Film Noir #1405 Bill Armstrong

All photographs courtesy Sam Matamoros

The Aipad Photography Show in New York, held March 29-April 1, 2012, continues to unite the past with the future of fine art photography under one glorious roof at the historic Park Avenue Armory. Here, the past’s usefulness is on display as prescribed and thoughtfully described by Israel Zangwell–namely, the past is for inspiration (not imitation) and continuation (not repetition). Continue Reading More »

Aerotone #7 © Ryan Zoghlin; all photos courtesy Photo Review

The complete portfolio of competition winner images can be viewed at: http://www.photoreview.org/competition/portfolio.php/38/1

Ryan Zoghlin is the First Prize winner of the 27th annual Photo Review International Photography Competition juried by Robert Mann.

Gabriella Radujko: Thematically, your portfolios explore being “on an edge” or “on the edge” (as opposed being edgy). These include:

• Surf-o-glyphs: where surfers are on the edges of water
• NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) where industrial power encroaches on the periphery of modest single family homes
• Aerotones and Airshow which capture airplanes performing aerobatic maneuvers at the Chicago Air and Water Show

Why does this theme appeal to you?

Ryan Zoghlin: I am glad you ran a thread through these works. Maybe it’s just that things are more interesting where worlds intersect. Whether this is where the water’s edge meets the land or when the circus rolls into a small town. On the edge is where relationships and juxtaposition can be complicated and hopefully more visually interesting. Continue Reading More »

Photo:  Sam Matamoros, © 2012

Lately, the fine art photography community has been experiencing a tsunami of discoveries which include the resurfaced photographs of Robert Frank, negatives by Lillian Bassman, and more intriguingly, actual photographers themselves.  The new, posthumous content, while incredibly exciting, is no match for the discovery of the unknown (until 2007), self-possessed, prolific photographer named Vivian Maier. Continue Reading More »

Photo: Trois © Pat Beary

The Soho Photo Members’ second annual Small Works Exhibition, which opened on February 9th at the Soho Photo Gallery in Tribeca, captured the power of “small” as part of a creative competition showcasing photographic images no larger than six by six inches.  Baby boomers will remember how Volkswagen capitalized on the concept with their 1959 “Think Small” ad campaign, the highest ranked in the 20^th century. Small is as disarming, sexy, and fun in cars as it is in photographs as demonstrated in this beguiling show which provides a fashionable reprieve from the ubiquity of supersized images. Veteran Karen Marks, Exhibitions Director of the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York, acted as juror.

Papier, the series by first place winner Pat Beary, was prominently featured at the entrance of the non-profit cooperative gallery.  Un, Deux, Trois, Quatre, and Cinq form studies of hand-made paper found by the photographer in a Parisian boutique.  Exemplified by the topography shown in Trois, Beary captures paper’s organic, birch and coral-like properties, and most important, the imagination of anyone who writes or draws. Continue Reading More »

Jean Arp used seashells and blood; Jean Dubuffet, butterfly wings and glue; Bruce Conner, nylon hosiery and nails.  Joseph Montgomery uses nonesuch provocative materials in his assemblages, part of the show Velveteen, now on view at Laurel Gitlen, the polished, new gallery on the Lower East Side.  Instead, he uses what one would find in the garage of the average do-it-yourselfer–canvas, clay, lacquer, oil, sheet metal, and plastic—weaving, painting and affixing them on panels averaging 12.5”x 10.5” x 3” deep. Less noteworthy than the use of found, masculine materials, is the skill with which the artist successfully unifies disparate textures using high value colors.  His work solicits a calm and restrained response uncharacteristic of a medium which has been disturbing audiences for a century since the advent of the first modern collage by Picasso in 1912 and “God”, the first modern assemblage by Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven and Morton Schamberg in 1918—a work which featured plumbing fittings. Continue Reading More »

Whereas Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy famously eliminated the camera altogether to make photograms by capturing light directly, Brad Farwell retains the camera, but not the lens for his ongoing series Die Transfer Process. The artist was one of twenty artists-in-residence showing at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Final Open Studios in Building 110 on Governors Island on December 9, 2011. The wall installation features about a dozen unique, 35mm transparencies shown with Polaroid slide mounts, atop custom light boxes staggered on a white wall covering approximately 6’ x 8’. White extension cords were in plain sight. Farwell gives viewers the physical object, but the images are not much more than the color field. Irresolvable in their lack of focus and reminiscent of the painterly effects associated with Helen Frankenthaler, the artist offers, “what is being photographed is not the subject of photography”. Continue Reading More »

Single-handedly, Scopophilia, the 25-minute slideshow and centerpiece of Nan Goldin’s show at the Matthew Marks Gallery show generates empathy for Goldin’s subjects, those demi-monde friends appearing in alternating states of intimacy and quiet dysfunction. For about half an hour, the transgressive vulgarisms associated with her work are forgotten. Instead, viewers experience a pastiche accompanied by a liberating soundtrack and the juxtaposition of images typical of her aesthetic with ethereal masterpieces depicting eternal devotion, love and tenderness.

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