'The Specter of Nature' at Spacetaker's ARC Gallery

Well it looks like I'll be having an exhibition in January at Spacetaker's ARC Gallery. I'm excited to present my images to a Houston-based audience. I haven't seen the space yet, but I look forward to viewing it and re-arranging the work to consist of something a little different than my thesis show, perhaps to include some 'sketches' of imagery before the development of my final work.

A little bit about Spacetaker:

Spacetaker is a 501(c)3 professional organization and Artist Resource Center located in Houston’s First Ward whose mission is to provide artists and non-profits access to economic development, continuing education, and networking opportunities to support their professional growth.

If you're an artist or business, you can build a profile on Spacetaker.org for free and may upgrade your membership to include additional perks such as multiple portfolios, artist opportunities, etc.. and it's for a good cause. Keeping the arts alive in Texas.

The show info. is still tentative:

Exhibition to run from January 1-29.
Reception on January 8, 2011 from 5-7pm.

ARC Gallery:
Location: Studio B11 of Winter Street Studios, 2101 Winter Street, Houston, TX 77007
Gallery Hours: Wed - Fri from 11am - 6pm or by appointment. Call 713.868.1839

I'll definitely keep you updated on changes.

Anna Gaskell in Gap Ad?

Ok, I discovered this ad yesterday while watching ‘The Office’ on hulu, I almost walked out of the room as it ran, and then Anna Gaskell’s name floated across the screen and all I could do was sit dumbfounded at the fact that I was watching the Anna Gaskell sit on a stool and talk about her work; suggesting that her lifestyle as a fine art photographer somehow correlates with the Gap image.

At first, I was just really confused, if you are familiar with Anna's work, a bodysuit of denim just doesn't come to mind when considering her subjects and photographs.

Actually, all her work tends to draw on the dementia of constructions within storytelling, highlighting the plight of female subjects being manipulated and pulled apart by other female characters. Gaskell's photographic series By Proxy investigates the re-imagining of a world as from a mother suffering Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Her Wonder and Override series fragments and reconstructs imagery inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, but by avoiding the literal nature of Carroll’s story, Gaskell’s imagery suggests that one has gone down the ‘rabbit hole’ so to speak and there really is no way out. The settings she chooses often include over-embellished interiors that both suggest and highlight the entrapments of domesticity sickly entwined with the need for story-telling and narcissism. In these spaces the anonymous characters interact through ambiguous scenarios that could be interpreted as either playing with one another, or tearing one another apart; as with an image in which hands are reaching into the frame and tugging at the tights of a little girl. Often using candlelight as her light source within these decorative interiors, Gaskell manages to have a conversation with the past histories of women and domestic space, while considering the contemporary issues of women's plight in motherhood and childhood: both subjects often neglected in contemporary culture where childhood has all but disappeared and motherhood no longer carries the accolades of the past.

Gap's entire image just seems to deny ignore all the investigations that have taken place within Gaskell's photographic work, I just don't get it.

I suppose she looks the part.

Update from PDN: For Annie Leibovitz, a Fuzzy Financial Picture

Well, I hadn't visited PDN in a while, but found this article about Annie Leibovitz's current situation and am eagerly awaiting the verdict and resolution in the coming weeks as her deadline for repayment of all loans approaches.

I knew from the previous NYT article that ACG was suing Getty, but I had not realized at the time that Annie Leibovitz was also named in the claim. I am a little confused, ACG loaned Ms. Leibovitz $24 million last year, however, they were in talks of selling her archive to Getty claiming the value of her images was around $50million? SO that would have paid off all of Annie's loans, and I suppose with ACG as the acting agent, they would get a little off the top for the sale? (Apparently, Getty lowballed with a $15 million offer, and negotiations ended.) But if Ms. Leibovitz's archive is worth $50 million as ACG claims, then they would not be able to obtain the entire archive for collateral, as that would be more than she owes. Collateral is to cover debt, correct...so now I'm totally confused, because if ACG is accurate in its claims of her archive's worth, then by default they could not possibly gain full control of her archive.

I suppose I need to look into the law a little more, as I know nothing about it. Perhaps until the collateral is liquidated, during that time there would be an opportunity to control all of her images. Seems convoluted.

Alright, I did a little googling and came up with this:

It is important to note, that the lender can use the collateral only to regain the money owed by the borrower (capital and interest). If the property (real estate, car) will be sold, the lender will get only the sum owed to him by the borrower. The rest will go to the borrower, who was previously the owner of this property. For example - if you owe $1 mln to the bank and your house secures the loan, and you are not able to pay the installments any more, the bank can take over the house and sell it. But, if the house will be sold for $1.5 mln, the bank will take only $1 mln and the rest ($0.5 mln) will come back to you.

Found here

Annie, how did this happen? In another article I read that a lighting company filed a complaint as Ms. Leibovitz owed over $200,000 to the company. What? Doesn't she own her equipment, she's been in the biz for like 4 decades, and don't her employers pay for any technical needs like lighting... what I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall in Vanity Fair's office so I could snoop through all her contracts and dealings.

Art Must-Sees this Summer: New York Photographs

image of John Lennon by Bob Gruen, on view at Bonnie Benrubi


As you may well know, I get many of my topics from NYTimes, so of course today I have to tell everyone about another summer must-see. This summer on exhibition throughout 13 galleries in Chelsea, are photographs of New York. From Nan Goldin to Helen Levitt, one can view almost every perspective of the city through the last century.

This is sure to take up a day or two when visiting the city, so plan ahead to hit all of the venues. This loosely titled exhibit, called New York Photographs, is organized by galleries that specifically represent photography, so even if the New York Photographs show is over, this is an excellent gallery list to start with if you want a down and dirty education on the broad representation of photography in New York City. For instance, Yancey Richardson is a highly respected contemporary gallery with some of the hottest photographers on the scene, while something like Howard Greenburg Gallery seems to show more conservative black and white work. Overall, the beauty about photography and this city, is that both have come of age together; as photography was developed during the same period as the birth of the steam engine and the iron industry, so the city literally grew up around the photograph. I think that's what will be beautiful about these exhibits, viewing the increasingly complex relationship the photographic medium, which has recorded and re-presented the life of the city time and time again, has with New York. Reviewing in these galleries, how both the visual structures and the concrete structures have altered in context over the last century. I am certainly going to try to make it to see many of these galleries before the end of the month.

I have made a list of the participating galleries below, some have references to the New York Photographs show, while some mention nothing of it. Alas *shrug* I never fail to be disappointed in at least a few NY gallery websites.

Bonni Benrubi, thru Sept. 5
Danziger Project
Yossi Milo, thru Aug. 28
Deborah Bell, by appt. thru August
Edwynn Houk
Howard Greenberg
Hasted Hunt, thru Aug. 28
Janet Borden, worst website yet...*sigh*
Laurence Miller0, Helen Levitt thru Aug. 2
Pace/MacGill
Robert Mann
Julie Saul, thru Sept. 12
Yancey Richardson

Musings: Paper Castle

Had to post this as I am obsessed with paper craft and interested in its current re-emergence into art culture. Found this image of a castle by a young art student in Tokyo by the name of Wataru Itou, on the Makezine website, while browsing the internet for craft photographs.
I have begun noticing a resurgence of craft not only in visual art culture, but in many aspects of consumer culture as well. Etsy.com for example is an online space developed expressly for handmade objects. Kirsten Hassenfeld is another artist that comes to mind when considering this re-emergence, Hassenfeld does not deny her satisfaction in romanticizing the ephemeral, and for that matter, many of the installation artists at Rice Art Gallery seem to use consumer grade materials to reflect on the sublime nature of a well-constructed space. In photography, it is the current popularity of formalist photography, now a days when a photographer claims they only use 4x5 sheet film, one immediately must take them seriously, because that isn't easy in this digital age.
And that's just it, I think there are two fold reasons for this new trend, one is the reaction to Post-modernism in which the ideals of craft were called into question. Craft was seen as problematic, it enforced a concept of perfection and assumption that there was a 'right' way of representing something. The second is this digital age in which photographs are everywhere, each and every online profile has an image associated with it, the image has become meaningless, and that's just the beginning. Everything is suppose to take place faster in this digital revolution, and for the most part, it is. So, artists and craft people alike are slowing down, revisiting their roots, questioning what handmade vs. digital means. I don't think there's an answer yet, but there is something about an object that is inherently more valuable than a digital file. My graphic designer told me to leave a handwritten note in every leave-behind because people are less likely to throw it away knowing that you spent time on it. Digital media is abstract, it exists in code, on screens, it disappears. Considering the work of DaVinci, the Romans, the images of Holocaust victims, perhaps our visual culture has not quite denied the belief that it is still the meaningful object that has the potential to live 'forever'.

For Annie Leibovitz, a Fuzzy Financial Picture by Allan Salkin at NYT

Click Here for the Full NYT Article
Say it ain't so! Annie Leibovitz is in dire straits over a loan gone bad with Art Capital Group, having allegedly offered her Greenwich Village townhomes and negatives as collateral!
Some advice for all creative professionals out there, don't ever offer your life's work as collateral, and NEVER your negatives and rights to your own images. Offer something that you can live without. Negatives are a photographer's bread and butter; many successful artists could take a tip from Damien Hirst who is known for carefully manipulating the art market to his advantage through strict control of his own work. He won't even allow a dealer to sell his work. Rumors claim that in this way Hirst has amassed a fortune close to a billion dollars from his artwork. Hopefully Ms. Leibovitz will pull out of this somewhat unscathed, perhaps there will be companies that see this as an opportunity to contract Ms. Leibovitz for more elaborate work, as the article mentions this is what Getty Images jumped on the bandwagon to do. I am looking forward to seeing how this issue pans out for her come the Sept. 8 deadline.

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