News

Tomorrow heralds the first day of NYC FOTOWORKS 2011 Spring Portfolio Review. This event, which runs from June 15-17, offers portfolio reviews from a diverse group of established professionals within the photography world. This is also an opportunity for networking, seeing the work of others, gaining perspective and perhaps even some inspiration. There is no logical reason as to why the novice or veteran photographer would not partake in this unqiue occasion. For more info on NYC FOTOWORKS, visit: http://www.nycfotoworks.com

Inspired by the Farm Security Administration photography project during the Great Depression, Facing Change: Documenting America is a collective of acclaimed photojournalists and writers exploring America's most pressing concerns—from health care to immigration to the cost of the war on terror. The photographers and writers working with FCDA are dedicated to covering and publishing under-reported aspects of these issues, giving voice to new perspectives.

"As media outlets yield to corporate considerations, narrowing their coverage of vital issues, FCDA is acting to fill that gap by humanizing a wide spectrum of neglected and misunderstood issues."

They have covered stories ranging from veterans as they reintegrate into civilian life; the economic crisis in the Rust Belt; a nonprofit focused on aiding incarcerated women after they are released from jail; to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, home of the nation's poorest city.

As part of their commitment to changing public discourse rather than simply raising awareness, the visual and textual narratives created through FCDA will be made accessible through an online platform—called the Public Sphere—that will allow viewers to engage in direct dialogue with the stories and issues, and to suggest stories they feel need to be covered.

See stories and learn more at the Facing Change: Documenting America website at http://facingchange.org/

Vintage Photographs by Henry Wessel will be on view at NYC's Pace/MacGill Gallery from April 21 through July 8, 2011

From the press release:

Since the 1960s, Wessel has photographed vernacular scenes of the American West, particularly in California. Immediately drawn to the quality of light he encountered during a visit from New York to Los Angeles, Wessel moved cross-country to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1971. From stretches of dusty highway to modest California bungalows framed by telephone poles and palm trees, Wessel's often spare and solitary images capture the idiosyncrasies and irony of American life with a wry objectivity. His photographs of parking lots, beach-goers, and shrubbery -- all illuminated by the brilliance of Western light -- find beauty and intrigue in the commonplace and document the social landscape in a manner that is casual yet formally compelling.

The exhibition marks Wessel’s first show at the gallery and features over 30 vintage gelatin silver prints made between 1968 and 1987. The artist will be present at an opening reception on Thursday, April 21 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

32 East 57th St., near Madison Ave.

NY, NY

www.pacemacgill.com

Daily Dispatches: Nairobi is an innovative exploration through photojournalism of a fast-evolving 21st-century African city, unfolding day by day in real time.

Writer Mike Pflanz and photographer Brendan Bannon will spend each day in April documenting stories from the city, creating a "compelling, informative and surprising portrait of the city, and the lives lived by those who call it home." Pflanz and Bannon have a combined 12 years of experience working in Nairobi, which they describe as "emblematic of the developing world's perilous rush to urbanize."

Each day, the images and reports will be sent to supporting Universities—Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College, Quick Center for the Arts at St. Bonaventure University, and Bakersfield College—where they will be presented in an exhibition that is updated daily so that students will be able to experience photojournalism in real-time, and to spend more time reflecting on the images and stories. "The students and others passing by will be confronted by a version of Africa that they don't see everyday."

Daily Dispatches: Nairobi challenges the stereotypical imagery of Africa that is often portrayed by newspapers and traditional photojournalism. "I worked for the past five years for a variety of newspapers and magazines," writes Bannon, "each of which has its own expectations for images, its own sense of what a story from Africa should look like. If you are doing a story from a refugee camp, for example, editors expect an image of deep squalor….In too many minds Africa exists as the land of lions and safaris and mud huts, or a locus of suffering, HIV, poverty and chaos."

By freeing themselves from these editorial constraints, Pflanz and Bannon are able to focus on a wider variety of stories—so far they have covered the Kenya Derby; Shujaaz.fm — a group of hipsters, artists and designers that uses a comic book, radio show and other media to address the issues of Kenyan youth; and have profiled a variety of small businesses in the slums and the people who run them. Ultimately, by treating its subjects as equals, whose "motivations, worries and passions are not so removed" from the viewers seeing the blog, the project creates not only a richer and more nuanced depiction of Nairobi, but a more respectful one as well.

Keep up with the project on the Daily Dispatches: Nairobi blog and Facebook page, where viewers are encouraged to comment on images, ask questions and suggest stories that they would like to see.

Conceptual artist/filmmaker/photographer Stan Douglas presents a new body of work that was created in 2010, but made to appear like it might have been made in the 1950's. Douglas and crew shot black-and-white digital images, which were printed with a Lightjet onto traditional silver-gelatin fiber paper, of actors in situations that one might have found in a mid-Twentieth centrury newspaper, catalog or company's files. They are a bit off, though, in a good way, and point to a possibility that something may be askew: a terrifying clown with juggled ball in mid-air, a set of Chinese linking rings that might (or might not) reveal the magician's trick, a "whatsit?" jumble of old-time wires and buttons in a wooden drawer - entitled just "Machine, 1948." With a wink and a nod to Weegee, the show takes you back in time, but keeps you hovering there, everywhere and nowhere all at once.

The press release says that "Douglas has assumed the role of a fictional, anonymous photographer to create a series of images hypothetically produced between 1945-1951. To do so, he constructed a veritable “midcentury studio” using authentic equipment as well as actors to produce carefully staged, black-and-white photographs that painstakingly emulate the period’s obsession with drama, “caught-in-the-moment” crime-scenes, curious and exotic artifacts, magicians, fashion, dance, gambling, and technology."

A fully illustrated catalogue, edited by Tommy Simoens, will be published by Ludion Press on the occasion of the show, featuring an introduction to Midcentury Studio by the artist and essays by Christopher Phillips and Pablo Sigg.

"Midcentury Studio"

David Zwirner Gallery, at both 525 and 533 West 19th Street, NYC

Through April 23, 2011

www.davidzwirner.com