Entries from December 2009
December 22, 2009 | Details | Comments (0)
William Larson, Landscape as Fiction
Remember our Thanksgiving collection image set? Well, we??ve done it again! In honor of the many approaching holidays, and those that are already here, we??ve put together an image set on our collections page to represent a few characteristics of this wonderful holiday season.
The advanced search feature of the collections site allows for searches by artist, medium, title, date, description and even credit line. We entered the terms ??snow,? ??family,? ??coat,? ??winter,? ??holiday,? and various others, into the description field to yield the images below.
By registering and logging into the MoCP collections web page, you can create and save your own sets and favorite images and share them with other users. Registration is simple - Just enter your email address and hit submit.
Log in today and enter share ID: rbcxuaug to see the rest of the images in our MoCP holiday montage set. Start creating your own sets today!
Simon Roberts, Taxis Cross the Frozen Lena River, Yakutsk, 2008
Paul Dahlquist. Our Party, New Years Eve! (Postcard folio of San Francisco), 1983
December 15, 2009 | Details | Comments (0)
Brian Ulrich, Schaumburg, IL 2004 (Small Animals)
The Morning News??s Nozlee Samadzadeh interviews Brian Ulrich about his urban decay photographs. Ulrich??s images are especially intriguing this time of year. The abandoned shopping centers stand in stark contrast to the local malls bustling with holiday shoppers. Conjuring concerns and questions of consumer culture behavior, Ulrich??s images are sure to make us think about our own purchasing behaviors this year. A slide show of Ulrich??s work appears above the interview. (Ulrich was also featured on NPR??s The Story earlier this year ??- read and listen.)
Lynn Goldsmith, Time on Her Hands from the In the Looking Glass series, 2004
Lynn Goldsmith is the featured artist at the annual conference of the Photo Imaging Education Association in February. The association honors ??her thirty years of photographic investigation into the nature of the human spirit and the natural wonders of our planet.?
Eirik Johnson, Untitled, 2002 (#18 white plastic tarp landscape)
Richard Woodward highlights a few outstanding photography books in the Wall Street Journal??s ??Lenses on the World.? He draws attention to the printed publication??s slow decline, but optimistically states: ??Electronic devices simply can't match (so far) the substantial pleasure of looking at??and owning??pictures on a paper page.? Artists featured among the publications: Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Simon Roberts, Irving Penn (the final book overseen by Penn before his death), Joel Meyerowitz, and Eirik Johnson. (Buy a Simon Roberts print here).
And finally, influential and exploratory photographer Larry Sultan has died. The New York Times surveys Sultan??s photographic career in its obituary post. The post draws attention to Sultan??s project with partner Mike Mandel, which featured unnamed and unexplained images from institutional photo archives, and Sultan??s Pictures from Home publication.
December 11, 2009 | Details | Comments (0)
Collection artist, friend, and former employee of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Curtis Mann, was announced today as a Whitney Biennial 2010 artist! This summer, Mann was one of three artists featured in MP3: Volume II, an exhibition of artists from the Midwest Photographer??s Project. We were privileged to speak with Mann regarding this incredible and exciting news.
Photographer, scratch (Beirut), from the Modifications series, 2007
As always, Mann was modest and gracious as he described feeling excited by the announcement (he may have jumped in the air once) and noted his effort to stay levelheaded about the news. Mann was able to choose which piece he wanted to show. He is calm and collected right now, as the work has already been created and there??s not much to do other than wait until February. However, Mann suggested that his nerves may come once he??s in New York and the show begins. At the time of our conversation, Mann was unaware of the other artists in the show, but expressed an eagerness to know if any of his ??artist heroes? might share the space with him or visit the museum.
Mann hopes Biennial viewers are interested in the work and looks forward to how they respond to it, especially within the context of the Biennial and in the presence of the other artists. The opportunity to show his work to such a large audience excites him and he and sees this exposure and viewership as a chance to test the validity of the work.
Boy and carving (Iraq), from the Modifications series, 2007
Though he plans to celebrate with friends and family in New York, Mann also looks forward to speaking more with the Biennial??s curators, Francesco Bonami (who conducted the studio visit with Mann here at the MoCP!) and Gary Carrion-Murayari, as well as the Whitney??s director, Adam Weinberg.
The MoCP staff is thrilled for Mann and wishes him nothing but the best for the Whitney show and for his future work. Congratulations, Curtis! Much MoCP love!
Read the NYT feature.
Visit the Whitney Biennial 2010 site.
See Mann??s MoCP collection images.
Watch a video of Mann working in the studio.
December 2, 2009 | Details | Comments (0)
Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, 1936
Author Linda Gordon has written a new biography of the life and work of Dorothea Lange, entitled Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits. PBS correspondent Jeffrey Brown discussed the biography with Gordon during the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on November 23.
Watch as Gordon describes the ways in which Lange translates her skills in San Francisco portraiture to her photographic vision for the Farm Security Administration. Gordon suggests it was Lange??s idea to include people in her images for the FSA (as her task was to photograph the landscape) and describes the compositional strategies of images like the iconic Migrant Mother.
A Winter??s Provender, 1953
Gordon quotes Lange as having said: ??A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.? Lange??s FSA images evidence her ability to see and depict a group of people and a crucial time in the country??s history. With images as beautiful and heartfelt as these, it is clear that Lange??s vision enabled her to capture emotion and complexity that existed well beyond the parameters of her camera.
Watch a slide show from the interview.
See more Lange??s photographs at the MoCP collection site.
