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This Friday, Asia Song Society--the Chinatown gallery owned by the artist Terrence Koh, enticingly poised between relative obscurity and big-league notoriety--will hold a reception for its upcoming show, titled Open Sesame (The Blue Floor Show). The exhibition was curated by Tim Barber, the creator of tinyvices and a photographer whose portfolio includes work for T Magazine, MUSE, and lookbooks for Stella McCartney, Opening Ceremony and Nike.

Barber's selection for Open Sesame features works by Andrew Kuo, Aurel Schmidt, Matt Keegan, Ryan McGinley and Sam Falls--a diverse collection of photographers, painters, and multimedia artists, perhaps united only by their young age and refreshingly hip sensibilities. Asia Song Society is indubitably an ideal arena for these artists to be displayed; Sandra Ballentine of T Magazine describes the gallery (or "pop-up art store") as a "gritty space" whose openings attract "good-looking, art-loving hipsters who cluster on the sidewalk for a smoke." Indeed, Terrence Koh may very well be changing the art-world paradigm by pushing the scene further downtown and harvesting a young and decidedly newer crowd. 

The reception for Open Sesame (The Blue Floor Show) will be held from 7-9pm on Friday, July 15th. Asia Song Society is located at 45 Canal Street, New York NY. Visit the ASS website for more information. 

FotoKonbit is a non-profit organization producing and teaching photography workshops in Haiti.

The organization was “created to empower Haitians to tell their own stories through photography. [...] Inspired by the Creole word “konbit” which can be defined as the coming together of similar talents in an effort towards a common goal, we use our skills as photographers, educators, and artists to make a positive difference, through photography. By partnering with established Haitian organizations, FotoKonbit is uniquely positioned to inspire hope through creative expression and provide Haitians with the opportunity to document their reality and share it with the largest possible audience.”

The FotoKonbit team is made up of Frederic Dupoux, Ralph Dupoux, Maggie Steber, Marie Arago, Noelle Theard and Edwidge Danticat.

Images from the project were featured in this year's LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph, and on TIME magazine's photography blog Lightbox. Read the entry here.

From Lightbox: "At a time when the world’s attention has moved away from Haiti, Fotokonbit is giving Haitians themselves an opportunity to represent themselves photographically, and finding original and compelling ways to use photography to call attention back to Haiti and its struggles."
 

You have most likely heard of Hilly Kristal, of CBGB's fame, but have you ever heard of Randy Now? Mailman by day, ballsy punk rock music booker by night, and avid record collector at all hours. In the 80's and 90's, just down the Turnpike from NYC, on the way to Philly, sat a concrete bunker with a jaunty musical note logo that read "City Gardens." The place was a punk and hardcore mecca in Trenton, NJ, the only place around you could see bands like Nine Inch Nails and Die Warsaw and Black Flag. Jersey wasn't just for fans of the Boss. The band list is like a who's who; everyone played there, who knows why, since the club was in "one of the worst parts of the city," according to the current website of the film "Riot on the Dance Floor", a documentary in production by director Steve Tozzi, which includes vintage photos by photographer Ken Salerno. Also involved as co-producer is the one we knew as "Sicko," Steven DiLodovico, a club regular who wrote the book "No Slam Dancing, No Stage Diving, No Spikes: How City Gardens Defined an Era."

The book title comes from a sign in one fo the photographs: "NO SLAM DANCING, NO STAGE DIVING, NO SPIKES". There was, of course, the danger of all of the above. "I knew to stay all the way the F in the back. It was no place for girls in that mosh pit," says my friend, Laura, who stood just shy of 5 feet tall, even in her high-laced Doc Martens. "It was a City Gardens F-in mosh pit, not just any mosh pit!" She recently recounted a story to me about seeing a Suicidal Tendencies show there somewhere around '89-'91. She was up near the front at the bar on the side when a mosh pit broke out and began to move closer and closer, like a fast-moving hurricane. Unable to escape on her own, she was miraculously rescued by a long-haired Native American man, who whisked her away and took her to safety. They shared a Coca Cola, and made out in the car on the way back to the Philly suburbs.

Which brings me to my own, personal, big question mark. Where was I in all of this? Why did I never make that trip across the Delaware to see the Ramones or Ministry? The answer must have had something to do with the fact that I was lucky enough to own a car at age 16, 17. "The called it Shitty Gardens for a reason," Laura says. "You probably refused to drive. Everyone's car got broken into. Nobody ever wanted to drive. It was ghetto. You didn't hang out afterwards, go out to eat. You went from the club to your car and that's it."

More info about the project is at: http://www.citygardensfilm.com/

or at their Kickstarter page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/457419391/riot-on-the-dance-floor

There's a great trailer with an interview with former bartender, Jon Stewart. Yes, that Jon Stewart. You can even pledge some dough to help the movie go forward.

For more stories, see: http://allthingscitygardens.wordpress.com/author/sick138/

The Huis Marseille Museum for Photography is currently exhibiting a retrospective of photographer Adam Fuss - a man whose creativity and technical prowess has provided over three decades of work that has graced the walls of many a prestigious museum and now those of the Huis. Organized by Fundacion MAPFRE along with the artist and Cheryl Brutvan, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Norton Museum, this collection of approximately fifty images ranges in content, production and period. The silhouettes of god's little creatures (snakes and rabbits to name a few) are not only visually stunning but call attention to (one of) the cameraless photographic process Fuss has become an expert in: the photogram. As the official press release writes: Here and there his printing technique is reminiscent of the zeal and the limitations with which Daguerre and Fox Talbot, the disputed founders of photography, wanted to put their discoveries into practice. This statement is indisputably accurate - Fuss has made the largest dauguerreotypes in the world, two of which are on display at the Huis. Technical skill aside, Fuss is an artist whose work will be beneficial to its viewer.  In simple terms: this is a very exciting exhibition and should be visited if you're in the area. 

"Adam Fuss: A Survey of his Work: 1986 - 2010" runs until September 4, 2011. 

For more information on the exhibition, visit: http://www.huismarseille.nl/nl/tentoonstelling/adam-fuss ">http://www.huismarseille.nl/nl/tentoonstelling/adam-fuss

Ireland's biennial photo festival, The Belfast Photo Festival, will be bringing culture, creativity and the photographic community together this August. The exhibition lineup is looking stellar with a wide range of photographers from all over the globe. Photographer Kenneth O'Halloran, amongst a few others, represents Ireland with his exhibition entitled "Tales From the Promised Land" - a reflection on the late housing boom collapse, which has transformed areas of Ireland into half-completed ghost towns; void of inhabitants and the life Ireland's economy once promised. The US is present with photographer Allan Sekula, whose exhibition "Polonia and Other Fables" explores his ancestral ties to Poland, the Polish diaspora in Chicago and current Polish-American relations as we see them today. The image that has now become the image for the 2011 Belfast Photo Festival (visit the website) captures the shock and sensation we all experience when cool sun tanning lotion touches hot, sun-kissed skin. This image belongs to Madrid-native Lucia Herrero, whose show "Tribes" will grace the City Hall screen of the Belfast Photo Festival. If the beach is a temple for some, then its worshippers are the tribe Herrero has documented in this series. Herrero's color photography is beautiful and those photographs are only a few of the hundreds of images one will see at the 2011 Belfast Photo Festival. For more information on events and the other artists exhibiting work, visit: www.belfastphotofestival.com and for FB, visit: http://www.facebook.com/people/Belfast PhotoFestival/100001844673771

The Belfast Photo Festival will run from August 4 - August 14th