photo-eye | BLOG: February 2015

Nail Houses or the Destruction Of Lower Shanghai.
By Peter Bialobrzeski. Hajte Cantz, 2014.

Nail Houses or the Destruction Of Lower Shanghai

Reviewed by Christopher J. Johnson

Nail Houses or the Destruction Of Lower Shanghai
Photographs by Peter Bialobrzeski
Hatje Cantz, 2014. 116 pp., 64 color illustrations, 8x11¾".

Those of us who muse day after day upon photography often enjoy those musings in plush armchairs or upon nice couches or over fresh hot coffee in a clean café; in other words, we do so from a lap of luxury — even if that lap is a shoebox apartment in a questionable part of New York City, Los Angeles or Berlin.

I know this because it doesn’t take much to be known.

We are blessed to have time for these thoughts because we don’t have too much on our shoulders; sure, we may have personal issues, arguments, ill friends and relatives, or an occasional longing, but we’ve got it good and that goodness can be difficult to transcend. The fact is that those who pursue fine art in a globalized world are fortunate. However, photography has also historically been quite effective in showing us the other side of this reality, helping us transcend and by doing so, understand the state of others, people unable to pause from their days to contemplate the landscapes of Nadav Kander or the street photographs of Viviane Meier.

Fukushima
Photographs by Antoine d'Agata published by SUPER LABO
$200.00 SIGNED — Purchase Book

Slipcased. Limited edition of 500 with numbered and signed certificate.

"The void surrounds me and eats my belly. Through the clear glass of the car window, everything is grey: slow descent into a warm and acrid cell nucleus, memory wearing off through scattered images whose logic is as atomized as the territories I go through. The method, because it takes the form of a diary whose structure is premeditated in order to challenge its own rules, ends up depending on resurgences that alter the physical space of the exclusion zone. I am being led by my own moves from fear into stillness, knowing every gesture traces an impossible path to be followed."—Antoine d'Agata

Aaron Siskind: Another Photographic Reality.

University of Texas Press, 2014.

Aaron Siskind: Another Photographic Reality

Reviewed by Adam Bell

Aaron Siskind: Another Photographic Reality
Photographs by Aaron Siskind
University Of Texas Press, Austin, 2014. 200 pp., 150 duotone illustrations, 10x12".

As both an artist and educator, Aaron Siskind (1903-1991) has influenced countless photographers and played a central role in defining the medium in the late 20th century. Given the recent vogue for photographic abstraction, the need to understand the work of Siskind has become all the more important. Aaron Siskind: Another Photographic Reality charts the evolving nature of the artist, demonstrating the fluidity with which he moved between different styles and how, even at his most abstract, he remained firmly rooted in the world and its visual pleasures.

Selected Works is a group show of photographic prints currently on view at photo-eye Gallery highlighting the diverse styles and subject matter embraced by our represented artists. For the next few weeks, covering the duration of the exhibition, we are engaging the featured artists about their photographs inviting them to tell the stories behind their images.

In this Selected Works segment we reached out to gallery artists Nick Brandt and James Hajicek and Carol Panaro-Smith for some background details concerning their exhibition images. Nick Brandt bears witness to an emotional scene while James and Carol complete a decade long investigation.

Student Radicals, Japan 1968 - 1969 by Takashi Hamaguchi.

Shashasha, 2014.

This week's Book of the Week pick comes from Russet Lederman who has selected Takashi Hamaguchi's Student Radicals, Japan 1968 – 1969 from Shashasha.

Songbook. By Alec Soth.

Mack, 2014.

Songbook

Reviewed by Blake Andrews

Songbook
Photographs by Alec Soth
Mack, 2014. 144 pp., 75 tritone plates, 11¼x10½x½".

At this point in Alec Soth's career, it might be easy to forget that he began as a newspaper photographer shooting general stories for a small-town paper near Minneapolis. That period didn't last very long. He soon developed the blend of large format color portraiture and Americana landscapes for which he is now best known. Sleeping By The Mississippi established him immediately as a rising star in the art world. Niagara and Broken Manual sealed the deal. His blog, publishing house, and strong social media presence kept his name circulating and hinted at a restless spirit. These strands have combined to make Soth perhaps the most prominent photographer of his generation, the flavor-du-jour in certain photo circles and broadly influential. It's 2015. The photo world is his oyster. Any photo project he undertakes will gain attention. Any book will sell out.

Life in War. By Majid Saeedi. FotoEvidence, 2014.

Life in War

Reviewed by Tom Leininger

Life in War
By Majid Saeedi
FotoEvidence, 2014. 120 pp., 85 duotone illustrations, 8x12½".

Life in War explains this book by Majid Saeedi simply. The pictures elegantly describe life in contemporary Afghanistan and do not document the American war but how life is for Afghans. Americans soldiers are rarely shown. What is shown is how long term war has shaped life in a country that at times has seemingly yet to enter the 21st century.

Atomic Overlook: 01 – Clay Lipsky

photo-eye is pleased to announce Atomic Overlook, a portfolio of color images by photographer Clay Lipsky, new to the Photographer’s Showcase. Atomic Overlook re-contextualizes a legacy of atomic bomb tests in order to keep the ongoing nuclear threat fresh and omnipresent. It also speaks to the current state of the world, a voyeuristic, tourist filled culture where catastrophe is viewed as entertainment by increasingly desensitized masses. The iconic mushroom cloud, a loaded symbol burned into our collective subconscious, represents a triumph of science, apocalyptic destruction and even national pride, but in this case also serves as metaphor for larger societal issues such as global warming, nuclear power, industrialization and pollution. Archival pigment prints are available in limited editions of 10.

Where Mimosa Bloom. By Rita Puig-Serra Costa.

Editions du Lic, 2014.

Where Mimosa Bloom

Reviewed by Janelle Lynch

Where Mimosa Bloom
By Rita Puig-Serra Costa
Editions du Lic, Oslo, Norway, 2014. 96 pp., 54 color illustrations,, 6¼x8¾".

Mimosa trees bloom clusters of bright yellow flowers each spring in Rita Puig-Serra Costa’s native city of Barcelona. They grow asymmetrically tall though not often several stories, as the one in her family’s garden. A photograph of it in Where Mimosa Bloom, her new book, shows its towering anthropomorphic presence in the dense urban landscape. A still life of a dried mimosa branch from the same tree appears later in the book, an indication, like title itself, of the tree’s symbolism. Puig-Serra Costa combined these and other images with memorabilia to create a lyrical visual elegy to her mother, Yolanda Costa Rico (1959-2008).

Selected Works is a group show of photographic prints currently on view at photo-eye Gallery highlighting the diverse styles and subject matter embraced by our represented artists. For the next few weeks, covering the duration of the exhibition, we are engaging the featured artists about their photographs inviting them to tell the stories behind their images. This week, Steve Fitch discusses classic road-side neon and Ernie Button gives us a glimpse into the painstaking process of making his Vanishing Spirits photographs.

The Hand of Man and An Experiment in Perspective Limited Edition
John Chervinsky

Opening: Friday February 20th from 5 – 7pm
photo-eye BOOKSTORE + PROJECT SPACE, 376 Garcia Street Suite A, Santa Fe

“A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.”-Marshall McLuhan

photo-eye Bookstore + Project Space is pleased to announce an exhibition of photographs by John Chervinsky entitled An Experiment in Perspective. In this enigmatic series, Chervinsky creates table-top still lifes that utilize optics to challenge sensory perception. While immediately confronting our spatial awareness, Chervinsky’s images also reveal allusions to broader human conditions and relationships. This exhibition of nine black and white prints is accompanied by a limited edition hand made book of the same title created by Chervinsky during his prestigious Light Work residency in Syracuse, NY.

Tsugaru by Kojima Ichiro.
Izu Photo Museum and NOHARA, 2014.

This week's Book of the Week pick comes from Yumi Goto who has selected Tsugaru by Kojima Ichiro published by Izu Photo Museum and NOHARA.

One No One and One Hundred Thousand.
By Nicholas Albrecht. Schilt Publishing, 2014.

One No One and One Hundred Thousand

Reviewed by George Slade

One No One and One Hundred Thousand
Photographs by Nicholas Albrecht
Schilt Publishing, 2014. 96 pp., illustrated throughout, 7½x9½".

Read, or seen, any good ghost stories recently? How about wraiths? When did you last see a wraith, a shape-shifter, or a succubus? Out by the Salton Sea, I hear, they proliferate. Poltergeists and various apparitions are out there too. Maybe they’re just mirages. But can you photograph a mirage?

Camera Era. By Barbara Levine and Martin Venezky.

Project B, 2014.

Camera Era

Reviewed by Sarah Bradley

Camera Era
By Barbara Levine and Martin Venezky
Project B, 2014. 96 pp., color illustrations, 4x5¾".

The image following the essay in Barbara Levine’s Camera Era sticks in my mind. A man lies on his side on a beach, a camera in one hand, reaching up to a man in a suit. The second man’s head is cropped out of the shot, but he meets the outstretched arm with an indiscernible object in one hand, a large bottle of something in the other. Shot from the sand, the foreground is out of focus: a muddled mess of sand and blankets and emulsion. In the background stands a man in a sweater and swim shorts, one of a number of blurry beach goers. Slightly tilted with nothing quite in focus, the shot is marked by elements of a “bad” photograph, yet it is carried by spontaneity, strong composition and the mystery captured in the frame. I don’t know why I respond to this photograph, but its pull is direct. For those of us compelled by vernacular photography, that strange unknowable connection can be very strong, at times profound. In her introduction, Levine explains that she feels rescued by these images. The intensity of her love is woven into every page of Camera Era, a selection of photographs from her personal collection that is described as a “meditation on the camera and its complicated hold on our lives.” It is as much a celebration of these images as an exploration of our response to them.

Abstract Implosionism, 2007 - John Chervinsky

photo-eye is excited to announce that our next exhibition in photo-eye Bookstore + Project Space, John Chervinsky's An Experiment in Perspective, opens Friday, February 20th from 5-7. This series of black and white table-top still-lifes challenge our spatial awareness by layering three-dimensional objects with chalk drawings, creating compelling scenes of baffling dimensionality and perspective. An engineer working in the field of applied physics, Chervinsky's photographs incorporate object symbolic of his personal life, objects that reflect our idea of perception and time and chalkboard drawings that relate to the science of simple machines up to the highly complex scientific concepts.

Neither. By Kate Nolan.
Self-Publsihed, 2014.

Neither

Reviewed by Karen Jenkins

Neither
Photographs by Kate Nolan
Self-Published, 2014. 74 pp., 47 illustrations, 9½x12½".

The search for cultural identity and a sense of self is a decidedly betwixt and between proposition for the women Kate Nolan depicts in Neither. Residents of Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave situated between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea, their roots are neither deep nor firmly placed here. After its destruction in World War II, the former German city of Köenigsburg was annexed by the USSR, renamed and repopulated – its native citizens expelled or emigrated out, as Soviets were relocated in their place. During the Cold War, Kaliningrad was heavily militarized; closed off and cut off from the motherland. With the fall of the USSR, this military presence, and its economic support, disintegrated. Today, its residents are at a geographical, political and psychological remove from Russia, facing economic pressures, travel restrictions and tension with neighboring EU states. Neither is a combination of pensive portraits and largely austere takes on Kaliningrad today. A mixed bag of cultural markers manifest in its structures, corridors and corners, in faded signs and worn remains, and everything damp. The images are animated by two sets of writings. Both the diaristic musings of her contemporary subjects and the reflective texts of Russian women relocated to Kaliningrad in 1945 tap into present anxieties and future hopes, and a sought after distillation of self and home.

For the first segment in our Selected Works series we reached out to gallery artists Brad Wilson and Mitch Dobrowner about why they find their work to be personally important and professionally challenging. Brad Wilson speaks to his desire for spontaneity and serendipity after working in a controlled commercial environment, while Mitch Dobrowner pursues perfection and the poetry of light in Iceland.

Conversations by Remi Coignet.
The Eyes Publishing, 2014.

This week's Book of the Week pick comes from Guilherme Gerais who has selected Remi Coignet's Conversations from The Eyes Publishing.

L.A., 1971. By Anthony Hernandez.

Silas Finch, 2014.

L.A., 1971

Reviewed by Allie Haeusslein

L.A., 1971
By Anthony Hernandez
Silas Finch, 2014. Unpaged, 12 tritone Illustrations, 12½x8".

Opening Anthony Hernandez’s recent book, L.A., 1971, feels akin to pushing open the imposing, space-aged door depicted across the publication’s aluminum cover. The only information about the location appears cryptically on the left-hand door, “OPEN 8-12 NO SUNDAYS.” Hernandez’s photograph provides no further context — no building façade, no neighboring shops, no sidewalks. The door stands alone.

Tom
Photographs by Paul Kranzler published by Fotohof Editions

Signed ~~$65~~ $37.95 — Purchase Book

"Tom is a photo-reportage over the domestic circumstances of a young man reaching puberty. Tom lives in a small village in the countryside in Upper-Austria. He works at a construction company, lives together with his mother, his stepfather and his stepbrother on a desolate farm in the middle of nowhere… From 2004 until 2006, Paul Kranzler photographed Tom, his family and his surroundings."—Fotohof Editions

Tranquillity. By Heikki Kaski.

Lecturis, 2014.

Tranquillity

Reviewed by Adam Bell

Tranquillity
By Heikki Kaski
Lecturis, New York, 2014. 118 pp., numerous color illustrations, 7½x10½x½".

The American landscape is dotted with towns whose names boldly and unapologetically declares their aspirations. In California alone one can find Nice, Paradise, Angel’s Camp, of course, Los Angeles, but also Mecca, Arcadia, and many others. One such small town, Tranquillity, CA, is located in the San Joaquin Valley, just west of Fresno. Ostensibly the subject of Heikki Kaski’s Tranquillity, the town and its inhabitants are the subject of Kaski’s photographs, but the book is far from a straight portrait of this ramshackle, forgettable town. At first, it’s easy to dismiss Tranquillity as an ironic portrait of town that falls short of its name, but that’s not the case. More fever dream than faithful document, Kaski’s highly subjective work offers an oblique and strangely unsettling portrait of a transitory and provisional landscape. Despite its chaotic images, Tranquillity places itself comfortably in the eye of a storm. Surrounded by geysers, unearthed trees, and blinding light, but safely below the birds that circle above, Kaski’s work creates a space of unnerving calm amidst the chaos, heat and blinding light.

photo-eye Gallery was proud to open our latest exhibit Selected Works on a snowy evening last Friday in Santa Fe. Selected Works is a group show of photographic prints highlighting the diverse styles and subject matter embraced by photo-eye Gallery artists, and is the first group show in our new home in the Railyard Arts District. The exhibition includes works from fifteen different contemporary artists including Nick Brandt, Ernie Button, Colette Campbell-Jones, Keith Carter, Mitch Dobrowner, Steve Fitch, David H. Gibson, James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith, Bear Kirkpatrick, Michael Levin, Chris McCaw, Raymond Meeks, Laurie Tümer, Jo Whaley and Brad Wilson. You can view a collection of installed works on our Artsy page.

Unnamed Road by Jungjin Lee.
MACK, 2014.

This week's Book of the Week pick comes from Ken Schles who has selected Unnamed Road by Jungjin Lee published by MACK.

Wild Pigeon. By Carolyn Drake.
Self-Published, 2014.

Wild Pigeon

Reviewed by Colin Pantall

Wild Pigeon
By Carolyn Drake. An allegory, retold through visual collaborations with Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Original story by Nurmuhemmet Yasin.

Self-Published. 128 pp., 9½x12¼".

Wild Pigeon by Carolyn Drake packs it in. It comes in five visual sections and the page size marks off each chapter. There’s also a little booklet stuck onto the back end-page that contains studio portraits photoshopped into exotic backdrops. Most importantly, the book is accompanied by a short story that gives the publication rather more than your usual photobook point. The short story's called Wild Pigeon and its writer was sentenced to 10 years for writing it. His name is Nurmuhemmet Yasin and he's from Xinjiang Province in China. It's a province that is home to the Uyghur people, a population who, like many Chinese minority populations, are not enamoured with Beijing rule.

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