“100 Portraits – 100 Photographers: Selections from the FlakPhoto.com Archive” will be screened at Snap! Orlando this weekend at the GAI Building, 618 E. South St, Orlando, Florida.

Andy Adams and I will be lecturing about 100 PORTRAITS on Saturday, May 7, 2011 from 4-5pm at the UCF Center for Emerging Media. 500 W. Livingston St, Orlando, Florida.

The Indie Photobook Library is also part of Snap! Orlando with a pop-up exhibition of photobooks from the collection. The iPL is pleased to have E. Brady Robinson, Associate Professor, UCF School of Visual Arts and Design, and Heather Comparetto, photographer and curator, curate the pop-exhibition of photobooks for Snap! Orlando. Roughly fifty titles will be on display during the event, allowing visitors to explore and celebrate the diversity, craft, and creativity in self-publishing today.

May 6 and 7, 2011 at the GAI Building, 618 E. South St, Orlando, Florida

Friday, 7pm – 12 am
Saturday, 7pm – 12 am

See the list of books on display here.

Alley, 2007 © George Awde. Courtesy of the Artist.

This photograph by George Awde has stuck with me since the first time I saw it in 2008 at the Blind Spot Auction at David Zwirner. The print was part of the Yale portfolio being auctioned off. Inspired by A Photo Student’s Appreciate a Photographer Week, I contacted Awde, complemented his work, and asked him about this image. By email from Dubai, he said:

“It was shot in the mountains above Beirut in 2007.  title: Alley 2007. The photograph is part of a series that explores nationality and masculinity in Lebanon and Syria -”Quiet Crossings“. My work strives to capture homo-social spaces that act as an outlet for male bonding and love. At play in these spaces are the relationships of masculinity, class, and nationality in the social landscape.”
- George Awde

Thank you George for your work and I look forward to following your career.

Kevin J. Miyazaki is featured today on Flak Photo as part of the WINTER PICTURES special. I’ve been following Kevin’s multifaceted contributions to the photography community over the last year and it was a pleasure to connect with him about this photograph.  While Kevin makes a living as an editorial photographer shooting portraits, travel and food assignments for magazines, I know him for his other work. Kevin is the genius behind collect.give. He teaches the Professional Practices class at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design with its accompanying resourceful blog MIAD-FA382, including the extensive list of interviews (699 and growing). His personal projects include Camp Home and Early Places and he has self-published the photobook(let) titled 38. This snowball photograph is not tied to a specific project but is part of work featured on his personal blog. He says “the blog has been really important to me in the past few years – it’s the platform onto which I can toss little visual thoughts. I come from an assignment-driven background, so I became used to passing up interesting images if there wasn’t a logical place for them. With the blog, they have a home.” I enjoy the journey that Kevin gives the viewer in his “visual thoughts.” I asked him to talk about his wonderful white on white study of a snowball and this is what he had to say:

“I made this picture last winter on Christmas eve, just after shoveling my walk. I packed the snowball and brought it inside to shoot, both on black and white pieces of paper. To me, this kind of picture is like a quick sketch (it only took about five minutes to shoot) – but is also a fully realized photograph. I like making pictures in a variety of ways, and not being limited by particular situations, conditions or equipment. I think we photographers all first began making pictures with a great deal of excitement and wonder, looking through the viewfinder with a really open mind. I hope to never stray too far away from that type of visual freedom and curiosity. It’s important to me to just always be making pictures, whether it’s part of a large scale project, or in fact, just a small, quickly melting snowball.” – Kevin J. Miyazaki

Christmas Eve snowball, 2009 © Kevin J. Miyazaki

Thank you Kevin!

310 conTEMPORARY / RELATIVE EXPOSURE: photographs of family
December 6, 2010 — January 29, 2011
310 S. Michigan, Chicago, IL
Monday – Saturday 11:30-5:30

Artists’ Reception: Thursday, December 16, 2010 5:00 — 8:00 pm

“RELATIVE EXPOSURE | photographs of family” features the work of Nick Albertson, Matt Austin, Latrice Dixon, Aron Gent, Julie Jones, Heather Kouros, Natalie Krick, and Eric Pickersgill. The 310 conTEMPORARY Gallery is a collaborative project between the Columbia College Chicago Photography Department and the Hyde Park Art Center. This exhibition is part of Chicago Loop Alliance’s Pop-Up Art Loop initiative.

I’m a big fan of Matt Austin and his photographic work and for this exhibition I love the fact that he is the only one not showing work in a framed photo form. Instead, his artist book “Wake” will be on view (see images above)-  a stunning hand-made box of loose prints and text. This format for presentation slows down the reading of the work and creates an intimate dialog with the viewer.

“Wake,” as well as three other titles, “Freedom Isn’t Free,” “Try to be more positive,” and “Desert Days,” can be found in the permanent collection of the Indie Photobook Library. And if you live in Chicago, copies of “Wake” can be borrowed for a two-week period. Love that. To find out more about Matt Austin, visit his website and tumblr, and read his recent interview at Geronimo Projects.

“Objects and Places” – Photographs by Alan Trachtenberg
Yale University, Koerner Center, 149 Elm St., New Haven, CT
Open weekdays, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. and 2-4 p.m.

“Object and Places” closes on Friday, December 17 with a reception from 3-5pm.

“Black-and-white images of diverse scenes in America — ranging from a Mississippi “ghost” town to rooftops in Pennsylvania to an upper New York state racetrack — are featured in a new exhibition of photographs by Yale professor Alan Trachtenberg at the Henry Koerner Center for Emeritus Faculty.

The exhibit, titled “Objects and Places,” is a selection of 22 photographs that Trachtenberg made over the past 30 years using a large-format (8×10) camera.” – excerpt from the Yale Daily Bulletin.

Select Books by Trachtenberg:
Classic Essays on Photography (1980)
Reading American Photographs (1990)
Lincoln’s Smile and Other Enigmas (2008)

Three amazing places to find photography prints this month are David Bram‘s Fraction Magazine Holiday Print Sale, Kevin Miyazaki‘s collect.give and Jen Bekman‘s 20×200. Check them out. Such great work to choose from. There are too many amazing photographers to list!

Third Annual Fraction Magazine Holiday Print Sale
100% of the sale goes to the photographer.

collect.give
The photographers featured on collect.give have pledged to donate 100% of the profits from their print sales to worthwhile causes they support.

20×200
Affordable art prints.

It’s always in season to support photographers, the photo community, and charities. Collect.give and 20×200 come out with new images all year round and you can always contact photographers directly to purchase work. Have fun shopping.

Neal Rantoul, Guard Rail #2, Yountville, CA, 1982 from American Series. Courtesy of Panopticon Gallery.

Neal Rantoul | Twenty-Five Years (1980-2005)
November 10 – January 4, 2011
Reception with the Artist: Wednesday, November 10, 2010, 5:30 – 7:30pm

Panopticon Gallery | 502c Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215 | 617-267-8929 | Hours: Tue–Sat 10-5:30pm

“In the ‘series’ work, Rantoul states, ‘I found a way to photograph that allows me to connect pictures to pictures, forming a narrative.’ For Rantoul, he uses the concept of ‘series’ to organize his work, putting his ideas and thoughts behind him so he can move on to something else. He elaborates, ‘I became interested in the ability to speak more completely about a place, a frame of mind, light, or the relationship between things.’ Panopticon Gallery is pleased to be able to exhibit a selection of his earlier works, including photographs from Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Utah and Washington State … accompanied by images from three distinct series from around Massachusetts.”

Also of interest is Neal Rantoul’s first monograph, American Series, published by Pond Press, with texts by Joe Deal and Jeffrey Hoone.

FLAK PHOTO: WEEKEND series: Zwelethu Mthethwa

Throughout the month of July, Flak Photo, in its WEEKEND series, is featuring photographs by Zwelethu Mthethwa from his self-titled monograph recently published by Aperture. (Check out each weekend image: JULY 3, 10, 17, 24, & 31, 2010.) It has been my pleasure to team up with Andy Adams again and present this interview with Zwelethu Mthethwa. Mthethwa’s work is pivotal in broadening the discourse on the history of photography and I hope this interview adds to the conversations that have preceded this one; the insightful interview in Zwelethu Mthethwa between Isolde Brielmaier and Mthethwa and the conversation between Mthethwa and Okwui Enwezor at the Aperture Foundation in March 2010. They are essential reading and viewing. I recently corresponded with Zwelethu by email as he prepared to travel from South Africa to the U.S. for the opening of “Inner Views” at the Studio Museum in Harlem on July 15. We talked about his monograph, two specific images from his Sugar Cane series, the South African photography community, and briefly about the current show at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

book cover of "Zwelethu Mthethwa". Courtesy of Aperture.

Larissa Leclair: As an internationally acclaimed artist (photographer, painter, video artist) with over one-hundred solo and group exhibitions, I wonder why it has taken so long for a monograph of your work to be published. Thankfully and finally Aperture recently published the beautiful monograph Zwelethu Mthethwa (Aperture, 2010). While a traditional first monograph primarily includes one body of work, this book is almost like a retrospective exhibition, with work from many series. Can you talk about your journey of finding a publisher and producing this monograph?

Zwelethu Mthethwa: It has been a very long journey. This particular book has been in the making for at least 4 years, but the major reason why nothing like this has been published before is because I was waiting for the right publisher (who would be able to distribute the book internationally). A few people have approached me before, but because they did not have the qualities that I was looking for, I turned them down.

The book presented me with an opportunity to showcase most of my projects over the last 20 years. However, there are some projects that we haven’t included because we were limited in terms of the size of the book.

From the series Gold Miners, 2006, and Quartz Miners, 2007-8, pages 66-67. Courtesy of Aperture.

LL: Your work as a whole addresses the economic and political reality of marginalized communities primarily in South Africa. Can you talk about your personal interest in these communities and professions (miners, sugarcane workers, etc.). Are you personally an outsider or is there more of a connection to these people and circumstances -politically, economically, culturally?

ZM: The work is about my personal history and personal observation. I grew up in contact with these different communities all the time. I was always interested in how the migrant workers would be ostracised from the main community, which was the community that I came from. The migrant workers were always seen as “the other” – they looked different, talked different, dressed different – they were just so different. As a kid I was curious to understand the dynamics of these differences, mainly because we were all black, I assumed we were all the same. Growing up as an artist I came to realise that I was also an outsider because with my views on life I probably didn’t belong to any of the communities, even the mainstream community.

In terms of my interest in these “professions” I have always been fascinated by the way that people make lives and livings for themselves. Despite economic hardship, political hardship, all kinds of hardship, including that of just trying to fit in, people continue to work and live even in the strangest circumstances. Through my years of experience in photographing these communities I have found out that the periphery after some time becomes the mainstream in the way that fashion follows them, the way that interior decorators decorate their houses and in the way that musicians have developed their sound too.

LL: Can you talk about two specific photographs from the Sugar Cane series – the image on page 39 that starts this series in the Aperture monograph, which is also the cover of Snap Judgments (ICP/Steidl 2006), and the photograph included in Enwezor’s essay on page 111. I am curious about how you approached photographing here and the dialog that occurred between you and the workers, and then your internal dialogue as you were photographing. I am struck by the attire, the landscape, and stance – very raw and powerful – and am curious why sugar cane workers wear skirts?

ZM: Approach – first of all, I explained my intentions to the farmers that owned the land. Once they had given me permission to photograph the people working on their land, I then further approached the individual farm workers and explained to them my intentions, so that I could get permission from them to take their photographs. Once they agreed, I then took the photographs; but this was a long process because I would have to fly back to Cape Town, process the photos and then go back to Durban to give the sitters their photographs. It was important to me that they had copies of the images. I would then, while in Durban, shoot some more, and start the whole process again. So this all happened over several months.

My first attraction to the sugar cane workers was that they were wearing skirts, and that they looked to me like Samurai worriers. I then found out that, not only were they wearing skirts, but also many other layers of clothing. This was odd to me because Durban is an incredibly hot and humid area. I thought they must be crazy to be wearing so many clothes and still doing manual labour. I discovered, through speaking with them, that the reason was to protect themselves from the burning ground and soot (sugar cane is burnt before harvested); from the very sharp leaves of the cane; and also from the many snakes that like to live in sugar cane fields. The most difficult part of taking these photographs was stopping them from working. These guys are paid according to the weight of sugar cane that they harvest; there is no hourly rate. I felt guilty that I was interrupting and taking their money away from them by asking them to pose for me. So this forced me to move in and out as quickly as possible, interrupting their flow of production as little as possible.

With regard to the photograph on p.39, it was shot in the afternoon, the clothing that the worker is wearing is quite specific – his hood is obviously to protect him from the harsh sun. His crew neck shirt is there to stop insects from getting into his clothes. His rubber boots prevent snakebites to his feet. He has also tied some rope around his legs above the knee to stop snakes from crawling up his pants.

The other photograph – the reason why they wear skirts: they can’t wear tight clothing because it chafes against the skin, so a skirt is a good way to add another protective layer without the discomfort of the chafing. Underneath the skirt he is wearing loose pants.

LL: Okwui Enwezor mentions in his essay in the book the environment surrounding your study at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town in the early 80′s. Was a history of photography class part of the curriculum there? And I am wondering which history of photography? Did you learn about South African photographers and photography?

ZM: There was no history of photography, but photography (practical) was an elective course. I remember people such as David Goldblatt and Omar Badsha visiting the school to talk about their work.

LL: Can you talk about the photography community in South Africa – what was it like in the 80′s, then in the 90′s and now?

ZM: There was always photo-generalism and a rise of documentary photography in the ’80s, which was always black and white photography. Most of the photographers were commissioned by different newspapers or magazines for specific projects, rather than producing their own work in the fine art sense. We are now seeing a beginning of photography being accepted into the realms of fine art in this country, as “new media”. There are a few South African photographers who produce mainly for the galleries. The new photographers are using colour photography as a medium, as opposed to black and white. Their sizes have also changed from the standard 8×10, 16×20 to larger sizes, like 50×50 or even mural-size. There is an interest in presenting photography as limited editions in the most archival form, as opposed to producing photography for the magazine or the newspaper.

LL: Currently you have a solo exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem (July 15-Oct 24, 2010). Which series will be on view?

ZM: The work on show at the Studio Museum has been selected by the curator, Naomi Beckwith, and will be presented under the title of “Inner Views.” The selection includes work from the “Interiors” series, “Common Ground” series and “Empty Beds” – all these projects were completed from the early 80s up to 4 years ago.

LL: What projects are you working on now?

ZM: One project I have been busy with recently is shooting power lines in informal settlements  the lines have been illegally connected, hooked up to strange makeshift structures, big knots and tangles of cables. These power lines have changed the landscape within the informal settlement, which is a phenomenon that is interesting to me.

LL: Thank you very much Zwelethu!

Installation of Zwelethu Mthethwa's fifth solo exhibition at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York - April 23-May 23, 2009. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, NY

Zwelethu Mthethwa is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; iArt Gallery, Cape Town; Everard Read, Johannesburg; Galeria Oliva Arauna, Madrid; Galerie Hengevoss-Duerkop, Hamburg; and Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris.

The monograph Zwelethu Mthethwa published by Aperture in 2010 can be purchased here.

For more on Zwelethu Mthethwa, see:

• Zwelethu Mthethwa in conversation with Okwui Enzwezor (March 2, 2010 at the Aperture Foundation) Parts 1, 2, 3, 4
• the Studio Museum in Harlem’s exhibition “Inner Views” – July 15 – October 24, 2010
• The New York Times review of “Inner Views”
• Pete Brook’s Prison Photography blog post “Zwelethu Mthethwa vs. ‘Afro-Pessimism’“
• and watch the video interview below by Tim Noakes with Zwelethu in his studio in Cape Town.

Also check out this list of books on African Photography/Photographers.

Images for this interview were provided by iArt Gallery, Cape Town; Aperture Foundation; and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Thank you.

It was with great sadness that I heard the news about Joe Deal’s passing last Friday from Mary Virginia Swanson. As a young photographer studying at Washington University, we were very lucky to have Joe Deal as a dean, an icon, a photographer, a teacher, a mentor, and friend. And through the years, I am thankful for the support he provided to me as I found my own path and voice in the photography world.

I wrote this review of Joe Deal’s book West and West several months ago. Today it was published by photo-eye.

Joe Deal
West and West: Reimagining the Great Plains
112 pages, 51 duotones, 3 maps 10 x 11
Published by the Center for American Places, October 2009
ISBN: 9781935195009

In the midst of all the press surrounding the new “New Topographics” exhibition organized by the George Eastman House and the Center for Creative Photography now on international tour through at least 2012, Joe Deal, one of the original photographers and curators involved in the 1975 pivotal show has added to his oeuvre with a fantastic body of work and book “West and West.” Joe Deal introduces the plates in the book with a wonderfully written essay about the Great Plains and reflections on his own photography over the years. Deal’s written voice is just as important and astute as his photographic one. He begins “[t]he Great Plains of North America exists for me both as a physical landscape and as an idea, or internal landscape.” The Great Plains, as explored by Deal, cover an area larger than I had realized; Deal photographed in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. The black and white photographs reveal a surprisingly nuanced prairie landscape in both its natural topography and in Deal’s mastery of light and shadow. The images are devoid of visible man-made structure, but are constrained in theory by surveyor grid lines and the square-format of the camera. Formerly, in “New Topographics” and his series “The Fault Zone,” Deal often shot from a high vantage point looking down, deleting the horizon from his images, and packing the image with information “each element holding its own weight” each detail just as important as the other. With this new work, however, Deal has tilted his camera up, viewing the Great Plains landscape in all of its expanse. But that expanse is only illusionary. Deal writes, the photographs present “a finite section of the earth and sky and restores them in the imagination to the vastness that now only exists as an idea: the landscape that is contained within the perfect symmetry of the square implies infinity.” These photographs, taken between 2005 and 2007, seem to continue Deal’s exploration of “man-altered landscape” and its boundaries but he focuses on what lies between himself and the horizon and not what may be in his periphery vision. Joe Deal embarked on this journey during his last few years at RISD, recently having retired in 2009. The book and exhibition are poetic and my favorite of his. West and West is on my list of Best Books of 2009.

The exhibition “West and West” in on view at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona, June 5-August 1, 2010. The CCP recently acquired Joe Deal’s archive and includes negatives, work prints, ephemera, and a complete set of master vintage prints. The Robert Mann Gallery, who has represented Joe Deal for many years, showed work from this series earlier this year and wrote a wonderful tribute to Joe and his career here. The St. Louis Beacon, the New York Times, and Mary Virginia Swanson have also honored Joe Deal.

We will miss him.

]]> http://www.larissaleclair.com/photography/2010/06/23/joe-deal-1947-2010-a-tribute-and-book-review-of-west-and-west/feed/ 1 http://www.larissaleclair.com/photography/2010/06/10/permanent-impermanence/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=permanent-impermanence http://www.larissaleclair.com/photography/2010/06/10/permanent-impermanence/#comments Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:51:09 +0000 Larissa Leclair http://www.larissaleclair.com/photography/?p=1812

Join me for some fantastic photography tomorrow night!

Permanent Impermanence
an exhibition curated by Larissa Leclair
featuring photographs by Christopher Colville, Todd Hido, Kate MacDonnell, David Maisel, Curtis Mann, and Doug + Mike Starn

June 11-July 9, 2010
Opening Reception: Friday, June 11, 6-8pm
Exhibition Hours: Monday-Friday 11am-5pm
Location: Washington Project for the Arts (WPA)
2023 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
202.234.7103
(map)

The WPA is pleased to present the exhibition Permanent Impermanence. This project is part of the WPA’s Coup d’Espace series which invites member artists and curators to stage their own exhibitions an programming in its Dupont Circle space. Come enjoy some great photography! Permanent Impermanence explores fundamentals of the photographic medium, through artistic expression in both subject and process. The exhibition will include works by
Christopher Colville from his Emanations series;
Todd Hido from A Road Divided;
Kate MacDonnell from 100 Ways;
Curtis Mann from Modifications;
David Maisel from History’s Shadow; and
Doug + Mike Starn from alleverythingthatisyou.