White Horse at Sasha Wolf

I'm just getting home from a trip to Sasha Wolf Gallery where White Horse is currently on view in a group exhibition of gallery artists and friends celebrating the opening of Sasha's gorgeous new space. Please stop by the gallery at 70 Orchard Street on the Lower East Side to see work by Elinor Carucci, Peter Kayafas, Tribble & Macenido, Paul McDonough, Greg Miller, David Nadel, Matthew Pillsbury, Katherine Wolkoff, and myself through January 13th, 2013.

The Photographer Discloses: Tema and The Silk City

Photographer Abigail Smithson and I recently met at Atlas Cafe in Brooklyn to discuss my Paterson project.  The interview is included in a series of interviews with photographers on her blog, The Photographer Discloses.  Please see: Tema Stauffer and The Silk City 

Ramapo College Artist Talk, Tuesday, Dec. 4th

Looking at the Land on NPR's The Picture Show

NPR's photo blog (the picture show) highlights Looking at the Land, a Web exhibit curated by Andy Adams for the Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design featuring work by contemporary photographers depicting the American landscape.  Looking at the Land has also been reviewed on PHOTO/arts Magazine, American Photo Magazine, New Landscape Photography, n j w v, Time Magazine's Lightbox, and Fototazo, among other sites.

Visionarios Magazine

Selections from American Stills are featured in Visionarios Magazine Issue I - a digital arts, culture, and fashion magazine edited by Jacopo Manfren from Milan celebrating analog photography.

The Photo Review: Best of Show

A large print of my portrait of Cathy in Paterson is exhibited for the first time in an exhibition opening this week at the University of the Arts Gallery 1401 in Philadelphia and on view through December 7th.

According to the gallery's site: "Best in Show" is the annual collaborative effort between the Photography department at the University of the Arts and The Photo Review, an independent journal of photography founded it 1976.  This annual exhibition gives the public the opportunity to view the juried work featured in The Photo Review's 2012 competition issue.

This year's show features a diverse collection of prize-winning work by 16 photographers, including Lesley Krane (First Prize), Soohyun Kim (Second Prize), Tema Stauffer (Third Prize), Willard Pate (Fourth Prize), Andrew Frost (Fifth Prize), Justin Fiset (Sixth Prize) Andrew Zimmermann (Seventh Prize), Catherine Hennessy (Eighth Prize), Yoko Ikeda (Ninth Prize), Horacio Devoto (Tenth Prize), Richard K. Kent (Honorable Mention), Rylan Steele (Honorable Mention) and Adam Wiseman (Honorable Mention).

The 2012 competition was juried by Peter Barberie, the Brodsky Curator of Photographs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and curator of recent exhibitions on Zoe Strauss and Mark Cohen.

Girls Who Smoke Fall 2012 Screenings

Tawny Foskett's short film, Girls Who Smoke, will screen this weekend in the Bluestocking Film Series at the St. Lawrence Arts Center in Portland, Maine. The film series features 5 shorts directed by women, and Tawny and I are driving to Maine for the screening on Sunday, October 28th.

After another screening in the Sandpoint Film Festival in Idaho on Saturday, November 3rd, Girls Who Smoke will premiere in NYC in the Big Apple Film Festival at Tribeca Cinemas on Wednesday, November 14th.  Advance tickets for the 9:50 - 11pm program can be purchased from the Big Apple Film Fest Program Guide.

Collarbones Magazine Issue 1

The first issue of Collarbones Magazine is live and includes my collaboration with Allison Browning, a poet based in Melbourne. Curated and edited by Xesfigi Maria, this online issue contains photographs and writing by international artists reflecting on the subject of intimacy. Allison's poems are shown in relation to photographs from my American Stills series on pages 150 - 153 of the magazine - the first collaboration to come from nearly three years of exchanging images, stories, and personal thoughts between the United States and Australia.

2012 WIP - LTI/Lightside Individual Project Grant Recipient

I recently received the 2012 WIP - LTI/Lightside Individual Project Grant for my project, Paterson, a series of documentary portraits depicting residents of Paterson, NJ during the years following the economic crisis in 2008.  Many thanks to those who have supported the project thus far.

Thank you to Humble Arts Foundation and Women in Photography for creating and promoting this platform and opportunity for women working in photography.  In March 2008, I participated in a panel discussion on women in photography with Cara Phillips and others facilitated by Humble Arts Foundation.  It's been amazing to witness the evolution of a website inspired by that discussion and how significantly it has contributed to increasing exposure and recognition for women working in photography.  As someone who also curates and writes for an arts site, I appreciate the commitment it takes to keep these projects alive, so thank you to these two talented photographers and WIP's co-founders, Cara Phillips and Amy Elkins, for their dedication.

Thank you to Jeffrey Kane and LTI-Lightside Photographic Services for sponsoring four years of this unique grant.

Thank you to this year's juror Sasha Wolf - the owner and director of an exceptional gallery - and a great supporter of women working in photography.  I met Sasha at her gallery in the spring of 2009 when she hosted two exhibitions curated by Nymphoto, a collective of women photographers. I've deeply felt Sasha's encouragement of my own work and gained enormous respect for her vision and her relationships with artists and the arts community.  I'm truly honored that Sasha has recognized the Paterson series for this grant.

Thank you to my family, always, for their love and their support of my creative life and bearing with me through the ups and downs. Thank you also to my friends and to Tawny for sharing stories and images and for inspiring me with her creativity and passion.

My deepest thanks to the many people in Paterson who have shared part of themselves and their experiences to make this project exist. I began taking pictures in Paterson on a fall afternoon in November 2009, and have made since more than fifty trips to the city and walked countless miles through its downtown streets looking for people with whom I might create a connection.  I have photographed over a hundred subjects and, in some cases, listened to stories about financial hardship, unemployment, homelessness, addiction, and depression. And, in other cases, their stories have been less fraught with these struggles. In every encounter, I've appreciated the willingness of these subjects to make the human connection that is the essence of these portraits.

Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2013

I'm honored to share the incredible news that my portrait of Cathy on Market Street in Paterson was chosen for inclusion in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2013 exhibition on view at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery from March 23, 2013 through February 23, 2014.  My deep thanks to the competition jurors - Brandon Fortune, Peter Frank, Hung Liu, Richard J. Powell, Alec Soth, Wendy Wick Reaves, and Dorothy Moss - for recognizing this work.  Thank you to Cathy and all of those in Paterson who have participated in this street portrait series during the past three years.

TEDx / Ideas Worth Spreading in Your Classroom

PDNedu's Fall 2012 issue is now live, including my article covering TEDx events at universities and highlighting TED talks by contemporary photographers with information about creating TEDx events in your own communities.

Please see: TEDx / Ideas Worth Spreading in Your Classroom 

Trois x Trois = 9 Inspirations

My cross-continental kindred spirit, photographer Pauline Magnenat, who recently curated Culturehall Feature Issue 88: TOGETHER, ALWAYS, has created a new web project. Trois x Trois asks artists to share 9 things that have recently inspired their creative lives, and I was happy to be invited by Pauline to mention some books, films, and an organization that have made an impression on me.

A short list of inspirations:  Trois x Troix / Tema Stauffer

Beasts of the Southern Wild, a feature-length film directed by Behn Zeitlin
Girls Who Smoke, a short film directed and co-produced by Tawny Foskett
Bill Cunningham, New York, a documentary directed by Richard Press and produced by Philip Gefter
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a novel by Junot Diaz
The Chronology of Water, a memoir by Lidia Yuknavitch
Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits, a biography by Linda Gordon
The Ongoing Moment, writing on photography by Geoff Dyer
Cruel and Tender: The Real in the Twentieth-Century Photography, a book edited by Tate exhibition curators Emma Dexter and Thomas Weksi
The Duke Center for Documentary Studies, an independent non-profit organization dedicated to documentary arts

culturehall feature 90: NEW ARTISTS FEATURE, SUMMER 2012

Congratulations to the artists whose work was selected for culturehall's New Artists Feature, Summer 2012: Casey James Wilson, Heather M. O'Brien, Sarah J. Tortora, and Goseong Choi.

The next call for applications opens mid-September.

The Photo Review Competition 2012

Cathy, Market Street, Paterson, NJ, 2011

I'm happy to announce that my portrait of Cathy on Market Street in Paterson received Third Prize in The Photo Review Competition 2012 juried by Peter Barberie, Curator of Photographs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The portrait will be included in an exhibition this fall along with the other prize-winning photographs at Philadelphia's University of the Arts Gallery 1401. Thank you to Peter Barberie, Photo Review Editor Stephen Perloff, and Richard Newman at Calumet Photographs for supporting the competition and contributing prizes.

This same portrait is also currently a semi-finalist for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2013 through the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, decision pending later this fall.

Both the portrait of Cathy and another subject in the Paterson series, Jorge, will be published in The Photo Review Competition issue this winter.


Jorge, Main Street, Paterson, NJ, 2011

The White Album

Album, Magazine für Fotografie, a bi-annual publication curated and produced by photographers, recently released an intriguing third issue in print, The White Album. The issue presents work by international photographers who approach ideas of disappearance.

The white, the erased, the disap­pearing, the disin­te­gra­ting, the scat­tered, the neboulsly shape­less, the dissol­ving, the outs­hined, the invi­sible, the not yet visible, the minimal, the rudi­men­tary, the dimi­nished, the disguised, the inde­pic­table, the long forgotten, the lost.

Works by:
Ben Alper, Viktoria Binschtok, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Ezio D’Agostino, Goekhan Erdogan, Altan Eskin, Nicolai Howalt, Daniel Müller-Jansen, Jim Reed, Simone Schulz, Eva Stenram and Stephan Tillmans

Essays by:
Jon Feinstein, Sandra Groll, Kristina Lykke Hansen, Jule Hillgärtner, Christian Janecke, Christof Maul, Lars Mextorf, Walter Benn Michaels, Marc Ries and Philippa Snow

Album is published by Victor Balko, Oliver Dignal, Stefan Stark, and the Offenbach Academy of Art and Design.

Size: 40 × 57 cm, 32 pages
Print: Web offset, 4 colors on newsprint
Edition: 1500 copies English / 1500 copies German

Today's Flak Photo

Car Skeletons, Highway 163, Arizona, 2008 is featured today in Flak Photo's Collection thanks to editor and publisher Andy Adams. Andy is currently producing a digital exhibition of 21st Century American landscape views in conjunction with a show curated by Jan Howard at The RISD Museum of Art opening on September 20th, America in View: Landscape Photography 1865 - Now.

For more information about Flak Photo's project and submitting images for consideration, please see: Looking at the Land - 21st Century American Views: A Collaboration with The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design.

Brandi

Brandi
Straight Street
Paterson, NJ
June 2012

Chris

Chris
Washington Street
Paterson, NJ
May 2012

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT curated by David Andrew Frey

June 28 – August 3, 2012

Opening Reception Thursday, June 28, 6 – 8pm — numberthirtyfive gallery
141 Attorney Street (between Stanton and Rivington), New York

Culturehall 4th birthday after party — 151
151 Rivington Street, (between Suffolk and Clinton), New York

This summer, Culturehall is pleased to join numberthirtyfive gallery in New York to present Hidden in Plain Sight, an exhibition presenting the work of Jon Bocksel, Joy Drury Cox, Stephanie Prussin, and Elliott Wright. Curated by David Andrew Frey, the selected artworks explore foundational systems that shape the everyday but which largely remain invisible through ubiquitousness.

Artists participating in the exhibition are featured members of Culturehall, an online resource for contemporary art. Additional images and information regarding the artists are available online through their Culturehall portfolios.

Numberthirtyfive is located at 141 Attorney Street between Stanton and Rivington on the Lower East Side in New York City. Summer gallery hours are Tuesday - Friday, 12 - 6 pm and by appointment. Please contact Brad Silk or Cindy Rucker at 212.388.9311 or info@numberthirtyfive.com for more information.

Upstate

Girls Who Smoke at The Picture House

Girls Who Smoke, a short film directed and co-produced by Tawny Foskett, screens on Sunday, June 24th and Thursday, June 28th at The Picture House in Pelham, NY. Filmed on location in Asbury Park, the film is adapted from Jenifer Hixson's story originally told at The Moth and later on This American Life. According to the director, Girls Who Smoke "has a slice-of-life, realistic feel, and is a simple story; essentially a long walk home by our main character, Jenny, and set against the background of domestic abuse, the working class and small town America."

Most members of the creative team are women, including the award-winning German cinematographer Sanne Kurz, producer Laurie Rud, associate producers Melissa Levins and Tawny Foskett and art director Irina Arnaut.

Kristin Taylor (Jenny) and Loren Lockwood (friend) star as the girls who smoke. From spending the day with her new friend, Jenny learns that her life may not be as bad as she thinks and finds strength within herself to make big changes.

The 15-minute screenings precede the Sunday 6:30pm and Thursday 7:30pm showtimes of feature film Damsels in Distress, also starring female leads.

ArtSlant Review: America through a Chinese Lens

My review of America through a Chinese Lens, a group exhibition curated by Herb Tam at the Museum of Chinese in America, was published today on ArtSlant. Please see: How Do I Fit Into This?

The exhibition is on view through September 10th.

culturehall feature 87: NEW ARTISTS FEATURE, SPRING 2012

Culturehall's New Artists Feature, Spring 2012 highlights work by Jesper Norda, Florine Demosthene, Joshua Citarella, and Yoshi Kametani.

The next juried application opens mid-June.

L.H.

L.H.
Passaic Street
Paterson, NJ
May 2012

Carl

Carl
Market Street
Paterson, NJ
April 2012

Nikia

Nikia
Dr. Martin Luther King Way
Paterson, NJ
May 2012

Culturehall Feature 86: THE SPACE WE LIVE IN

I had the opportunity to meet a curator based in Moscow, Yulia McCutcheon, on her trip to New York in the summer of 2011 and to discuss her ideas about photographers working today in Russia. Culturehall is pleased to present an issue on contemporary Russian photography that she co-curated along with her colleague Dasha Kutasina. THE SPACE WE LIVE IN features work by Natasha Pavlovskaya, Valeri Nistratov, Andrey Abramov, and Nikita Pirogov. Pirogov's photographs were also recently shown in an exhibition of Contemporary Russian Photography at the Houston FotoFest 2012 Biennial.

Cathy selected for semifinalist round of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2013

Cathy, Market Street, Paterson, NJ, 2011

I'm excited to share some wonderful news that the portrait of Cathy from my Paterson series in progress has been selected for the semifinalist round of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2013. The final round of judging takes place at the Smithsonian Museum's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC on September 13th. The finalists will be included in an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from March 23, 2013 through February 23, 2014, and the winner will receive an award of $25,000. The public will also have the opportunity to vote from amongst the finalists for the People's Choice Award.

My deepest thanks to the jury for recognizing this portrait and to Cathy for sharing part of herself with me on Market Street in April 2011. A special thanks also to my friend, artist June Glasson, for encouraging me to apply to the competition.

Portraits on JENREN

Elpraa, Market Street, Paterson, NJ, 2011

Minneapolis-based curator and producer Jenny Barnes has included a selection from my two portrait series shot in Binghamton, New York and Paterson, New Jersey on her art site for creative inspiration, JENREN. The portfolio of 12 images can be found at: JENREN / Tema Stauffer. Thank you, Jenny.

The Paterson series in progress is also now on my website: Paterson

On and Around East Caesar Chavez Avenue with Francesca Romeo