On and Around East Caesar Chavez Avenue with Francesca Romeo

SELF EXPOSURE

Francesca Romeo and Shen Wei debut new color photographs from their self-portrait series along with work by Nils Ericson and Zachari Logan in a sexy summer show opening this Thursday at Daniel Cooney Fine Art.

SELF EXPOSURE
Daniel Cooney Fine Art
511 West 25th Street
New York, NY

June 24 - July 30
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 24, 6-8pm

culturehall news

It feels like summer is winding down, and I am making one last trip to Michigan before I return to New York for the fall. David Andrew Frey will be launching some new developments to culturehall in September, and we will be fully back in action looking for more exceptional artists to add to the 320 members who have already contributed work.

David and I were excited to learn this week that one of culturehall's members whose work was discovered on the site recently landed a commission through a major corporation to install one of his pieces in an office space in Stockholm. It's great to know that the site is playing a role in helping artists realize substantial opportunities in their careers.

One of my focusses has been to spread to the word about culturehall to international arts blogs and websites and to share our enthusiasm for the information they are contributing to the arts in the ARTIST RESOURCES section of our homepage. We have recently listed some new sites we like including Artcards, Light Journeys, OPENWIDEpdx, Peek, and the newly revamped blog by my friend and colleague, Barry Stone, YES YES YES. Barry has been sharing recent images as well as some wonderful images from his archives.

While David is communicating with artists working in various media, I am primarily concentrating on adding photographers to the site. Two photographers whose work was featured this summer on culturehall were Zack Seckler and Francesca Romeo, with whom I exhibited work at Daniel Cooney Fine Art this past spring. Francesca has recently been shooting some intriguing self-portraits in hotel rooms around the world or sometimes in her East Village apartment, like the one included above. Some of her newest work can be found on her culturehall porfolio: Francesca Romeo/Culturehall.


Theodore, from TRUE LOVE series
copyright Zack Seckler

For Francesca

Television Screens
Shin Her Hotel
Taipei, Taiwan
2002

Last Week

Tema Stauffer at Daniel Cooney Fine Art


Francesca Romeo at Daniel Cooney Fine Art

Our show at Daniel Cooney has been extended one more week and now closes on Saturday April 25th. Showing next at the gallery is an exhibition of drawings by Jason Francavilla, Rubens Ghenov and Michael Whittle from April 30th and May 30th, followed by an exciting summer salon of work by photographers Juliana Beasley, Felix Cid, Bradley Peters and Rebecca Sittler Schrock, opening June 25th.

The New Yorker

Photography critic, Vince Aletti, rocked our worlds with a review of our show at Daniel Cooney in this week's GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN in The New Yorker. Here's what he wrote:

FRANCESCA ROMEO / TEMA STAUFFER

These two young photographers approach portraiture from very different angles, but because their pictures are similarly fraught, complex, and compelling they complement each other nicely. Romeo, whose subjects are mostly friends and lovers on New York’s bohemian fringe, combines intimacy and theatricality in pictures that make the most of available light, dark shadows, and tattooed flesh. Stauffer photographs strangers—young men she meets on the street of Binghamton, New York, who appear at once rebellious and vulnerable. This volatile combination is kicked up a notch by erotic tension, but Stauffer is tender rather than confrontational, and her work looks beyond the boys’ cool affect to something warmer. Through April 18. (Cooney, 511 W. 25th St. 212-255-8158.)


Thank you, Vince!

Women in Photography

Francesca Romeo and I are featured this month on Women in Photography's site: Francesca and Tema / WIP

Thanks again to co-curators, Cara Phillips and Amy Elkins, for their ongoing efforts to encourage dialogue about work by women photographers in the contemporary art world.

Thank you ...

Our show opens tonight! And it is time to give thanks to the people who made it happen:

Thank you to my friend and soulmate, Anthony, who provided some inspiration for this series and who flew out from Minneapolis to celebrate his birthday and to join me at the opening.

Thank you to Daniel for believing in this work and for giving me the opportunity to exhibit this series in a his amazing gallery. And thank you to Brett for introducing me to Daniel.

Thank you to Francesca for sharing this experience with me and for being so awesome to communicate with along the way.

Thank you to Alex for her friendship and pep talks. Thank you to Jonathon for his friendship and tech support. Thank you to Emily for her friendship, writing and insight.

Thank you Matt for the passion and enthusiasm he brings to his blog and my own and for the advice when it comes to matters of the heart.

Thank you to Kiko, whose teenage years were inseparable from my own and whose friendship remains for life - thank you for contributing to the production of the work.

Thank you to Keith at Laumont for his hard work and patience in making the exhibition prints.

Thank you to Ruben for his energy and enthusiasm and for the efforts he has made to understand and to support this series.

Thank you to Cara and Amy of WIP and Nina of Nymphoto for the efforts they have made to support my work and the work of women in photography.

Thank you to my parents for their love, support, faith and guidance.

Thank you to Barbara and her mother, Donna, for sharing their home and their hearts with me in Binghamton.

And thank you to the young men in Binghamton - Jacob, Jonathon, Johan, Justin, Matthew, and David - who gave a part of themselves and their stories to these photographs.

Thank you all for making this possible.

Camera Club of New York

Chuck After Being Attacked
copyright Francesca Romeo

A number of photographer friends have contributed prints for tonight's Silent Benefit Auction to support The Camera Club of New York, an non-profit organization that provides facilities, resources, residencies and classes for New York's photo community. Among the participating artists are Brett Bell, Timothy Briner, Amy Elkins, Jen Davis, Dana Miller, Carolyn Monastra, Stuart O'Sullivan, Richard Renaldi, Sean Carroll, Christine Callahan, Sebastian Lemm, Benard Yenelouis, Bill Armstrong, Jessica Kaufman, Wayne Liu, Lori Nix and Francesca Romeo.

Francesca Romeo and I have recently been invited by Daniel Cooney Fine Art Gallery to participate in a two-person exhibition of our portraits scheduled to open on February 19th, 2009. Daniel Cooney, who belongs to the Camera Club's benefit committee, will also soon announce an on-line auction through his gallery of work by emerging artists, including some of the photographers above.

A preview of the work in the Camera Club Auction can be found here: CAMERA CLUB AUCTION

CCNY Silent Benefit Auction
at Calumet Photographic
22 West 22nd Street
Monday November 10th
6:30 - 8:30pm
$10 admission