BORDER @ Davis Museum

Michal Rovner: Border

DAVIS MUSEUM AND CULTURAL CENTER
Wellesley, MA
March 11 - June 14, 2009



“This is not a true story.” Thus begins the seminal art video Border, which Michal Rovner shot along the boundary between Israel and Lebanon during 1996-1997.

An Israeli commander and the artist herself are the film’s two central characters. As they attempt to enter each other’s worlds, two narratives emerge. One concerns the actual political and physical border—the beautiful, rocky landscape; soldiers and civilians who populate it; and tense atmosphere. The other follows Rovner’s relationship with the commander, whose movements she chronicles and who participates in creating the film. (press release excerpt)

Alessandra Sanguinetti visits Art in Context

In March 2009 Art in Context at the Art Institute of Boston hosted a talk with Alessandra Sanguinetti, which was one of the highlights of this year's visiting artist series. Alessandra was truly inspiring, insightful and gracious when she shared her experiences as one of the leading contemporary photographers.

She recently received the Peabody Award 2009.


Alessandra Sanguinetti speaks to Art in Context, March 2009















































Bonnie Robinson and Alessandra Sanguinetti, Art Institute of Boston, March 2009

THE EDGE OF VISION Abstraction in Contemporary Photography

Curated by Lyle Rexer

Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
Between 10th and 11th Avenues
New York, New York

May 15 to July 9, 2009



Talk and book signing with Lyle Rexer:
Tuesday, June 16, 6:30 pm

Aperture Gallery presents The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography, curated by Lyle Rexer. From the beginning, abstraction has been intrinsic to photography, and its persistent popularity reveals much about the medium. The Edge of Vision showcases the work of nineteen contemporary photographers who base their practice in some form of abstraction. Rexer defines abstraction as “a departure from or the eliding of an immediately apprehensible subject.” Within this broad definition, a host of approaches explore aspects of the photographic experience, including the chemistry of traditional photography, the mediation of lenses, the direct capture of light without a camera, temporal extensions, digital sampling of found images, radical cropping, and various deliberate destabilizations of photographic reference.

Going Softly Into a Parallel Universe / NYT

By Carol Kino for the New York Times


Claes Oldenburg at the Whitney Museum, where two exhibitions of his work are on view.
Photograph by Evan Sung/ NYT

IN 1961, early in his career, the Pop artist Claes Oldenburg wrote a manifesto: “I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all. I am for an artist who vanishes.”

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Art Review | Claes Oldenburg
A Low-Cost Show Reinflates a Big Bag
By Kareen Rosenberg for the New York Times


Soft Shuttlecocks, Falling, Number Two, 1995
Claes Oldenburg


Giant Fagends, 1967
Claes Oldenburg

slideshow

NYT introduces LENS

Lens is a new photojournalism blog that presents some of the most interesting visual and multimedia reporting. It will be a showcase for the work of New York Times photographers, and will highlight great images from other news organizations and from around the Web.

Robert Capa/ NYT article

New Works by Photography's Old Masters

By Randy Kennedy/ New York Times

A look inside Robert Capa's Mexican Suitcase, photography from the Spanish Civil War that was long thought to be lost.


A shot of a woman and child at a Spanish refugee camp in France, taken by Robert Capa in March 1939.

Lisa Wiltse's essay on Teenage Pregnancy

BURN MAGAZINE
Photographic Essay by Lisa Wiltse, AIB Alumna


Parola Tondo District, Manila, Philippines
© Lisa Wiltse

Pregnant teenagers pass the time in the alleyways and slum of Parola Tondo district, Manila, Philippines
© Lisa Wiltse

Teenage pregnancy is widespread in the Philippines, especially amongst the poor. In Manila, this contributes to overpopulation and the vicious cycle of poverty, another child borne into the ghettos and a teenage Mom bearing the burden of raising a child before her own maturity and adulthood. An estimated 70,000 adolescent mothers die each year in developing countries.
Young mothers face enormous health risks, obstructed labor is common and results in newborn deaths and deaths or disabilities in the mother.

Children are everywhere, tangible evidence of the city’s teenage pregnancy problem. Every year, 13 out of 100 girls aged between 15 and 19 of the Filipino population get pregnant. Health care for Manila’s urban poor is almost nonexistent, while opportunities to learn about contraception in this strictly Catholic country are rare. (excerpt from burn Magazine)

Lisa Wiltse graduated from the Photography Department at the Art Institute of Boston in 1999. Lisa currently works as a freelance photographer who has generated self-funded projects focusing on humanitarian issues in countries such as Australia, Uganda, Bangladesh, Romania and most recently the Philippines. A former staff photographer for the Sydney Morning Herald, her work has been awarded several honors including first prize at PX3 Prix de la Photographie, The Oxfam Humanitarian Award, and the Gordon Parks International Photography contest, among others. Lisa was announced as one of the 2008 Magenta Flash Forward Emerging Photographers and is represented by Aurora Photos.

Sophie Calle @ Paula Cooper Gallery

Sophie Calle Take Care of Yourself

April 9 - June 6, 2009

Art Review | 'The Pictures Generation'

At the Met, Baby Boomers Leap Onstage

By Holland Cotter/ New York Times

Blue Tile Reception Area, 1983
Laurie Simmons

alter ego @ Nave Gallery

Images Made with Toy Cameras and Alternative Photographic Processes

Nave Gallery
Clarendon Hill Presbyterian Church
155 Powderhouse Blvd., Somerville, MA

May 2-21, 2009
Reception May 7, 7-9 p.m



During times of change, there are always those who rebel. In the current era of digital media, many photographers are reaching for ways to create work that is relevant in the world today, but by using manual processes that have enriched photography since it's inception. Be it with taped up plastic toy cameras from the 1970s, to making their own pinhole cameras, to creating cyanotypes outside in the sun—these are not photographers who simply want to plug in their memory card and click away to create an image. There is a lot of trial and error, duct-tape and elbow grease in making each of these images.

Many alternative photographers live by the mantra “don’t think, just shoot”. There are minimal options and settings in the cameras, and much is is left to chance, intuition and happy accidents. The process takes on a life of its own--be it light leaks in the camera, one frame overlapping to the next, or variations in environment and chemistry-- the intentional loss of control over the medium gives the artist an ability to let go of what might be sacred, as what is being captured through these mediums many times is unknown until the film is processed. It is a balance of give and take between the artist and the medium.

These photographers portray work that is whimsical, nostalgic and engrossed in their respective mediums to create the work that has been chosen to display. With polaroid, cyantope and other analogue techniques falling to the wayside in this digital age, we hope to celebrate these artists and their unique processes at the Nave.

Artists include Leslie Bastress, Heather Blakney, Kayla Brenes, Mark Richard Brown, Derrick Burbel, Christina, Myriah Leshea Douglas, Erica Frisk, Alice Grossman, Mellisa Gruntkosky, Janisha, Theresa Kelliher, Ariel Kessler, Mary Kocol, Cassandra Martin, Karen Molloy, Natasha Moustache, Dana Mueller, Denyse Murphy, Eric Nichols, Cade Overton, O Gustavo Plascencia, Serrah Russell, Shayna, Erika Sidor, Annie Smidt, Roberta Stone, David Strasburger, Andy Takats, Tricia, Molly Van Nice, V VanSant, Ann Zelle and Lexie Zippin.

Wicked Local Somerville article