Exhibition : Sexy and the City at Yossi Milo

Will last until August 28th the exhibition from different great photographers at Yossi Milo. The title is taken from the famous TV series but the photos are from an interesting archive on street's photos from new york which shows some kind of intimate moments.

here the statement from the gallery:

Sexy and the City shows the alluring, romantic and sometimes scandalous side of New York’s people and places. Capturing private, intimate moments and blatant displays of sexuality, these photographs span the decades from the 1940s to the present day, taken in landmark locations like the Brooklyn Bridge and in the quiet, out-of-the-way corners of the city.From Alfred Eisenstaedt’s iconic image of a kissing couple in Times Square on V-J Day, 1945, to Nan Goldin’s drag queen on an anonymous New York street in the 1990s, from Garry Winogrand’s topless woman surrounded by a crowd in Central Park to the homosexual couples photographed by Alvin Baltrop in the seclusion of the West Side piers, Sexy and the City celebrates diverse views of New York City passion.Among the artists featured in the exhibition are Merry Alpern, Will Anderson, Diane Arbus, Alvin Baltrop, Bruce Davidson, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Mitch Epstein, Louis Faurer, Leonard Freed, Nan Goldin, Gail Albert Halaban, Charles Harbutt, Lisa Kereszi, André Kertész, Arthur Leipzig, Leon Levinstein, Joel Meyerowitz, Duane Michals, Tod Papageorge, Frank Paulin, Anton Perich, Charles Traub, Arthur Tress, Weegee, Ryan Weideman, and Garry Winogrand.

Profile : Julius Shulman

Julius Shulman died on the 15th of july 2009 at 98 years , he is perhaps considered one of the best architectural photographer .

here some note from his biography :

Julius Shulman was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1910. However, his formative years were spent on a farm in Connecticut, where he developed an appreciation and understanding of the nature of light. Finally moving to California,his sense of space and volume steadily grew.At an early age he already had an interest in photography, but it was not unitl Richard Neutra became interested in some of his snapshots that a great career began. These photographs were of Neutra's kun House in Hollywood, and this chance glance served to produce one of the world's great artists of architectural photography.It is interesting to consider these chance collisions of fate. Shulman's sister had introduced him to Neutra's new apprentice. In 1936, two weeks after coming back to Los Angeles from a stint at Berkeley, he took Shulman to the Kun House where Neutra was to inspect with a contractor. There he took six Vest Pocket Kodak scenes. He sent the 8x10s to Neutra and received a call; Neutra had liked thm a lot and wished to meet Shulman. On March 6, 1936, they shook hands, and Neutra ordered six copies of each photograph. He then gave Shulman other assignments and suggested that he drive up to Silver Lake where Raphael Soriano was building his first house. They instantly became friends, and two years later Shulman photographed the Lipetz House for Soriano. Eventually Soriano was the architect for Shulman's house and studio in Los Angeles.

Festival : Dali Photo Festival 2009

Interesting exhibition at the 2009 Dali Photo Festival. In the little beautiful town of Dali in Yunnan the festival will showcase photographers such as Alain Buu, Claudine Doury, Brent Stirton and other . The festival organized by the Local Government has been curated by Jean Loh of Beaugeste gallery in Shanghai.
Here a note from the organization of the Festival
The Eighth China Photography Art Festival & 2009 Dali International Photography Exhibition 　This is a special year when China is celebrating its 60th birthday, and when photography has been around the world for 170 year. This year is also the one when the Eighth China Photography Art Festival is taking place in Dali where its culture runs deep and its natural beauty is stunning. Dali has been known as the place of ‘breeze, blossom, snow and the Moon’, and the city where mountain and water competes its beauty. With The Eighth China Photography Art Festival setting up here, Dali is also celebrating the First Dali International Photography Exhibition. The Photography Festival/Exhibit

Profile : Andrew Bush

I love the work of Andrew Bush, in particular the Vector Portraits project which was shown at Yossi Milo Gallery earlier in June.
here a not from the project and the author:
Begun in 1989, Andrew Bush’s series Vector Portraits was taken while the artist drove the city streets and freeways of Los Angeles. Either stopped in traffic or traveling at speeds of 20 to 70 miles per hour, the artist took portraits of other drivers using a medium-format roll-film camera and flash attached to the passenger side door of his car. Extended titles note particulars of speed, location or time with scientific precision while leaving other details unclear, such as “Man traveling southbound at 67 mph on U.S. Route 101 near Montecito, California, at 6:31 p.m. on or around Sunday, August 28, 1994”.
The photographs capture subjects in the ambiguous combination of private and public space created by a “private room on wheels.” The drivers are either alone in their vehicles lost in thought, or with passengers, revealing the dynamic between families, couples or friends. An examination of people and their cars in a city famous for its car culture, the series addresses personal privacy and challenges our definition of public space.
Andrew Bush’s work is held in the collections of institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He completed his Masters of Fine Arts in Photography at Yale University in 1982. Born in 1956 in St. Louis, Mr. Bush currently lives and works in Los Angeles. In 2008, Yale University Press published the book Drive, which includes an interview of the artist by Jeff L. Rosenheim, a curator of photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Exhibition : Yard Sale by Adam Bartos

The Current photographic exhibition at the Drawing Room gallery in New York is a photo series on details of Yard Sale (or garage Sale) from which Adam Bartos also he has done a book.

Profile : Massimo Sordi

Massimo Sordi is an italian photographer with a degree in architecture teaching photography in Bologna, he has done different series of work from which i do like the India Rooms projects.

Exhibition : Lise Sarfati "Austin, Texas"

The exhibition of Lise Sarfati "Austin, Texas" still for few days at the Brancoli Grimaldi Gallery in Rome, worth to have a look.A note from the project
“She likes to cite Gombrowicz and his fondness for the concept of immaturity - a secret revolt, a silent refusal, a game played with life and reality, and especially the idea of a subject both malleable and yet elusive, who always, in the end, slips away.” Life Stills by Quenin Bajac, Fashion Magazine, Austin, Texas 2008

Books : Eclipse

The sky over Shanghai went dark today, well happening every night but not often at 9 in the morning, I experienced my first eclipse.... and with the occasion I could not avoid to talk about the book of Afghan Photographer Zalmai which has done a project calling with this mysterious word Eclipse, here a note from publisher

Afghan photographer Zalmai's extraordinary and unforgettable photographs capture the slow, distressing drift of exile and dispossession: spectral figures against a stormy sky, a sheared row of peaks frame a figure like a sacred relic, horizons of men, both of this world and of some timeless land. This is a documentation of a journey through ambiguous territories-from Cuba to India, Mali to the Philippines, Indonesia to Egypt, and a return to Zalmai's native Afghanistan/-wartorn once again/-a search for place when one's own land has been destroyed.

Photographs by Zalmai. Text by Atip Rahimi, and Daniel Firardin.
Umbrage Editions, New York, 2002. 112 pp., 70 duotone illustrations, 12x8½".

Profile : Amy Elkins

I like the work Wallflower by Californian Photographer Amy Elkins.
Here a note on the project:
Wallflower, an ongoing and evolving series of male portraits, is an exploration into the other. With a strong interest in psychology, I have turned specifically to the psychology of the opposite sex, finding the mannerisms in which significant role models in my personal life reveal endlessly fascinating. It is through the series that I investigate and confront some of the cultural grounds underlying gender, opting to focus on the beauty, sensitivity and vulnerabilities found in a sex that has long been held to masculine expectations and stereotypes.
While majority of the Wallflower portraits are done with the use of floral backdrops, there are instances where I have created similar environments with naturally occurring floral backdrops, playing off of the femininity of the natural world. Such works were done in New Orleans, post-Katrina, with men that were affected by the severity of a hurricane that destroyed vast areas of the city.

Books : I'm One 21st Century Mods by Horst Friedrichs

German Photographer Horst Friedrichs just released a new book on his long term project on English Mods, the book "I'm One 21st Century Mods" has the power to connect the Mods periods in which Horst has worked in the last 10 years. Pete Townshend from the Who has written on the book : "Want to look like a mod? Pose like a mode? Dance like a Mod? THIS IS THE BOOK YOU NEED! This is the NEW mod look, the ageless Trans-European look that takes Mods back to the Continent from where it first emerged in the Sixties. This is MOD in the twenty First Century".

The Mods essay is also published among the other reportages on the book West by Regina Maria Anzenberger.

Exhibition : Fausto Giaccone at Anzenberger Gallery

There is a piece of history , a piece of personal life but also something which belongs to us through the photos of Fausto Giaccone , Italian photographer who has witnessed 40 years of photojournalism in this retrospective "68 Altrove" (68 Elsewhere) which Anzenberger Gallery put online . I know Fausto since I was working as a photo editor in Vienna, he was a good teacher to me and I am happy to post this article choosing a photo from Orgosolo in Sardinia.

here the text which accompany the photos

A Glance at Life

The perception of an age and the meaning of history are far from objective: there are events that, as time passes, expand or shrink, take a central place or fade into the background of memory. Naturally, some objective criteria do exist – documents and quantitative data, which help to put everything in the right perspective. However, these become inadequate when that which is being evoked is not just an historical reality, but also the atmosphere that made it distinctive. From this point of view, photography plays a vital role, even though it must then be interpreted, because taking a photograph is always a process of choosing, of cutting out a piece of a space at the expense of another, of favouring a “before” or an “after.”
Much has been said and written about the year 1968, especially every ten years, like clockwork, we often get the impression that we are looking at its transformation, by those who strike a rhetorical key and turn it into a myth, but also by those who, on the contrary, denigrate it with suspicious animosity. Like all meaningful moments that changed, if not the world, then at least our way of observing, interpreting and living it, the year 1968 has become the source of an ongoing dispute, which seems to forget the uniqueness of a period characterized by the vital role of collective action, by the importance of music that plays like a soundtrack to the events, by the role of photographic and cinematographic images, which are able to convey the feelings of an entire generation. The iconography of the year 1968 (by which we mean a wider period of time, starting in the mid-Sixties and ending a few years later) is particularly rich, as each demonstration and event was shot by numerous photographers, both amateur and professional. The enthusiasm and the awareness of being the protagonists of an era was infectious, and also influenced those who were capturing it in their films, thus becoming involved in a profession with an undeniable fascination. The Nikon F was like a guitar. Both seemed easy to use because anyone could take a shot or play a C scale, but they were also selective, because few people could play or photograph like a virtuoso. The era of “activist reportage” marks a turning-point in Italy, even compared to the recent past, because so-called Neorealist photography had with a few exceptions been poetic, lyrical, and often social, but not so directly political. The camera became a pointed weapon, to be used in the manner of the great foreign reporters: Eugene Smith, who recounted the lives of simple people, Dorothea Lange, who turned the stories of Steinbeck’s novels into images, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa, who knew how to capture moments in time and transform them into emotions. So much was changing, the world seemed to be shrinking because travel was becoming easier and more economical if one was willing to use army surplus clothes, jeans, sleeping bags, hitch-hiking. At the same time the world’s borders seemed to be expanding, because there wasn’t one place on earth untouched by ferment, discussions, revolutions. The first of many generations that wasn’t called up to fight a war discovered a desire to be together, a curiosity for the world, and even a bitter after-taste of anger.

Exhibition : Wang Gang "Interior Portraits"

New Exhibition at the Beaugeste Gallery in Shanghai, the photo gallery curated by Jean Lohn will present a series of portraits of Chinese Photographer Wang Gang. The opening will be on the 18th of July.

Here a note on Wang Gang

"After winning a prize at the World Press Photo with his B&W Yi Shepherd, Wang Gang discovered the concept of chiaroscuro in classical painting and the works of American realist painter Thomas Eakins (1844-1916). He decided to study color photography, to achieve what he calls the balance between the subject and the background, between light and darkness. A daunting task indeed since natural light is usually minimal inside the dark and depleted interiors of the Yi and the Tibetan rural people. From his trips in Sichuan, Qinghai and Lhassa he came back with an impressive harvest of “interior” portraits that magnify the details of the accoutrements or of the faces in a generally dark and somber background.

Obviously the pose is carefully chosen and the background and home objects that go into the frames too. We are here far from clichés and stereotypes. Wang Gang has achieved a unique style thanks to his own imagination and his literary and philosophical culture, conveying to us viewers the emotion that emanates from these Yi and Zang faces, realizing here the process of “illumination through illustration”.

Books : Zhang Huan

A new book from performing artist Zhang Huan, he combines sculptures, drawing and installation , indeed interesting photographs of his performance such as Family Treeand My America.
here a note from the publisher:
One of the most important and innovative artists in contemporary China, Zhang Huan (b. 1965) brought the burgeoning Chinese art scene to international attention in the 1990s with a series of taboo-breaking performances. His artwork continues to explore the tragedies of the human condition and the spiritual essence of Buddhism in a range of media that includes photography, painting and monumental sculpture. Zhang's work has been exhibited in the world's most prestigious museums and international exhibitions, including the 1999 Venice Biennale, the 2001 Yokohama Triennial and the 2002 Whitney Biennial. This monograph is the first complete analysis of the artist's entire career, from his beginnings in the communal art scene of Beijing's East Village to his breakthrough in New York and his return to Shanghai, where he now runs a studio with over 40 assistants.

Books : Tokyo Nobody by Masataka Nakano

The book "Tokyo Nobody" is a photo essay on different urban landscape of Japanese Metropole with the total absence of people. Interesting project by Masataka Nakano. As a big lover of Japan i would advice to have a look at the book (and perhaps buy it...)

Les Rencontre D'Arles : Duane Michals

Selected by special curator Nan Goldin a retrospective by Duane Michals at Les Rencontre D'Arles festival which opened the 7th of July. I will dedicate more on the different and interesting

exhibition which will take place in Arles later in some other post.

Here a note of Photographer Duane Michals from wikipedia:

Duane Michals (born February 18, 1932) is an American photographer. Largely self-taught, his work is noted for its innovation and artistry. Michals' style often features photo-sequences and the incorporation of text to examine emotion and philosophy, resulting in a unique body of work.

Michals grew up in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. In 1953 he received a B.A. from the University of Denver. In 1956 he went on to study design at the Parsons School of Design with a plan to becoming a graphic designer, however he did not complete his studies. In 1958 while on a holiday in the USSR he discovered an interest in photography. The photographs he made during this trip became his first exhibition held in 1963 at the Underground Gallery in New York City.

For a number of years, Michals worked in commercial photography, working for Esquire and Mademoiselle, and he covered the filming of The Great Gatsby for Vogue (1974). He did not have a studio. Instead, he took portraits of people in their environment, which was a contrast to the method of other photographers at the time, such as Avedon and Irving Penn.

In 1968 Michals was hired by the government of Mexico to photograph the 1968 Olympic Games. In 1970 his works were shown at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. The portraits he took between 1958 and 1988 would later become the basis of his book, Album.

In 1976 Michals received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Michals also produced the art for the album Synchronicity (by The Police) in 1983, and Richard Barone's Clouds Over Eden album in 1993.

Books : Children of Abraham

Children of Abraham.
In a moment of important and tragic events in china which also dont allow me to post regularly in this blog (as you aware blogspost as well many other popular sites has been closed down by Chinese Authority) I would like to introduce a book of reportage

by Magnum Photographer Abbas, the book tell more about the wide community of Muslim, a travelogue which also crossed the region of Xinjiang where chinese and muslim are in an hard and violent confrontation. Is a popular book which does not need

extra coverage but i thought was useful to remind as important book to understand the complexity of the Islamic world. Here a note from the publisher
Publisher's Description
Invited by the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo to unfold a striking exhibition, Abbas gathers his work on the three monotheistic religions for the first time in its catalogue, with written extracts from his travel diaries.
From 1978 to 1980, Abbas covered the Iranian Revolution. Later, from Xinjiang to Morocco, from London to Timbuktu, he photographed the daily lives of Muslims, the rituals of their faith, and witnessed the emergence of some more radical voices. Driven by a desire to understand the internal tensions at work within Muslim societies, he exposed the conflict between a rising political ideology looking for inspiration in a mythical past and the universal desire for modernity and democracy. From 1995 to 2000, Abbas photographed Christian communities throughout the world with the same critical eye. On both journeys, he also recorded the lives of Jewish communities. Heralding the dawn of the "Third Millennium," the year 2000 seemed to impose itself as the universal calendar, and therefore a symbol of Western civilization. That year, Jews celebrated the year 5760 and Muslims the year 1420. Abraham—"the first Jew"—is also claimed as a common ancestor by Christians and Muslims.

Editions Intervalles, Paris, 2007. 240 pp., 140 b&w illustrations, 6¾x9".

Exhibition : Tommaso Savoia in "Musiche"

Following the successful opening of the exhibition "At the Border" the Canti e Discanti festival in Foligno opened another exhibition of my good friend Tommaso Savoia, the photos essay is about pictures taken during the years of the World Music festival .

The photos are visible at the caffe' Ennio at Corso Cavour of my hometown Foligno (good Ice cream too....) Good luck Tommaso....

Profile : Emilia Bergmark-Jimenez

Another post on Swedish photography : Emilia Bergmark Jimenez . I like the project "Stories from Almvik"

Exhibition : 2009 Nextkunst.licht in Shanghai

The Kunstlicht gallery in Shanghai is promoting an exhibition of some young Chinese Photographers which have a promising future, the 2009 NextKunst.licht is showing some of the participants of the workshop done by Shen Wei early this year. Among those I do like the conceptual work of Fei Tan with the series "Breathing there" from which i used a photo for the cover of this post.Here a note from the Gallery :

2009 nextkunst.licht exhibition is the first of a series of exhibitions dedicated to seeking out the most promising talent among a young generation of Chinese photographers and giving them the opportunity to present their work before an international audience . The first edition of nextkunst.licht will feature the works of five artists: Fei Tian, Ge Fang, Sun Yanchu, Tang Like, and Wen Jian.

Exhibition : Sputnik Photos "At the Border"

With great pleasure I was invited to curate the photographic section of the World Music Festival of Canti e Discanti, a festival which is held annually in the city of Foligno in Umbria where I was born. The festival has started with the big effort of Piter Foglietta and in the years has became an important appointment for those music lovers . Since last year the festival has switched to photography , I had the pleasure in 2008 to show my work on Cambodia and this year I decided to present the Sputnik Photo project called "At the border".

The Sputnik photo is a collective of different young photographers from the former East countries which developed a feature using different angles.

"At the border" is a photographic essay of 7 different reportages on the Illegal Labour market in the so called "New Europe". More about on the web site http://www.sputnikphotos.com.

Wednesday 8th of July the exhibition will be presented at Palazzo Trinci in the main square of Foligno. I am really sorry not to be there for the opening, I am in China dealing with censorship ( I am writing this post using a filter which slow down my writing and my daily posting)

Note on Censorship Nm. 2

As you can see I have posted again, I discovered a way to go around censorship here in China, a software which help me to log in and continue my blog, I really dont know how long it will work but I will add on my daily post on Photography.

For those who dont live in China is hard to understand, basically China Government has afraid of his own people, blocking thousand of blogs and site, to make it drastic they blog the entire blogspot which contains millions of blogs from all over the world and is impossible to open it from China.

My blog on photography does not hurt, at least enhance Chinese Photography and the complexity of this country through the vision of some interesting Chinese " visionaries" , but nevertheless is the place I decided to live and operate , working as a photographer here is not an easy task for many reason but who does not like challenge?

So I hope I can keep you update with my little notes on photography...

so long......

Books : New Photography in Italy

"New Photography in Italy" is new book which reveal a new wave on Italian photography, the book is edited by Francesca Nemni and Andrea Cossu. Here a short presentation:

Photography is a fundamental element in our knowledge of the world and in the exchange of ideas between different cultures - sometimes very remote from one another in distance and in time. In recent years, images have invaded our world making a much bigger contribution to planet wide communication than words, creating contacts and conveying information.The editors of the second title of The New Photography In... series have chosen twenty-four of the most interesting artists who best represent the main directions that Italy's photographic language has taken in recent years. All of them are well-known artists between the ages of thirty and forty and show their work in important galleries throughout the world. These include: Silvia Camporesi, Martina Della Valle, Donatella Di Cicco, Amleto Di Leo, Gianni Ferrero Merlino, Michela Formenti, Eva Frapiccini, Linda Fregni Nagler, Luigi Gariglio, Elena Givone, Alice Grassi, Emma Innocenti, Francesco Jodice, Lorenzo Jucker, Francesca Lazzaroni, Renato Leotta, Teodoro Lupo, Tancredi Mangano, Brigitte Neidermayr, Chiara Pirito, Moira Ricci, Francesca Rivetti, Elisa Sighicelli, and Francisco Zucchetti.