Tonight: Half Gallery: Miles Mendenhall Opening 6-8 pm

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.

Miles Mendenhall, Black, White, but more so the Gray In-between, 2010. Silkscreen on cotton rag, ed. of 3, 42 x 36 inches

Miles Mendenhall, Light Bank, 2010. Silkscreen on cotton rag, ed. of 3. 30 x 48 inches

Opening Tonight: The Camera Club of New York 2010 National Juried Competition Juried by James Casebere

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.

The Camera Club of New York 2010 National Juried Competition

Juried by James Casebere

Announcing the 2010 National Photography Competition Winners and Annual Juried Exhibition, Juried by James Casebere

July 8 – August 14, 2010Opening reception: Thursday, July 8, 6–9pm

First Place Winners: Rachel Barrett, Erin O‘Keefe

Second Place Winners: Juliane Eirich, Selena Salfen

The four top winners will be a part of the upcoming exhibition. James Casebere also selected ten artists as Honorable Mentions. All selected artists' work and links to their respective websites can be seen below.

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

OPENING: 2010 SVA MFA Photo, Video & Related Media - THESIS EXHIBITION

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