Photo Art Fair

There seem to be more and more and more photo-related events going on, worldwide. 

"The Photo Art Fair is a four-day exhibition of carefully curated, collectable works from up to 50 international photographers. As a brand new show, the Photo Art Fair is designed to provide visitors with the unique opportunity to purchase collectable photographs direct from both undiscovered and emerging artists." It is taking place at London's Victoria House in Bloomsbury Square, from May 3-6, 2013, and will also feature panel discussions and all that stuff. There is a fee for becoming an "intelligent collector;" it's £7.50 in advance or a tenner at the door. 

Tabitha Soren: Keep Running

© Tabitha Soren

Some new images from Tabitha Soren's "Running" series, previously published here. Tabitha's solo show at Kopeikin Gallery in LA opens soon.

The gallery says "In Tabitha Soren's photographs, archetypal figures struggle to escape or arrive - the viewer cannot be sure. Uncertainty, chaos and vulnerability infuse Soren's universe. These are elemental fears made visible. Movement provides an opportunity for loss of control, un-self-consciousness. A theater of the absurd unfolds as she describes our shared instinct to survive. Her figures stumble, grimace and lose composure. They are both wounded and heroic."

Go see! The exhibition, erm, runs from April 13 - May 18, 2013.

All images © Tabitha Soren

Joshua Lutz: Hesitating Beauty

It would be hard to be anything but moved by Joshua Lutz' latest project, "Hesitating Beauty," in which Lutz tries to convey the far-reaching impact that his mother's extreme mental illness had during and after her lifetime. 

"Blending family archives, interviews, and letters with his own photographic images, Lutz spins a seamless and strangely factual (yet unflinchingly fabricated) experience of a life and family consumed by mental illness. Rather than showing us what it looks like, "Hesitating Beauty" plays with our conceptions of reality to show us what it feels like to grapple with a family member's retreat from lucidity." ClampArt. 

I encourage you to listen to Joshua's moving interview with American Public Radio. Excellent reviews in American Suburb X and Mother Jones. 

'Hesitating Beauty' will be on exhibition at ClampArt from April 11th to May 16th, 2013. The book from Schilt Publishing is out now.

View the full-screen magazine photo feature.

Steve Pyke: Philosophers

Watch the installation video!

Baron Wolman: Groupies

Mach Schau presents "Baron Wolman: The Groupies." An exhibition of limited edition prints, signed by Baron Wolman. In association with Rock Paper Photo and curated by archivist Dave Brolan, at 46/48 Beak Street London W1, 15th - 27th October, 2012.

Because these are my good mates, here's the blurb in its entirety:

Baron Wolman was the first chief photographer at Rolling Stone magazine. From 1967 his assignments for the just-launched magazine were as diverse as a backstage session with James Brown; dinner with Pete Townshend after a day photographing The Who recording "Tommy"; shooting Janis Joplin performing at his house to recreate a performance for a live review; flying to New York to photograph Mick and Keith as they announced the Stones' Altamont show; being on stage with Santana in front of 300,000 people at Woodstock; or being almost whacked by Jimi Hendrix as he swung his guitar in concert. Every day was different, every artist was different and the scene was constantly evolving.

The more he worked, Baron began to notice that aside from the usual hangers-on at concerts, there were women who had obviously spent an inordinate amount of time and effort putting themselves together for their backstage appearance. They were not just hanging out, they were strutting - style and fashion mattered greatly. In fact, Frank Zappa thought them important enough to form a band out of a group of them, The GTOs, led by the legendary Pamela Des Barres, and produce their album. These women were a subculture of chic that Baron and Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner thought merited a story. And so in 1968 this led to an entire "special super duper neat issue" of Rolling Stone called "The Groupies And Other Girls" featuring insightful interviews and photographs of the scene. Baron's interest in music and fashion would progress after his tenure at Rolling Stone as he went on to set up the influential magazine Rags, regarded as the Rolling Stone of fashion. Still, The Groupies special issue remains an important landmark.

All images in the exhibit can be purchased online at rockpaperphoto.com as limited-edition fine art prints hand-signed and numbered by Baron. Rock Paper Photo is the ultimate online gallery of fine art pop culture photography, where fans and collectors can discover and purchase iconic images of their favorite artists and personalities from the last half century.

Christine Burrill: Uprising Los Angeles

© Christine Burrill, courtesy 151ArtsBrownstone

'Uprising Los Angeles' features photo collages made by Christine Burrill, a Los Angeles-based cinematographer and photographer. Being hosted by a new arts space in Harlem, 151ArtsBrownstone, the exhibition highlights Burrill's images of the aftermath of the 1992 LA riots. The exhibition is being held in honor of the 20th anniversary of the events that took place following the Rodney King trial.

"Burrill began working with photo collage after she read an article on David Hockney in The New Yorker in 1983. She was taken with his methods and set out to replicate what he called "separate glimpses" of the same subject. Burrill's impressive photo collages are made up of over a hundred 4x6 images that have been layered digitally then printed as a single image on archival paper. The exhibition presents a range of subject matter­­­: would-be gang girls flashing victory signs, empty shells of stores, elegant African-American churchgoers displaying resolve after Sunday service, a Korean family sweeping up the remains of their store, and a dismayed Latino cop standing quietly among by wreckage. The images feel remarkably current, invoking the pathos, and lurking potential, for violence in communities plagued by injustice."



© Christine Burrill, courtesy 151ArtsBrownstone

'Uprising Los Angeles' opens on Thursday, October 11th and will remain on view through December 2nd.

Dirk Anschütz: Upstream Brooklyn

Something for the weekend? aCurator favourite Dirk Anschütz will be in DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY.

"Following the popularity of last year's foto/pods deployment, and the runaway success of Photoville, United Photo Industries returns to the DUMBO Arts Festival with foto/pods 2012 - a hamlet of shipping container exhibitions, tents, outdoor projections and much much more along a strip on Main Street, DUMBO."

At Photoville, Dirk's series 'Giddy Up' was laid out among other great work on 'the fence,' and for UPI's next installation, he'll be showing prints from "Upstream Brooklyn," a portrait series of Brooklyners with severe physical and cognitive/developmental disabilities.

I really enjoyed Photoville, and it was a bonus for me that it was spelled with a Ph. But this is a hamlet, so + points for that. Anyway, I love Dirk and Dirk's work so if you're local go check it out.

I Saw Nick Drake

News in from our friends at Snap Galleries in London. "In the gallery for the next four weeks, ending 13 October 2012, we'll be displaying a selection of double page spreads from I saw Nick Drake mounted on the walls. We are showing just over 50% of the book up on the walls, life-size, with each spread measuring a whopping 24 x 36 inches / 60 x 90 cm. When you come to the gallery, you get a sense of the scale of this incredible book."



"Keith Morris's archive is the single most important source of photographs of Nick Drake, with Keith photographing Nick Drake for all three of his albums over a two and a half year period from April 1969 to November 1971. Tragically, Keith died in a scuba diving accident in 2005 but his legacy lives on through his incredible archive of photographs." Read more over at Snap's website.

Steve Pyke: Moonbug

Dave Walsh: The Polar Edge

The Isle of the Dead © Dave Walsh

If you're lucky enough to be in Dublin between now and September 29th, it looks as if you can't miss Dave Walsh's exhibition of polar photographs. As much as I love the back-lit screen, it seems redundant to say these must look spectacular in-person.



Petermann Glacier

And, Dave's story will add to your appreciation. He emailed me, saying "The images are mostly made on board Greenpeace ships to the Arctic and Antarctica over the last decade - but rather than being about activism, per se, they're more about how we idealize exotic, far away places. As the press release below says, my ethereal photographs of the unforgiving wilderness, wild animals and blue icebergs question our romantic relationship with remote, harsh and pristine environments. The images resonate with a quiet tension; all may not be right in the Garden of Eden."



Iceberg Cemetery

In the press release for the exhibition, at The Copper House Gallery, Walsh goes on to say, "While the frozen regions of our planet have the power to ignite imaginations, for most of the seven billion people on Earth, the Arctic and Antarctic remain abstract and unreachable. I've been lucky enough to voyage north and south by ship, to experience the serenity of the oceans and polar regions - and realise how finite our planet is."

Sleeping Giant

"Rapid change is taking place at the poles; CO2 emissions are contributing to the loss of Arctic sea ice, and melting ice caps are fueling sea level rise. We are starting to grasp how badly we are fouling the nest, and how our acts have repercussions elsewhere. The future of the Arctic and Antarctic is intertwined with our own - through my photography, I want to make people not only fall in love with their home planet, but to start giving a damn and to take action to protect it."

Arctic Tern Hovering

So, shout-out to Dubliners! Go see!

Sleeping Walrus All images © Dave Walsh