Being and There: Joseph Lawton

Looking Forward—the second of two consecutive exhibitions celebrating the tenth anniversary of Pier 24 Photography—highlights a selection of photographers collected by the Pilara Foundation over the past decade. With a focus on single artist galleries, Looking Forward demonstrates our belief that exhibiting photographers’ works in depth is the best way to communicate their visions for a given project or moment in time. Many of the featured photographers address the human condition in the twenty-first century. Tabitha Soren reflects on how we relate to others and the mass media we consume in an era dominated by digital technology. Tania Franco Klein depicts anonymous characters in cinematic worlds pervaded by feelings of isolation and disconnection, where ambiguity undermines any perceived narrative. Todd Hido juxtaposes ethereal pictures of romantic landscapes with scenes of industrial development and devastation caused by wildfires. Erica Deeman, Zanele Muholi, Eva O’Leary, and Chanell Stone examine contemporary identity politics. Deeman’s portraits of men from the African diaspora speak to the social constructs of identity, gender, and race. Muholi’s evocative self-portraits integrating everyday objects redress inequalities in representation in portraiture by forefronting black, queer, and trans narratives in their native South Africa. O’Leary’s tender portraits of adolescent and college-age women focus on how the self-images of young women—informed by the media and societal expectations—shape their projected identities. And Stone creates intimate self-portraits, still lifes, and landscapes that explore the black body’s relationship to nature—overlooked urban environments in particular—claiming the natural world as a site for reconciliation and reprieve. Pier 24 Photography’s long-standing dedication to collecting work related to the city of San Francisco and the San Francisco Bay Area is also prominent. In the reception area, we pay tribute to our location under the Bay Bridge with pictures commissioned by three different photographers—John Chiara, Veronika Kellndorfer, and Richard Learoyd—and an installation of vintage postcards illustrating this iconic structure through the decades. Awoiska van der Molen’s striking black-and-white nighttime scenes and John Chiara’s ethereal skyline views reveal their makers’ unique perspectives on and approaches to San Francisco’s urban landscape. Daniel Postaer’s poignant vignettes of the evolving city and Austin Leong’s wry black-and-white pictures of everyday moments on the street speak to a constantly changing social climate. The exhibition’s earliest pictures exemplify twentieth-century approaches to working in the urban landscape. Fred Herzog and Ray K. Metzker documented everyday urban life in their respective cities of Vancouver and Chicago, memorably capturing their environs through their distinctive styles. In 2019, Looking Back, the first of our two tenth-anniversary exhibitions, focused on some of the collection’s key building blocks. Looking Forward demonstrates the scope and focal points of more recent collecting. Together, these anniversary exhibitions consider the collection’s origins, decade-long history, and future trajectory.

NYC Parks is pleased to present Ji Zhou: Symbiosis, which includes eight large-scale photographs by Ji Zhou, curated by Eli Klein Gallery. Ji Zhou’s transcendent and mesmerizing designs reflect on the relationship between the natural and the artificial and between order and disorder. The exhibition will include the following works: The Plant Portrait - Tillandsia (2022) series presents photographs of Tillandsia, a plant that can survive entirely on nutrients and moisture in the air. With a nuanced layer of artificiality, the intricate designs of colors, lighting, and "poses" of the plants vividly capture Tillandsia's adaptable character and bring forth the wonders of nature. Metempsychosis (2022) features a series of abstract expressionist photographs inspired by Jackson Pollock's paintings. On each print, the artist frames the entire life of a honeysuckle plant, from the moment it blossoms to its withering. The interlaced pattern of blooming and wilted flowers suggests vitality is always present and can be passed on. In Honeysuckle Summer Midnight (2021), the artist patterns a honeysuckle vine wrapping around bamboo. Ji Zhou was inspired by literature discussing the origin of the “honeysuckle pattern”, a decorative motif often seen on Chinese porcelain and pottery. The honeysuckle’s high cold resistance match with the Buddhist principles of endurance and tenacity.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous poem Kubla Khan, composed in 1797, provides the inspiration for the exhibition, “Picturing Xanadu: A Vision in a Dream.” The inspiration for the poem came to Coleridge in a dream. Xanadu was a summer palace built by the Mongolian ruler Kubla Khan. It was an exotic place of pleasure, beauty (and fear). The opening stanza reads: ''in Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure Dome decree...'' Our fascination with photography takes divergent paths. It has the ability to preserve our individual life through recording the people the places and things in our environments, but it can as easily record exotic, far away, mysterious places that resonate with the sense of discovery and mystery. Through the camera and the practice of photography we can transcend the confines of time and place and be presented with worlds beyond our knowledge, whether existing in reality or in the imagination of the artist. In this exhibition the photographs of Karen Knorr, Andre Lichtenberg, Kimiko Yoshida, Joyce Tenneson, and Bernard Faucon present different ideas arising from dreamlike states in which they have each created disparate bodies of work.

The Fahey/Klein Gallery is pleased to present Midwest Materials, a solo exhibition of photographs by celebrated artist, Julie Blackmon. The works on view are a collection of imperfectly perfect narrative images that focus on the complexities and contradictions of modern life. As part of the Fahey/Klein Gallery’s tradition of promoting cutting-edge talent that is redefining the medium of Fine Art Photography, “Julie Blackmon: Midwest Materials” is a collaborative exhibition with the Fahey/Klein Gallery and NFT marketplace, SuperRare. A small number of works from “Midwest Materials” will be made available as NFTs with SuperRare. Blackmon’s photographs are a deft mash-up of wit, dark humor, and irony - with sly references to iconic American works of art for which the artist has gained such renown. Her recontextualization of 19th Century paintings brings to life details of childhood exploration and imaginative play in a world largely void of adults. Finding insight and inspiration in the seeming monotony of her "generic American hometown," Blackmon constructs a captivating, fictitious world that can be at times both playful and menacing. Set amid the front porches, shallow rivers, and half-deserted streets of her Midwestern town, Blackmon’s satiric tableaus are often littered with the disposable artifacts that we turn our eyes away from: potato chip bags and fast-food wrappers, discarded toys and magazines. Her unblinking eye verges on the surreal, lending an irreverent snap to her unique world. Her busy, imaginary narratives walk a darkly humorous line between lighthearted Americana and the chaos and occasional darkness of our daily lives. Julie Blackmon (b. 1966) pursued studies in art education and photography at Missouri State University. She has received numerous awards from industry leaders such as the Santa Fe Center of Photography, Society of Contemporary Photography, B&W Magazine, PhotoSpiva, Critical Mass, PDN, and American Photo. Her photographs are included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Cleveland Museum of Art; George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Toledo Museum of Art; Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; and numerous private collections. She lives and works in Springfield, Missouri. Julie Blackmon’s hardcover monograph, Midwest Materials, (Radius Books, 108 pages; $55), is available for purchase at the gallery while supplies last.

The Fahey/Klein Gallery is pleased to present Geof Kern “Midtown Exit”, a selection of photographs taken throughout Kern’s career which beautifully demonstrate his ability to illustrate whimsical scenes with a cinematic aesthetic. Kern’s multifaceted style combines photography and illustration and redefines the traditional photographic genres of fashion and still life. He uses fabricated sets and pseudo-suburban scenes to mock the mundane. Steering away from high profile models, Kern prefers neighbors, acquaintances, and locals to take stage in his fanciful constructed realities. His approach to the “everyday” and domestic subject matter is riddled with irony, imagination, and subtle humor.. In 1994 Kern was commissioned by Creative Director Georgia Christiansen, for the 30 page Neiman-Marcus Fall fashion spread, The Art of Fashion. This prestigious annual campaign was first shot by Richard Avedon, followed by Helmut Newton and Annie Leibovitz. Kern’s story depicts a girl who longs to become a famous fashion model, and scene by scene, slowly evolves into a stiff and lifeless mannequin. The controversial spread was later declared by Time Magazine as the “Best print campaign of 1995.”. Praised by some of the most prominent fashion magazines and creative ad agencies today, Kern approaches photography with a distinct vision. “I began my career in the early 80’s when art and commercial photography were two different worlds entirely. Maybe because I didn’t know any better, I just started photographing what I wanted and people got excited about it. Word spread… I became known as a ‘surrealist’ because there was no other word to describe what I was doing,” says Kern.. One of the most sought after commercial photographers working today, Kern has an impressive resume decorated with prestigious clients, as well as numerous campaigns and awards. Shooting for Neiman-Marcus, Vanity Fair, New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, GQ, and Bloomingdales, Kern has become known for his stylized, surrealist narratives.. Geof Kern received The Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Magazine Photography from Columbia University (2000), as well as the prestigious Infinity Award in Applied Photography from The International Center Of Photography, New York (1993). In 2000 a selection of his work became part of the permanent collection of The Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Louvre, Paris.

Nathalie Seaver is a Los Angeles-based visual artist whose practice uses photography, collage, and mixed media to investigate materiality and memory to reveal unexpected layers of enchantment and splendor found in worlds within her reach. Seaver’s visual and tactile work is informed by a lifetime of working in book illustration, and creative positions in the television, film, and fashion design industry. Seaver has presented her work extensively in gallery exhibitions in the United States, including The Griffin Museum of Photography, The SE Center of Photography, and the New York Center for Photography as well as Foto Fever in Paris. Her work has been featured in The Getty Museum Iris blog, and several Lenscratch exhibitions, including an interview highlighting her Deconstructing Beauty series and The Hand magazine. Her images have been chosen for several exhibit catalog covers. Dolores Lusitana is a photographer, designer, and project developer. Her fine art photographs are inspired by abstract qualities in paint remnants and the etched and dented shapes on discarded wood, concrete, and metal fencing found in the back alleys and side streets of her Santa Monica/Venice California neighborhood. Her images are intended to provide alternate, individual perspectives on everyday surroundings.

This year Scheinbaum & Russek participated in the Photography Show presented by AIPAD in New York. The fair was a great success for exhibitors and attendees alike. Photography dealers from the world over exhibited an incredible array of 19th, 20th, and 21st century images. The fair was complemented by daily educational lectures, conversations, and tours, some of which you can view online through the Aipad website. For this year’s fair, we curated the booth as we would an exhibition in our gallery. Each wall was thematic, presenting quintessential works by photographers that exemplify our continued interest in important works from the 20th century. Our approach was met with great success. Success not only measured by sales but by the response to the works on our walls. This was especially noted by seasoned collectors many museum groups and curators in attendance. For this exhibition, THE QUINTESSENTIAL IMAGE, we re-created our AIPAD exhibition as best we could for you, our Santa Fe community. For those of you who were unable to attend the fair in New York, we are bringing the fair to you!

Obscura Gallery is excited to present a select survey of photogravures representing work from over a century, with prints dating from as early as 1897 to contemporary prints made in 2023. The earliest print in this exhibition is an 1897 Alfred Stieglitz photo from his portfolio Picturesque Bits of New York and Other Studies. The most recent work will be 2023 abstract landscapes from New Mexico and Chile created from polymer plates by Santa Fean Eddie Soloway. The photogravure is an intaglio print process that, in the early development of photography, was invented to produce high-quality ink reproductions of photographs, featuring deep shadows and luminous highlights. Early photographic pioneers Joseph Nicéphore Niepce and William Henry Fox Talbot invented the process in the 1840s, and then it was perfected in 1879 by Karl V. Klíč. Traditionally, photogravures were photographs that were etched into a metal plate using light sensitive carbon tissue. The plate was then inked and run through a printing press to produce a positive ink print known for its distinctive, luminous tonal qualities. With most contemporary photogravures, the metal plates have been replaced with polymer plates and other less toxic chemicals are used in the process. In the history of Western photography, perhaps the most widely known examples of photogravures are from both Alfred Stieglitz’s Camera Work periodical and Edward Curtis’s North American Indian Project. Alfred Stieglitz has been celebrated as one of the greatest practitioners of the photogravure process. From the mid-1890s to the mid-1910s, Stieglitz printed large editions of photogravures of photographs – his own work and that of other photographers - most of which he included in his periodicals Camera Notes, Camera Work, and 291. Photogravure was also the process used in Stieglitz’s 1897 portfolio Picturesque Bits of New York and Other Studies, from which the photograph, Wet Day on the Boulevard (Paris), 1897 is included in this exhibition. This 1897 portfolio, printed in an edition of 25 by Robert Howard Russell, inc­luded twelve photogravures on plate paper, using different ink colors. In addition to supervising the printing of each image, Stieglitz himself made the steel engravings from the diapositives (positives made from negatives). One of the longest running photogravure projects ever undertaken was Edward Sheriff Curtis’s epic quest from 1907 - 1930 to document, through word and picture, the traditional cultures of Native Americans in the Western United States. Finally completing a 20-volume set, Curtis had pursued his images by traveling on foot and by horseback deep into the Indian territories. He packed his large-format camera and necessary supplies for months of field work. Curtis was motivated by the belief that he was in a desperate race against time to document the North American Indian, or what he called The Vanishing Race, before white expansion and the federal government destroyed what remained of the natives’ way of life. In the exhibition, we have the first plate from this entire project, an image named “The Vanishing Race,” as well as a few other prints from Curtis’s enormous project. Also on exhibit is a notable photogravure produced by Paul Strand in 1932. At the invitation of Carlos Chavez, the Secretariat of Public Education in Mexico, Strand traveled around Mexico, photographing churches, religious imagery, local communities, and the land. Strand’s work culminated into the 1940 Photographs of Mexico portfolio of 20 photogravures. Twenty-seven years later, he then re-released the portfolio in an edition of 1,000 under the revised name The Mexican Portfolio. The print we have in this exhibition, Gateway Hidalgo, is from the second edition of this portfolio. Strand said of the gravure portfolio: “The thing that was original about this portfolio was that it was a conscious attempt to see if one could make reproductions which were so close to the originals – the originals being platinum prints – that they were good enough to be framed….And I chose gravure as the one medium that I thought was possible to do that job.” Over the years Aperture and other organizations have been involved in special projects using the photogravure to print work of well-known photographers. One example we have in the exhibition is a photogravure published posthumously in 1980 of Paul Strand’s iconic and best-known image, The White Fence, Port Kent, 1916. This hand-pulled dust-grain photogravure, bearing the authorization seal of the Paul Strand Archive, was printed by master photogravure printer Jon Goodman in an edition of 300. The print is accompanied by a text written by poet Robert Creeley. In addition to the 20th Century masters, we have several photogravure pieces in the exhibition by contemporary artists who are using photogravure in new and exciting ways. All of the contemporary artists are using polymer plates in their work. Obscura Gallery’s represented artist Cy DeCosse, along with printer Keith Taylor, were at the forefront of revitalizing nineteenth-century photographic processes into contemporary photographic practices in the early 2000s. Cy believes in close, intimate images that show ordinary things in a surprising new light. By painting his backgrounds, he “floats” the subject, creating a surreal still life distinctive to his personal style. Santa Fean Laurie Archer created a series titled On the Road in which she photographed detritus she found on morning walks, and incorporated the influence of William Stafford’s poetry. Archer additionally stitched thread onto the photogravure from a solar plate etching. Solar plate, developed in the 1970s, is a light sensitized steel backed polymer material used by artists as a simple, safer and faster alternative to the metal plate photogravure printing techniques. Christa Blackwood’s “a dot red : a series” explores genres and images found in landscape and portrait photography, by combining historical photographic technique with more contemporary conceptual strategies. Blackwood photographed glorious natural landscapes in the Southwest in similar vein to the majestic landscapes of the great American West produced by famed photographers Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. In the printing process, Blackwood inserted a saucer-sized translucent red dot in various areas on the image — an area that perhaps in a more a traditional, and male-made image, a woman would have stood as a model, as many male landscape photographers such as Weston had done with their models in the landscape. These works shift the focus of attention and enable a reconsideration of their classical subjects. The gravures are printed on kitakata, a thin Japanese paper made with gampi fiber. After years printing in both analog and digital darkrooms, Santa Fean Eddie Soloway has been exploring the hand-pulled photogravure process. The images in the exhibition from Patagonia, (above) and New Mexico (below) capture the gentle radiance and refraction of light in abstract landscape.

The sixties were a long time coming. The sixties keep coming back. For many parts of Africa, to refer to the 1960s is to gesture broadly toward a time of great transformation: the postcolonial turn. That decade’s beginning marks a wave of national independence movements coming to fruition in all parts of the continent with far-reaching consequences around the globe. However, that era of sweeping change is bound up in a chain of events long preceding that watershed decade, with ramifications that reach potently into our present. And any discussions merely offering a colonial/postcolonial dichotomy or framed exclusively through the nation-state betray the far more complex collective and individual experiences of that time and the visual representations taking place within it. This exhibition addresses photography in the context of Africa’s long 1960s—amid resistance, revolution, new nationalist and transnational movements, and the stuff of daily life therein. Focusing on Ghana, Mali, and South Africa, this exhibition features photographic prints, reprints, books, magazines, posters, and other material means through which photography’s relationships to real people and events were articulated, produced, and circulated. And it looks to contemporary works that engage and reflect on those material histories and might prompt us to ask: did the sixties ever end? Bridging the division often made between studio photography and reportage—even as many photographers worked across such categories in their practices—not all realisms brings studio and street together. This project explores documentary visions cultivated through international circulation of print media and transnational dialogues, and examines the multiple lives of single images made by photographers including Ernest Cole, Malick Sidibé, James Barnor, Peter Magubane, Paul Strand, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and more. Image: Malick Sidibé, Happy Club (Christmas Eve) (Nuit de Noël [Happy Club]), 1963, Gelatin silver print. Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Gift of the Estate of Lester and Betty Guttman, 2014.720. Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

The Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) announces the opening of the exhibition Black Photobooth: From the Collections of Näkki Goranin and Oliver Wasow. Featuring over 100 miniature portraits of Black Americans, mostly from the 1930s and 1940s, this surprising exhibition is drawn from two prominent private collections. Organized by CPW Executive Director Brian Wallis, Black Photobooth will be on view at CPW, 474 Broadway, Kingston, from March 25 through June 4, 2023, The introduction of the photobooth in the late 1920s marked a watershed moment in American culture. For the first time, folks from all walks of life could have their portrait taken, quickly, conveniently, and inexpensively. Inaugurated by Anatol Josepho in New York in 1925, the photobooth was a studio, darkroom, and photo delivery service all rolled into one tiny booth—without a photographer. Anyone could easily access these private portrait studios in drugstores, bus stations, and county fairs. For a quarter, the machine snapped the sitter’s picture and delivered a strip of direct-positive prints within a matter of minutes. “The modest vernacular portraits produced by the thousands in photobooths across the country comprise a rich record of visual representation and social history,” said Wallis. During the decades just before and after World War II, Black Americans made singular use of the widely accessible photobooths for self-representation. Many of the small, intimate portraits feature distinctive fashions or hairstyles, while others clearly document celebratory outings. The privacy of the photobooth provided an opportunity for spontaneity and freedom. Black Photobooth captures casual interactions of everyday life: farmworkers in overalls, women wearing their best Easter hats, revelers drinking, lovers kissing. The photographs in this exhibition range from small strips or single images to larger arcade photos, often featuring folky, hand-painted backdrops. Many of these small portraits were once gathered in frames and family albums, several of which are included in the exhibition. Artists Näkki Goranin and Oliver Wasow are both photography collectors and authors of studies of American photographic portraiture. Goranin is the author of American Photobooth (Norton, 2007); Wasow is the author of Artist Unknown (Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, 2011) and Friends, Enemies and Strangers (Saint Lucy Books, 2017).

In Light of Rome... comprehensively explores, for the first time in the United States, the contribution made by the cosmopolitan art center to the early history of photography and traces the medium’s rise there from a fledgling science to a dynamic form of artistic expression that forever changed the way we perceive the Eternal City. The exhibition ranges from 1842 to 1871, from the earliest pioneers—the French daguerreotypist Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey and the Welsh calotypist Calvert Richard Jones—to the work of the Roman School of Photography and its successors, among them James Anderson and Robert Macpherson of Britain; Frédéric Flachéron, Firmin Eugène Le Dien, and Gustave Le Gray of France; and Giacomo Caneva, Adriano de Bonis, and Pietro Dovizielli of Italy. Featuring 112 works, many never before seen publicly, by nearly fifty transnational photographers, this presentation and its accompanying catalogue will expand our understanding of Rome’s place in the evolution of early photography, and the pivotal role it played in the refinement and technical development of the nascent medium in the nineteenth century.

Oakland-based artist Sadie Barnette uncovers and reanimates stories of resistance, resilience, and love through an ongoing retelling of her family’s history. SPACE/TIME, a site-specific commission developed in dialogue with Afterimages: Echoes of the 1960s from the Fisher and SFMOMA Collections, celebrates life against the backdrop of political turmoil and everyday moments from the 1960s to today, highlighting intergenerational legacies and collective possibilities. Just as personal and political events collide and coexist in life, Barnette’s mural juxtaposes cellphone snapshots of birthday parties and weddings with large-scale images of her father in his army uniform in 1966, before he left for Vietnam, and in 1968, as a Black Panther after he returned. Barnette also revisits her own visual language, reusing images that recur in her work, such as pictures of a Martin Luther King Jr. Drive street sign, her aunt’s living room, and sparkly musical equipment. These references appear alongside self-portraits, items from her studio—including a jewel-encrusted calculator and a Hello Kitty Fizzy Pop—and her frequently used adornments: spray paint, glitter, and rhinestones. Drawings with the phrases “Right Here,” “Right Now,” “Everything,” and “Forever” consider the elasticity of time, while the tinted window featuring the words “Space” and “Time” envelops the surrounding architecture with Barnette’s signature pink. By bringing together cosmic imagery and a picture of her father in a swirling pink void, Barnette collapses the expansive arc of time that connects generations and dimensions.