November 17th - December 1st
Johan Orellana lecture, Graffiti panel discussions + exhibits, Hip-Hop photography conversation + signing, Marble Hill Camera Club, exhibit on Puerto Rican art made in wake of Hurricane Maria, + more!
Hi all,
I’ve spent the last week looking at film and literature, more than I usually do and way more than I look at photographs. Thanks my amazing friend Marina Gandour, my friend and fantastic writer Kieran Press-Reynolds attended three amazing documentary screenings as part of the Doc NYC festival, which is still on-going! I got to meet one of my favorite directors Ramin Bahrani (I love his NYC character portrayals in his early Push Man Cart (2005) and Chop Shop (2007) films) after his 2nd Chance (2022) documentary screening where he follows Richard Davis, inventor of the bulletproof vest. The film was an in-depth look at Davis’s accomplishments and unrecognized short films, but ultimately as Bahrani said, it turns into an in-depth look at American culture and greed, and its consequences. One of my favorite documentaries we saw might be David Siev’s Bad Axe (2022), a profound portrayal of the director’s own family living in the little town of Bad Axe, Michigan where they struggle in the face of the pandemic to hold their family diner, Rachel’s, in order. The film hits theaters tomorrow, Friday. The whole family came out at the end of the screening for questions and conversation; they flew out the day before from Michigan for the screening. The last film we saw was Ben Lawrence & Gabriel Shipton’s documentary, Ithaka (2021), a film on Shipton and Julian Assange’s father, John Shipton as he works to save Assange from the United States’ extradition attempts and prosecution.
We also went to a great talk (recording above) between writers Hua Hsu and Ken Chan at the New York Public Library where Hsu was coming to the end of his book tour for Stay True, his new memoir on processing the grief of a close friend’s unexpected death, and their attached memories. Having seen Hsu speak before and now after finishing the book, I could better understand what he meant when he spoke about writing this book. Perhaps the strongest thought I walked away with was about Hsu speaking about the book being about the process of remembering, more than the memories themselves. He spoke to the foggy memory effects of recalling these stories and friends from years ago; he spoke candidly about sometimes misremembering, and how that’s part of processing grief and our memories.
As I work on my own photographs of family and relationships that I have with people, I appreciated Hsu’s reminder that the book is about his own individual relationship to this person. In the memoir, there is a moment when a friend asks if Hsu really knew them, which radically makes him— and the reader, too— re-think how often we might pride ourselves on truly knowing someone, knowing them “objectively,” a term that Chan profoundly described Hsu’s book as not being. Chan spoke to Hsu’s memoir not being an objective history of Hsu’s friend, but rather about Hsu’s individual journey in making sense of his friend and his passing, and maybe strangely enough through looking at his own self.
And last thing is I want to shout-out my friend and artist Mike Simoncelli who is currently working on their thesis about Jewish lesbian photographers and archives, if anyone has suggestions, recommendations, or insights. You can reach them on Instagram @mika.simoncelli or through email here, msimoncelli@college.harvard.edu.
Lisa Project NYC 10 Year Anniversary Artist Panel: City as Canvas: Graffiti's Evolution into the Mainstream, feat. Crash, Daze, and Sean Corcoran, Panel Moderated by Carlo McCormick at West Chelsea Contemporary (XXX)
Tonight, 11/17 6pm-8pm.
So this isn’t a photography event per-say but I think this is going to be an important discussion on art and culture at large, through the lens of graffiti— an art form I’m extremely passionate about and obsessed with understanding— between hugely influential creative forces, moderated by the renown East Village critic McCormick. And the Lisa Project does amazing work, connecting artists with public spaces. "Panel to begin promptly at 6:30pm. Followed by a print dedication with the artists." RSVP here, https://www.eventbrite.com/e/city-as-a-canvas-artist-panel-tickets-465522499327?aff=ebdshpsearchautocomplete. Free.
REWIND: Celebrate the History of Hip-Hop in Visual Culture with Photographers Martha Cooper, Joe Conzo, and Janette Beckman at the International Center of Photography
Tonight, 11/17 6pm-9pm
Artist Susan Schiffman originally introduced me to Beckman’s phenomenal work following Hip-Hop after attending her tour of her Contact High exhibit at ICP. Schiffman and I came to run into Beckman outside on our block in Summer, 2020. $5 tickets. I’ve always wanted to really meet Cooper considering her thorough documentation of New York City graffiti culture, and being a Lower East Side local, but never mustered the courage besides asking if she would speak at my high school, and complimenting her dog when I saw her walking through Tompkins Square Park. Conversation starts at 6:30pm, followed with a book signing. Tickets are $5 here.
Opening Reception for no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria at the Whitney Museum of American Art (99 Gansevoort St.)
Tonight, 11/17 8pm-10pm
OK, so this is actually a Members’ only opening reception but I’m really looking forward to seeing this show. A lot of talent in the show like artists Gabriella N. Báez and Elle Pérez. But the exhibit opens to the public on 11/23 so it’s not a big deal, but still frustrating. If anyone has a membership and wants to bring a plus one, please let me know. 😭 There will be a free online public talk with the show’s curators on 11/29, see here.
A History of New York City Graffiti at Howl Happening (6 East 1st St.)
Saturday, 11/19 6pm-8pm
Another graffiti-focused event but also with the great lens-based artists Charlie Ahearn, Henry Chalfant, and Martha Cooper! I love following graffiti culture because of that beautiful intersection of photography and filmmaking as a tool to document and preserve this ephemeral art making. Some other legends included are CRASH, Lee Quiñones, and TAKI 183 among many others. The show runs till 1/29/23 and will begin its “second part” on 12/3 at Howl! Arts / Howl! Archive (250 Bowery Second Floor). Free.
Claudio Eshun, Cassie Jain, Brian Bee, and Beth A. Gilbert at the Marble Hill Camera Club (Online)
Saturday, 11/19 6:30pm EST
I was fortunate to hear curator and artist Patrice Helmar, founder of the Marble Hill Camera Club speak this past week through the Institute for Contemporary Art’s Wavelenth talk series. I’m hoping my schedule lines up to tune into another club meeting; it’s always a joy to be introduced to new work and see familiar faces in the audience. DM @marblehillcameraclub for Zoom link or find in their bio 10 minutes before the meeting. Free.
Life After Bard: Johan Orellana, Co-hosted by Laura Steele at the Bard Student Run Darkroom (Online)
Monday, 11/21 6pm EST
I can’t express how excited I am for this conversation between the talented artists Orellana & Steele, hosted by the Student Run Darkroom— a student initiative I helped spearhead a few years ago. Orellana is a mentor, and good friend. I annoy him frequently with questions about photography and the arts, so I’m glad there’ll be a concentrated space to hear him speak more. You truly do not want to miss this. Zoom link posted here, https://linktr.ee/barddarkroom, 10 minutes before meeting. Free.
John Ahearn & Rigoberto Torres: Swagger and Tenderness, The South Bronx Portraits at the Bronx Museum of the Arts (1040 Grand Concourse)
On view until 4/30/23
Harry Benson: Moments at Staley Wise Gallery (100 Crosby Street #305)
On view until 11/23
Close Enough: New Perspectives from 12 Women Photographers of Magnum at the International Center of Photography (79 Essex Street)
On view until 1/9/23
William Eggleston: The Outlands at David Zwirner (525 & 533 W. 19th St.)
On view until 12/17
An Expression of Absence: Selections from the Arab Documentary Photography Program at the Magnum Foundation (59 East 4th Street #7W) & the Bronx Documentary Center (614 Courtlandt Ave.)
On view until 12/18
Jill Freedman: A Night at the FDNY Museum at the New York City Fire Museum (278 Spring St.)
On view until 4/2/23
Alex Harsley: A Photography Exhibition at Studio One (59-61 E. 4th St. #3W)
On view until 11/18 — ENDS TOMORROW, HIGHLY ENCOURAGED!
Utopian Voyage, Curated by Kay Hickman: Albany Andaluz, Asherde Gil, and Cristina Bartley Dominguez at the Children's Art Carnival (62 Hamiliton Terrace)
On view until 12/1 (by appointment only)
Tommy Kha: Má at Higher Pictures Generation (16 Main Street)
On view until 11/26
Our Mother the Mountain at La MaMa Galleria (47 Great Jones St.)
On view until 12/9 — featuring the great artist Patricia Voulgaris
Xaviera Simmons: Crisis Makes a Book Club at Queens Museum (Flushing Meadows Corona Park)
On view until 3/5/23
It's Time for Me to Go: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2021-22 at MoMA PS1 (22-25 Jackson Avenue)
On view until 2/27/23
Time Management Techniques at the Whitney Museum of American Art (99 Gansevoort St.)
On view until 1/8/23
Joel-Peter Witkin: The Early Works at Bruce Silverstein (529 W. 20th St. #3W)
On view until 1/14/23
The artist Susan Schiffman has been working on her photography project, I am a rent-stabilized tenant, for the last six years— going into East Village rent-stabilized apartment, photographing the interior (never the tenants), and asking them the same three questions. Why did you move to the East Village? How did you find your apartment? What do you love about your apartment? The work started originally as a column for EVGrieve, a neighborhood blog that East Villagers read as their daily paper. Since then, she started sharing the work on Instagram, but now is working on turning the project into a book. I’ve been assisting her in this endeavor, trying to figure out how the book format can enrich the photographs in a cohesive and unique way that’s different than the blog or Instagram format. I want to understand how to turn the book into a space that doesn’t feel merely like an extension of the photographs or the column or Instagram account, but something that can be individually understood and enlightening.
It’s helping me understand for myself what makes a photography book an artistic object, rather than a simple “catalogue” as publisher Michael Mack says he tries to avoid making. Trying to understand the book format, I’ve turned to listening to Mack speak on his process. I’m including some of the videos I’ve turned to for inspiration. He speaks to how his interest in bookmaking is to help artists who feel constricted by other exhibition settings.
The first video follows artist Clare Strand as she works with Mack to make a book, and features along the way some insights into the bookmaking process by Mack and his colleagues, as well as Strand herself. Also, I originally watched this video casually a few years ago, but after attending the New York Art Book Fair this year and visited publisher Loose Joints booth and lectures, I recognized Lewis Chaplin, co-founder of Loose Joints in the video, where I learned he acted as Senior Designer at MACK.
While thinking about the photography book format, I’ve also been thinking back to artist Larry Sultan’s Pictures from Home (1992). I believe I came across the book originally in my freshman year at Bard College from some friend or professor’s recommendation. I remember artist and friend Eli Jensen telling me more about Sultan’s work, being that Jensen’s work focuses on the construction of Los Angeles and its culture in terms of their home and its identity as a commercial business. I remember not caring for the book, foolish as it sounds. I thought the pictures were what people cared about! The grid format of Sultan’s family’s home video screengrabs, and the careful inspection of his father and mother’s relationship to one another and himself seen in the photograph. It wasn’t until maybe my senior year at Bard, that I went to the Stevenson Library and started reading the text. Writer and friend Hannah Applebaum was coincidentally walking by and we started conversing about how one deliberately writes, photographs, and makes art about their family in more than a sentimental way. I started criticizing Sultan’s book, saying this was known as the staple of the family photograph project, but that a family project should be more— it should be more critical. Yet, after reading more of the book, I started seeing the critique there. It was in the dialogue of his father and himself— where as I referenced in my From Here On Out conversation with artist Alice Fall—
RT: I block the nuance of images sometimes. Sometimes I want to make pictures that speak more to my understanding of people, rather than their idealized understanding of themselves. In Larry Sultan’s Pictures from Home, his father is talking to him about these pictures of his mom, saying your mother doesn’t look good in these, how could you picture your mom like this and Sultan was like these pictures are honest to me, you don’t have to see that in her, you have your own relationship with her, but this is my relationship to her. So sometimes I get caught up on who I make the picture for. And how does the emotional resonance operate differently? What I like about your pictures is that it feels like you’re depicting your family in ways that seem more like a display of a truth. I wouldn’t say a lot of the pictures are portraits, because there is so much motion and movement in them. They can’t fit into the category of ‘portraits.’ I would think of them as operating differently. They display more than just ‘a character’.
This brings me back to the book format. I want to understand the book format better. Recently, I was reminded of Sultan’s writing by artist and friend Pierce Sapper (he’s got a great update website with new pictures) who shared a Sultan quote on Instagram. I started turning to Sultan’s lectures and writing. I found a YouTube video of a 2008 BAM/PFA panel discussion between Sultan, Mike Mandal, and Jim Goldberg where Sultan describes making Pictures from Home, but then the video cuts off. Fortunately, Sultan’s website has an archive of his interviews and provides the full transcript of the panel discussion.
If you have any insights, advice, or thoughts on bookmaking, please let me know. I’d love to hear how you think the book can make one’s pictures stronger, or even weaker.
Xoxo
Rainer