News

The final exhibition at Capricious space, "THE SHOW MUST GO ON," is set to open this Friday, February 25th.  The show will feature the work of over 30 artists who have worked with Capricious in the past.  Melanie Bonajo, Emmeline de Mooij, Sam Falls, Peter Sutherland, Skye Parrott, Moll Surno, Zack Genin, Nicholas Gottlund, Sheila Pepe, Amy Harrington, Erin Jane Nelson, Anne Hall, Isabel Asha Penzlien, Diana Scherer, Amber Ibarreche, Bunny Rabbit, Jibz Cameron, Venus X, iO Tillett Wright, Collier Schorr, Agnes Thor, Nicky Lesser, Elizabeth Gilchrist, Katherine Hubbard and AK Burns, Christelle de Castro, Andreas Laszlo Konrath, Jessica Olm,Melissa Shimkovitz, Amelia Bauer, Santiago Mostyn, Martien Mulder, Zach Genin, Olivia Wyatt, Andrea Longacre White, Grant Willing, Lee Maida, Sophie Morner, Karen Codd.  

The Show Must Go On

February 25th - March 6th, 2011

Opening reception: Feb. 25th, 6 - 10 p.m 

becapricious.com

Is it art? Is it fashion? I have to say, in this one instance, that I don't care. All I know is that there is more to it than meets the eye, and it moved me. Philip-Lorca diCorcia's retrospective-y exhibition of his Eleven (hence, the title) W Magazine fashion stories is now on view at David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea. The image on the invitation card, and on the cover of the book of the same name, is devastating. That is, if you look at it closely, and understand the artist's whole oeuvre and know what he might think of the world we created and now inhabit, with all its problems of class and indifference. The woman's shadowed face on the right in the image is terrifying, and even more so when you realize where she is sitting, and when. The picture was made in September 2000 at Windows on the World in the World Trade Center, and the graphic architecture of the top of the other tower is clearly visible and larger than life in the background, sprinkled with tourists taking photographs, like miniatures from a train set of old Americana. If you think about the artist's last project, Lucky 13, and read the interview with him in which he stated that the images of the suspended strippers on poles were about the images of the falling figures from the top of the WTC on September eleventh, then you know that these innocent little figurines in the background, and this location itself, mean a great deal to him as well as the socialites at the table, and should to the viewer when looking at this work. The figures in almost all of the pieces look uncannily like wax, propped up like a really skillful, CGI-ed post-mortem photograph. The un-glassed inkjet prints look painterly, as the ink feels very thick and heavy and has a lot of presence while it almost blurs the edges. This is not all about luxury and style and extravagance, though one could easily just experience it on that level. But you'd be cheating yourself out of meditating on and understanding the complexities in this work. Sometimes, in order to comment on something, an artist, like a spy, must cloak oneself in camouflage, even if it they are high-end designer fatigues.

The big white book, eleven inches wide, is even better than the show, and that is saying a lot. It contains many more pictures, and moves you through a space that is knitted from scenes all over the world, doubling back to New York, making the reader feel like he or she is travelling through time. The book is published by the new imprint, Freedman Damiani, a collaboration between the Bolognese publisher and the former W Creative Director, Dennis Freedman. There's a good new interview with PL here: http://runway.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/q-a-philip-lorca-di-corcia/  In it, he reveals the prescient nature of the book: "It’s strange that the cover of the book is of the World Trade Center and the first image in the book is Cairo on fire. All that we’re hearing now about what has been happening in Egypt under Mubarak was happening then. If I was absolving my conscience of something it was to suggest that not everything is perfect and fashion isn’t just about clothes and beautiful people."

through March 5th, 2011 at David Zwirner, 525 West 19th St., NYC

http://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/232/index.htm

"Scrappin Upstate", a project facilitated by photojournalist Brenda Ann Kenneally, opens March 8th in Troy, New York. The installation is part of her ongoing "Upstate Girls" project, in which she has worked with women in tough situations in North Troy (next to state capital Albany) for the past seven years, documenting their lives and loves, their joy and pain - in school, at home, in jail, in hospitals, in court. She says, "The years that I documented The Upstate Girls have produced nuanced stories that are a mirror for young working class young people in America to realize their common strengths and identify moments where social change is possible." This particular series consists of scrapbooks made by some of her subjects,  in which current pictures and writing are paired with copies of pages form Victorian-era ladies' scrapbooks, full of ephemera like calling cards from the women who once peopled the bustling, thriving city of North Troy. This city was supposed to be a  prototype for Industrialed America; after all, it was the home of Uncle Sam, whose grave you can go visit today. At the end of the 19th century, Troy was one of the richest cities in the country. Today, most households in the neighborhoods where the Upstate Girls live receive public assistance, have loved ones in prison, and survive on minimum wage (or close to it)  made from service jobs.  Troy was once the "Collar City," and was a major manufacturing hub. Today, despite the colleges and a private school there, Troy appears to be a city well into decline, with abandoned buildings, shops that only last a few months, and drugs taking over blocks. Kenneally, however, is part of a bright spot, or several of them, being created in Troy today. The venue for this exhibition is also one of those bright spots, The Sanctuary for Independent Media, a repurposed old church that houses screenings, art shows, live music and lectures as well as a successfull teen video workshop. The "Scrappin' Upstate" workshop began at the aptly-named Sanctuary during “Troy Night Out,” in 2009. The young people who created the pages lived as extended family in homes directly on the block of the Sanctuary.

More of Kenneally and her colleagues' pro bono endeavors are collected on the website, The Raw File, such as a recent show, "This Time in America," at Art Basel in Miami, and also "The Tribe", which is a series about the foreclosure crisis in my own backyard in New Haven, CT: http://www.therawfile.org/stories/thetribe.html Many of the photographs are organized and edited into slide shows with audio from interviews with the subjects, thus giving them a voice and making the full scope of the powerful stories apparent to any viewer.

See the scrapbook project at

The Sanctuary

3361 6th Avenue

Troy, NY

March 8, 2011 - June 4, 2011

http://www.mediasanctuary.org/node/2339

And more online here: http://www.therawfile.org/stories/happy2011.html

From March 27th to April 1st, thousands of photographers will gather in Palm Springs for seminars, workshops and highly regarded portfolio reviews with museum curators, gallery directors, magazine editors, art directors and advertising agency creatives at the Palm Springs Photo Festival. 

For $75 a day, your pass includes:

* Admittance to 11 Seminars during the week

* Daily Symposiums: The Business of Fine Art, The Convergence Conference, Advocacy the Arts,  PDNPresents: Strategies for the Emerging Photographer

* Two Networking events with wine tastings from prominent California wineries

* Unlimited access to Sponsor Headquarters. See the latest from Canon, Epson, Blurb, Samy’s Camera, Fuji, X-Rite, onONE Software, Blend Images Agency, Aperture Foundation, and Marshall Electronics!

* Access to the Open Portfolio Review Sunday, March 27 at the Hyatt Regency. Over 80 photographers will be presenting their work!

* Invitation to our Opening Reception immediately following our Open Portfolio Review.

For more information about the festival and registration, click here. 

On January 27, 2001, "Nickel Empire: Coney Island Photographs 1898-1948" opened to the public at Schroeder, Romero and Shredder (somewhat of a scary name for a dealer in works on paper.) The photographer E.E. Rutter is featured, as this image of George C. Tilyou’s famous Funny Face is on view. The exhibition of  photos is supplemented with a charred wooden horse from the Steeplechase ride that survived one of the park’s infamous fires.

From the gallery's website: "Nickel Empire consists of over two dozen vintage photographs of Coney Island dating from 1889 to 1948, displaying in rare clarity the twentieth century’ s great American playground, once described as 'Sodom by the sea.' Coney Island was a sanctioned escape from—and alternative to—everyday reality. The various rides, reenactments of disasters, freak shows, and other amusements highlight America's obsession with a bliss tinged with danger, and the thrill we find in spectacle. The photographs in the exhibition include scenes of scale models of rides, incandescent night views, people at play, and the great Bowery fire, among others. Machines of industry were turned into instruments of play and let loose the bright forces and dark possibilities of a vast democratic culture that was astonished, delighted and appalled by Coney Island. Also on display is the charred remnant of a Steeplechase wooden horse, now a monument to America's lost innocence."

Through February 26, 2011 at Schroeder Romero Shredder

531 W 26th St, New York, NY 10001

212-630-0722

Gallery hours are Tuesday-Friday, 10 – 6; Saturday, 11 – 6

http://srandsgallery.com/index.php?/exhibitions/nickel_empire_coney_isla...