I Met a Unicorn

Unicorn
Austin, Texas
copyright Barry Stone

Since I couldn't make it to Texas (and I'm just about over that now), I'm happy to report that Texas is coming to me. Well, not just me. Good friend and photographer Barry Stone is exhibiting seven photographs in his third solo exhibition at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery opening Friday March 26th. Originally from Texas, Barry spent some years in New York teaching at the ICP. He currently lives in Austin near my favorite place to swim, Barton Springs, and teaches at Texas State University in San Marcos. Barry is also the author of a beautiful photo blog, YES YES YES, as well as a new blog specifically devoted to images of Texas, O EMPIRE WIDE AND GLORIOUS.

According to the press release for this upcoming exhibition of his recent work:

Barry Stone employs a wide variety of practices as a means of generating singular images. His approach includes "straight" photography, rephotographing, computer-rendering, and manually reworking, and does not value one method above another. Instead, Stone takes an egalitarian view of image-making. At a time when an explosion of photographic imagery can seem to dilute the medium to an infinite stream of information, Stone displays a considered selection which exemplifies his varied approaches. Through the seven photographs, he has slowed the eye to focus on points within his photographic practice.

In two photographs—one of a "unicorn" at a children's party, the other of a woman pointing her digital camera at a sunset—the conceptual focus of the image is enclosed in the framing of a scene observed by Stone through the lens of his camera. Another work in the show is a rephotographed image of an oil painting, an image within an image. In a third piece, Stone employs the conceit of the self-referential image again by spray-painting an arc on a photograph of a corner space and rephotographing, collapsing the pictorial space back into abstract elements.

The image Alan Greenspan as a Rainbow in Washington D.C. on October 23, 2009, 12.20.2009 was created by sampling the colors of a Washington Post press photograph of Greenspan testifying in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and creating a gradient rainbow from those colors, a nod to the connection between photography and currency, neither of which is tied to a gold standard that delineates a definitive value.

Stone's photographs deal with the problems of description in photography, and can reflect our perceptions of reality as we acknowledge the factors which inform their production and interpretation.His aesthetic in this regard is as indebted to the language of painting as it is to the language of advertising as it is to capitalist production.

I Met a Unicorn
Barry Stone

Klaus Von Nitchtssagend Gallery
438 Union Avenue
Brooklyn, NY

March 26 - April 25
opening reception Friday, March 26, 7 - 9pm

Texas State University

Damn - it is HOT down here. I drove out to Texas State University in San Marcos this morning with photographers and photo professors, Barry Stone and Ben Ruggerio, to give a talk about my work to a group of photo classes and to participate in a critique for Barry's summer intensive course.

As someone who is trying to shoot work in Texas, it was interesting for me to get an idea of what kinds of things Texans are photographing in their own region. At one point, we looked a work by a young woman who is shooting drag queens alongside work by a young man who is shooting Mormon missionaries. Both are hoping to portray their subjects in a sympathetic light. We also looked at interiors of a Baptist church, southern landscapes reminiscent of Walker Evans and William Eggleston, and a series of male nudes in lingerie quite unlike anything my green eyes have seen before.

Took an afternoon siesta in the A/C ... now I'm going swimming.

culturehall news

Smile When You Say Texas, (Clyde)
Austin, TX
2008
copyright Barry Stone


Turkey, Dyer Automotive, Highway 71
Austin, TX
2007
copyright Barry Stone


Draper, VA
2008
copyright Mark Burnette


Forrest City, AR
2007
copyright Mark Burnette

culturehall has recently added two new photographers to its community of artists, Barry Stone and Mark Burnette. Barry Stone is a former colleague of mine at the ICP who now lives in Austin and teaches at Texas State University in San Marcos, where I will be giving a short talk and participating in a critique for one of his classes at the end of June.

Barry's work is currently being shown at Privateer Gallery in Brooklyn in a group exhibition, Haunts, on view thru July 12th. I made it over to the gallery to see his prints during Bushwick Open Studios this past weekend, and I also look forward to seeing more of Barry's work in a two-person exhibition with Jonathon Faber called Broken Gold in the Courtyard Galley at the University of Texas at Austin on view thru August 28th. Barry Stone's portfolio can be found here: Barry Stone

I am very excited that Mark Burnette has also created a portfolio of his images for culturehall. I mentioned Mark's first trip to New York City in a previous blog post, and he has included one of his images shot in Brooklyn in his portfolio. We are happy to discover an artist living far outside of the urban art spheres who brings a compelling vision to culturehall's community. I first became intrigued with Mark's photographs and writing through his blog, Condition's Uncertain, and the relationship we have established is a testament to me of the internet as a platform for exchanging ideas and forming bonds in the arts.

culturehall has also added some new links to art sites we like in the Artists Resources section of our homepage. One of my favorite places to discover photographers and read excellent writing about their work is American Suburb X - the brainchild of a photographer based in California, Doug Rickard. His site includes interviews as well as evocative essays about photographers accompanying selections of their work. We are looking forward to including some of Doug's own photography when he contributes a portfolio to culturehall sometime in the near future.

We have listed blogs authored by two highly energetic art collectors based in New York City, Ruben Natal-San Miguel of ARTMostfierce and Mike of Modern Art Obsession. Ruben is everywhere and knows everyone and shares some of that art world love with us almost every day - his deepest passion for those emerging. I have especially appreciated Ruben's fantastic series of interviews with figures in the arts, The Current State of the Art Market, in which he raises insightful questions about how we are faring the economic crisis. Mike, who is similarly "obsessed," works on Wall Street by day and writes blunt and irreverent commentary about the art world from the insider's perspective of an avid collector.

Additionally, we are happy to list some other eclectic blogs about the arts: Baltimore Interview from Baltimore; ArtsPreserve from Nebraska; Eva Lake from Portland; Roman Blog from Philadelphia; Art Observed from New York; Art for Humans, TRYHARDER and Triple Canopy from Los Angeles; Lee Grant from Australia; GaliBlog from Norway; eyeCONTACT from New Zealand; and Alan the Gallant and Pop Pervert from Spain.

I am headed to Austin this week to focus on personal projects for the next month. David Andrew Frey and I will resume adding artists and artist resources to culturehall later in July. We appreciate the efforts made by all of those involved these past few months in making culturehall a new presence on the internet for promoting artists.