harlan erskine — photography/blog

Big event tonight for the Camera Club of New York (where I am their current guest blogger). I haven’t been to the annual Auction before so I’m looking forward to seeing all the action. Many many great photographs (including the one below) will be available. Check out the press release and I hope to see you there.

Amy Stein, Cage, digital c-print, 20 x 16”, 2005

Join Us Tonight, Monday, November 7, 2011, 6 – 8pm

Location:
25CPW
25 Central Park West (at 62nd Street)

Preview Works Here

Featuring work by emerging and established photographers, including :
Mariette Pathy Allen / Rachel Barrett / Jacqueline Bates / Matthew Baum / Michael Berkowitz / Per Billgren / Anita Blank / Timothy Briner / Jesse Burke / Eric William Carroll / Sean Carroll / James Casebere / Lindsey Castillo / Jesse Chan / Vincent Cianni / Annabel Clark / Margarida Correia / Megan Cump / Pradeep Dalal / Bobby Davidson / Allison Davies / Isaac Diggs / Maureen Drennan / Emile Hyperion Dubuisson / Mark Fernandes / Larry Fink / Lauren Fleishman / Martine Fougeron / Jona Frank / Fryd Frydendahl / Theresa Ganz / Anders Goldfarb / Curtis Hamilton / Jason Hanasik / Daniel Handal / Kara Hayden / Jeanne Hilary / Francine Hofstee / Henry Horenstein / Michi Jigarjian / Erica Leone / Sze Tsung Leong / David Levinthal / Sam Levinthal / Wayne Liu / Feng Lu / Ryan MacFarland / Jerome Mallmann / Chris McCaw / Jo Meer / Dana Miller / Azikiwe Mohammed / Paolo Morales / Keren Moscovitch / Laurel Nakadate / Katherine Newbegin / Lori Nix / Heather O’Brien / Brayden Olson / Alice O’Malley / Cara Phillips / Libby Pratt / Richard Renaldi / Mauro Restiffe / Saul Robbins / Caren Rosenblatt / Michael Schmelling / Tina Schula / Manjari Sharma / Aline Smithson / John Stanley / Chad States / Amy Stein / Joni Sternbach / Motohiro Takeda / Maureen Testa / Sally Tosti / William Wegman / Randy West / Grant Willing / Jessica Yatrofsky / Rona Yefman / Pinar Yolaçan / Arin Yoon

Benefit Committee:
Mariette Pathy Allen, Paul Amador, Brian Paul Clamp, Daniel Cooney, Michael Foley, Martine Fougeron, Susan Fulwiler, Françoise Girard, Tom Gitterman, Peter Hay Halpert, Henry Horenstein, David Knott, Michael Mazzeo, Lizanne Merrill, L. Parker Stephenson, Spencer Throckmorton, Sasha Wolf, and Alice Sachs Zimet.

$20 admission.
All proceeds go to The Camera Club of New York (CCNY), a non-profit 501(c)3 arts organization that has been nurturing talented photographers since 1884.

Catering provided by Moustache.

To see the donated works, please go to CCNY’s online auction preview.

CCNY wishes to thank 25CPW Gallery for their generosity in hosting this year’s auction.

For further inquires, contact CCNY at info@cameraclubny.org or by phone: 212-260-9927

Please visit us at www.cameraclubny.org

Debbie Grossman, My Pie Town “Jessie Evans-Whinery, homesteader, with her wife Edith Evans-Whinery and their baby.” 2009-10, 10 1/2 x 14 inches

Tonight is the opening for friend and fellow SVA Alum, Debbie Grossman’s project, My Pie Town. I really enjoyed her project when I first saw it at the MFA Thesis show. They popped up again at Pulse in Miami this past winter. I’m looking forward to seeing the collection of images together. The project does a good job of combining appropriated images with a seamless Photoshop collaging that results in a interesting new narrative. Also, in conjunction with the show the gallery has published a monograph of My Pie Town in an edition 100.

Statement:
My Pie Town is a project by Debbie Grossman in which she reworks and re-imagines a body of images originally photographed by Russell Lee for the United States Farm Security Administration in 1940. Using Photoshop to modify Lee’s pictures, she created an imaginary, parallel world – a Pie Town populated exclusively by women. The images are revised in subtle ways, making the reading of them very complicated and compelling. The sixteen images in the series are both color and black and white, and are all based on Lee’s unpublished series on Pietown, a homesteaded community in New Mexico.

The original photographs are available either through the Library of Congress or through the Web. Grossman says of the project “I’ve begun to think of Photoshop as my medium – I’m fascinated by the fact this it shares qualities with both photography and drawing…..I enjoy imagining My Pie Town working as its own kind of (lighthearted) propaganda”.

In conjunction with the show, the gallery is publishing a small monograph of My Pie Town in a limited edition 100 copies.

Debbie Grossman
My Pie Town
April 14-May 21, 2011
further information

For further information contact the gallery

Also opening at Julie Saul Gallery tonight:

Jeff Whetstone
Seducing Birds, Snakes, Men
April 14-May 21, 2011
further information

harlan erskine, The Invaders, 20 x 37 inches, 2009

Last year I had the honor of being included in the Photographic Resource Center’s (PRC) annual Juried Exhibition. The deadline to enter this year’s competition is fast approaching (April 22nd). I encourage everyone to consider entering. More information below.

exposure: the annual PRC juried exhibition

Are you ready for some exposure? Then line up a selection of your best photographs and get ready to enter EXPOSURE 2011, the PRC’s 16th annual juried exhibition of work by its members.

Awards

• The juror will choose up to ten photographers for the exhibition at the PRC in July and August.
• The juror will select one of these artists for the Juror’s Award of $500.
• The PRC’s Executive Director Glenn Ruga and Curator George Slade will also select awards for publication in the PRC magazine Loupe and for inclusion in NEO, our monthly on-line showcase of work by regional members.
• Each of the three winners will also receive a free one year Pro account with Viewbook.com, a leading online portfolio and image sharing website, valued at $190. Viewbook.com is a sponsor of this year’s juried exhibition.

Submissions
All submissions will be electronically uploaded through a 90-day trial account with Viewbook.com. Application fee for the juried exhibition is $35. Applicants must have a valid membership through August 31, 2011. If you have questions about your membership status, please contact the PRC at info@prcboston.org

STEP 1: Click here to download submission guidelines

STEP 2: Click here to pay application fee and to join/renew your membership.

Whitney Johnson, EXPOSURE 2011 Juror

The juror for EXPOSURE 2011 will be Whitney Johnson, picture editor at The New Yorker. See below for more information on Ms. Johnson.

Whitney Johnson is the picture editor at The New Yorker where she produces and researches photographs for political and cultural stories, including award-winning portfolios on the United States military and world leaders. She also writes for the magazine’s photography blog, Photo Booth. Prior to joining the magazine, Whitney worked at the Open Society Foundations, where she coordinated the documentary photography exhibition Moving Walls and an international grant competition for documentary photographers. Whitney also works with the Magnum Foundation, which supports independent documentary photographers in the field through its Emergency Fund.

Timeline
Tuesday, March 1 – Submissions Open
Friday, April 22, 11:59 pm – Deadline for Submissions
Monday, May 23 – Announcement of Accepted Photographers
Thursday, July 21 – Opening Reception for EXPOSURE 2011
Sunday, August 21 – Exhibit Closes
Friday, September 2 – Deadline For Removal of Work

Updates will be posted in the PRC eNewsletter, including specifications for preparing submissions.

When the submissions open, the application form will be available on the PRC web site.

Sponsor

Miles Mendenhall, Good and Lonely Luminous Structure no. 2, 2010. Silkscreen on cotton rag, ed. of 3. 42 x 54 inches

Tonight the Half Gallery co-owner and “Work of Art” judge Bill Powers is showing “Work of Art” second runner-up Miles Mendenhall in a solo show at his Lower East Side gallery space. Mendenhall’s solo show runs August 24—September 14, and the Opening reception is tonight Tuesday, August 24, 6-8 p.m. Half Gallery is located at 208 Forsyth St., New York, NY.

When I first started watching Work of Art I wasn’t so sure about how well time art challenges would work out. I still think the show has serious problems. One of those problems is the show doesn’t teach enough people from outside the art community why some of the art is successful and other’s art is not. This is a teachable moment. Where is the teaching about the references and art history? I am worried this show leaves the general public in the same state of cluelessness about contemporary art as before the show. England is much better about educating through TV and Bravo could learn something from them.

That being said I think the show came through in the end and the finalists were all strong artists. I’m looking forward to tonight’s opening as well as seeing the “Work of Art” winner, Abdi Farah at his prize solo show at the “world famous” Brooklyn Museum. Farah’s show runs August 14–October 17, in their Projects Gallery, 5th Floor.

(more…)

Tonight, my friend Rachel Barrett has a cool opening just north of Chelsea at the The Camera Club of New York. I’m heading there now to check it out and then down to the Lower East Side for the many openings for Lush Life Curated by Franklin Evans and Omar Lopez-Chahoud.

First Place Winners: Rachel Barrett Artist Info	Erin O‘Keefe Artist Info
Second Place Winners: Juliane Eirich Artist Info	Selena Salfen Artist Info

for more info go to: The Camera Club of New York at http://www.cameraclubny.org/competition.html

It’s hard to believe that a year ago was my SVA MFA Thesis show. Tonight is the opening for this year’s crop of artists. I’m looking forward to seeing how their work developed over their Thesis year of school.

Hopefully, I’ll see you at the show tonight. Also, be sure to check out this year’s Thesis web site at: http://mfaphoto.schoolofvisualarts.edu/thesis2010/index.php

This years’ thesis exhibition features the work of:

IRENE BERMUDEZ
ŽELJKA BLAKŠIĆ
LORNE BLYTHE
JOHN CYR
BEATRIZ DIAZ
JOHN DUNWOODY
NATAN DVIR
JANOSCH PARKER
MARTHA FLEMING-IVES
J.A. FOLKS
ROBERT GILL
EUGENE GOLOGURSKY
KATE GREENBERG
DEBBIE GROSSMAN
STONE KIM
TAMAR LATZMAN
VIVIAN LEE
ELIZABETH LIBERT
DINA LITOVSKY
JOHN A. MESSINGER
LAURA OBERG
ALLYSON ROSS
SELENA SALFEN
ANDREA SANTOLAYA
LEIGH WELLS

June 11th-26th

Opening Reception
Tuesday, June 15th
6-8pm

Gallery Hours:
Mon.-Sat. 10AM-5PM

Visual Arts Gallery
601 W 26h Street, Suite 1502
New York, NY
View Map

Our awkward program name – photography, video, and related media – is becoming ever more apt. This year, the thesis show includes photographic prints, videos, multi-media installations, sculpture and oil paintings. With the swift advance of digital technology, students are using still or moving images merely as points of departure to invent a wide array of forms. Željka Blaskic, for example, produces a five-channel video installation inspired by her childhood in war-torn Croatia. Jan Ebeling (aka Janosch Parker) commissions oil paintings based on photographs of his witty performances. Irene Bermudez combines projected images, freestanding sculpture and a neon sign to create an immersive environment meant to evoke bodily sensations. Allyson Ross creates sculptural reliefs devoid of color based on iconic nineteenth-century photographs of Yosemite National Park. And John Messinger installs a small historical exhibit based on the life of a homeless man. These results and others are exciting to behold and, I confess, daunting for a curator trying to make visual or conceptual order from it all.

If there is an overall trend, it is the trust that students place in personal experience. Robert Gill, for example, embraces the obsession with fitness in our culture. Selena Salfen explores the crushing effects of post-traumatic stress disorder through the history of her own family. Tamar Latzman investigates themes from Jewish-European history by inventing memories of dreams and performing them for the camera. And Laura Oberg explores race in America by interviewing members of her mixed-race family. It may be that the confessional turn of our culture – much enhanced by social networking media – explains the willingness of students to reveal themselves in their work. But the students are not self-centered; they look inward in order to look outward. Growing up with the caveats of identity politics and challenges to the objectivity of representation, our students no longer feel at home with the relatively simple norms of documentary or straight photography. Instead, each student invents a new strategy for using images to make art.

–Bonnie Yochelson Curator

This past weekend the Juried show at the Photographic Resource Center was reviewed by Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize winner for criticism, Mark Feeney:

PRC annual exhibit defies definition – The Boston Globe

The relevant quotes about my series, Imaginary Wars are:

Subjects range from obsolete machinery (Joseph Holmes’s renderings have a lustrous gravity) to staged reenactments of imaginary wars (as strikingly captured by Harlan Erskine, they look at once casual and emphatic) to issues of personal and familial identity (multiple examples).

and

A sense of the cinematic informs many of these images — either overtly, with Bates, or associatively, as with Erskine. His combat reenactments are like war movies infiltrated into home movies and vice versa.

EXPOSURE: The 15th Annual PRC Juried Exhibition will be at the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University, 832 Commonwealth Ave., through June 20. Please stop by if you are in the area.

Noah Sheldon, “Miami, Miami”

If you are in Miami tonight I would try to check out this opening of Noah Sheldon’s“Miami, Miami” at the Bas Fisher Invitational. I’m looking forward to seeing picture of the show online. Hopefully I’ll be down in Miami before the show comes down in May to see it for myself. I’m interested to see this New York based artist’s take on Miami’s landscape.

Press Release:

Noah Sheldon
“Miami, Miami”

March 13, 2010 – May 2009
Please join us for the opening of Noah Sheldon’s exhibition “Miami, Miami” at the BFI on Saturday March 13, 2010 from 7-10 pm

“Mr. Sheldon…is skilled at separating beauty from the material world while reminding
us that it is just about everywhere. He makes his quietly ecstatic art out of almost
nothing, or, more accurately, several almost-nothings, carefully juxtaposed”
Roberta Smith, The New York Times, March 22, 2007

The BFI is pleased to present a solo show of Noah Sheldon’s new series of photographs, “Miami, Miami.” This is not the first time Noah Sheldon has visited Miami. In 2005 he was part of “Good Titles for Bad Books,” curated by Matthew Brannon at Kevin Bruk’s gallery. Talking to Noah about that and his few subsequent visits to Miami, there was always a sense of wonderment and curiosity about this city. With help from the Fountainhead Residency and with a Knight Arts Challenge Grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, we were able to bring Noah back to make Miami his study. Since arriving last week, he has been to Homestead twice, has walked South Beach multiple times, has spied the Miami skyline from Key Biscayne, has boated down the Miami River, has visited a local high school and has done a model shoot in the BFI space. The result is a visual testament that is subtle as it is striking, each image a question being asked to this, at times, unfathomable place.

www.noahsheldon.com

Bas Fisher Invitational
180 NE 39th ST, Suite 210
Miami, FL 33137
www.basfisherinvitational.com
info@basfisherinvitational.com

The BFI is an artist-run non-profit generously supported in part by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.