Paulette Tavormina will be showing at Beetles + Huxley Gallery in London from June 30th to July 25th. This will be the first major UK exhibition of her work, and encompass images from both her Natura Morta and Bodegón series. The gallery will be printing a catalogue accompanying the show.
Robert Mann Gallery is excited to announce a new series by Maroesjka Lavigne, Not Seeing a Flower. Shot in Japan, the series was made in cooperation with the Flanders Center in Osaka and will be shown at Museum Dr. Guislain in Ghent, Belgium as part of the group exhibition Facing Japan.
The artist writes,
‘Whatever you think, think the opposite’ [is]an expression I heard a lot in and about Japan. This island seemed to be an isolated world far away. Japan has cultivated a certain image in the
western world. Japanese Ukiyo-e pictures influenced this western image. These ‘pictures of the floating world’ of among others Hiroshige and Hokusai caused us to have an unreal image of Japan. In this series I tried to look for the modern beauty Japan has to offer with underlying themes of the old pictures as an inspiration.
Mary Mattingly's interactive installation "Pull" was featured in The New York Times' coverage of the Havana Biennial. The piece is part of the Bronx Museum's exhibition "White Noise" at the Bellas Artes Museum in Havana, Cuba.
The Havana is Running at Full Throttle
By Holland Cotter
May 29, 2015
HAVANA — With the recent political thaw between Cuba and the United States, changes are already lapping the shores of this island nation and may soon be pounding the great sea wall, the Malecón, that stands between Havana, the open water, and a big-spending, big-building, culturally big-footing neighbor to the north.
Everyone knows that major shifts are inevitable once capitalism begins to flood the socialist zone. And a sense of mingled excitement and apprehension is in the air at the 12th Havana Biennial, a diffuse, gradually unfolding, monthlong series of art exhibitions that have been injected into the tissue of this majestic heirloom of a city, adding contemporary warmth to its gorgeously crumbling bones. Continue reading the article here.
We welcome you to view the below video clip by filmmaker Juan Mandelbaum from his wonderful film about ringl+pit. To purchase or stream the full film, click here. For more clips, click the links below.
Why Can't Great Artists Be Mothers?
A group of rising artists rejects the all-or-nothing, children-versus-art
By Jacoba Urist
May 21, 2015
The art world is full of enduring stereotypes. There’s the myth of the starving artist. The crazy artist. The hermit artist. And then there’s the childless artist— a woman (yes, she’s usually female) so fervidly dedicated to her craft that there’s no room in her life for motherhood. Indeed, some of the greatest visual artists — Georgia O’Keefe, Frida Kahlo, and Lee Krasner — had no children. Kids and their constant battery of needs, the argument goes, are incompatible with true creativity. Art is supposed to be an all-consuming enterprise — and now modern parenting is too.
...But there’s a group of rising artists who strongly reject the all-or-nothing, children-versus-art premise. Motherhood, they argue, has increased the complexity of their work and intensified their perspectives, whether or not their subject matter is domestic life. And they believe that the art world is slowly warming to the idea that great artists can also be great mothers.
That doesn’t mean art mythologies don’t apply. These women — like their male or childless counterpart s— immerse themselves in their work to the point of compulsivity. “Art, in any form, demands that you turn yourself inside out. You must be obsessed for it to be any good,” explained Cig Harvey, an artist, based in Rockport, Maine, whose photography has been called “visual fiction” or “magic realism.” Harvey captures nature and ordinary objects — a bird’s nest, sprig of flowers, or woman’s hands — in a dreamlike state. Her new book, Gardening at Night, and current solo Boston show, explore “family, time, and nature through the eyes of a new mother.” Despite the myth, said Harvey, mother to 3-year old Scout, you can be obsessed with two things — art and your child. Missouri photographer, Julie Blackmon is known for edgy parodies of home life — a terrified infant being tossed in the air, (a subject one curator labeled ripe for cliché). She told Art News about balancing passion and motherhood: When your kid tells you that he had to eat croutons for breakfast because he couldn’t find anything else, you know you’ve gone too far.
“Art is mirroring and life became more complicated and richer in my opinion after Scout was born,” explained Harvey. “But the world was also much more terrifying to me.”
Read the full article here.
Jennifer Williams' wall installation The High Line Effect: Approaching Hudson Yards was recently acquired by the Akron Art Museum and is featured in their current exhibition Proof: Photographs From The Collection. From the museum:
Photographs help create our collective memory. Images from news reportage and photographs that provide social commentary or promote personal agendas all shape how we see our world and alter our view of the past. Are these photographic documents proof of an event or place, or is the artist manipulating us?
Proof features photographs from the Civil War to the present. The exhibition highlights familiar favorites from the collection, including classic documentary photographs by Walker Evans, Lewis Hine and Weegee, as well as major series commissioned by the museum from Lee Friedlander and Robert Glenn Ketchum. Contemporary artists who have filtered these documentary styles to question photographic truth are represented by recent acquisitions by Jennifer Williams, Josh Azzarella and Barbara Probst.
Read more about the exhibition here.
10 Cuban Photographers You Should Know
May 21, 2015
By Maddie Crum
More than 100 years ago, a broad slab of concrete was placed along the seashore in Cuba, stretching five miles from Old Havana to the city’s business district. The Malecón was intended as a barrier -- it would protect Havana from high winds and high tides -- but instead became a bustling cultural landmark. Cuban street photographer Eduardo Garcia finds it ripe with fascinating subjects emblematic of the mood of his country. A woman lounges atop it in a sports bra, kept company by her joyful sons; an older man naps on the rocks beyond it.
...Garcia's photo is among hundreds compiled in a book and exhibition showcasing the work of Cuban photographers, "The Light in Cuban Eyes." And though his work captures the spirit of the country, especially during its tumultuous "Special Period," it differs greatly from the others anthologized by Robert Mann Gallery. Alfredo Ramos, for example, collected together half-tone images of lips for his more stylized image "Palabras"; Pedro Abascal's more subtly emotive, untitled work uses street art as its backdrop.
Read the full article here.
Gallery artist Holly Andres recently exhibited work at the Fotografica Bogotá 2015 Biennial, the international exhibition of photography celebrating its 10th year in Bogotá, Colombia. Fellow exhibiting artists included David LaChapelle, Roger Ballen, and Julia Fullerton-Batten, among many others.
For more information about the Biennial, click here.
The New Yorker
May 18, 2015
By Vince Aletti
This survey of contemporary Cuban photography is timely, but, while nearly all the pictures were made this century, little of it looks new or inventive. Perhaps that's why the most satisfying works are black and white and rooted in the documentary tradition. Arien Chang, José Julián Martí, Jorge Louis Álvarez Pupo, and Pedro Abascal view their countrymen with the sort of penetrating concern that gets below the surface of everyday events, from a cock fight to a game of dominoes; in his portraits of gay men, Alejandro Gonzalez gives the revolution's outcasts a powerful presence.
Gallery artist Susan Rankaitis is featured in two current museum exhibitions:
One-of-a-kind
Unique Photographic Objects from the Center for Creative Photography
Doris and John Norton Gallery for the Center for Creative Photography
Phoenix Art Museum
April 11 - October 19, 2015
This exhibition challenges the expectation that photographs are infinitely reproducible multiples. Typically photographs are printed from a negative or digital capture, and can be produced in editions ranging from a few prints to several hundred. However, some photographic processes – including daguerreotypes, tintypes, and Polaroid prints – produce only a single, one-of-a-kind object. In other cases, artists choose to use materials in a way that produces a unique artwork, such as sculpting and collaging with or painting and drawing on photographs. The exhibition will include works from the entire history of the photographic medium, from the 1840s to the present day. Unique photographs by David Emitt Adams, Pierre Cordier, Betty Hahn, Bill Jay, Chris McCaw, Joyce Neimanas, Susan Rankaitis and Andy Warhol will be included.
Lens Work: Celebrating LACMA's Experimental Photography at 50
Hammer Building, Level 3
February 7 - July 4, 2015
Photography was founded on and developed as a result of experimentation: it is a technology-based practice rife with inherent uncertainties, despite its reputation for reliably documenting reality. This installation celebrates the curatorial drive informing over 50 years of collecting at LACMA, which embraces experimentation in photography.
From works by the medium’s earliest practitioners to those by contemporary artists, LACMA’s collection is rich in innovative examples of what is often referred to as “the magic of photography.” As lenses evolve and choices of final output increase, photographic practice will no doubt continue to inspire new ways of perceiving, seeing, and believing.
Appointments for private presentations can be scheduled in advance. Please contact us by email or phone.
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