Alec Soth: Last Days of W. Opening

- Very excited for this show, the newspaper Alec printed was one of my favorite books from last year and I can't wait to see the prints in person. I'll be heading up to the opening when I get out of work on Tuesday, hope to see you there.

The Last Days of W.
January 20 - March 7, 2009
980 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10075

"Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present "The Last Days of W.," color photographs taken by Alec Soth between 2000 and 2008.

Although originally conceived without explicit political intent, in retrospect Soth considers this selected body of work, which spans both terms of George W. Bush's presidency, to represent "a panoramic look at a country exhausted by its catastrophic leadership." Soth's earlier series such as "Sleeping by the Mississippi," "NIAGARA," and "Dog Days, Bogotá" – all subjective narratives containing disenfranchised figures and decaying landscapes -- laid the conceptual groundwork for "The Last Days of W." It provides a wry commentary on the adverse effects of the national administration, perhaps best exemplified by an unwittingly ironic remark that Bush made in 2000: "I think we can agree, the past is over."

Following in the humanist tradition established by the great chroniclers of the American experience such as Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and Stephen Shore, Soth captures diverse images of a country disillusioned with, and deceived by, its own identity, from mothers of marines serving in Iraq to teenage mothers in the Louisiana Bayou; from religious propaganda in the American workplace to the mortgage crisis in Stockton, CA. His incisive depiction of contemporary American reality confronts the ideals romanticized in the American Dream with the hastening decline of the American Empire."



© Alec Soth

Albrecht Tübke

- Albrecht Tübke was next on my list of photographers to write about and I just realized that Jörg posted a great review of his book Portraits. For the project Tübke traveled the world's cities taking portraits of people from all different walks of life. I liked this excerpt from Val Williams essay about the work; "Tübke has a gift for allowing his subjects to perform in their own solitary drama. "Many people", he writes, "try to hide their emotions and feelings as they go about everyday life. This public persona is often calculated to mask what is within, creating a veneer of individuality, a fabrication to hide behind." In "Citizens", Tübke has created, from real life, a cast of characters who play their parts in the urban drama. All of the people he has photographed pose in the same way, directly facing the camera, in front of a background of concrete or stained brick wall...These are people with their own secrets, joys; anxieties, dreads and anticipations, but we can only wonder as to what they are. Tübke's photographs are cool and beautiful enough to be fashion images, a studied reflection of street style, but in the end, this is belied by the democracy of their vision." See more of his work here.



© Albrecht Tübke

Daniel Shea

- I just found Daniel Shea's work after he left a comment on my Top 10 Photo Books of '08 post. These images are from his series Removing Mountains where he explores the coal-mining industry in Appalachia, "What began as an interest in the modern coal mining process known as mountaintop removal, quickly evolved into an extensive survey of the social, political, and perhaps most importantly, cultural implications of extracting coal from Appalachian Mountains. What I found over the course of the trip was that these coal-mining process had quickly developed into one of the most destructive and pervasive forms of modern industry in the world." You can see more of his work here and be sure to check out his blog Digressions, he recently posted an interview with Andrew Laumann.



© Daniel Shea

Eggleston Archives

- I love these portraits that I came across on the Eggleston Trust website. Believed to be Eggleston's first published work, these black and white photos of faculty members of Memphis State University (including a young William Christenberry) were taken when he was just 24 years old.







© Eggleston Artist Trust

Tierney Gearon

- Tierney Gearon is one of my favorite photographers, she has a new show opening today at London's Phillips de Pury & Company. The show features new work which is quite a departure from Gearon's autobiographical family portraits. The new series titled Explosure uses double exposures where the compositions and themes act in contrast to each other. From her statement, "Through talking with my steidldangin publisher Pascal Dangin, who inspired me to double expose my images by taking pictures of myself, then exposing them on top of whatever I wanted. I felt incredibly stimulated and creatively challenged by this idea and knew that I could do something amazing and push my images a step further. This creative explosion inside me was the beginning of the double exposure project." See more of the new work here on the galleries website and her past work here.



© Tierney Gearon

Sarah Small

- I just came across Sarah Small's photography in the new Winter issue of 1000 Words Magazine. In the magazine Small's photos are accompanied by an interesting essay by Cara Philips, heres and excerpt "... Small's documentary based images, also reveal a world that is a heady mix of horror, humour, beauty, and the uncanny. Employing various methods to obscure her visual language, similar to Milton's manipulation of traditional language, she stimulates the imagination of the viewer. And like Milton, Small bases her work in subject matter that is familiar and that relates to reality, but mixes it with her own vision of the world." See more of Sarah's photos here and make sure to check out the rest of the issue of 1000 Words Magazine featuring work by Pieter Hugo, Trinidad Carrillo, and Wang Qingsong, as well as essays and reviews by Michael Grieve, Natsha Christia, and Aaron Schuman.



© Sarah Small

Shawn Gust Print Sale

© Shawn Gust
- Shawn Gust is selling some limited edition prints on his blog Organic Chemistry, wish I wasn't so broke from the holidays because I would be picking up the above image. Here are the details, "I've decided to make some limited edition prints available here on the blog. I am offering five 11x14 prints in editions of 25. The prints are from a project I worked on last winter with the Human Rights Education Institute that is titled "Living Within Limits: A Collaboration with Nature". We here in North Idaho have had over 80 inches of snow in the last two weeks and I am feeling like these images are an appropriate offering. With this first sale, I am going to make a donation to HREI for their work. 50% of all print sales will go to aid in future projects for the organization. How can you beat that? So get art, help out."

Phil Jung

- Phil is from my hometown and good friends with my brother and sister. I used to sit in on some of his classes while he was teaching at Rockland Community College and he's a great dude. He is currently finishing his MFA in photography from the Massachusetts College of Art. I was sent a link to his website last night and really enjoy his current body of work about car interiors. From his statement, "The interior of the car offers a thin line between public and private space. The interior, which is often littered with personal artifacts, offers a cryptic portrait of their owners. The aging exterior once shiny and new offers a glimpse of something that ultimately cannot be kept in its original state. The combination of both the interior and exterior reflect who we are, where we come from and ultimately where we’re going. My work is a modest examination of all these things." See more of his work here.



© Phil Jung

Michael Itkoff

- While I was at Strand last week I picked up a copy of Michael Itkoff's book Street Portraits. Although I had only known him as being one of the founding editors of Daylight Magazine and not by his work the book was only $14 and looked interesting. For the project Itkoff traveled throughout the world to cities such as London, Hanoi, Sydney, Bangkok, and New York taking pictures of everyday people in the street. Having an assistant hold up a white backdrop only behind the subjects head and shoulders Itkoff creates a striking aesthetic isolating the subjects from their urban contexts and allowing them to exist in a shared visual space as part of the same extended family. See more of his work here.



© Michael Itkoff

Top 10 Photo Books of 2008

- I have always been pretty insane with my collections, from baseball cards to comic books and most recently records. This year began a new obsession for me. Before the year started I only had a couple of photo books, but as time went on record buying took a huge back seat to them an now I'm actually selling off records to feed my addiction. Of course there are many books I have yet to see this year but these are my favorites.


Zoe Strauss - America

Luigi Ghirri - It's Beautiful Here, Isn't It

Mark Steinmetz - South East

Sze Tsung Leong - Horizons

Takashi Homma - Tokyo

Alec Soth - The Last Days of W.

Coley Brown - Jam, Jelly, Honey, Wild, Rice

Leigh Ledare - Pretend You're Actually Alive

Judith Joy Ross - Protest The War

Robin Schwartz - Amelia's World

Martin Buday

- Martin Buday is a photographer examining the urban landscape. His series Blandscape is anything but bland, with rich colors and subtle humor, Buday's landscapes are really quite excellent. See more of his work here.



© Martin Buday

Martin Parr Talk and Book Signing

- PARRWORLD: Objects and Postcards Aperture is pleased to announce a special talk and book signing with Martin Parr at The Strand on his latest book Parrworld: Objects and Postcards

This groundbreaking two-volume set presents Parr’s idiosyncratic and kitsch collections with appropriate thoroughness, and with the artist’s typical humor. Objects is the first publication to document his twenty-five-plus years of such collecting from items that have already achieved notoriety such as wrist watches featuring Saddam Hussein’s face to more unique and often kitsch objects: wallpaper, trays, and objects commemorating Sputnik, Chuck and Di’s wedding, and 9/11. Postcards is the “last word” on an extraordinary collection of over 20,000 cards. This highly entertaining, yet serious study of postcard history, includes early cards that depict local news events such as car crashes and murders. The book’s finale, Boring Postcards, features a selection of cards promoting motorways and shopping.

Tuesday, December 16
7:00 p.m.

The Strand
828 Broadway
New York, New York
(212) 473-1452

Matt Nighswander

- I really enjoy Matt Nighswander's series Chicagoland, "When I first moved to Chicago, I was slightly confused by the term "Chicagoland." I heard it used in TV and radio ads when I wasn't quite paying attention and I wondered initially if it might be an amusement park or an enormous mall. I've chosen "chicagoland" for the working title of my project not because I am interested in documenting the wide expanse of the Chicago metro region (in fact, the vast majority of these pictures were all shot within Chicago’s city limits) but because of the psychological space the word implies to me. The pictures were taken in Chicago, but the best ones seem only loosely tethered to the reality from which they spring. If they are about sprawl and the forlorn spaces of generic architecture it is at least partly because these spaces are where the transformative powers of photography can have the greatest effect; where the photographic image can create a sense of drama and psychological tension that may not have been present in the original scene." See more of his work here.



© Matt Nighswander

Yann Gross

- Yann Gross is a photographer from Switzerland. He was recently nominated as one of the 13 Emerging Photographers of 2008 by American Photo magazine. His series Kitintale Skates is fantastic. The project is about the first and only skatepark in East Africa which was built by the local kids in the suburb of Kampala. See more the work from this project as well as other work that is more than worth checking out here.



© Yann Gross

Humble Arts Update

© Michael Bühler-Rose
- The Humble Arts Foundation updated their site today with a new solo and group show as well as the recipient of the Fall 2008 Grant. The second grant given out in 2008 by the foundation went to Michael Bühler-Rose and his project Constructing the Exotic. The series is wonderful and a good choice for the winner, congratulations Michael! This months solo show is from Marc McAndrews and his series Nevada Rose. In the series McAndrews points his lens at the thriving prostitution ranches in the desert towns of Nevada. I had never seen McAndrews work before this and really enjoy the series, I hope a book comes out sometime soon. The group show also has some really great work in it including Ryan Steele, Carter Rowley, Matthew Bessinger, Christina Kerns, and my good friend Sarah Kalagvano. Go take a look at all of the work at the Humble Arts site here.


© Marc McAndrews

© Sarah Kalagvano