Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Work 1940-1950

Transformations: A Gender Exploration by Mariette Pathy Allen with selections from Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them and Fantasy & Flowers series. In 1978 New Orleans, Mariette Pathy Allen stumbled upon the mostly closeted world of men looking to express their “feminine sides.” With her camera, she set out to document and “de-freakify” the liberating world of crossdressing. She realized the potential to offer a different view of the LGBTQ+ community around the world through photography. Pathy Allen’s work has contributed to numerous publications and lectures, both academic and cultural, regarding gender variance and gender consciousness around the globe. Her collection of works exploring this misunderstood community led to the publication of her first book, Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them, in 1989. Pathy Allen’s work is currently being archived by Duke University’s rare book and Manuscripts Library, and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s Studies.

As the world and its inhabitants adapt with the ebb and flow of constant change, so too, does an artist’s view. From a birds-eye view of the meandering formations of the Colorado River that mimic patterns of branching trees and human lungs; to the lushness of what looks like an underwater painting celebrating the layers of life beneath the water’s surface; from the frozen Canadian tundra to the warm and lively waters of Baja Sur; all are connected, as we all are also connected. EVOLVE eloquently pairs the artist’s journey as witness and passionate defender with the natural resilience and determination of a planet on which all life must coexist. Image: © Paul Nicklen

Gitterman Gallery is proud to exhibit vintage black and white photographs by Roger Mayne (1929–2014), opening Tuesday, January 17th and running through Saturday, March 25th, 2023. This exhibition features some of the most famous images from Roger Mayne's seminal body of work on the streets of West London and similar working-class neighborhoods of Britain in the 1950s and early 1960s that made him one of the most important post-war British photographers.. The majority of prints in the exhibition comes from Ann’s Box, a selection of prints that Roger set aside for this wife Ann Jellicoe (1927–2017) and their family. The selection began when I first visited Roger after the introduction and recommendation of his London dealer, Zelda Cheatle, who closed her gallery in London in 2005. We decided to set aside some of the last vintage prints of his most noted works. —Tom Gitterman. Roger Mayne first became interested in photography while studying chemistry at Balliol College, Oxford University from 1947-51. In 1953 he developed an interest in the St. Ives School, which embraced the abstract avant-garde movement, and became friendly with the painters Terry Frost, Patrick Heron and Roger Hilton. Mayne consciously printed with high contrast and favored large prints [for the time] and tight graphic compositions to emphasize the formal qualities in his work and have a dialogue with the painting of the time.. Mayne's photographs evoke a particular moment in post-war Britain when hardships brought on by the war and rationing were still present. Mayne's photographs reflect the positive community life in the streets that would soon be coming to an end with the rebuilding and modernization of many working-class neighborhoods. His images of these communities and the people: teddy boys, jiving girls and kids playing in the street, preserve the spirit of these neighborhoods. By 1959 Mayne’s images were so indicative of this period that Vogue used them to illustrate teenage styles. Colin MacInnes used one of his images on the cover of Absolute Beginners, a novel told in the first person by a teenage freelance photographer living in West London that commented on the youth culture of the time. Mayne’s photographs were subsequently used in the 1986 film of Absolute Beginners by Julien Temple as both the protagonist’s images and inspiration for the cinematography and costume design.. Mayne worked as a freelance photographer and his photographs were reproduced regularly in magazines and newspapers. His work was included in group exhibitions in the 1950s at the Combined Societies, a progressive group of local photographic societies in Britain that broke away from the Royal Photographic Society. His work was also included in Otto Steinert’s Subjektive Fotografie in Germany, a series of group exhibitions and books of international photography that emphasized personal expression and the aesthetic potential of the medium. Mayne had solo exhibitions in 1956 at the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y. and at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. As early as 1956-57 the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Art Institute of Chicago acquired his work.. Mayne’s work has been collected by numerous institutions including: Art Institute of Chicago; Arts Council of Great Britain; Bibiliothèque Nationale; Denver Art Museum; George Eastman Museum; J. Paul Getty Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Milwaukee Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum Folkwang; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Portrait Gallery, London; National Gallery of Australia; National Gallery of Canada; National Gallery of Victoria; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Scottish National Gallery; Princeton University Art Museum; Tate Britain; and the Victoria and Albert Museum.. Though his talent as a photographer was recognized early in his career, it was his solo exhibition at The Victoria and Albert Museum in 1986 and the subsequent use of his images on album covers and concert backdrops for the musician Morrissey in the 1990s that renewed interest in his work. Most recently, Mayne’s work was recently featured in Postwar and Modern, New Art in Britain 1945-1965 at the Barbican, London in 2022; Roger Mayne at The Photographers’ Gallery, London in 2017; Roger Mayne: Aspects of a Great Photographer at the Victoria Gallery, Bath in 2013; How We Are: Photographing Britain at the Tate Britain in 2007; Making History at the Tate Liverpool in 2006 and Art of the ‘60s at the Tate Britain in 2004. This is the fifth exhibition of Roger Mayne’s work at Gitterman Gallery.

Eric William Carroll, Julia Goodman, Michael Light, Klea McKenna, Ansley West Rivers EUQINOM Gallery is pleased to present Grid, a group exhibition exploring the visual structure of the grid as a tool for art making. Using a range of materials and approaches, each of the artists uses grids to create a framework for mapping and understanding the world around them from a unique perspective.

Please visit the gallery to see the exhibition by our 2022 CPA Artist Grant recipients. Sarah Christianson, Kei Ito, and Krista Svalbonas are presenting work developed during the past year with funds from our artist grant program. CPA is honored and excited to support these photographic artists. We’ll be accepting applications for the 2023 grants from January 8-March 8. Submissions open in the new year.

Every photograph tells a story. When part of a body of work, the photograph takes on new meaning, becoming part of a bigger and more complete narrative. A portfolio allows the photographer to explore the complexities of their subject, and provide context that gives it richness and meaning that is more than the sum of its parts. Panopticon Gallery is pleased to share “First Look 2023,” our annual juried portfolio showcase, where five portfolios have been selected for exhibition on view from February through March 2023.

The Robert Koch Gallery is pleased to offer works from Edward Burtynsky’s latest African Studies series. Between 2015 – 2019 Burtynsky focused on Sub-Sahara Africa’s complex and ever-changing landscape. A new monograph of the same title published by Steidl accompanies the exhibition. Edward Burtynsky’s works are held in the collections of over 60 major museums around the world, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Tate Modern London; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Art Gallery of Ontario; and the National Gallery of Canada. Burtynsky is a recipient of the 2004 TED Prize honoring individuals who have shown they can positively impact life in a global context, as well as the ICP Infinity Award for Art (2008), the Rogers Best Documentary Film Award (2006), The Outreach Award at the Rencontres d’Arles (2004), and the Roloff Beny Book Award (2003). The National Gallery of Canada organized and toured in 2003 the first retrospective of Burtynsky’s work, Manufactured Landscapes, which subsequently travelled to the The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego; and the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, at Stanford University.

Peter Fetterman Gallery is proud to share our first exhibition of the new year, "A Beautiful World: The Power of Nature” opening January 14th, 2023. An opening reception will be held at the gallery on Saturday January 14th from 3:00 – 6:00 PM. Landscapes have inspired some of history’s most striking photographs. Peter Fetterman Gallery curates a collection of photographs focused on the beauty and power of the natural landscape. An homage to our planet, and a call to protect its great vistas, the exhibition is released online in two parts.   The exhibition features 19th and 20th and 21st Century works including Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock, Paul Caponigro, Jeffrey Conley, Gregory Conniff, George Fiske, Martine Franck, Flor Garduño, Henry Gilpin, Michael Kenna, Andre Kertész, Kurt Markus, Don McCullin, Ryan McIntosh, Sebastião Salgado, Pentti Sammallahti, Charles Scowen, John Szarkowski, Isaiah West Taber, George Tice, Brett Weston and Don Worth. From early 20th century gems to contemporary photography today this body of photographic work captures the imagination of each photographer and their shared respect for our beautiful world. 

P·P·O·W is pleased to present Listening to the Land, Hew Locke’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Locke is known for exploring the languages of colonial and post-colonial power, and the symbols through which different cultures assume and assert identity. Furthering the themes explored in his celebrated commission Procession at Tate Britain, and his concurrent installation Gilt on the façade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this exhibit engages with contemporary and historical inequities while reflecting on the landscape and history of the Caribbean. The exhibition draws its title from a poem by Guyanese political activist and poet Martin Carter which situates itself between two opposing forces of the landscape – sea and forest. Locke’s show features new sculptures and wall works with recurring motifs of stilt-houses, boats, memento mori, and share certificates referencing tensions between the land, the sea, and economic power. Reflecting on these links, Locke notes, “The land was created to generate money for colonial power, now the sea wants it back.” Translating to ‘land of many waters,’ Guyana and its physical, economic, and political landscape serve as one of the primary sources for Locke’s work. Having spent his childhood in this newly independent nation, the artist witnessed first-hand an era of radical transformation. Now, the country teeters on the precipice of an oil boom and is one of the world’s fastest growing economies. Juxtaposing personal meditations on the climate crisis with political commentary on the history of a globalized world, Locke contemplates the ways in which colonies were exploited to accumulate capital, and observes how Guyana’s economic future lies in the exploitation of its waters. Locke’s new boat sculptures The Relic and The Survivor embody this broad worldview as the two battered wrecks drift through time and history. Evoking the fragmented and diverse legacies of the global diaspora, the boats’ patchwork sails are interspersed with photo transfers of 19th Century cane cutters and banana boat loaders, while their decks are loaded with cargo that could allude to colonial plunder, trade goods or personal belongings. Based on an abandoned plantation house, Locke’s newest sculpture Jumbie House 2 features layered images that unveil the spirits that haunt this colonial vestige. Presented alongside are a series of painted photographs of dilapidated vernacular architecture across Georgetown and rural Guyana. Constantly under threat of being washed away by storms or rising sea levels, these crumbling structures echo anxieties surrounding climate change and historical erasure. A new series of mixed media wall works, Raw Materials, is derived from antique share certificates and bonds. Locke richly decorates the appliques with acrylic, beads, and patchwork to draw attention to the complex ways in which the past shapes the present. The image of an 1898 Chinese Imperial Gold Loan behind painted Congolese figures connects the global economy at the height of Empire to current Sino-African trade networks. In another work, a painted representation of a Nigerian Ife mask, alongside an image of David Livingstone, is layered on a French-African Mortgage Bond from 1923, connecting exploration and exploitation of African land, to current conversations surrounding the repatriation of artifacts. Taken together, the works in Locke’s Listening to the Land echo William Faulker’s adage “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Holden Luntz Gallery invites you to our exhibition “Of Flesh and Stone” This exhibition explores the relationship between the works of three photographers living in Italy – Massimo Listri, Aurelio Amendola and Christopher Broadbent. Each artist has captured the beauty and history of Italy through their and own unique perspective.

In 2014, I had gastric bypass and my life radically changed. Most of my excess weight lifted within a year. The changes were drastic. Being alive was unbelievably easier. I could breathe, but I was also devastated to learn I had no idea who I was. Fear quickly filled the space where my body had been. My walls were gone. I did not know how to respond to others. I often reacted as if I were still in a bigger body. I felt unsafe. I was angry. For years, I believed I had to atone for having been big, occupying space, for the food I was eating, and merely for existing. I wanted to disappear. I leveraged my past as reason why I should not trust others or myself. I was afraid I would lose control, lose my breath, and lose my life. It is difficult for me to believe these are my self-portraits. They feel distant and unrecognizable. Depersonalization is a defense I use to avoid pain but avoiding pain forces me to keep it. It is not a key to good living. I started Self-Untitled to help alleviate shame I had for my body, build connection, and humanize myself to others. That is still true, but now, self-portraiture is also a way I process life. It is a practice of self acceptance. It is a daily conversation and reminder that I deserve to take up space. I do not need to apologize for my existence.

Tierra Entre Medio is a multi-generational exhibition that foregrounds four Chicana photographers working in Southern California. It features new works by Christina Fernandez installed alongside works by Arlene Mejorado, Lizette Olivas, and Aydinaneth Ortiz. Organized by Fernandez, the exhibition bridges myriad concerns inherent to her own work, highlighting practices that consider the regional, cultural, and topographical diversities that span Southern California Latinx communities. Beyond demonstrating the socio-cultural and physical nuances of landscapes between the border and inland Southern California, the exhibition will provide a framework through which to consider how environments shape the perspectives and experiences of working class, migrant, and diasporic communities. About the Artists Christina Fernandez (b. 1965) is a Los Angeles-based photographer whose practice explores issues related to migration, labor, gender, Mexican American identity, and the unique capacities of the photographic medium. She earned her BA at UCLA in 1989, and her MFA at the CalArts in 1996. She is associate professor at Cerritos College, Norwalk, where she has been on faculty since 2001. Arlene Mejorado (b. Los Angeles) is a Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans analog and digital photography, video, and installation. Mejorado’s work employs documentary forms, visual media, everyday materials, and repurposed documents to counter cultural erasure and personal, collective, diasporic, and migrant experiences and stories. She earned her BA in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas, Austin, and is currently an MFA candidate in Visual Arts at UCSD. Lizette Olivas (b. 1986, El Monte, CA) is a San Bernardino-based photographer whose work chronicles the quotidian moments of inland Southern California through a blend of portraiture and landscape photography that is at once urban and rural. She earned her BA in Art at UCLA in 2014. Aydinaneth Ortiz is a Southern California-based photographer who utilizes documentary, landscape, and portrait genres to examine the intersections among the urban environment, familial relationships, mental illness, drug addiction, and immigration. She earned her BA in Art at UCLA, and her MFA in Photography at CalArts. She is assistant professor of Photography at Cypress College. Culver Center of the Arts Image: Christina Fernandez, Burn Area I, 2021 (detail). Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Luisotti, Los Angeles.