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Photographer Tim Davis goes video with a new show at SUNY New Paltz, in the Hudson Valley. Entitled "The Upstate New York Olympics," the always clever Davis stars in a series of performative short videos of himself at poignant play in the world he inhabits. With names like "Abandoned Building Bowling" and  "Snowman Ju Jitsu" and  "No Trespassing Parallel Bars", the enterprising artist does battle with the ephemera of everday things that he finds all around himself: a duck pillow in the trash, a blue asphalt-sided wall, a rusty pipe. Sometimes silly, sometimes serious, and always smart, the work reminds the viewer how to make do, with pride, of the post-industrial, commecial, often-disabused land we call home here in America. At times, the work seems like another way of approaching some of the topics he covered in his book of photographs, "My Life in Politics", but with some "Jackass" sensibility. Goofy seriousness, or serious goofiness - go see this show: http://www.newpaltz.edu/museum/exhibitions/future.html , or at least check out the videos online: http://www.davistim.com/videos/intro.html

March 30 – July 17, 2011
Opening reception, Friday, April 8, 2011, 5-7 pm

Howard Greenberg Family Gallery at SUNY New Paltz, curated by Brian Wallace

Thursday, April 28: Lecture by Tim Davis, Lecture Center room 102
1 Hawk Drive New Paltz, NY 12561 845.257.3844

The large back room of Krzysztof Wodiczko's show ...Out of Here: The Veterans Project, at Gallery Lelong, is darkened, the walls painted grey and the lights turned off.   Windows are projected high onto the gallery walls, creating the illusion that light is coming in from outside.  Audio fills the space as I fix my gaze on the passing clouds and sky seen through the windows.  Children are heard playing outside.  They are out of view on the other side of the wall.  Through the dirty industrial panes of glass I see their ball being tossed passed the windows.  They round the corner of the building, still tossing the ball, when suddenly it is thrown into the window, breaking the glass.  Women are heard calling to one another.  Its hard to identify their language, and its not until the silhouette and sound of a helicopter appear that i begin to place myself on either of the two fronts of America's wars.  A minute later, a military vehicle on patrol is heard moving along the same path as the children.  Muddled English speaking voices are heard over the crackle of radio communication.  Suddenly, there is an explosion.  A fireball rises up, breaking the window.  Chaos ensues.  Someone shouts, "I.E.D.," and as they are heard scrambling, a firefight erupts.  Bullets pierce the windows overhead.  Mortar rounds puncture the walls below, exposing blue sky.  The troops return fire, but struggle to identify the enemy.  They gather up their wounded, leaving an injured child in the street.  Moments after they leave, the women return to the scene and are heard screaming and crying.  

...Out of Here aims to simulate the impossibility of relating to the horrors of war without directly experiencing them.  In preparation for the piece, Wodiczko interviewed veterans and civilians of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The events that unfold, however, are anything but particular experiences.  The narrative felt familiar, culled from the headlines of western news stories.  The I.E.D., confusion and the disregard for civilian casualties represent the base elements of today's wars.  By omitting details of place, circumstance, and by making the people invisible, Wodiczko creates an abstract war zone.  This anonymity prevents the possibility of the viewer feeling any sense of loss.  A sense of danger and fright is attempted in the viewer, but the low budget digital rendering of the I.E.D. explosion fell flat.  It was around this point that I began to feel pushed into a corner.  The anonymity eclipsed any emotional interaction and the portrayal of violence only pointed out the situation's artifice.  Without a diligent attempt to represent conflict, how can we level an opinion on the effectiveness of that representation?   What kind of ball was played with?  Which war was being fought?  Which innocent child died?  These are the variables that make caring possible.  These were the variables that Wodiczko omitted to crassly illustrate a delicate problem.  

For more information visit: http://www.galerielelong.com/exhibitions/current

   The photograph Bichonnade, 40, Rue Cortambert, Paris (1905) (above) is perplexing. It looks like the photographer has asked a complicatedly-dressed young woman to jump off of the stairs for a picture. And it's not just a couple of stairs, it's like six or seven, and in the picture the woman looks like she is flying. At the turn of the 20th century, when photography was still a highly exclusive activity, left to professional practitioners and serious amateurs, who would have taken a picture like this?  The answer is a curious, pre-pubescent, affluent boy named Jacques Henri Lartigue. In a time when not many eleven-year-olds had access to photography, Lartigue's pictures stand out in the history of photography for their precociousness and their desire to make the world float.

   The Caixia Forum in Madrid is currently showcasing a retrospective of Lartigue called Un Mundo Flotante or A Floating World which is runs through June 19. Lartigue's photographs in this exhibition are from almost every stage stage of his life. From his infamous childhood self-portrait in the bathtub (assisted by his nanny) to late life photographs of his own shadow, Lartigue was the ultimate photo-enthusiast, and he followed the many technological changes--both photographically and otherwise--that were taking place in the world through the context of his own, charmed life.

   Lartigue's life, as it seems, was one of non-stop leisure. The subjects of his photographs are auto races, tennis matches, beautiful women, early airplanes, his well-to-do family and himself. His technique matured as he became a young man and he experimented with different types of processes such as stereo-photography and color photography in the form of early autochromes. What stayed consistent throughout his life however, was the existence of lightness and joy in his pictures. 

Thursday, March 24 is an exhibition opening at Morrison Hotel Gallery, 116 Prince Street, Soho, NYC, featuring photographs of Johnny Cash and friends by Jim Marshall, who shot five Cash album covers during his long, storied career as a rock and roll photojournalist. On view will be rarely-seen and iconic images taken between the mid- ’60s and mid-’70s, including intimate photos of the Cash family over a period of 30 years.

Beforehand, Michelle Dunn Marsh, editor and photo book designer, will be giving a brief talk/slideshow presentation from his last book, Pocket Cash, across the street at the Apple store,103 Prince St., at 7:00 pm, followed by the gallery opening in the Loft space at #116 until 10 pm.

Read more from Michelle on Marshall from one year ago here: http://www.chroniclebooks.com/blog/author/michelle-dunn-marsh/

Event info here: http://www.apple.com/retail/soho/

And here: https://www.morrisonhotelgallery.com/post/default.aspx?postID=139

Gallery hours:

11-6 Mon - Thurs
11-7 Fri - Sat
12 - 6 Sunday
Tel.  212-941-8770

The Laughter and Forgetting (L.A.F.) Project documents life on the road to democracy in the former Soviet state of Georgia by bringing together the work of many photographers, both Georgian and international. Through exhibits and an online Photoblog, photographers will be able to document life and address issues in Georgian society, creating a global community while bringing these concerns to the attention of the rest of the world.

The first theme of L.A.F. in Georgia is centered around the Internally Displaced People (IDPs); approximately 240,000 IDPs remain in the country whose population is only 4.5 million.

"L.A.F.'s goal is to bring much needed attention to the IDPs in Georgia," writes Sarah Martin, the Director of Communications for the L.A.F. Project, "who are still very much in need of attention as they struggle with inadequate housing, poor educational standards, sparse access to health care and a lack of socio-economic integration back into the community. We believe that bringing several photographers' work together for the exhibition will give a broader view of the crisis."

The L.A.F. Project is currently looking for photographers who have documented the IDPs in Georgia since the conflict in 2008. The work will initially be shown in the form of a short video at the Tbilisi Photo Fest in May 2011. The deadline to submit work for inclusion in the video is April 1, 2011. The L.A.F. Project will continue to accept submissions throughout the summer for the Photoblog and exhibits in Georgia and at Prague's Forum 2000 Human Rights Conference. For more information on how to submit, contact Sarah Martin at sarahalycemartin@yahoo.com.

http://www.lafproject.org