Hellen van Meene @ Museum of The City of New York

(via Yancey Richardson Gallery)

Hellen van Meene is one of twelve contemporary Dutch photographers featured in the upcoming exhibition Dutch Seen: New York Rediscovered opening June 10, 2009 at the Museum of the City of New York and curated by New York Times photo editor Kathy Ryan. To watch a video on the exhibition narrated by the curator please click here.

LaToya Ruby Frazier and Sebrina Fassbender at Higher Pictures

Self Portrait (March 10 am) 2009, © LaToya Ruby Frazier, courtesy of Higher Pictures

From the press release:

Higher Pictures announces a two-person exhibition of Sebrina Fassbender and LaToya Ruby Frazier. Fassbender will exhibit photographs from a five-year exploration of transient women in the 'old' East Village in New York City. Frazier will exhibit a selection of self-portraits, 2005-2009. The exhibition will run from May 14th through June 20th, 2009.

...

Fassbender spent five years seeking out women who existed within a raw, emotionally sexualized and chaotic space. Responding deeply to the fantasy, unbearable pain and sadness of these women, Fassbender creates her portraits by dressig and psing them in order to make the women more real than the reality of the women themselves.

...

Frazier uses her art to explore her relationship with her family, similar to artists Doug Dubois and Leigh Ledare. Her photography is unlike that of Eugene Richards in that she is not an editorial photographer, but rather, Frazier is the content and photographer, allowing her mothing to frame and shoot her as a subject. Her work is autobiographical and blurs the line between self-portraitute and social documentary.

LaToya Ruby Frazier / Sebrina Fassbender
May 14 through June 20, 2009
at Higher Pictures

764 Madison Avenue (between 65th/66th street)
New York, NY 10065
212.249.6100

Facebook status sparks discussion.

"MoMA's Fourth and Fifth floor Lack Women"

Paddy Johnson of Art Fag City combed through a lengthy discussion on art critic, Jerry Saltz's status update on Facebook about the lack of women artists on display in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art. According to Saltz, “Of the 383 works on the 4th & 5th flrs. of MoMA’s perm. coll., only 19 are by women (4%).”

Read more here.

Brea Souders: Open Studio

No. 5 (Emanuel Swedenborg) from Islands & Streams © Brea Souders

Brea Souders is opening up her studio to the public as part of the Bushwick Open Studios and Arts Festival on Sunday, June 7, from 12-8 pm. She will display several new images from her current series Islands & Streams, as well as some other work created within the past year. All are welcome.

Bushwick Open Studios
Sunday, June 7, 12 -8 pm
250 Moore St, #303
Brooklyn, NY 11206

She is located 2 blocks from the Morgan stop on the L train.

For more info:
www.breasouders.com
www.artsinbushwick.com

Last Chance! Nymphoto Presents @ Sasha Wolf

We had a great time at the artist reception and we hope you did too. If you have not seen the show yet, head on down to Sasha Wolf Gallery to see the exhibit before it comes down tomorrow.






Nymphoto Presents @ Sasha Wolf Gallery
Sasha Wolf Gallery
10 Leonard Street
New York, NY
May 23 - June 6, 2009
Artist Reception: May 28, 6-8PM
Download Press Release >

The exhibit features work from artists who entered our first call for entries:

Jennifer Boomer, Livia Corona, Katrina d'Autremont, Jen Davis, Lizzie Gorfaine, Victoria Hely-Hutchinson, Megan Maloy, Tiana Markova-Gold, Debora Mittelstaedt, Beatrix Reinhardt, Anna Skladmann, Malou van Breevoort, Corinne Vionnet, Sophia Wallace and Susan Worsham

As well as works from Nymphoto members:

Nina Büsing Corvallo, Rona Chang, Candace Gottschalk, Maria Passarotti and Jane Tam

Jessica Backhaus on WIPNYC

from WIPNYC:



JessicaBackhaus.net

Sylvia Plachy Gallery Talk

(via Marketing Photos with Mary Virginia Swanson)

The exhibition “Forever Hold Your Peace” juried by photographer Sylvia Plachy will open on Saturday, June 6th from 6-9 p.m.

From the event website entry:

The New Orleans Photo Alliance is pleased to present “Forever Hold Your Peace,” a group exhibition on the subject of weddings, juried by Sylvia Plachy. In curating this exhibition, Plachy, a Hungarian born, New York based, world-renowned photographer, selected 31 photographs depicting the traditions, customs, symbols and the rich human tableau surrounding wedding rituals.

Featured artists include Marc Pagani, Evan Abramson, Katie Delavaugh and Kate Nicholson. A slideshow of 58 additional images will be featured in the exhibition.

“Forever Hold Your Peace” will be on view from June 5 through July 19, 2009 at the New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery, 1111 St. Mary St. New Orleans, LA 70130. The opening reception takes place on Saturday, June 6, from 6-9pm. Ms. Plachy will present a Gallery Talk at 7pm, where she will walk through the gallery to discuss the show and her thought process in selecting images.

“I was looking for the same kind of pictures that I look for when I am photographing. I was looking for what would move me and for what I would never tire of looking. I wanted to see a burst of life palpable on a piece of paper.”

- Sylvia Plachy

Fraction Mag Issue 7 out now

Afternoon Sudoku © Nadia Sablin

Issue 7 of Fraction Magazine is out now. It includes some interesting portrait work by Nadia Sablin.

A Conversation with Katrín Elvarsdóttir

Icelandic artist Katrín Elvarsdóttir photographs are quiet and strong. Her work makes the viewer observe, reconsider and reflect. An impeccable sense of light and composition lets her create strong contemporary images that are at once sober and full of magic.

© Katrín Elvarsdóttir

NP: Tell us a little about yourself.

KE: I currently live in Reykjavik, but I was born in the small town of Isafjordur, isolated by the murky mountains in West Fjords of Iceland. When I was 11 years old my family moved to Sweden, where we stayed for 6 years, before moving back. In my early twenties I moved to the U.S to study photography, I graduated from the Art Institute of Boston in 1993. After graduation, I worked as a fashion photographer for some years in the U.S and Europe. I left the commercial photography world several years ago and began devoting my time entirely to personal art projects. My book, Revenants Proximal-Dimension - photographs of Iceland's ominous countryside - published in 2005. I’m currently working on my second book.

© Katrín Elvarsdóttir

NP: How did you discover photography?

KE: I did some photography in high school and found it interesting, but somehow nothing happened until I returned to photography at age 23 when I bought my first 35 mm camera, and became completely hooked. From that point there was no turning back.

© Katrín Elvarsdóttir

NP: Where do you find inspiration?

KE: My inspiration comes to a large extent from observing my surroundings and nearest environment. It also comes from literature, movies and many other art forms. I travel quite a lot and often get inspired by the places I visit, especially things that go unnoticed or fall into the background. I also pick up on mood and try to capture that in my photographs. The atmosphere of various places, people’s faces and lighting plays a big part in most of what I do, whether they are found locations or partly constructed by myself.

© Katrín Elvarsdóttir

NP: How do your projects come about?

KE: They spring forth from moments of inspiration that can hit at any time – I often try to capture a fleeting thought and turn it into something bigger. This can happen in many different ways and circumstances. The Equivocal project, for example, started by one single photograph, a brown sofa and curtains with green Maple leaves outside the window [TV room]. Something in it captured my imagination and I wanted to “see the rest” of that series – before it existed. The idea for the Without a Trace series came from a painting I had in my room as a child – a dark and mysterious painting of Hansel and Gretel walking along a forbidding forest path. In the series I wanted to create a fictional setting that would evoke similar feelings as I remember experiencing looking at the painting as a child. The Simulacra series came from observing the sisters Hanna and Karen, who look somehow very much alike but at the same time also very different. As you look at them side by side their similarity seems to fade in and out of existence in front of you. It’s intriguing. When I started working on that idea the project unfolded, little by little, basically being inspired by the simple idea of similarity – what is similar, what is not?

NP: What's next?

KE: I just received a 6-month artist stipend from the Icelandic government, which I intend to make good use of. In a couple of months I will be exhibiting at the LA Art Museum in Hveragerdi, Iceland. As I mentioned I am working on a new book, which I hope to finish this year. If everything goes according to plan my work will be exhibited in New York City in the fall.

Please visit www.katrinelvarsdottir.com to see more of Katrín's work.

Louisa Conrad: Solo Exhibition

from the press release:

The last arctic grew out of Louisa Conrad's desire to present the confusing multiplicity of voices and opinions on the issue of gas exploration that she encountered in the arctic. "When you’re dealing with mystery," said Jean Cocteau, "stay as close to reality as possible." The reality on the ground, she discovered, concealed itself in a tangle of social issues. Contradictions prevailed. Lines of communication were flooded with information. Propaganda put out by both industry and environmentalist groups hovered around opposing poles.

Louisa Conrad: The Last Arctic
at Anthony Greaney
June - July 2009
Opening Reception: June 5, 2009, 6-8pm.
617-482-0055
460 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118