For Elsie

Tonight

Toys R Us
Cleveland, OH
2009
copyright Brian Ulrich


Sunset Park
2005
copyright Debora Mittelstaedt

Two great shows opening tonight: Brian Ulrich's Thrift and Dark Stores at Julie Saul Gallery and NYMPHOTO Presents at Sasha Wolf Gallery. I'm going to do my very best to catch them both.

Brian has been documenting the excesses and left-overs of American consumerism over the last decade, and his most recent and eerie images portray stores now dark and desolate in the economic down-turn. Read more in a piece about his work by Lyle Rexler in Photograph Magazine: Brian Ulrich.

NYMPHOTO will be exhibiting another round of work by women photographers, this time selected from an open call for entries. I am excited to finally meet German photographer, Debora Mittelstaedt, who will be exhibiting her dreamy and enigmatic photograph of a pair of red-heads - a brother and sister or a young couple in love?

Other photographers include Jennifer Boomer, Livia Corona, Katrina d'Autremont, Jen Davis, Lizzie Gorfaine, Victoria Hely-Hutchinson, Megan Maloy, Tiana Markova-Gold, Debora Mittelstaedt, Beatrix Reinhardt, Anna Skladmann, Malou van Breevoort, Corinne Vionnet, Sophia Wallace, Susan Worsham, Nina Büsing Corvallo, Rona Chang, Candace Gottschalk, Maria Passarotti and Jane Tam.

Brian Ulrich
Thrift and Dark Stores

Julie Saul Gallery
535 West 22nd Street

Opening Reception: Thursday May 28th, 5:30-7pm


NYMPHOTO Presents

Sasha Wolf Gallery
10 Leonard Street

Opening Reception: Thursday May 28th, 6-8pm

For Pete

For Kersten

For Oznur

For Francesca

Television Screens
Shin Her Hotel
Taipei, Taiwan
2002

The Ongoing Moment

I spent a sunny afternoon yesterday on the grass in well-documented Union Square finishing an amazing book by Geoff Dyer, The Ongoing Moment. A must-read for all obsessed with photography.

Dyer's writing style is fresh and engaging and often even funny. Weaving in narrative accounts of canonical photographers' lives and relationships to one another, The Ongoing Moment meditates on how these figures examined some of the same subjects: unmade beds, benches, windows, doors, signs, skies, hats, backs, stairs, movie screens, televisions, gas stations, the blind, the open road - and through this collective consciousness, defined American photography.

Here's a particularly quirky take on the psychology of William Eggleston's photographs:

Eggleston's photographs like they were taken by a Martian who lost the ticket for his flight home and ended up working at a gun shop in a small town near Memphis. On the weekends he searches for that lost ticket - it must be somewhere - with a haphazard thoroughness that confounds established methods of investigation. It could be under a bed among a bunch of down-at-heel shoes; or in the Thanksgiving turkey that seems, somehow, to be 69ing itself; in the dusty forecourt of Roy's Motel; in the spiky ears of a Minnie Mouse cactus; in a microscopic tangle of grass and weed; under the seat of a kid's looming tricycle - in fact, it could be anywhere. In the course of his search he interviews odd people - odd in the Arbus sense - who, though polite, look at him askance. He suspects that some of them (especially the fellow sitting on a bed in what looks like the Motel Solaris) might once have been in a predicament similar to his own but have since put down roots. Not so in the guy standing naked in the red haze of a graffiti-scrawled room: he's gonna find that thing if it kills him. Trouble is, he can't remember what that thing is. Couldn't be an orange, could it?

(from The Ongoing Moment, Geoff Dyer, page 193)

Mark Burnette

Mark Burnette
Brooklyn, NY
May 2009

I wasn't really surprised to discover that my pen pal has a sweet and sensitive face, which I got to see for the first time this week after writing to one another for nearly two years. Mark is a photographer, writer and English teacher who lives in Pulaski, Virginia; and he and I struck up a lasting correspondence which has consisted of heartfelt emails, photos and music exchanged in the mail, and close attention to each others lives unfolding on our blogs. This week, Mark got on a Greyhound bus and made his way to New York City for the first time to pay a visit. It was remarkable that the person I knew from writing and images was exactly as I had imagined, and we were like two peas in a pod.

It is easy to be reminded of William Eggleston by this native Virginian who has been making prolific and artful snapshots of the small-town vernacular of his region, far removed from New York City's art world. Mark's primary outlet for these images is his blog, Conditions Uncertain, which also includes frequent excerpts from short stories, poetry and song lyrics, as well as his own beautiful and contemplative writing. Mark's blog consistently draws a relationship between American photography and American literature, particularly in its depiction of the everyday.

Like Eggleston, Mark is a loner and a wanderer, deeply passionate about the part of the country that he knows. Through his words and photographs, I have gotten a feel for places like Pulaski, Stuart, Radford, Fries, Galax, Blacksburg, Hillsville, Collinsville, Sweeney Hollow, and Cripple Creek. Sometimes, I almost envy his ability to roam through towns like these, and eventually, it's my turn to get on a bus to southwestern Virginia.

nofound(bedroom)

nofound(bedroom), a collective portfolio of images by international photographers, is scheduled to be released this month. This limited-edition book published by Kaugummi Books was the curatorial project of Emeric Glayse, based in Paris, who also maintains the nofound website ("Photographers whose work I love").

Emeric asked photographers to contribute one image of a bedroom. I sent him a photograph of a room at the City Center Motel in Provo, Utah - the site of one of the Gary Gilmore murders in 1976.

Other photographers who contributed images to the book include Henry Roy, Tania Theodorou, Chris Taylor, Agnes Karin Thor, Jeremy Liebman, Alec Soth, Alessandro DiGiampietro, Irina Rozovsky, Andra Chitimus, Andrew Phelps, Asen Ognyanov, Christina Maria Oswald, Chris Heads, Dana Goldstein, Elkie Vanstiphout, Knotan, Erika Svensson, Vincent Delbrouck, Jackson Eaton, JH Engstrom, Lina Scheynius, Julie Pike, Mihai e acolo, Olivia Jeczmyk, Tod Seelie, Vincent Ferrane, Philippe Gerlach, Maximilian Haidacher Kur, Monika Bielskyte, Rikki Kasso, Paul Herbst, Olivia Malone, Marianne Mueller, Raul Hofer Torres, Yiki Liu, Ryan Foerster, Margot Herster, and Osvaldo Sanviti.

Images from the book can be seen at: nofound(bedroom)

NYMPHOTO Exhibition at Sasha Wolf Gallery

Teenage Boy
Austin, TX
2007
copyright Tema Stauffer


Fishbowl
from Last Stop: Rockaway Park
copyright Juliana Beasley

NYMPHOTO's third exhibition opens tonight at Sasha Wolf Gallery in Tribeca and celebrates the release of a new book, NYMPHOTO Conversations: Volume 1, including images by and interviews with women photographers.

NYMPHOTO's inaugural exhibition in the fall of 2002 was my first experience showing work in New York City. I previously wrote about that fateful night on my blog, and if tonight is half as fun as that night in December, it's going to be a great time.

I am excited to be showing work with Juliana Beasley, among many talented photographers. I first read about Juliana's work through her NYMPHOTO Conversation and then met her in person at the opening for my show at Daniel Cooney in February. I have since fallen head-over-heels down the rabbit hole into the lovely land of neurosis, and what a fascinating place that really is.

The other photographers showing tonight include Michele Abeles, Rona Chang, Nina Büsing Corvallo, Candace Gottschalk, Jessica M. Kaufman, Klea McKenna, Michal Chelbin, Talia Greene, Maria Passarotti, Susana Raab, Emily Shur, Jane Tam, Garie Waltzer, and Jennifer Williams.

A slide show of images from NYMPHOTO participants was also recently featured on NPR's blog: NYMPHOTO on NPR

NYMPHOTO Conversations: Volume 1

Sasha Wolf Gallery
10 Leonard Street (bet. W.Broadway & Hudson)

May 6-20
Opening Reception: 6-8 pm

Down in the Basement

Fellowship Hall Stage, 2007
from Down in the Basement
copyright Sarah Madsen

I have an ongoing debate with one of my closest friends from Minnesota, Peter Haakon Thompson - who happens to be headed to the big city in a few weeks - about what epitomizes "The Real Midwest." Peter, who grew up in Minneapolis, claims that Minnesota is the real deal, and as far as I recall, the main and only point of his argument is that from a geographic perspective, Minnesota is centrally located between the East and the West.

While I, who grew up in Michigan in a town off Interstate-94 smack in between Chicago and Detroit, and then went to college in Ohio and graduate school in Chicago, claim roots in "The Real Midwest" for reasons that have more of a basis in cultural character. I'm from the Rust Belt - where the auto and steel industries collapsed and left cities full of holes, abandoned storefronts, crack houses, ever-rising unemployment rates - not to mention, the churches, thrift stores, sports teams, gray skies, dead malls, poor driving conditions due to rain from the Great Lakes, discount cigarette shops with names like The Butt Hutt, and some elite liberal arts colleges scattered throughout.

Most people out here in NYC probably don't really care and think it is all the same anyways - somewhere that exists between New York and Los Angeles, but I promise you, there are nuances. When I moved to Minnesota, I felt like I went on a long retreat in a Scandinavian enclave in what, to me, is a distinctly northern part of this country. It is bright and sunny up there. It's so clean, it is almost surreal. There are undoubtedly more blondes with cute, funny accents. And there is actually some money for the arts, even if it never came my way.

I didn't fully understand my own "Midwestern-ness" until I moved to New York City. Here, people frequently tell me that I seem very Midwestern. On one hand, I warily take that as a compliment to suggest that I might be nice, friendly, sincere, straight-forward, down-to-earth ... maybe even honest and reliable ... but invariably, it also means that I am not glamorous, savvy, sophisticated (damn). While in Midwest, I saw myself as a little edgier than the average Midwesterner, in New York, I feel almost folky.

One thing for sure is that Midwesterners have a keen sense of each other in New York City. We pick up on each others' biorhythms immediately and know that we will never fully be New Yorkers. It goes against the grain of our own sense of integrity, even if none of us actually want to live in Midwest. And Midwestern photographers in particular - can any of us shoot here? Is there ever enough space and time for the way we think and feel? Most of the Midwestern photographers I know return to places more akin to what we love and hate about where we are from.

When I met Sarah Madsen at Laumont, I knew she wasn't from these parts. She was way too sweet to be a real New Yorker. It made perfect sense that she is from Iowa - and even Iowa is more Midwestern in my book than Minnesota.

I asked Sarah and her friend and former co-worker, another midwestern photographer named Sara Code-Kroll, to give a talk about their work to a class I was teaching at the ICP in the fall of 2007 called Photographing the Everyday. Sarah showed images from her series, Down in the Basement, shot in the basement of a Presbyterian church in Iowa where her father was a minister. I know that the Midwest is not the only home to churches, and while perhaps the subject matter itself reaches beyond the Midwest, I still perceive a Midwestern sensibility in the way that Sarah makes photographs.

I don't know how anyone who has ever been to an AA, NA, SA, DA (etc.) meeting could not find something poignant about these humble rooms that Sarah has depicted so beautifully. And even for those who went to church upstairs, they must have gone down at some point for coffee and donuts, or to change into a choir robe, or just to use the bathroom.

Admittedly, I was never really a fan of church. My grandfather was a Methodist minister, and I was baptized in an Episcopalian church, belonged to a Presbyterian youth group that went on cool trips, and even went for a while to a futuristic Unitarian church with spectacularly cheesy light shows. There wasn't much about church services that kept me coming back. Sermons were inevitably boring, and the Bible had way too many characters and too thick of a plot. I have always preferred modernism and what followed in my reading material, and I've never had a taste for anything epic, except maybe One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Executioner's Song. Besides that, church was overwhelmingly heterocentric, like school dances and high school parties, and I hated to dress up.

But I always liked church basements, even as a kid. Beside the donuts, church basements meant art projects with markers and crayons and big rolls of paper. Church basements were an escape from all that stuffy formality upstairs. And in later years, church basements were a place that welcomed people to find their own sense of spirituality and community on much looser terms amongst friends and strangers who were struggling with the same demons.

Enough about me! Sarah Madsen's first solo show in New York City is opening tonight at Galeria Ramis Barquet. Whatever you might feel about church basements or Midwesterners, you might just appreciate Sarah's work as great photography that transforms something simple into something remarkable and full of emotional resonance. You might appreciate the subtle and well-rendered details of spaces worn by time and use. If I don't sublet my apartment soon, I might just ask Sarah to come over and photograph it for me - to show you all how lovable it really is - perhaps even, Midwestern.

Sarah Madsen
Down in the Basement

Galeria Ramis Barquet
532 W. 24th Street

April 30th - May 30th

June/July Sublet

I am leaving on June 11th to spend part of the summer in Austin and I'm looking for a good person or couple to sublet my apartment. I will return to New York on July 15th and I also have a place to stay in Brooklyn during the last week of July, so there are several possible scenarios.

My apartment could be available for one month from mid-June to mid-July, or available for both June and July. In the latter scenario, I could either share the space with the subletter for the beginning of June and one week in July, or I could potentially stay with friends if someone wants the space to themselves for both months.

About the apartment: It is located on Graham Avenue about five blocks from the Graham L-train (near Williamsburg/Greenpoint). It takes less than fifteen minutes to get to Union Square in Manhattan. It is a charming block with a laundromat, a bakery, a cafe, a nail salon, a hair salon, two delis, two vintage stores, a French restaurant, an Italian restaurant - everything you could possibly need.

The apartment is an older railroad on the third floor of a small building. There are three rooms - a kitchen, a living room, and a bedroom/office. Plus a little bathroom with a shower and a tub. The apartment gets sunlight on both ends as you can see from the photos above, and the general aesthetic is very retro.

There is a double bed in my bedroom as well as a futon that folds out into a double bed in the living room, so it is practical for extra guests.

Other amenities include: wireless internet, air conditioning, old tv/dvd player, stereo/music collection, art books, lots and lots of photos.

I would love to find a friend of a friend to stay here, or someone who can assure me they are entirely trustworthy and responsible. Artists, students, international visitors are all great.

Please pass this information along to someone who might be looking to spend part of the summer in New York.

Please contact me at my email address to discuss the dates and the cost of the sublet.

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.

culturehall news

Omar, Western Sahara, 2008
copyright Brandon Hale Holmes


Garage, Sheridan County, ND, 2007
copyright Brian Lesteberg

Founder, David Andrew Frey, and I have been busy making new developments to culturehall, an online curated space for contemporary art. We have recently added new artists and established an ARTIST RESOURCES section to culturehall's homepage listing some of the international blogs and websites with whom we have established relationships. We are currently featuring ArtWranglers and TransitLane from Australia, Brask Art Blog and Erik Sjodin from Sweden, Lalande Digital Art Press and Store Front Windows from France, Phillineum from Norway, Little Paper Planes from San Francisco, and one of my personal favorites, We Can't Paint, an excellent blog about photography written by Noel Rodo-Vankeulen from Canada.

Some of the artists who have contributed portfolios to culturehall are David Smith, Brian Lesteberg and Brandon Hale Holmes. David Smith's current exhibition, Before and After at HQ Gallery in Brooklyn, is featured on culturehall's FROM THE COMMUNITY SECTION of our homepage.

Brian Lesteberg is a young and talented photographer based in Minneapolis. His work was published in 25 Under 25: Up-and-Coming American Photographers, Volume 2 released this spring by powerHouse and CDS Books at the Center for Documentary Studies. While I was still living in Minneapolis, Brian shot an unforgettable series, Raised to Hunt, about his experiences growing up in a culture of hunting in North Dakota. He has since further explored northern environments in his more recent projects: Places of Worship, Portraits of Home, and The Broncos of Miles City.

Brandon Hales Holmes was formerly a student of mine in a class I teach at the ICP, Photographing the Everyday. He was recently accepted to SVA's MFA photo program for the fall of 2009. Among his various projects are 97 Days in Egypt, shot on a journey last summer, and Junction, shot in his home state of Texas. Brandon, who is also an exceptional writer, maintains a blog about photography, in motion.

David and I are excited to have these three artists involved in culturehall's community and we look forward to adding more new artists in the upcoming weeks.

WIP-Lightside Individual Project Grant

Women in Photography is providing a $3,000 grant award to support the costs of a project by a woman working in photography. WIP's curatorial staff, Cara Phillips and Amy Elkins, will review applications from April 1rst thru May 1rst, and the winner will be announced on June 10th at the National Art Club, Grand Gallery.

More information about eligibility and submission guidelines can be found at: WIP-Lightside Individual Project Grant

Interview with Alex Segreti

Before I was Born
County Fair, North Carolina
Family Snapshot, 1972

My parents are driving from Michigan this week to visit me and to see my show at Daniel Cooney, so I have been trying to tie-up all loose ends before they arrive, including an interview with Alex Segreti. Alex, who is originally from Chicago, is now a senior in the photography program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He was given an assignment to interview a photographer who has influenced/inspired him and whom he has never met, and I was flattered when he sent me a set of interview questions.

Alex: I am originally from Chicago and I noticed that you have a lot of connections to the city. What was it like attending UIC for photography (I had considered attending the school but opted to move to New York instead)?

Tema: I moved to New York City during the summer after I graduated from Oberlin College in 1995, but then I moved to Chicago a few months later. I grew up in the Midwest, and Chicago seemed more familiar and more manageable to me at that point in my life. I only applied to graduate programs in Chicago because I wanted to stay in the city. I liked the faculty at UIC, like Doug Ischar and Esther Parada, and felt that our critiques in the photography program were helpful and informative. And I liked Chicago then for its tough grittiness, which influenced what I was photographing. Now, I prefer New York so much as a city, it is almost hard to recall my former romance with the city of Chicago.

Alex: The Chicago Police ride-alongs sounds very interesting – how did it come about/how did you get started on the project? What was it like to actually be there with the police officers?

Tema: I shot the police ride-along images for an organization called the CITY 2000, which commissioned photographers in Chicago to photograph aspects of life in the city during the year 2000 for a series of exhibitions and for an extensive collection of images that now exists in the Comer Archive at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I originally met with one of the CITY 2000’s editors, and we arrived at the idea that I would make pictures of crime scenes.

In the beginning, I bought a police radio from Radio Shack. I drove around in my car listening to the radio, almost like a modern WeeGee, and tried to race to the scene of a crime, except I had no luck with this approach at all. It was pretty comical, really. Then I started contacting police departments, but no one would let me go on rides with them. I was discouraged, but I mentioned my situation to one of my photography students at a city college where I was teaching. My student was a police officer, and he talked to the authorities in his district, and eventually I got my foot in the door. After I went on ride-alongs in this district, it became easier to get authorities in other districts to allow me access as well.

I spent many shifts riding in the back of police cars in some of the roughest neighborhoods on Chicago’s south side. Often, for hours, nothing remarkable would happen, and both the officers and myself would seem to almost crave some drama and action, and I’d feel a little guilty for having these thoughts. Many of the calls were related to domestic violence, and I often watched officers perform the role of social workers. I saw a number of drug dealers get searched and arrested and I photographed an elderly man who had died in his bathroom being carried out of his apartment in a body bag. Actually, the saddest experience for me was watching a dying dog take its last breaths in the parking lot of a housing project. I had developed a special bond with a female police officer, and she was also disturbed by witnessing this death and commented that sometimes it was even harder to watch animals suffer.

While I was shooting this project, I was also at the lowest point in my personal history, and so these recollections of my own demons are inseparable from the experience of making this work in these environments. These are dark, ugly memories that I rarely recall anymore. I left Chicago at the end of the year 2000 to start a new life in Minneapolis.

Alex: My aesthetic is similar to your American Stills project, but in classes at Pratt, I have occasionally been told that it is too 1970s, not contemporary enough. What are your thoughts on that issue and what sort of feedback have you gotten on the American Stills project.

Tema: My American Stills series has never been subjected to a critique in an academic setting, so mostly I only hear the good stuff or nothing at all. I am sure I might hear some comments along the lines of what you are describing if a class or a critic dissected my work.

I was not consciously trying to make retro-looking pictures, but I am conscious of the work that influenced this series, like Eggleston and Shore and Sternfeld. I was interested in similar concerns with color and mood and the American cultural landscape as a subject. I am attracted to a straight–forward style that I associate with this era of photography, and I am not interested in incorporating some of the elements of what we might consider “contemporary photography” – like staging, or high-tech lighting, or digital manipulation.

I tend to be drawn to things with a lot of history and things that evoke some nostalgia. And not just where photographs are concerned. There are very few objects in my apartment besides my computer that were built in the past few decades. My own aesthetic is like a fusion of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. I love films like Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm, Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, Terrence Malick’s Badlands, and Werner Herzog’s Stroszek. Most of the books on my shelves, besides a lot of art and photography books, are biographies and memoirs and novels by authors like John Updike, Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, Raymond Carver, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer. All of these influences naturally carry over into what I choose to photograph.

Alex: For your newest project, The Ballad of Sad Young Men, what inspired you to get started (I notice that most of your work from your website is not portraiture)?

Tema: I had been shooting some portraits in Texas, Arizona and Utah before I started this project in New York, but there were only a few that I was happy with. One of portraits that I did like was an image, Teenage Boy, that I made at Barton Springs in Austin in the summer of 2007, and it was one of the sources of inspiration for me to shoot more portraits of young men. I knew for a while that I wanted to make photographs about masculinity and about adolescence, and a conversation in August 2008 with a friend about the song, The Ballad of Sad Young Men, provided the structure I was looking for to make pictures of these subjects on Main Street in Binghamton.

Alex: You received CAAP grants for your project, Dog Show. How did you go about getting the grants and do you have any advice for new photographers interested in receiving grants for their work?

Tema: Those two small CAAP grants are to date, the only grants I have ever received in support of my work, despite the many grants I have applied for in Minnesota and New York. I was a finalist for the McKnight Photography Award in 2005, and I was more disappointed when that grant didn’t come through for me than any of the others. So my advice to new photographers is the same advice I’d give to myself: just keep plugging away and don’t get too discouraged. Clearly, most photographers who do receive grants have a long list of grants they applied for in the past without the same success.

Alex: What are some challenges you faced when working on projects and getting your career started?

Tema: The most obvious challenge is finding a balance between making work and making money. It is still the most difficult challenge in my life as an artist. Besides my part-time positions as a photography instructor and some commercial and editorial photography assignments, I have supported myself over the past fifteen years through jobs as a record store clerk, a bookstore clerk, a waitress, a wedding photographer and a window-dresser. Trying to bring in enough income to survive, let alone to travel to work on photography projects, continues to be challenging – especially in New York City and in this current economy.

Alex: What has your experience been like teaching at the ICP?

Tema: I love teaching at the ICP and I feel very lucky to have established that relationship shortly after I moved to New York from Minnesota in 2005. The ICP anchored me to a photo community during a transition that was difficult and unsettling in many ways. I have enjoyed working with a diverse and international group of students for the past three years and have developed lasting relationships with some smart and wonderful people. I find teaching extremely rewarding and stimulating, and it keeps me even more engaged and organized in terms of my involvement with photography.

Alex: How important do you think education is for photography (undergrad)? Would you advise a student to go on to post-graduate studies?

Tema: I think that entirely depends on the student in question. I value the education I received at Oberlin College and UIC a great deal, and I certainly think that both undergraduate and post-graduate studies can be significant in leading to a career in the arts.

Does that mean everyone who completes a master’s degree is going to succeed in the art world or even work in his or her field of study? Of course not. Does that mean there haven’t been many photographers who have developed successful careers without getting a higher education in photography? Of course not.

Alex: The web plays an important part in today’s society – you have both a website and a blog; how important do you think it is to a career in photography? Has your blog helped you generate ideas? What are some of the benefits you have experienced by writing a blog?

Tema: I think it is crucial for emerging photographers to have a website or a significant body of work on-line, as yes - so much of the dialogue and discovery of photography these days does exist on the web. However, my website is static, and it is simply a resource for completed projects and a list of my accomplishments in photography. My blog is more active, and it reflects my day-to-day involvement in photography. It helps to give me structure for work-in-progress and to reflect about my relationships to other artists and to the art world. Writing has become as integral to my relationship with photography as taking pictures. It helps me to better understand myself and it helps, for those who might read it, to have a better sense of who I am and what I care about. As a result of that, I think it has lead to relationships and opportunities that might not have existed otherwise. And furthermore, a blog is the least expensive and most democratic way for artists to share their work and ideas with the rest of the world.

Alex: Is there any advice you would give someone coming out of school, trying to start their career in photography (networking, gallery representation, portfolios, etc …)?

Tema: Besides continuing to make work, I think the most critical aspect to starting a career in photography is staying involved in a photo community. The more effort an emerging photographer puts into things like writing blogs and supporting other artists and creating their own exhibition opportunities in the beginning, the more likely it is that a gallery will take interest in an artist in the long run. One small step naturally leads to the next, and it is a long and bumpy road, so it is important to develop some patience and endurance. Ultimately, artists make a leap of faith that their talent and passion and commitment to their medium will be recognized. It is important to be productive, visible, engaged – pay attention to your peers and how they are succeeding, and try to learn from them.

Alex: What is the current state of the industry? Where do you think photography is going – visually/aesthetically – in the next 5-10 years?

Tema: These are my least favorite kinds of questions. Photographers and galleries are facing major economic challenges and are trying to find creative and resourceful ways to survive and to move forward; so that’s my response to the current state of the industry. As for where photography is going in the next decade, if I knew the answer to that, it would be really boring and disappointing. Photography is going wherever photographers take it. I hope and trust there will be some good surprises.

LAY FLAT

Anna und Gero
1989
copyright Andreas Weinand

I had the opportunity to look at the images and read the essays in my copy of Lay Flat which arrived in the mail this week and I especially liked some of the exceptional writing about photography.

I was stuck by the beginnings of essays by Tim Davis and my friend, Cara Phillips, who writes regularly and thoughtfully on her blog, Ground Glass. In her essay in Lay Flat, she writes about the role of blogging itself in expanding the dialogue of the photo community and the potential of the medium.

As someone who also takes pictures, writes, and swims; I loved how Cara opens her piece:

When I am swimming laps, I exist in a different state of being. In the cool water I have no form. My limbs are heavy as I push myself across the pool, but in between strokes I float weightlessly on the surface. And while I methodically swim back and forth across the length of the pool, I feel totally alone and work at my own pace, even though I must negotiate my small space with several other people.

Metaphorically speaking, photography is like swimming; each person has their own pace, their own stroke, and their own rhythm, but they are in the pool together ... (from "The Secessionists Revisited: Artist Collectives in the Age of the Blog," Lay Flat, Cara Phillips, page 13)

And Tim Davis begins his essay:

There is one thing that separates us from animals. I know we have opposable thumbs and stock markets and hybrid SUVs. But the most essential thing line of demarcation between human beings and say, squirrels, is the stories we can tell. Animals don't have narrative. They can't turn the arc of their experience into a reoccurring tale. They know the scent of danger, but can't describe it. The narrative is the ideal housing for significance and it is significance that makes meaning and meaning that makes us matter.

I once worked at a publishing company reading the slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts and it was tragic and awe-inspiring how many people felt they had important stories to tell. But that is because we are pathological narrative makers ... (from "One Credo After Another," Lay Flat, Tim Davis, page 5)

More information about the content and sale of the inaugural issue co-curated by Shane Lavalette and Karly Wildenhaus at: LAY FLAT, 01: REMAIN IN LIGHT

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!

Emerging Photographers Auction at Daniel Cooney

Untitled (Man With Axe Under Apple Tree)
Sara Code Kroll
2007


Lau Fau San, Hong Kong: Three Stray Dogs
Jane Tam
2008


Back, Self-Portrait
Mickey Kerr
2003


Two Swimmers
Palmer Davis
2006

Daniel Cooney has recently opened bidding for his third Emerging Photographers Auction. Among the many wonderful photographers whose work is available are Sara Code Kroll, Palmer Davis, Jason Falchook, Mickey Kerr, Brian Lesteberg, Ellen Rennard and Jane Tam.

Bidding is open thru March 26th, 2009.

David Smith

tall one, 2008
copyright David Smith

Tonight brings the opening of the first solo exhibition of my very dear and old friend, David Smith. David was one of my students when I taught photo classes at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago after graduate school, and he was the first familiar face I saw at the ICP when I started teaching there in winter of 2006. He was working on his MFA and found me in the media lab, and we had coffee at a diner nearby and caught up on the many years and transitions in our lives in between Chicago and New York. My entire first year of living in this new city was wrought with massive anxiety and uncertainty, and David tried to reassure me that is was possible to live in New York City with its set of pressures and to make work as an artist. His sensitivity, intelligence and depth invariably have a calming effect on me.

I am so excited to see this beautiful new work he has been producing in his studio. David's work is thoughtful, quirky, conceptual - always evolving and transforming. He is an artist and a thinker - rearranging objects and fragments of images to be considered in another light.

According to the press release for this exhibition at HQ Gallery in Brooklyn, David B Smith performs and documents a highly self-conscious creative process. He begins by arranging blank canvases, like building blocks, into various structures. Starkly photographing each one against a black background, the resulting primal images, like seeds, inspire a variety of playful works in various media. Painting, digital imaging, and sculpture are all referenced and these experiments are installed opposite the original photographs to provide space to explore the dynamics of possibility.

In the end, the artist has developed a body of work that simultaneously straddles a variety of media, without actually abandoning the photographic image. Using this hybrid practice, Smith responds to the gallery format in two different ways. First, the artist challenges the "no paintings allowed" mandate of a sculpture gallery with a show primarily focused on stretched canvasses. Second, Smith utilizes the gallery format to show a chronological documentation of his work as it moves from one form into the next and back again. The result of Smiths work is an exhibition that defies his chosen media while carefully scrutinizing and exposing his methodology.

David B. Smith
Before and After

HQ Gallery
236 Grand Street
Brooklyn, NY

Opening Reception:
Saturday May 7th, 7-10pm
on view thru May 3rd

culturehall at Foundation NY

Art fair action kicks off today, and my head is spinning a little from sorting out where to go and what to see, but here are a few stops at the top of my list:

David Andrew Frey, founder of culturehall, a new curated site for contemporary art, can be found at Fountain NY at Pier 66. I have recently taken on the position of Assistant Curator for culturehall and look forward to inviting new artists in the upcoming months.

Amani Olu Projects will be exhibiting work by a group of artists at the Scope Art Fair including Michael Buhler-Rose, Gerald Edwards III, Jon Feinstein, Alison Malone, Marc McAndrews, Bradley Peters, Peter Riesett, David La Spina, Tina Tyrell and Ann Woo. I got to see Amani participate in a panel discussion last night facilitated by the Camera Club of New York that created a lively dialogue about collecting photography amongst gallerists, Daniel Cooney and Michael Mazzeo, as well as photographer and curator, Cara Phillips, from WIP and two prominent photo collectors.

Photographer, Jason Lazarus, a former student and old friend from Chicago whom I haven't seen in person in nearly a decade, will be presenting a solo exhibition of his work thru Andrew Rafacz Gallery at VOLTA NY.

And the previously mentioned Juliana Beasley will be exhibiting work from her Eyes of Salamanca series thru Group Station Independant Projects at the Bridge Art Fair.

All events thru March 8th, 2009.

Go Juliana!

Two Cowboys, from Eyes of Salamanca, 2006
copyright Juliana Beasley

My art crush on Juliana Beasley began when I discovered Doug Rickard's features of her work on AMERCANSUBURBX - "Last Stop: Rockaway Park" and "Eyes of Salamanca". Doug's passionate and poetic interpretation of the people and the pain in her Rockaway series brought to mind Hubert Selby Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn ... the mother who gets hooked on speed trying to shed weight to fit into a red dress to wear for her television debut while her junkie son spirals down with his girlfriend into their own hell of addiction.

It also brought to mind one of my earlier art crushes and now close friend, Emily Carter, whose memoir, Glory Goes and Gets Some, shares a similar honesty, boldness, vulnerability, compassion and fascination with the farthest reaches.

Then I read Juliana's own words in her interview with Nymphoto and I was riveted - picturing this kid in Philly catching fire flies in jelly jars and digging graves with sticks at the side of her house who grows up to find inspiration in a woman who collects a specialty brand of dolls at fairs and a man who teaches his dog to count to ten with his paws.

I think by now I've learned the hard way from internet dating and art crush disappoints and the like - don't come on too strong, too stalkerish. Keep it short and sweet. So I sent Juliana just a few words ... and she wrote back!

We have since become virtual pen pals - keeping tabs on one another's ups and downs and unraveling all kinds of subjects like mothers and relationships and road trips and past demons and present fantasies. I am such a devoted fan at this point, I even offered to come over dressed as River Phoenix to clean her messy apartment in Jersey City. But as we both spend much of our lives glued to our computer screens, who knows if it will ever happen ...

Juliana is coming to New York City this week for two big photo events. She will be showing Polaroids from her secret stash depicting her early days as photographer/stripper in a group exhibition at Michael Mazzeo Gallery opening March 4th. Her larger body of work about stripper culture, Lapdancer, is available in book form here: Lapdancer.

Selected photographs from her most recent project, "The Eyes of Salamanca," will also be exhibited later this week with the Group Station Independent Projects at the Bridge Art Fair. These strange and remarkable images examine a Mennonite community in the Yucaton Peninsula whose religious faith and relationship to the land could not contrast more starkly the stripper scene she previously explored. The sun-burnt faces, bright blue skies, looming white clouds are altogether of another time and place. And thanks to the support of a New Jersey Arts Council Grant, Juliana will return to Mexico in April 2009 to spend a month continuing to photograph and to write about the Mennonite community.

More information about these upcoming events, along with some incredible writing, can be found on her blog: Juliana's Lovely Land of Neurosis