Opening Reception Tomorrow: "Thrills and Chills" at Griffin Museum

Images from Thrills and Chills, © Isa Leshko

(via Griffin Museum of Photography)

Thrills and Chills Photographs by Isa Leshko
April 8 through May 9, 2010
An opening reception is April 15, 6-9 PM. All are welcome.

While some people see pure fun in amusement park rides, photographer Isa Leshko explores "the fantastic and sinister place these rides hold in my imagination."

Thrills and Chills, a series of her photographs, is featured in the Griffin Gallery of the Griffin Museum April 8 through May 9. The exhibit is sponsored in part by Panopticon Imaging in Hingham, MA. An opening reception with the artist is April 15, 7-9 PM.

"Amusement park rides are vehicles for enacting fantasies for both children and adults alike," Leshko says. "They simulate flight, daring sea adventures, and encounters with other worldly creatures. From the moment we strap ourselves into our seats, we surrender ourselves to these giant machines and the physical release they provide. The experience combines elation with fear; thrills with chills."

She says when creating some of the images, "I suspend disbelief and embrace the underlying fantasies of these rides. With other images, I examine the tensions that exist between fantasy and reality. I am fascinated by the range of emotions - from anger to shock to disenchantment - that people exhibit in pursuit of the amusement these rides are supposed to provide."

Leshko says she uses a Holga camera to give her images "a vernacular feel and a sense of immediacy. I print these images deliberately dark to reflect the murky realm I envision these mechanical beasts inhabiting."

Leshko grew up in an industrial town situated off the New Jersey Turnpike. She received a bachelor's degree from Haverford College in Pennsylvania, where she studied psychology with an emphasis on neurobiology and cognitive science. She spent the 1990s working for dot.com startups as a project manager and software engineer, before discovering her passion for photography.

She studied at the New England School of Photography and the Woodstock Center for Photography and completed the Artist's Professional Toolbox program sponsored by the Arts and Business Council of Greater Boston. Her work has been exhibited widely.

After 16 years of living in various New England communities, including Providence, RI; Portsmouth, NH; and Salem, MA, she moved to Houston, TX, in October 2009.

Be sure to also revisit our conversation with Isa here: A Conversation with Isa Leshko

Opening Reception Tonight: Lydia Panas

© Lydia Panas

Family Pictures... Untold Stories
Fourteen Photographs
by Lydia Panas

March 27 - May 23, 2010

Opening Reception: April 2, 2010 / from 6-9 PM
Artist's Talk: 5-6 PM

The Banana Factory
25 W. Third St.
Bethlehem, PA 18015

Opening Tomorrow: The Urban Forest by Kate Glicksberg

Court and Luquer, Brooklyn, 2009

Chromogenic Print
24” x 20”
Edition of 3
© Kate Glicksberg

THE URBAN FOREST
By Kate Glicksberg

April 1 – 18th, 2010

OPENING RECEPTION: April 1st: 7 – 10pm

Opening night music provided by Treehouse DJs (Raspberry Jones & Treeboy)

Chashama
30 W. 8th Street (at MacDougal)
New York City
hours: Wed – Sun 1 – 7pm or by appointment

Opening Reception Tonight: Erica Allen

Gentleman #14, from Untitled Gentlemen Series, © Erica Allen

via Melanie Flood Projects:

Exhibition Dates: November 8 -- December 2, 2009
Reception Tonight: Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 6-9pm

Melanie Flood Projects is pleased to present "Untitled Gentlemen", a solo exhibit of photographs by Erica Allen.

A series of fictional photographic portraits exploring representations and constructions of identity. Created with faces from contemporary barbershop hairstyle posters and figures from found studio photographs, this work gives new value and meaning to otherwise discarded and primarily functional photographs.


ABOUT THE ARTIST

Erica Allen is a Brooklyn based artist, originally from Oakland, California. She received her BA in Studio Art from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2003 and completed her MFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in 2008. Awards for her work include the Aaron Siskind Scholarship, the William Hyde and Susan Benteen Irwin Scholarship, and Women In Photography-Lightside Individual Project, runner-up grant. Her photographs have been published internationally including The Outlook Magazine and the Visual Arts Journal. She has exhibited in New York City at the Broadway Gallery, Visual Arts Gallery and the Camera Club of New York.
www.ericaallenphoto.com

For more information about the exhibit, the gallery, or to RSVP please contact:

Melanie Flood Projects
186 Washington Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11205
mfloodprojects@gmail.com

Opening Reception Tonight: Jane Tam

Hao, Shanghai, from A Chinese Sentiment, © Shen Wei
Aunt's Kitchen Counter, from Foreigners in Paradise, © Jane Tam

Jane Tam is participating in a two-person exhibition with the talented Shen Wei in Reflecting China: Gendered Visions from the Diaspora at Nemo Design Gallery this month.

From the press release:

Nemo Design is proud to present the work of acclaimed photographers Shen Wei and Jane Tam in Reflecting China: Gendered Visions from the Diaspora. Reflecting China combines work from Shen Wei’s Chinese Sentiment Series with Jane Tam’s Foreigners in Paradise Series. The result is a collection of work that explores issues of Chinese identity, gender, diaspora, cultural memory, imagined communities, longing and belonging. Both artists have been internationally recognized for their work. Shen is the recipient of many awards and was named as one of fifteen in the “new generation of photo pioneers” by American Photo magazine in 2007 as well as, one of the PDN’s “30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch” in 2008. Jane Tam was awarded with the Emerging Photographer Award at the Pingyao Photography Festival in China.

Reflecting China is part of the community programming for the Portland Art Museum’s China Design Now exhibit. It’s wonderful if you haven’t seen it yet, go.

Please join us for the opening reception Friday, November 6, 2009 from 6-10pm at Nemo HQ 1875 Se Belmont St. Portland, OR 97214. The show will run through November 23, 2009 between the hours of 9am and 5pm.

Opening Reception tonight: Friday, Nov. 6, 2009, from 6-10pm
Nemo HQ
1875 Se Belmont St.
Portland, OR 97214
Exhibition runs: Nov. 6 - Nov. 23, 2009 between the hours of 9am and 5pm.

Tonight: First Impressions

from CCNY:

Opening Reception:
Wednesday, September 16th from 6–8 pm

Marco Breuer, Eric William Carroll, Dan Estabrook, Michael Flomen, Michelle Kloehn, Chris McCaw


First Impression is an exhibition of contemporary work by artists employing arcane photographic methodologies resulting in unique, first-generation imagery. The selection of work includes examples of calotypes, tintypes, photograms and other unusual, unlikely and untimely processes by featured artists, Marco Breuer, Eric William Carroll, Dan Estabrook, Michael Flomen, Michelle Kloehn, and Chris McCaw.

Celebrating its 125th year, the Camera Club of New York is marking this important anniversary with an exhibition of work by artists who draw upon the origins of the medium to address contemporary photographic issues and practices. Each of the artists works within a distinct set of parameters, exploring the nature of process and representation.

Marco Breuer uses various tools to alter the surface and sensitivity of photographic papers, creating abstract images that question the basic nature of the medium. Eric William Carroll works with the least expensive photosensitive medium available, commercial blueprint paper, making life-size shadow photographs suggestive of performance art. Employing Calotype negatives and skillful draftsmanship, Dan Estabrook uses his dreams as source material, making images that defy our understanding of physical existence, and challenging the assumption that photographs are rooted in reality. Michael Flomen’s innovative gelatin silver photograms document his interactions with the natural world. Working outdoors at night, Flomen makes images in fields and forests, rivers and ponds, even utilizing the most ethereal of light sources, fireflies. Michelle Kloehn’s tintypes, made in her studio, depict vaguely identifiable forms fashioned from discarded materials. Dark and intriguing, her work has the appearance of chemically induced expressionism. Chris McCaw records the passage of time by allowing the sun to burn through photographic paper while traversing the sky. These enigmatic, large-format solarized paper negatives allude to celestial anomaly and prophetic revelation.

In conjunction with the exhibition, CCNY will host a panel discussion with the artists, moderated by Curator Michael Paris Mazzeo and Russell Lord, recipient of the 2009-2010 Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship in the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Please check our website for more details.

This exhibition runs from September 16 – October 30th.
Gallery hours: Monday–Saturday 12-6 pm

Please visit us at:
The Camera Club of New York
336 West 37th Street, Suite 206
(bet. 8th and 9th Avenues)
New York, New York 10018
212.260.9927
www.cameraclubny.org

This Thursday: Singular Beauty - Opening Reception

Cara Philipps
Singular Beauty
Curated by James Hull
Suffolk University Art Museum at NESAD
75 Arlington St, Boston MA
Opening Reception September 17th, 6-8:30pm


click to enlarge courtesy Cara Phillips

Opening Reception Tomorrow: New Art from Spain @ Sasha Wolf

work by Pep Llambias -- courtesy Sasha Wolf Gallery

One reason Sasha Wolf is one of Nymphoto's favorite women is that she always defies expectations. Whether she is hosting (a) group show(s) for Nymphoto, or putting forward a brilliant exhibit of paintings based on photography or writing an op-ed piece, Sasha always has her pulse on the Zeitgeist and she thinks outside the box.


work by Concha Vidal -- courtesy Sasha Wolf Gallery

Opening tomorrow at her gallery is an exhibit curated by Xavier Fiol, showcasing work from four emerging artists from Spain.
So come on down tomorrow night and see what is happening in contemporary art in Europe.
See you there!

Four Points of View
The Work of Four Emerging Artists from Spain

Pep Llambias
Santiago Picatoste
Concha Vidal
Santiago Villanueva

Xavier Fiol at Sasha Wolf Gallery

June 18 to August 1
10 Leonard Street
New York, NY
Opening Recetion June 18, 6-8 PM

Opening Reception: Sacrosant

SACROSANCT
June 14th-June 21st 2009

St. John's Episcopal American Catholic Church
1610 Lexington Avenue, New York City
Opening Reception: June 14th, 4:30-7:30pm
Closing Reception: June 21st, 5-10pm

From the press release:

Sophie T. Lvoff is pleased to present “Sacrosanct”, a group exhibition dealing with issues of religious resonance and spirituality on view from June 14- June 21.

"Sacrosanct" takes place at a church on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The building was built in 1920, and acted as a church from 1941. Since the dissolution of the church body in the 1990's, the space has been abandoned and closed to the public. Despite its subsequent deterioration, the space still retains its sense of holiness and importance. The surrounding neighborhood has also been in a state of transition, adding significance to the building.

For the exhibition, ten artists have been invited into the abandoned space to work both independently and collectively to create, install, and perform pieces that respond to the sanctity of the environment. St. John's is an elusive and unorthodox venue for the arts, and will be explored as a unique site for the duration of the exhibition.

Featured artists include: Antoine Catala, Stephen Collier, Patrick Duncan, Michael Clyde Johnson, Heather Jones, Zaq Landsberg, Sophie T. Lvoff, Santiago Mostyn, Eric Payson, Grant Willing and Alana Celii.

Featured musicians for the closing reception include: Young Man About Town, Patrick Cleandenim, the St. John’s Choir, and others to be announced!

Friday: Justine Reyes @ Eastern District

from Eastern District:


© Justine Reyes

Home, Away from Home draws on images from two bodies of work, “Home” and “Away from Home.” Ms. Reyes spent the past six years photographing her immediate family - her mother and two uncles. This series pairs their portraits with views of empty interior spaces in the house where they all live. In many of the photographs where the figures of her family are physically present a lonely emptiness and unease hovers, often more insistantly than in the vacant spaces. The family is seen engaging in the everyday activities of cleaning, eating, watching TV, doing nothing in particular. The viewer is forced to adopt Reyes' vision, incorporating the artist's own fears of losing her family and trying to capture the moments slipping by with increasing speed as they get older. Ms. Reyes' beautifully sad photographs focus on age, aging, loneliness and isolation, and the fragility of life and family bonds through her stark depictions of details such as her uncle's broken nose.

Opening Reception 7-10pm Friday May 15th 2009
May 15th - June 14th
EASTERN DISTRICT. 43 BOGART STREET - L TRAIN TO MORGAN AVENUE.

Opening Reception & Book Launch Tomorrow Night

Cover Image: Natasha, Ukraine 2005
Courtesy of Michal Chelbin/Andrea Meislin Gallery

We hope to see you tomorrow night for the opening reception & book launch of NYMPHOTO Conversations Volume 1 at Sasha Wolf Gallery in Tribeca!

NYMPHOTO Conversations: Volume 1
Sasha Wolf Gallery
10 Leonard Street (bet. W.Broadway & Hudson)
New York, NY 10013
May 6-20, 2009
Opening Reception: 6-8 p.m.

Work by Michele Abeles, Juliana Beasley, Rona Chang, Nina Büsing Corvallo, Candace Gottschalk, Jessica M. Kaufman, Klea McKenna, Michal Chelbin, Talia Greene, Maria Passarotti, Susana Raab, Emily Shur, Tema Stauffer, Jane Tam, Garie Waltzer & Jennifer Williams.

And if you can't stop by the show while it is up, there is the companion book/catalog is available for purchase via Blurb.

Opening Tomorrow: Anthology of Trends

Anthology of Trends
work by Tarrah Krajnak & Wilka Roig

The photographs created by the collaborative team of artists Tarrah Krajnak and Wilka Roig investigate trends in the photographic representation of the female. Tarrah and Wilka place themselves in their own images as they perform and catalog representations of the female throughout decades and eras in photography, creating an archive of the trends, stereotypes, and classifications.

Reception: Saturday January 24., 2009 from 5-7pm.
An Artist Talk with Tarrah & Wilka will begin at 6pm

On view: April 11 - May 24, 2009.
Center for Photography at Woodstock
59 Tinker Street, Woodstock NY 12498

Ariana Page Russel @ Magan Projects

© Ariana Page Russel

Ariana Page Russel
Dressing
Magnan Projects
317 Tenth Avenue
New York, NY
Opening Reception: April 9 from 6-8 PM
- through May 16th 2009.

Revisit our conversation with Ariana by clicking here.

Opening Tomorrow- Hysteria: Past Yet Present

via Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers University:

Hysteria: Past yet present
February 5 – April 9, 2009
Opening reception Thursday February 5, 5pm – 7pm

Hysteria is an elusive, psychosomatic, even mythical disorder, impinging on our physical, cultural, and moral concerns. It is often characterized as a mercurial state of disturbance that can be manifested in both a psychological and physical sense. The word “hysteria” comes from the Greek work hystera, a term applied to disturbances of the uterus. Addressing this topic, a number of contemporary artists have dealt directly with the work of European medical professionals Sigmund Freud and Jean-Martin Charcot by creating artwork that mirrors aspects of their studies. This exhibition will explore hysteria in relation to gender construction, feminine identity and pathologization, and sheer physical form given to the condition in the imagination of artists.

The show includes the work of Sarah Sudhoff who was featured on WIPNYC.

Queens International Opening Tomorrow

from QMA
In 2000, the US census revealed the borough of Queens to be the most diverse county in the nation. Two years later, the Queens Museum of Art inaugurated Queens International, a biennial exhibition of artists from around the world who live and/or work in Queens. Celebrating the most recent artistic achievements of Queens with 42 artists, collaborations and collectives from 18 countries working in a broad range of traditional and unorthodox media, the exhibition examines the boundaries of culture, tradition, heritage and nationality.

Like its predecessors, Queens International 4 addresses the relationship between “internationalism” and “multiculturalism” from a local standpoint. Culture is the logic by which we give order to the world. No one stands outside of it. In Queens, one comes to recognize that nations are not walled fortresses but rather permeable containers for the fluid shifts of culture. Here, multiculturalism does not imply a static representation of international identities but rather an ever-changing shift amongst multiple cultures that blurs ethnic, racial, gendered and ideological boundaries. Circumventing conventional art discourse to engage with their immediate surroundings, the artists of Queens ignite a critical dialogue through lived experience, often in the form of collaborative, site-specific and public practices.

Justine Reyes will be showing her Guayabera Series. The opening reception is on Saturday, January 24th from 6pm-12am. There will be food, music and performances.

Queens Museum of Art
Queens International 4
Opening Saturday, Jan. 24th
6pm-12am
Jan 24-April 26

Tonight: Tierney Gearon's Explosure Opening Reception

Explosure
Tierney Gearon
Phillips de Pury & Company
Howick Place London SW1P 1BB
Exhibition: 6 –29 January 2009
Reception: Wednesday 14 January 2009 6–8pm

Opening Reception Sunday: Steph Plourde-Simard

© Steph Plourde-Simard

"What Survival Looks Like"
Photographs of Steph Plourde-Simard

Almanac Gallery
1252 Garden Street
Hoboken Street, NJ 07030
Opening Reception: Sunday, January 11, 2009 , 2-6p.m.

From the artist's statement:
In the hills outside of Antigua, Guatemala - an area known for extreme poverty, violence and gang rule - I came to know Ana, Julio and their 5 young children. While documenting their home and family I was humbled by their hospitality and warmed by their incredible spirit. As much of the Guatemalan population lives in varying degrees of poverty, and many either wait for change or work tirelessly towards it, the lives and "everyday" stories of those surviving near-impossible situations are invisible, except to illustrate the occasional news bite or political campaign. My experiences and education in social justice work has taught me that often the simple act of "just surviving" is a powerful and revolutionary one. I am moved and heavily influenced by survival and the various forms it takes, particularly in how it manifests in daily life, whether it is obviously visible or not. This series began as a question to myself of what survival looks like, and time spent with a loving family who are waiting for their world to change. It has since grown into a much larger theme in my work and my life.

About the Almanac Gallery:
Internationally known photographer, Benedict J. Fernandez, founded the Almanac Gallery to give young and under-recognized photographers a forum to show their work. Almanac Gallery is located at 1252 Garden Street (corner of 13th Street), Hoboken, NJ 07030.

The Gallery is open by appointment only. Call 201-865-6997 or fax 201-865-6997 for more information.

Opening Tomorrow: Ignition

For those in Montréal:

from Galerie Leonard & Bina Ellen:

The Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery presents IGNITION, the annual exhibition of selected works from Concordia's Graduate Programme in Studio Arts. This year, IGNITION features six artists whose practices include photography, video and sound installation, painting, drawing, and sculpture. The artists are Miriam Sampaio, Meera Margaret Singh, Mark Igloliorte, Malena Szlam, Amélie Guérin, and Steve Bates.

Opening: December 10, 2008
5:30 - 7:30pm
December 10, 2008- January 17, 2008
Curated by: Michèle Thériault an Susannah Wesley
Galerie Leonard & Bina Ellen
Montréal, QC

Nina Berman: Book Launch & Opening Reception Tonight

from "Homeland" © Nina Berman

Nina Berman
"Homeland"
Exhibition & Book Launch
Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring Street
New York, NY
Opening Reception October 24 6-8 pm