Brian

Brian
Paterson, NJ
September 2011

Tasha

Tasha
Market Street
Paterson, NJ
September 2011

Culturehall Feature 77: NEW ARTISTS, SUMMER 2011

Congratulations to the artists whose work is highlighted in culturehall's NEW ARTISTS FEATURE, SUMMER 2011: Antoine Lefebvre, Jenny Herrick, Bahar Yurukoglu, and Irina Rozovsky.

Our next juried application opens mid-October.

culturehall feature 74: TRACES

The four artists presented in this issue engage in photography’s dialogue with mortality and memory, presence and absence, visibility and invisibility. Through individual methods of photographing physical environments, each artist blurs the distinction between what exists and what is imagined or felt. Their relationships to the external world reflect personal investigations into themes of death, dreams, desire, attachment, and transformation. In some works, they look for evidence left behind even where it is not visible on the surface, and in others, they transfigure spaces to express internal realities.

During her early adolescence in Israel, Ayala Gazit learned from her father that she had a half-brother named James who lived in Western Australia with his mother and her children by another father. Six months later, James took his own life at 20-years-old. Driven by a desire to know James through the spaces he had occupied, Gazit traveled to Australia thirteen years after he passed away to search for traces of her brother’s existence in this barren terrain where fierce winds reinforce a feeling of isolation and eerie discordance. Her series of photographs, Was it a dream, convey the mystery and sorrow surrounding his death by focusing on trees, details of rooms, resonant natural light, and deep shadows. Also by combining portraits that she made of living family members with letters exchanged between them, as well as found photographs of James himself, she explores the layers of a complex story surrounding the enormous tragedy of her family’s loss. Together, these pictures and words communicate a haunting sense of absence and a quest for answers to questions that can never be fully answered.

Inspired by late 19th century spirit photographs and Victorian ghost stories written by women, Corinne May Botz collected oral stories and photographed over eighty locations where ghosts were reported throughout the United States. Over the course of nearly a decade, Botz investigated attics, bedrooms, bathrooms, hallways, windows, doors, and staircases in private residences as well as taverns, inns, army barracks, theatres, and museums. The images she made at these sites suggest the notion that the imprint of an event, real or imagined, imbues each place with a metaphorical hauntedness. The photographs reveal psychically charged visual clues about the history of these interiors and their inhabitants, or in some cases, allow the power of empty space and what is not visible or explicit to create mystery and ambiguity. Haunted Houses essentially speaks to the personal and subjective experience of perception of place particularly as it relates to narratives of memory, loss, and mourning. As Botz writes in the introduction to her book, “Houses are real and they are not real; they are both a physical space and a mental space full of dreams and desires.”

The relationship between the external world and the human psyche similarly informs landscape photographs made by Megan Cump. She, too, cites spirit photography as an important influence on her work. Feral explores personal mythology as the artist infuses herself into a sublime wilderness. Traces of her body appear in primordial landscapes, transforming them into mythic and paranormal scenes. Cump retreats into water or fog or dark shadows like an apparition, as animal as she is human. A fire burns in a river, the blood of a human heart stains a frozen waterfall. In Phantoms Limbs, Cump references 19th century paintings by French Realist Gustave Courbet. Reminiscent of the nude figure in his erotically charged L’Origine du monde, the lower region of her body is the focal point of the image – her legs spread under the rush of water – while the surrounding rocks and trees evoke Courbet’s reverent depictions of caves and grottos in other works.

Paola Davila’s photographic studies, Interior Seasons, are surreal and painterly meditations on water as a metaphor for human existence and the passage of time. The recurring motifs of a pillow and a puddle in each scene imply states of being and dreaming; lush color and texture dramatize the visceral beauty of these symbolic beds in natural settings. Davila photographs an actual bedroom, no less dreamlike - a stream of sunlight cast across a pool of fluid soaking dark red sheets. The image is quietly violent, deeply sexual. Elegant folds of the sheets undulate in light and shadow. The glistening liquid is the aftermath of a force and a flow – the revelation of what exists inside of us.

The Chain

'Balance' (set by Ye Rin Mok) - photograph by Tema Stauffer

Stuart Pilkington (curator of The Alphabet Project and the 50 States Project) invited 107 photographers from around the world to participate in The Chain, a series of photographs responding to a title set by the person directly behind them in a chain of photographers. The title they set inspired the photographer in front of them.

I revisited Frye, a disc jockey whom I discovered in the parking lot of Dreamers Video Store in Austin on Christmas Day in 2009. I asked the photographer in front of me, Bieke Deporter, to consider 'oversaturation' - a condition to me that is not just about color density in photography - but also about life in New York, life in the arts, life in the wide wild world of images and the internet. Bieke made something deep, dark, beautiful, and serene.

Please see 105 more links in the chain here: The Chain


'Oversaturation' (set by Tema Stauffer) - photograph by Bieke Deporter

Culturehall Feature 70: NEW ARTISTS, SPRING 2011

Congratulations to culturehall's four new artists: Jason Bailer Losh, David Schoerner, Claudia X. Valdes, and Sarah Palmer.

Our next juried application opens mid-July.

CCNY's Annual Juried Photography Competition

The Camera Club of New York announces an open call for applications for its Annual National Photography Competition juried by photographer, Richard Renaldi. The deadline is Monday, June 27.

For more information, please see: CCNY's 2011 National Photography Exhibition Call for Entries

Elpraa Argnenis Diaz

Elpraa Argenis Diaz
Paterson, NJ
May 2011

Michael

Michael
Straight Street
Paterson, NJ
May 2011

George

George
Dr. Martin Luther King Way
Paterson, NJ
April 2011

Cathy

Cathy
Market Street
Paterson, NJ
April 2011

Rocket Science Interview

Thank you to photographer Pauline Magnenat whose recent interview with me can be found in the photographer interview series on her blog: ALL OF THIS IS ROCKET SCIENCE - Tema Stauffer

Food & Money

Food
Paterson, NJ
2010


Money
Paterson, NJ
2011

Jesus

Jesus
Main Street
Paterson, NJ
April 2011

Marvin

Marvin
Paterson, NJ
April 2011

inMotion Photography Auction and Benefit

Couple Embraces in yard near scene of domestic violence incident
Chicago, IL
2000

I've donated a print of the image above shot on a police ride-along on the south side of Chicago in the year 2000 to inMotion's 2011 Annual Photography Auction & Benefit. InMotion provides free legal services to low-income woman in New York City.

The Live Auction takes place tonight at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers. The work can be previewed online at:
Live Photography Auction Collection

A Silent Auction can be viewed at:
Silent Auction Collection

Naeem

Naeem
Straight Street
Paterson, NJ
April 2011

Nathaniel

Nathaniel Browne
Dr. Martin Luther King Way
Paterson, NJ
March 2011

Bory

Bory outside Circle Cafe
Washington Street
Paterson, NJ
March 2011

Junior

Junior
Market Street
Paterson, NJ
March 2011

Message to Junior:

Hi Junior,

Thank you again for letting me make a portrait of you on the street in Paterson. You're a very handsome young man with such a lovely expression in your eyes.

I am sending the photo in the attachment. I hope you like it.

Best,

Tema

Reply from Junior:

I love compliments, thanks!

Stacey

Stacey in Doorway
Dr. Martin Luther King Way
Paterson, NJ
November 2009

Pedro

Pedro
Paterson, NJ
March 2011

Miguel

Miguel, The Boxer
Ellison Street
Paterson, NJ
March 2010

culturehall feature 65: NEW ARTISTS, WINTER 2011

Congratulations to culturehall's new artists - Lydia Anne McCarthy, Chris Wright, Brian Gillis, and Matthew Gamber. Their exceptional work was selected from our second open call for applications for membership and is highlighted in Feature Issue 65: NEW ARTISTS, WINTER 2011.

Our next open call will be announced in April 2011.

Kalamazoo Gazette Interview

Thank you to Simon A. Thalmann and the Kalamazoo Gazette for a recent interview published in the arts section of the Sunday March 20th edition.

Please see: Photographer Tema Stauffer discusses winning AOL's '25 for 25' Grant for innovation in the arts

FUNCTION/CULTUREHALL - curated by David Andrew Frey

Ligne Roset, Cottelston Advisors and Culturehall are pleased to present Function, an exhibition curated by David Andrew Frey.

Lucas Blalock
Joseph Burwell
Diane Carr
Ethan Greenbaum
John Houck
Michelle L. Leftheris
David B. Smith
Luke Stettner
Lee Vanderpool
Robyn Voshardt / Sven Humphrey
Ashley Zangle

Function explores a selection of creative practices based on logic, systems and play while in conversation with a working space. Much like design-based objects, which exist to serve a defined physical plane, artworks in the exhibition find their own territory by creating individual sets of rules. Through the use of conceptual and formal concerns, artists in the show contemplate the workings of our contemporary surroundings, ponder perceived structure and examine gaps that may appear on closer inspection.

Artists participating in Function are members of Culturehall, an invitational online artist registry and curatorial project founded by David Andrew Frey.

February 22 – May 20, 2011
Opening Reception March 10, 6-8pm

Ligne Roset
250 Park Avenue South
New York, New York

Artist Lecture at Kutztown University

CLIMATE

CLIMATE:
Karen Azoulay, Jem Cohen, Brent Green, Ben Kingsley and Jessica Langley, Carolyn Monastra, and Dan Torop

CLIMATE, curated by Megan Cump and Carolyn Monastra, features short films/videos that blur the distinction between the outer environment and an inner more psychological realm.

ARTPROJX CINEMA at the SVA Theatre, New York
in association with The Armory Show and VOLTA NY

FREE screenings:
Wednesday, March 2nd: 8:45 - 9:15 pm
Thursday, March 3rd: 5:05 - 5:35 pm

The SVA Theatre
333 West 23rd Street (between 8th and 9th Avenues)
New York, NY 10011

Victoria Sambunaris

Untitled from The Border series
2010
copyright Victoria Sambunaris

The Photographer's Lecture Series: Victoria Sambunaris
International Center of Photography
February 23, 7pm

The Border
Victoria Sambunaris
Yancey Richardson Gallery
535 West 22nd Street 3rd Floor
February 24 - April 9

More Fuel for Allison

Pennsylvania, 2006


Brooklyn, 2006


Brooklyn, 2006

Australian writer and poet Allison Browning and I began our correspondence a year ago when I discovered my White Horse on her blog accompanying her poem, Small Gods. We quickly became overseas pen pals, sharing our experiences and intimate thoughts on love, relationships in their various manifestations, writing, soul-searching, and art-making.

Allison's poetry is inspired by images from photographers around the world, and in time, more of my own photographs appeared on her blog along with her poems: Fuel, Two Little, and Quickstep. I was thrilled for Allison that Fuel was selected for The Best Australian Poems 2010.

David Andrew Frey and I invited Allison to curate a Culturehall Feature Issue based on Australian photographers, and in September 2010, she contributed a beautiful essay, OUT BACK.

In honor of our year as kindred spirits and confidants, I've searched my contact sheets for old images with open spaces for Allison to find words. Thank you, Allison, for an inspiring friendship.

NOFOUND TO NEW DOCUMENTS

Umbrella
2001

Two of my photographs are included in a group exhibition opening tonight in London, curated by Emeric Glayse. Emeric is the Paris-based curator of the photo blog NoFound, and a selection of the photographs he has exhibited online will be shown in a traveling exhibition starting at Viktor Wynd Fine Art. NoFound to New Documents references the MOMA exhibition, New Documents, 1967, curated by John Szarkowski, and all of the images will be similarly exhibited in a line of small framed prints.

Other participating photographers include Agnes Thor, Alexander Binder, Ana Kraš, Bjarne Bare, Chris Heads, Elena Chernyak, Elinor Carucci, Emanuele Cardesi, Erik Van Der Weijde, Giasco Bertoli, Henry Roy, Jackson Eaton, Jerry Hsu, Jonnie Craig, Keiichi Nitta, Lina Scheynius, Linus Bill, Logan White, Nicole Lesser, Noël Loozen, Olivia Malone, Peter Sutherland, Peter Zachary Voelker, Philippe Gerlach, Rasha Kahil, Ren Hang, Rikki Kasso, Roberto Rubalcava, Thobias Fäldt, Todd Fisher, Tod Seelie, Valia Fetisov, Vincent Delbrouck and Yi-Qing Liu.

The exhibition runs through February 28, 2011

Viktor Wynd Fine Art
11 Mare street, E8
London, UK

SIP Call for Research: Philosophy and Photography

The Shpilman Institute for Photography (The SIP) announces open calls for general research on photography and for research on philosophy and photography.

The SIP invites scholars and independent researchers from all over the world to submit their applications through its website, where guidelines, themes, the application process, and submissions can be found.

Grants are based on proposals for research leading to the completion within the grant period of a written document, whether an essay or extended research paper. All submissions and papers for both the calls must be in English. Grants for individuals and group research will range from US $5,000 up to $15,000. Deadline for submissions is March 1, 2011.

culturehall feature 60: OTHER PLACES

Historically, one of the most powerful aspects of the medium of photography, particularly through genres of portraiture and documentary work, has been its ability to make marginalized individuals and communities visible. Culturehall features four photographers in this issue whose work specifically focuses on identities, relationships, and environments outside of heterosexual norms. Like their predecessors and contemporaries – Peter Hujar, Nan Goldin, David Armstrong, Mark Morrisroe, Jack Pierson, and Catherine Opie, to name a few – these artists, through widely varied photographic strategies, portray people and social spaces whose differences are defined by unconventional expressions of sexuality and gender.

The constructed images in Kelli Connell’s ongoing series, Double Life, elicit multiple readings. One of these is an interpretation of masculinity and femininity as they manifest in the context of lesbian relationships. Using a single model, Connell uses digital technology to produce fictitious photographs that appear almost like film stills in which a psychologically charged moment exists between two characters. In more or less subtle ways, one of the women appears to perform a masculine role, where the other performs a feminine role. Her photographs raise questions about how gender dynamics are expressed in lesbian relationships and the nature of gender itself as a social construct. What makes the identity of this single subject different from that of her “other self” in each image are cultural cues like hairstyle, make-up, clothing, and body language. Reminiscent of scenes between Alma and Elisabet from Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, Connell creates spaces fraught with tension and ambiguity.

Molly Landreth’s series of large-format photographs, Queer America, celebrates a broad notion of queer identity. Among her subjects are gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people – individuals, couples, groups, and families existing outside mainstream conventions of sexuality and gender. Landreth asks her subjects, some of whom she meets through Facebook or Myspace, to suggest meaningful places in their own homes and neighborhoods where she can make portraits of them wearing clothing of their choice. These frank portraits made in states across the country document GLBT subjects of various ages, races, and economic backgrounds. In one image, Landreth photographed Cruz, aka Jalesa, in a backyard in Columbus, Ohio. At 17, Jalesa had just performed drag for the first time at Baptist church camp and struck poses learned from watching America’s Next Top Model. Landreth’s method of creating these photographs enables her subjects to present themselves as they wish to be seen; however, an inescapable truth is that how they are perceived entirely depends on who is looking.

Using a hidden camera, Omar Gamez spies on furtive sexual encounters between men in cuartos oscuros, or darkrooms, in Mexico City. Like Tennessee William’s Joy Rio – a formerly opulent opera house converted into a third-rate cinema where sexual dramas transpire in the roped-off regions – the darkrooms in Gamez’s photographs exist in old houses with tall ceilings, candelabras, and fading gilt. Legally, the spaces pass as gyms, and songs from radio stations fill the large hallways and decaying rooms with rhythmic sounds. Gamez occupies these spaces both as an artist and as a participant. In his images, the faces and identities of men are obscured beyond recognition by shadows, soft focus, and framing. What is visible are fragments of trysts between strangers where light leaks into darkness. The impressionistic stills and video of The Dark Book secretly capture anonymous men like ghosts in a ritual based in desire, mystery, and danger.

In contrast, Doug Ischar’s Marginal Waters series depicts gay men basking in sunlight on a Chicago beach. Ischar documented a community of men who congregated on the Belmont Rocks of Lake Michigan in the mid-eighties before the site was demolished in 2003. The images communicate a sense of warmth and relaxed intimacy - as well as freedom and openness in sexual expression – within a group of kindred spirits. In some cases, the men are coupled and shown in sensual embraces. Besides their historical significance as documentation of a specific cultural moment, what makes the images so engaging is the pure pleasure of looking at them. The saturated colors of the sky, water, and skin tones of seductive bodies accompanied by an assortment of quirky artifacts, like the biography of Diane Arbus and a pink flamingo or the eighties hairstyles and slinky shorts, result in irresistible pictures.


Head to Head, by Kelli Connell


Cruz, aka Jalesa, by Molly Landreth


From The Dark Book, by Omar Gamez


Marginal Waters #14, by Doug Ischar

Gay rights in focus before UN vote

Jessica Stern, Director of Programs at The International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, is quoted in an article published in The Washington Post on Sunday December 19th discussing a vote today at the UN.

According to Anita Snow of The Associated Press:

A culture war has broken out at the United Nations over whether gays should be singled out for the same protections as other minorities whose lives are threatened.

The battle will come to a head on Tuesday when the General Assembly votes to renew its routine condemnation of the unjustified killing of various categories of vulnerable people.

It specifies killings for racial, national, ethnic, religious or linguistic reasons and includes refugees, indigenous people and other groups. But the resolution, because of a change promoted by Arab and African nations and approved at committee level, this time around drops "sexual orientation" and replaces it with "discriminatory reasons on any basis."

The U.S. government says that it is "incensed" at the change, as are the gay rights campaigners.

Please read Jessica Stern's comments in the full article: Gay rights in focus before UN vote

culturehall feature 58: NEW ARTISTS, FALL 2010

Congratulations to culturehall's four new artists: Jillian Conrad, Alexander Harding, Evi Rita Lemberger, and Sam Keogh. Their work was selected by David Andrew Frey and myself from our first open call for applications for membership on the site.

Please see: NEW ARTISTS, FALL 2010