security with Chicago Detective J.J. Bittenbinder:  Street Smarts:  How to be a Tough Target and Street Smarts: Straight Talk for Kids, Teens and Parents.

In the area of public affairs programming, Pat negotiated and executive produced The Texas Debates, two of the first nationally-televised Presidential debates (Republican and Democrat) for the 1988 Presidential primaries; The Making of a Speaker, a documentary on former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and former Texas Congressman Jim Wright; Locked Out of the American Dream, a documentary on America's affordable housing crisis; and The Other Side of the Border, a documentary on immigration from Mexico.

Pat served on all major PBS advisory committees on programming, marketing and promotion and was a founding member of the Great Performances Alliance, which managed the selection of programs for PBS' acclaimed performing arts showcase series, and Public Television's Latino Consortium Board. She served on advisory committees and review panels of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Prime Time Emmys, and chaired the Media Panel of The Texas Commission for the Arts. As producer, she spearheaded many media projects which were awarded funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Pat joined Dallas PBS station KERA-TV in 1969 as promotion director to launch Newsroom, an alternative news program created by Jim Lehrer, who was then beginning his television career. Ms. Perini rose within KERA to senior vice president of programming and executive producer of national programming, and led KERA to recognition as an award-winning national producer for PBS. As of 1992,  she worked as an independent video producer.

In 1985, she met her second husband, Robert Long, owner of Long Vineyards Winery, while producing a program on wine for PBS. She moved to the beautiful Long estate overlooking Lake Hennessey in 1987 and balanced her time as a devoted partner in the business of Long Vineyards, a video producer-director-writer and an active participant in local community service. She chaired the Editorial Committee of the Napa Valley Vintners Wine Auction, served on the board of the Napa Valley Opera House Theatre, and as vice president of the boards of Napa Valley Community Health Clinic Olé, which provides health care to Napa’s wine workers, and Music In The Vineyards, a summer chamber music festival held every August. Her video, ‘Coming of Age: Napa Valley,’ commissioned by COPIA-The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, documents the cultural and historic contexts of Napa Valley wines.

Born in New York City, raised in the Memorial area of Houston, Texas, Pat out shined us all with a Master of Arts from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Arts Degree (History and Literature major, Phi Alpha Theta Honorary History Fraternity) from the University of Texas. She is survived by her husband, Napa Valley vintner Robert Long, and her daughter, Dallas Gourmet Chef Elizabeth Perini; and across continents and coast to coast, cousins, nieces, nephews, women's groups, close friends and colleagues. 

Her daughter Elizabeth said it best, "She was amazing!"
 
In lieu of flowers, a donation can be made to Clinic Ole in St. Helena, which provides health care to Napa’s wine workers.

ZINES: Original Handmade Works Inspired by Pau Wau Publications

 PLAY VIMEO

iO Tillett Wright - Lose My Number. Foreword by Diego Cortez. Published in conjunction BREEDINGS at Fuse Gallery, New York. 7 x 9 in ▲ 72 pages ▲ Saddle Stitch ▲ White Staples ▲ B/W  Signed Edition of 250 ▲ SOLD OUT

Pau Wau Publications

Andreas Laszlo Konrath and Brian Paul Lamotte, Founders of Pau Wau Publications, an independent publishing collective dedicated to the production of small run & limited edition publications of contemporary photography, spoke to my 'Professional Community' class at the School of Visual Arts. Their original and unique perspective on book-making inspired the following original SVA student 'Zines. 

Pau Wau Publications

+ + + 

SVA STUDENT ZINES

ANDREW SWEENEY

 OISEAU / Fashion Editorial

JAKEY BEGIN

 Nothing Here

 VIVICA JAMES

Reality Asylum

Lyrics / Crass - Reality Asylum

DANIELLE FAULKNER 

Down To A Memory

 INDIA TREAT

Scroll / Miles To Go Before I Sleep

BRANDON HALL

 Peruvian Persuations / Holga Images, Peru

 WILLIAM WARASILA

favorite surf spots / Google Maps

ASHLEY RENTAS

Indian Powder

ROMAN ANAYA

Portraits

"I create a lot of composite faces, taking different people's features to create an entirely different person."

COURTNEE MARTINEZ

 Afterwards

"I feel like most people love meeting the gaze of someone they've been eyeing. Me I feel like a fucking deer in headlights and I just want to freeze or run."

 ANNIKEN EIDEM

 Spectacle

Includes quotes from random people talking about art at the Musuem of Modern Art

DAVID ORAMAS GRANADOS

Color 

EMILY LARSEN

 Be A Good Girl

Your Hormones Make You A Monster That is Less Worthy of Love...Your Body is the Wrong Size...Your Dreams Are probably Too Big...