In collaboration with Sophie Mörner at Capricious Magazine, Fotografiska museum Stockholm presents Capricious Select - an exiting selection of works by twelve international emerging artists including Skye Parrott and Sam Falls. View the full selection here.

sam falls Skye Parrott

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Day Glow

August 7 - August 28

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Other Spaces
Palma Blank
Leah Dixon
Sam Falls
Left Coast
Daniel Turner
Timothy Uriah Steele
Kristof Wickman
Curated by Jayne Drost

Center548
548 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

July 19-23rd (TBD), 2010
Opening Sunday, July 18th, 6-8PM

 Over twenty-five years ago, Michel Foucault argued that “our experience of the world is less of a long life developing through time than that of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skein.” ¹ His recognition of a need for new means to conceptualize psycho-spatial experience of information and imagery was prescient and describes quite accurately the ways in which we receive information today.

Through technology and globalization, the information systems that one must navigate have grown from a tangle of linear thoughts into something more fluid and less defined, a simultaneous outpouring of information rather than an ordered or progressive system of ideas. We can no longer process information without being aware of how we find it, and how it is transmitted and received. This allows for a more subjective approach to absorption, rooted as much in the individual’s internal method for receiving content as in the content itself.

Other Spaces, the first curatorial venture organized by Jayne Drost, and sponsored in part by (capsule), gathers paintings, photography, sculpture, video and installation works by seven New York-based independent artists. Each of these artists assert the formal and material qualities of their work to propose a spatial montage²—an expression of some internal or psychological experience encountered as a constructed network of references.

Palma Blank’s abstract paintings play with the optical perception of spatial relationships in the picture plane. The bright and contrasting colors used in her compositions create illusions of movement and complicate the viewer’s read of the two-dimensional canvas. The formal qualities of her line-based paintings refer to the striations and pattern often seen on a digital screen.

Leah Dixon’s paintings, which incorporate a collage of paper, canvas and synthetic materials in aggressively mismatched images and clashing colors, evoke the constant and aggressive onslaught of media, news images and information experienced in daily contemporary culture.

In the work of Sam Falls, the artist deploys large format photography, source material, and digital painting to blur the perception of where the actual ends and the image begins. His latest series of photographs entitled Re-Constructions incorporates a series of paper forms altered by light and shadow, the resulting images of which are in dialogue with both sculpture and traditional photography.

Left Coast, the collaborative group of artists and musicians Sarah Kuhn, Lane LaColla and David Shull, with technical assistance by photographer and video artist Gautam Kansara, create video and installation works that draw upon a multitude of references from art and pop culture. This site-specific work on view Untitled (Freed/Feed), 2010 uses the act of charity or gifting to reflect upon the new-age narcissism inherent in a contemporary, image-conscious culture.

Daniel Turner’s minimal sculptures use highly evocative and often caustic materials, such as tar, iodine and vinyl in surprisingly delicate ways. In his sculptures and space interventions, the artist manipulates these materials to evoke an austere, almost ethereal calmness out of what may otherwise be used to create an oppressive, industrial atmosphere. April, 2010, the latest work in the series of tar, Camphophenique and vinyl paintings in what Turner has deemed the 5250 series (referring to the hospital code for being a threat to oneself or society) is on view in addition to a site-specific wall drawing made by repeating bodily gestures by the artist.

Drawing upon a network of references from art history, biology, and pop culture, Timothy Uriah Steele explores relationships of space, time and location in his paper relief paintings. Steele mixes a wide range of legible imagery with abstract elements in his compositions to create psychological apparitions of an (un)known space or time. 

Using a cache of unambiguous objects in his sculptural practice, Kristof Wickman reframes the familiar through the use of humor and alienation. In his minimalist sculptures of culturally specific and yet unclassifiable forms, Wickman subtly manipulates what appears to be a “readymade.” By isolating a specific alteration, he undermines both the thing itself and the tired Duchampian process of straight re-presentation of everyday objects.

(capsule) is a concept trade event for the fashion industry, focusing on an international gathering of up and coming progressive designers. In conjunction with its inaugural event at 548 West 22nd Street, (capsule) has developed an initiative to support independent and emerging visual artists. The exhibition is free and open to the public Monday thru Friday from 11AM to 7PM.

For press inquiries or images of the exhibition, please contact Jayne Drost (jaynedrost@gmail.com). For inquiries regarding (capsule) please contact Edina Sultanik Silver (edina@bpmw-agency.com).

1. Foucault, Michel, “Des Espace Autres,” Continuité, October 1984

2. Manovich, Lev, “The Archaeology of Windows and Spatial Montage,” self-published online, September 2002

Image: Left Coast, Untitled (Freed/Feed), 2010, still from HD video

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I am delighted to present our first agency exhibition entitled Self for PhotoIreland Festival 2010.

Indigo and Cloth

Basement 27, South William Street, Dublin 2

http://www.indigoandcloth.com

Dates Friday 2nd July, 7:00 pm - Sunday 11th July, 5:00 pm

An exploration of fragments of memory as voyeuristic observation, conceiving the experience of ‘self’ as a bi-product of mass media dissociation. Creating a ‘memory bank’ through a lens, the artist becomes an observer of their own lives, forging the personal as dissociative media experience.

Group show featuring: Alexander Binder,Sam Falls, Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek, Flora Hanitijo, Orrie King, Skye Parrott, Brea Souders and Logan White.

Friday 2nd July 7pm, Self group show opening reception.
Friday 2nd - Monday 5th July, You Were Here slide show by Skye Parrott.
Monday 5th - Thursday 8th July, a slide show by Sam Falls.
Thursday 8th - Sunday 11th July, Traum slide show by Alexander Binder featuring dark soundscapes by Black Mountain Transmitter.
Friday 9th July 7pm, SHOOT: photography of the moment presentation by Ken Miller

Alexander Binder Brea Souders Logan White PhotoIreland Skye Parrott daniel gebhart de koekkoek flora hanitijo orrie king sam falls

Sam Falls group show at The Center for Photography at Woodstock

The Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) is pleased to announce Photography Now: Either/And, curated by Lesley A. Martin, Director of Content at Aperture and Executive Editor of its Book Program. Presented in two installments, The New Skew (June 12 – July 18) and The New Docugraphics (July 26 – August 29), this year’s annual exhibition goes beyond the typical survey of contemporary photography and departs from its traditional format in the sprit of giving full credence to the medium’s pluralities.

Ms. Martin invites us to consider, “What defines contemporary practice? What is it and what do we value in it? On one hand, we encounter a staunch defense of “reality-based” photography via traditional film and camera optics; on the other, an increase in the use of photographs – staged, found, and digitally remixed – both strategies drawn from among many out of the quiver of contemporary art.”

In organizing this years Photography Now installment, she proposes that we are no longer served by a zero-sum approach of “either/or” to the medium, but rather, “either/and”.

Part one, entitled The New Skew, presents the refreshingly subversive, deeply self-reflexive and conceptual work of 10 photographers. Opening June 12, this exhibition highlights artists who are invested in an idiosyncratic, or skewed, take on image-making. They engage critically with the conventions of photographic genres, series, and ways of seeing, and create work that exists on the peripheries of traditional photographic practice.

Cynthia Bittenfield (New York, NY) and Jennifer Wilkey (Syracuse, NY) combine “straight” photographs with staged and/or found media to intimately describe the ways we deal with illness and trauma. Brook Reynolds (Charlotte, NC) and Christina Seely (San Francisco, CA) grapple with issues surrounding man’s sway over nature and expose the ways in which our seemingly benign habits obscure a darker, more complicated truth about energy consumption. Natan Dvir (New York, NY) and Eric White (New York, NY) photograph culturally and politically divided peoples as a way to direct awareness towards the ineffectual nature of borders (both physical and immaterial) and the presumptions they enforce. The work of Heather O’Brien (Brooklyn, NY) and Thomas Gardiner (Regina, Canada) express a fascination with the small town landscape and idea of home as place of transitions, where the meaning of nature and culture, as well as the real and the unreal, fluctuate. Tony Chirinos (Miami, FL) and Mike Mergen (Providence, RI) subversively probe the confluence of the sterile and organized processes behind health care and democracy, respectively, with the unexpected and odd theatricality they present for the lens.

On view during both shows will be a digital slideshow of images from their counterparts. Ms. Martin will be attending at both openings.

This exhibition was made possible in part with funds from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

The opening reception for The New Skew will be held on Saturday, June 12th from 5-7pm. The opening reception for The New Docugraphics will be held on Saturday, July 24th from 5-7pm.

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Alexander Binder & Sam Falls publications will be presented at Get Published, Be Happy Weekend at the Photographers’ Gallery, London, 5-6 June 2010.

A weekend showcase of 50 exceptional contemporary DIY photo books, selected by Bruno Ceschel. A talk, and signings throughtout the weekend, will provide an opportunity for art book lovers to discuss, admire and buy publications originating from around the world.

From the more obscure zines assembled in student bedrooms to impeccably printed photobooks, Self Publish, Be Happy Weekend will offer inspiration and happiness for everybody.

Featuring work by: Adam Murray & Robert Parkinson, Alastair Levy, Alec Soth, Alex Mctigue, Alexander Binder, Alexandra Klein, Asa Johannesson, Asher Penn, Aubrey Mayer, Charlotte Dumas, David Schoerner, Derek Henderson, Erik Kessels, Erik Van Der Wejjde, Esther Teichmann, Gerry Badger, Grant Willing, Heather McDonough, Jan Von Holleben, Japp Scheeren, Jason Evans, Jeff Luker, Jeremie Egry and Nicolas Poillot, Joachim Schmid, Joshua Deaner, Karol Radziszewski, Katrina Umber, Lester B. Morrison, Lina Scheynius, Lucas Blalock, Marten Lange, Maxwell Anderson, Morten Andersen, Morten Spaberg, Ofer Wolberger, Patrick  Waugh, Ricardo Cases, Richard Renaldi, Sam Falls, Sebastien Girard, Shane Lavalette, Sjoerd Knibbeler, Sophie Morner, Stephen Gill, Terence Hannum, Tim Barber and Victor Sira.

Events over the weekend:

Talk: Self Publish, Be Happy Sat 5 June 18.30 (this is now fully booked).

Book Signings: Throughout the weekend visitors will be able to meet the authors/ publishers of the books in The Photographers’ Gallery Café and Bookshop and have them sign their book.

A selection of the books will be availble for sale in The Photographers’ Gallery Bookshop. Come and get your piece of happiness.

Self Publish, Be Happy is an organisation founded by Bruno Ceschel in 2010 with the aim to celebrate and promote self published photobooks through events (fairs, exhibitions and conferences), books and online. Self Publish, Be Happy also organises workshops aimed to help photographers to make and publish their own books. For more information visit selfpublishbehappy.wordpress.com

Self Publish, Be Happy Weekend is curated by Bruno Ceschel and organised in collaboration with The Photographers’ Gallery.

Alexander Binder sam falls

Sam Falls: Lawless Bond  

Lawless Bond, a solo exhibition of new photography and video by Samuel Falls. Opening June 4^th, Capricious Space, the works are on view through July 10, 2010. A reception will take place on Friday, June 4^th, from 7 – 9pm.

In Falls’ words, “photography has become synonymous with language, maybe even replaced it in the hierarchy of contemporary communication. As an art form, we are hypothetically freed up from using the image as a guide, but that is not always an easy expectation for the viewer to accept. The viewer of photography, like language, traditionally expects a universal symbolism; a qualified meaning that has been chewed up and spit back out over time.” Through this body of work, Falls poses the questions: How can we unite art and photography without these expectations — without these semiotic laws? How can the photograph and the viewer exist right now, together?

French philosopher and semiotician, Roland Barthes suggests the “dissociation of solidarities, of empathies – powerful here, null there. Critique of the totalizing illusion: any apparatus unifies the language first, but one must not respect the whole… The Sentence is hierarchical: it implies subjections, subordinations, internal reactions. Whence its completion: how can a hierarchy remain open?” (Pleasure of the Text, pg. 38/50)

Falls’ work explores the notion that Modernism was about the medium; the medium was a structure to make “sentences” within, to create an overall narrative. He posits that Postmodernism then abandons the medium to represent the accomplishment of the master narrative’s endgame, a closed book. Falls sees however that the medium of photography has many fluid possibilities and that perhaps a return to specificity does not have to imply an inevitable end; rather it can run like a river –- a liquid body, a lawless bond.

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