Anna Shteynshleyger, Masha, 2002. © Anna Shteynshleyger, Courtesy the artist.

Perspectives 2012, opening on January 20 at the International Center of Photography (NY), is the second installment of an exhibition series that focuses on innovative artists working in photography and video. These small group exhibitions highlight the individual ideas and achievements of an engaging and eclectic group of talented artists. The aim of the series is to stimulate conversations about contemporary art and to showcase outstanding artworks that might not otherwise come to wide attention.

Chang The Jiang Family. Left: Fuzhou, China, 2004; Right: New York City, 2008. © Chien-Chi Chang/Magnum Photos, Courtesy of Chien-Chi Chang/Magnum Photos and Chi-Wen Gallery, Taipei

Perspectives 2012 includes works by three artists—Chien-Chi Chang, Greg Girard, and Anna Shteynshleyger —who explore what happens when tight-knit cultural communities are transplanted to unfamiliar geographic locales. Each artist is represented by a group of prints selected from a much larger body of work. Continue Reading More »

Go to Freight and Volume and see this show in its last week!

Check out the rad animation Andrew did: Talking to a Fish

Andrew Guenther has exhibited widely in New York, LA, and internationally, including: “Standing in Water up to the Shins, Your Foot Looks at a Minnow and Says,’Look What I Have Become!’” at David Castillo Gallery, Miami, and “The Slap of Bird Shit On Wet Pavement” at Mogadishni, Copenhagen. Guenther was born and raised in Wheaton, Illinois, studied undergrad in Wisconsin and Rome and received his MFA at Rutgers in 2002. He curated an artist’s storefront space, Arts Tropical, in Brooklyn for a few years. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, and is a proficient urban gardener who grows his own tobacco, berries, and grapes.

Reclining Plate Face, 2009 ©Andrew Guenther

Paper Plate people, hotdogs and drug paraphernalia. These are some of Andrew Guenther’s subject matter. Referenced from his own life and pop culture, his work is highly personal even though it may seem even the slightest bit anonymous. Guenther’s unique aesthetic sensibility combined with vibrant colored drawings and paintings, immediately grab the viewer. His silver gelatin photographs look like they could have been taken decades ago. His latest sculptures of fish and naked ladies accompanied by a photograph of the full moon seem pure and earthly.

Andrew Guenther is based in Brooklyn and was born and raised in Wheaton, Illinois. Andrew has exhibited widely both in the US and abroad, and curated an artist’s storefront space in Brooklyn for a few years called Arts Tropical. He is represented by Freight and Volume Gallery in New York. Continue Reading More »

© Therese+Joel, "Adrian & Lyoka"

The first exhibition to be presented at the gallery’s new space in Chelsea. On view from March 4 through Spring 2011, the exhibition explores sexual attraction and physical beauty as it relates to modern everyday existence across the globe through the work of twelve acclaimed photographers, collectives and duos.

CASS BIRD / BRIAN FINKE / CAMILLE VIVIER / CAROLL TAVERAS / CHRISTIAN WEBER / ELLEN JONG / JOSEPH SZABO/LØBER NØGEN / SANDY KIM / STEPHEN IRWIN / THERESE + JOEL / YISOOK SOHN / ZED NELSON

F.L.O.A.T Gallery, 300 west 22nd street, NYC

This month, I had the opportunity to have a studio visit with legendary photographer Martha Cooper.  We sat and “talked shop” about photography and New York City, thirty years back and now. I always knew of Martha Cooper, but there were things about her photographic career I only learned of that day. The 1980’s movie Beat Street – little did I know that she was the still photographer.  Perhaps she is best known for her extensive coverage of the early Hip Hop days, as it emerged from the Bronx. These images have been published worldwide, helping make Hip Hop the predominant international youth movement it is today. Looking at her collection of images and many published books,  (Street Play, Subway Art and New York State of Mind – to only name a few) it is evident that Martha had the desire to document NYC simply as it was, making images which hold views of complete authenticity which add to historic preservation.

Martha’s work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide and published in numerous magazines from National Geographic to Vibe. She lives in Manhattan where she is the Director of Photography at City Lore, the New York Center for Urban Folk Culture. For the past five years Martha has been shooting a personal project in SoWeBo, a neighborhood in Southwest Baltimore. Continue Reading More »

Over the course of seven years, photographer Timothy Briner created “Boonville”, taking place in six different towns spread across the U.S. from New York to California. During this unique solitary road trip, his itinerary consisted of New York, North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri, Texas, and California. Importantly, Briner did his best not to be an anonymous traveler just passing through, he chose to ground himself within the communities for weeks and months at a time. He became familiar and close with the locals and was fortunate to get to know the rhythms of their everyday lives. Within the portraits of hunters and smoke stacks, Briner has a clear opinion, which is never condescending or reductive. These images of different zip codes all with the name Boonville form a unique series of the commonalities of small towns in contemporary America, as seen from the inside. Currently, he has a solo show of the work at the Brauer Museum of Art in Valparaiso, Indiana and a trade edition of the book is in progress.

Briner was born in Indiana. He currently lives in Brooklyn, and is represented by Daniel Cooney Fine Art in New York. Continue Reading More »

© Sam Falls, courtesy of Hassla Books

There’s a new gallery in town. If you haven’t heard of F.L.O.A.T Gallery (which means Four Legs of A Table), Brooklyn’s newest creative enterprise, the gallery opens their second show this weekend: Picture Books. A collaboration with four dynamic independent photography publishers – Hassla Books, JSBJ, Lay Flat and Seems – together will present small-run photography publications that express the visions of their featured artists and exist as works of art themselves. Limited edition prints curated by F.L.O.A.T will be available for sale throughout the duration of the exhibition. The first show, “Factory of Dreams” was a solo show by photographer Stefan Ruiz. For photography and independent book publisher lovers this show is not too be missed. The opening reception is Saturday, December 18th from 6-8pm and will hold a book sale, introducing a selection of limited edition prints.

Picture Books is curated by Caroll Taveras and Meagan Ziegler-Haynes and runs through January 16th, 2011. For more information please contact 646-239-8834 / info@thefloatgallery.com

F.L.O.A.T GALLERY • 539 ATLANTIC AVE. BROOKLYN, NY 11217 • THEFLOATGALLERY.COM