An Expression of Absence

Peter Fetterman Gallery is proud to present The Flower Show. On view June 17th, 2023 – October 7th, 2023. An opening reception will be held Saturday June 17th from 3:00 – 6:00 PM at the gallery. The Flower Show is curated from the Peter Fetterman collection and explores the relationship between Photography and flowers. Flowers have a vital role in almost every ecosystem, and also carry powerful symbolism in cultures world-wide. Through the eye of Photography our exhibition explores flowers in fashion, beauty, ritual, celebration and beyond. With photographs from around the world, this exhibition features work by Andrew Bush, Jach Janusz Bulhak, Wynn Bullock, Julia Margaret Cameron, Paul Caponigro, Brigitte Carnochan, Bruce Davidson ,Robert Doisneau, Elliott Erwitt, Ernesto Esquer, Flor Garduño, Luis González Palma, Laure Albin-Guillot, Bert Hardy, Cig Harvey, Don Hong-Oai, Horst P. Horst, Graciela Iturbide, André Kertész, William Klein, Fred Lyon, Steve McCurry, Norman Parkinson, William B. Post, Karen Radkai, Sebastião Salgado, John Swannell, Patrick Taberna, Ron Van Dongen, Robert Whitaker, Minor White and Mariana Yampolsky. Exhibited in our Main Gallery the exhibition evokes the feeling of a field of flowers with the viewer surrounded by floral works on four surrounding gallery walls. Image: All the Pink Flowers, Rockport, Maine, 2020 © Cig Harvey

Peter Fetterman Gallery is proud to present The Fashion Show. Opening June 17th, 2023 – October 7th, 2023. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, June 17th from 3:00 – 6:00 PM. The Fashion Show, curated from the gallery’s permanent collection, will feature an exciting display of fashions history, its elegance and its importance to the photographic medium. This exhibition is designed to explore how fashion photography transcends its commercial aspects and is a reflection of creative expression and societal aspirations. The Fashion Show will feature works by Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Jean Phillippe Charbonnier, Constantin Joffe, Lillian Bassman, Cecil Beaton, Georges Dambier, Duffy, Arthur Elgort, Ralph Gibson, René Groebli, William Helburn, Horst P. Horst, George Hoyningen-Huene, William Klein, Frances McLaughlin-Gill, Sarah Moon, Janine Niepce, Norman Parkinson, Len Prince, Willy Ronis, and Melvin Sokolsky. Image: Look Down, Bazaar, 1960 © Melvin Sokolsky

An exhibition of contemporary fine art photography by members of the Bay Area Photographers Collective. ''These photographs offer a fresh and captivating vision of life’s strange, eerie and unique beauty.'' Emmanuelle Namont, Curator When encountering the work of the Bay Area Photographers Collective, I was struck by the diverse practices, from street to abstract, from landscape to documentary. The common thread was an exploration of what is beautiful today. Photography is always a surprise; you master your camera’s controls and look at the world around you, but once you press the shutter, you discover another facet of life. From everyday occurrences transformed into bizarre moments by a unique combination of color, tones, and framing to an exploration of the natural world and the sublime, the use of the camera is all about the reinterpretation of reality. In that gesture, these photographers offer a fresh and captivating vision of life’s strange, eerie, and unique beauty. - Emmanuelle Namont Featured image: Bird-Man, Carnaval © 2023 Anthony Delgado

Iconic image maker Jim Fiscus produces layered single-frame stories that comment on human experience. The exhibition “Where Shadows Cross” grew out of a new project he began in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will include a dozen large-scale color photographs. Fiscus attempts to “tell it all” visually through lighting, shadow and composition. He entices viewers to immerse themselves in his stage sets, move through them and appreciate every crisp detail. Fiscus investigates seemingly mundane situations, focusing on figures doing unpredictable or unconventional things. Their interactions among each other or with their setting often upend our perspective and generates uncertainty about the evolving stories these images show. Image: Heard Not Seen, 1/16/22, 6:49 p.m., Farmington, Oconee County, Georgia, 2022 © Jim Fiscus

Sobre una mujer (About a Woman), through the eyes of artists of the Americas On women, it is not possible to generalize or extrapolate. Each individuality means that when talking about this group, we refer to a set of stories, one by one. Women are not a compact and homogeneous identity block. There are different ages, different territories, various economic realities. We choose, those that we have the privilege of being able to, different ways of life. Each experience is unique, and stirs feelings, beliefs, values and ideas within us, which we sometimes share, and oftentimes do not. This sample does not seek to be a representation of women as a gender, but to barely scratch the surface of its edges, underlined in depth by these artists. Among the recurring themes, explicit or implicit, are social or family violence, physical or moral harassment, exhaustion in the face of everyday injustice, and personal struggles and conquests. The images allow reflection on the dichotomy between ferocity and vulnerability, motherhood, the appearance of machinery before simultaneous vertiginous tasks, links with the objects of domestic spaces, bodily changes, and abortion. The route challenges us about the social penetration of inherited mandates. These generate submission and, in contrast, rebellion, bringing the possibility of reconstruction of their own language as an exit route. However, there is one, and only one, generalization that is possible and verifiable. Women are the only majority that even today, in the 21st century, still face great discrimination. Artists: Patricia Ackerman (Argentina) Maia Alcire (Argentina) Cecilia Anton (Argentina) Marina Carniglia (Argentina) Silvina Caserta (Argentina) Veronica Cozzi (Argentina) Diane Fenster (United States) Ana Carolina Fernandes (Brazil) Alicia D'Amico (Argentina) Franco Fafasuli (Argentina) Claudia Gaudelli (Argentina) Paula Gomez Viale (Chile) Adriana Groisman (Argentina-United States) Annemarie Heinrich (Argentina) Maria Alejandra Huerta Leighton (Chile) Julia Lafee (Chile) Adriana Lestido (Argentina) Candelaria Magliano (Argentina) Gaby Messina (Argentina) Haley Morris Cafiero (United States) Cirenaica Moreira (Cuba) Cristian Nicollier (Argentina) Pablo Ortiz Monasterio (Mexico) Lydia Panas (United States) Cande Rivera (Nicaragua) Ana Robles (Argentina) Cesar Gustavo Ruiz (Argentina) Karen Schwend (Chile) Ana Maria Saenz (Chile) Annita Pouchard Serra (Argentina) Viktoria Sorochinski (Canada-Ukraine) Sara Wayra Aliaga (Bolivia)

While photography has long been associated with documentation and memory, Peter Hujar (American, 1934–1987) sought to produce images that construct a new reality through subtle exchanges between himself and his subjects. He created direct yet enigmatic portraits of people and animals, pictures of performers, and sexually charged male nudes in close dialogue with the performance and movement study scene emerging in New York’s East Village in the 1970s. His subject matter was influenced by various dimensions of his experience, including a childhood spent on his grandparents’ farm, a lifelong interest in dance and theater, and his identity as a gay man. In the early 1970s, Hujar was living in a loft in lower Manhattan as, nearby, Robert Wilson founded the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds, a performance group dedicated to exploring new approaches to theater and choreography. Byrd Hoffman is just one of the groups Hujar would go on to photograph extensively, along with the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, an absurdist project founded by Charles Ludlam, and The Cockettes, a psychedelic theater troupe based in San Francisco. Hujar photographed performances by these companies but often paid more attention to capturing the actors and dancers backstage, in moments of transition—as they put on their costumes and make-up, preparing to embody the characters they would play. This exhibition connects both the experimentation Hujar and his subjects pursued and the new realities they each created—whether through photographs or performance. The presentation includes over 60 works by Hujar, and in keeping with the spirit of collaboration and exchange that typified the downtown New York scene, also includes artwork by some of the artists and performers in his circle, including works by Greer Lankton, Sheryl Sutton, and David Wojnarowicz. Image: Candy Darling on Her Deathbed, 1973. Peter Hujar. Courtesy of the Peter Hujar Archive and Pace Gallery. © The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Jeffrey Eric Rothstein is an American photographer and avid darkroom printer who is challenging and reinvigorating the American Western landscape tradition as well as exploring other non-traditional methods of making photographs. His work revolves around the analog film process, specific periods of painting, color, mysticism, abstraction, human connectedness in the digital age, and psychedelics. Rothstein’s practice examines American Western landscape photography and recreates an altered and heighted mental state that mirrors hallucinations. Image: A Tangerine Dream © Jeffrey Rothstein

Tintypes—or ferrotypes—were first introduced in the US in the 1850s. Made by printing photographic images onto sheets of thin metal, they were inexpensive to produce, offering an affordable alternative to painted portraits. Often they were hand painted by women using oils, watercolors, and dry pigments. Each one was unique—a product of the makers exploring their creative potential. Most of the tintypes were housed in decorative frames, some of which are remarkably inventive in their own right. By 1860 tintypes proliferated through all levels of society, becoming an important form of remembrance of sons fighting in the Civil War and families moving westward. “Painted Tintypes: Photography for the People” explores the rich tradition of this quintessentially American art form, paying tribute to the photographers, sitters, painters, and frame makers who made this early form of photography so popular. The exhibition features approximately 40 hand-painted tintypes on loan from several private collections, complemented by a pair of examples from the MFA’s collection. Tintypes had a unique way of bringing people together—captivating the imaginations of those from diverse socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. While most of these works are unsigned and the identities of many sitters are unrecorded, they nevertheless provide an important visual record of 19th-century America and the strivings of everyday people to represent themselves at their very best. Image: Unidentified artist, African American Woman (detail), American, 1860–79. Photograph, tintype. Charles H. Bayley Picture and Painting Fund.

A series of site-specific installations and photography by Finnish artist Ville Kansanen creates windows into the fragility of our planet’s aquatic resources. Through his work he creates a mythical connection to the demise of Earth’s bodies of water and the devastating effects of saltwater intrusion. There are two outdoor installations: ‘Mojave Portals’ offers glimpses of desertification as arid fragments of the Mojave Desert. Tiles of desert earth and rocks are linked together, extending from inside the museum onto the surface of Judkins Pond. ‘Salting the Earth’ is a 24-foot-long mosaic of earthen tiles representing soil salinization. The tiles create a visual gradient out of local soil, calcium, limestone, and sand from the Mojave Desert. Within the museum, a series of photographs titled ‘Airut (Harbinger)’ captures a makeshift tripod suspending an elongated stone, utilized as a mystical instrument for measuring water levels. It is transported to five lakes at succeeding stages of life, creating a solemn procession of the gradual death of lakes. In totality, Ville Kansanen’s work encourages viewers to contemplate on the fragility and impermanence of water; and the arid forces that lead all landscapes to their unavoidable terminus – the desert. MOJAVE PORTALS ‘Mojave Portals’ is a mythical representation of the eventual depletion and demise of Earth’s bodies of water. By employing the concept of portals, it visually transports viewers to a time when all bodies of water have dwindled and disappeared. Small tiles of rocks and desert sand are integrated into the surrounding landscape and linked together. They extend from inside the museum out onto the surface of Judkins Pond in the form of earthen rafts. These “portals” subvert our sense of time and place by projecting into the future and the faraway Mojave Desert simultaneously. SALTING THE EARTH ‘Salting the Earth’ is a simulacrum of the effects of saltwater intrusion on the Eastern Seaboard. A 24-foot mosaic of earthen tiles creates a visual gradient out of local soil, calcium, limestone, and sand from the Mojave Desert. This simulation of soil salinization visualizes the devastating process of desertification and points to the inevitable future of Judkins Pond – and all bodies of water. AIRUT (Harbinger) ‘Airut (Harbinger)’ portrays the gradual death of lakes in a solemn procession. In a series of five photographs, an installation takes shape by echoing primitive well boring. A makeshift tripod suspending an elongated stone is seen as a mystical instrument for measuring water levels. As the rock is submerged in five different lakes in succeeding stages of life, it transforms into an aniconic object that forebodes rather than measures.

The artist upends assumptions about humankind’s place in nature. Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present NEVER HERE / ALWAYS THERE, an exhibition by artist Richard T. Walker. Incorporating photography, video, music, sculpture, and performance, the artist continues his exploration of the relationship between the individual and the changing natural world. In eleven new works, Walker reorders the elements of the environment, upending assumptions about humankind’s place in nature by embracing futile connections to the vast landscape. This will be the Bay Area-based British artist’s second solo show in the gallery’s 49 Geary space, following exhibitions at FraenkelLAB in 2016 and 2017. Image: A Paused Refrain, 2022 © Richard T. Walker

The Robert Koch Gallery proudly presents Matt Black: The Central Valley and Mexico, the gallery’s second exhibition featuring the powerful and stark works of American photographer Matt Black. Based in California’s Central Valley, Black produces highly narrative imagery deeply grounded in present-day societal and environmental disquietude. The Central Valley and Mexico delves into two earlier bodies of work, seemingly distant in geography but profoundly united in thematic resonance. Black’s lens presents a captivating and profound exploration of some of the most marginalized communities in the Americas. In 1995, Black began capturing the struggle, disempowerment, and hopeful resilience of communities throughout the Central Valley of California. The work from The Central Valley portrays the many hardships faced by residents working and living in one of the world’s most significant and powerful agricultural hubs. Despite generating billions of dollars in economic output, these communities bear the weight of poverty, unemployment, and inadequate access to healthcare and education. It was while photographing in the Central Valley, that Black noticed a shift in the agricultural workforce, historically a point of transition for various migrant groups. Black identified a group that intrigued him: indigenous immigrants from Mexico, speaking Trique, Mixtec, or Nahuatl. The reasons for leaving their homelands intrigued Black and led him to the mountains of Oaxaca, where he witnessed the erosion of an ancient way of life. These mountains, the birthplace of corn cultivation with a history spanning millennia, had succumbed to modern farming techniques, resulting in landslides, crop failures, and a mass exodus to the US in search of opportunities. Those left behind were mostly the elderly and children, struggling to sustain shrinking villages that became targets for drug cartels. Amid this intersection of environmental crisis and economic brutality, Black composed compelling photo essays, such as “The People of Clouds” and “The Monster in the Mountains,” which would eventually comprise the series Mixteca. Matt Black creates work that, while rooted in the documentary tradition, is also noted for its deeply personal approach, emotional engagement, and visual intensity. Excerpts from American Geography have been widely published and exhibited in the United States and abroad. A monograph of American Geography was published in 2021 by Thames and Hudson, accompanying an institutional exhibition that traveled to the Deichtorhallen Hamburg (2020) and the Kunstfoyer, Munich (2021). In addition to The New Yorker, Black’s work has appeared in TIME Magazine, The California Sunday Magazine, as well as international publications such as Le Monde (France) and Internazionale (Italy). Also a filmmaker, Black’s short films have been published by The New Yorker, MSNBC, and Orion Magazine, among others. A member of the prestigious Magnum agency, Matt Black has been honored three times by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Prize, named a senior fellow at the Emerson Collective, and was the recipient of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Award in 2015 for Humanistic Photography. Image: San Pedro Chayuco, Oaxaca. 2000. Saint's Day celebration., 2000© Matt Black

The Robert Koch Gallery is honored to present Tom Baril: Botanica. With a distinguished background as Robert Mapplethorpe’s master printer spanning over fifteen years, Baril’s artistic repertoire encompasses a diverse array of subjects. These include the intricate beauty of urban architecture, mesmerizing seascapes, and intricately captured botanical and nature scenes. Tom Baril’s Botanica photographs reveal his deep connection to the natural world, celebrating the ephemeral qualities of life and nature, capturing fleeting moments of beauty and transience. Baril’s images are not merely representations of objects but rather meditations on the passage of time and the fragility of existence. Through his lens, ordinary plants and flowers become extraordinary visual stories. Baril’s meticulous attention to detail, interplay of light and shadow, and ability to evoke intimacy in his images set his work apart. Each photograph invites viewers to contemplate the profound complexity of nature. Botanica not only showcases the diverse beauty of plants but also reflects Baril’s skill in presenting nature’s elegance in a captivating and evocative manner. Achieving this fusion involves a delicate amalgamation of intimate close-ups, purposeful composition, and expert lighting. Baril’s mastery as a printer shines as he adeptly employs his self-developed techniques of solarization and a distinctive toning process in his prints. In his exploration of still life, Tom Baril invites us to slow down, to take a moment to truly see and appreciate the world around us. His photographs remind us that beauty can be found in the smallest of details, and that art has the power to transform the ordinary into something extraordinary. His photographs invite us to reflect on the beauty that surrounds us and to find solace in the contemplation of the everyday. Baril has enjoyed numerous solo exhibitions worldwide, and his work is in collections of the Getty Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Smithsonian American Art Museum; Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum; and the Elton John Collection, among others. Two monographs have been published on his work: Botanica (Arena Editions, 1999) and the highly acclaimed 1997 self-titled monograph published by 4AD. Image: Echinacea (584), 1999 © Tom Baril