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Isabel Muñoz, "Infancia," Caixa Forum, Madrid, Spain.

Sept. 16, 2010 – Jan. 15, 2011

Marking the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of a Child, an ambitious photographic survey is now on view at the Caixa Forum in Madrid. The exhibition uses articles from the official UNICEF framework—that states that all children, no matter what the nationality have the same rights—as a platform to advocate for disenfranchised children around the world.

The physical installation of the project is remarkable. The images are presented as five-foot high double-sided lightboxes (I would estimate that there are about 75 of them spanning two floors of the Caixa) and each of the images is an environmental portrait of a child and some contextual information.

The idea of equality is reinforced by the astounding variety of images on display. While the most powerful images are undoubtedly the images of children in tragic situations, the exhibition contains a diverse survey of children in different situations all around the world; from a young, HIV positive child in Senegal to an upper-middleclass child in suburban New Jersey. The mission of UNICEF of advocacy of the world’s young people is effectively reinforced and visualized as each child stands proudly and strongly; illuminated and preserved.

The genesis of the project was as a story for the weekly periodical El Pais Semanal, a leading Spanish publication, specializing in reportage. Isabel Muñoz and five other journalists traveled to various locations on four continents to complete the project. The project then received additional support from UNICEF and the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Following the current exhibition period in the Madrid, it will travel to Barcelona in the spring .

The proliferation of lens-based mechanisms developed since the turn of the century has added to the possibilities of visual communication and, more contentiously, voyeurism and surveillance. Through devices such as cell phone cameras and online webcams, the world has become more visually connected—and exposed. In response, many artists are now exploiting such technology to help facilitate their artwork. German photographer Michael Wolf (b. 1954), whose exhibition "iseeyou" is now on view at the Bruce Silverstein Gallery through December 24, is among them.

For his most recent series, Street Views, Wolf explored the streets of Paris and New York via the Street View function in Google Maps. This platform, released three years ago by Google, enabled Wolf to approach some of the most photographed cities in the world, but this time from a new perspective. By scouring Google's "ready-made" Street Views, Wolf looked for bizarre, intimate, and often candid interactions. And he found plenty: a motorcyclist flipping off the camera, say, or a woman standing bare naked along the coast of an ocean. In the gallery setting, his cropped appropriations stand as large-scale raster images, intentionally blurred and attractively pixelated.

For his other bodies of work included in the exhibition — Tokyo Compression, Architecture of Density, and Transparent City — Wolf photographed with a telephoto lens. As a result, the photographer bares a genuine sense of detachment from his subjects. Whether it's passengers crammed against the glass of a Tokyo subway car or high rises in Hong Kong or open-faced office buildings in Chicago, Wolf's photographs all reflect on the public-versus-private dichotomy inherent with living and working in a city. By studying these urban centers as well as the social contracts of their inhabitants, Wolf's photographs give one a greater sense of how municipalities function and, in many cases, allow one to see these cities anew.

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In concurrence with the "iseeyou" exhibition, Wolf also acted as Curator for an exhibition of photographs by renowned Hungarian photographer André Kertész (1894-1985). Titled "City Views," this supplementary exhibition features some of Kertész's photographs of New York City from the 1960s and 70s that happen to share many of the same subjects and techniques as Wolf's photographs: office buildings at night, high vantage points, and city scenes open to the public view. The inclusion of Kertész's telephoto imagery establishes compositional and symbolic interplay with Wolf's photographs while also providing a significant historical reference.

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"iseeyou" and "City Views" are on view at the Bruce Silverstein Gallery through December 24, 2010.

What is it about November and the birth of great photographers? On November 9th, 1924, Robert Frank was born in Zurich to Rosa and Hermann Frank, and grew up to be one of the most influential, important photographers in history. "It is always the instantaneous reaction to oneself that produces a photograph." -Robert Frank

This week, on Sunday November 10th, in 1935, Walker Evans visited Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a small city right next to Allentown, in an area well-known for its steel production, the Lehigh Valley. Accompanying him was photographer Peter Sekaer and Sekaer's wife, Elizabeth. When the trio arrived here, they were not very far into the first federal assignment trip that produced many of the pictures that make up his oeuvre, "American Photographs." This particular day, he made several well-known pictures: of the local train station, of the bridge to New Jersey in neighboring Easton, and in St. Michael's Cemetery alone, made two that endure: the sculptural portrait grave of Maria Fanella and her son Antionio Castellucci, and the view of brick rowhomes before the blast furnaces and stacks of the dark and formidable steel mill, punctuated by a grand cross in the immediate foreground.

I am happy to report that first grave still stands by the street, but sad to report that the cross in the landscape is gone. The photo that appears here is not shot from the spot where Evans stood with his long lens, but from a bit higher and to the right of his probable station. (Ann account of the visit is in the Mellow biography.) This is probably not a surprise to some reading this, as many photographers have clearly made the pilgrimage to Bethlehem. A simple Google search confirms this. The trip was especially important for me to make, as my grandfather grew up on East 3rd Street, one block over and a few blocks down from this site on East 4th Street. I had not been there since I was a child. My vague memories of that previous trip involved a natural spring and a fossil; that's about it. This summer, I finally learned that my great-grandfather, a Hungarian immigrant, built two houses and a coal distributing company, East End Coal Company, directly across the street from the Bethlehem Steel Mill, where he and his sons had also worked, according to census records. My great aunts still live there, and one told me she recalled walking past the cemetery every day on the way to school. She had never heard of Walker Evans or seen his work, but she happily drove me around to check in at the various locations. The cemetery, owned by the Holy Infancy Catholic Church, is somewhat in disrepair, but much less so than it has been in previous decades. A newspaper search in the Bethlehem Room of the local library contains many articles about annual volunteer clean-ups over the years, organized by the St. Michael’s Preservation Association. Many stones had been toppled due to vandalism, including the one in question, I thought. John T. Hill, Evans's executor and a well-known voice in the Evans world, offered this, that the most likely "story being that the family removed the cross and angel to another location," and that there is "no information about the new location." So the cross is gone, but much of the once grand steel mill remains, though it is really mostly just that right now: remains. The security guard told me it has hosted production of movies like both "Transformers" movies. The sight of celebs like Catherine Keener jogging is not so strange around these parts, or so I hear. Part of the property is now a Sands Casino, and the other part stands in anticipation of the future opening of the National Museum of Industrial History, in partnership with the Smithsonian.

Check out their well-designed website in the meantime: www.nmih.org. The small city seems to have its head on straight about repurposing and reinventing itself and celebrating its heritage, at the same time. If you don't mind a lot of people in town, and are in the mood for some live music, visit during the annual music festival, another reinvention that proves he town knows how to keep moving forward: http://www.musikfest.org/. As for the local Evans tour and exhibition, it already happened in 2008, sponsored by the South Bethlehem Historical Society and the Delaware Lehigh National Heritage Corridor: http://www.southbethhistsoc.org/eventsWalkerEvans.htm . Proceeds went to help with cemetery upkeep. Donations in general can be made online to both of those organizations: www.southbethhistsoc.org and www.delawareandlehigh.org. For more details and photos from Evans and Sekaer's trip and correspondence, look in the new book on Sekaer, "Signs of Life." Walker Evans III was born on November 3, 1903 to Walker II and Jossie Evans in St. Louis, Missouri. Happy Birthday.

November 4th was Robert Mapplethorpe's birthday, Patti Smith told audiences in New Haven today at a series of special events at Yale. These sessions included a master class on visual art and influences (see below), a discussion about her early life and advice for the young (with tea!), a film screening of the Steven Sebring documentary about her, "Dream of Life," with a Q and then, the finale: a reading from her book about the pair and their lives around Pratt and then in the Chelsea Hotel, "Just Kids," which included three live songs. She said it was his birthday party. This day is also the day her husband, Fred Sonic Smith of MC5 died in the Nineties. Funny how these things happen. Today was also the release date of the "Just Kids" book in paperback, with 16 new pages added. This post is far shorter than it deserves to be, because words cannot describe the day. A few take-aways follow. Required reading: Rimbaud, Little Women, Alice in Wonderland, Moby Dick, 2666, William Blake... Required looking: Lewis Carroll, Julia Margaret Cameron, Willem de Kooning, Warhol, Duchamp, Picasso, Steichen, Sander, Modigliani, Brancusi, William Blake... Advice: Drink plenty of water, recycle, everything in moderation, be in charge of your whole image and your books/exhibitions, including all aspects of design and pr. "In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth." -Patti Smith Go get the book:http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Just-Kids-Patti-Smith/?isbn=978006621... And see the film: http://www.dreamoflifethemovie.com/