Daylight Blog

Daniel Cooney Fine Art holds Emerging Photographers Auction at www.iGavel.com until January 21st

Daylight — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:55:36 -0500

Featuring the work of:

Juliana Beasley, Timothy Briner, Nina Buesing,
Tom Chambers, Megan Cump, Clayton Cotterell, Adrienne De Boer, Matt Eich, Sam Falls, Jon Feinstein, Mark William Fernandes, Amy Finkelstein, Lucas Foglia, Kyle Ford, Chuck Hemard, Oded Hirsch, Whitney Hubbs, Michael Itkoff, Dave Jordano, Christopher La Marca, Nyra Lang, Shane Lavalette, Pixy Liao, Walter Lockwood, Jennifer Loeber, Oz Lubling, Sara Macel, Jay Matthews, John Mann, Eri Morita, Carolyn Monastra, Nik Mirus, Sarah Palmer, Lydia Panas, read more »

Reflections on the Internet, Art and Politics

Matthew Siber — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:41:24 -0500

Since this was my first experience blogging, I thought I would finish the series with my thoughts on the internet. Of course, this is a very broad topic so I will narrow it down by musings about the ways in which online material and activity affects the art world versus the way it affects politics and current events. read more »

Idea sketch from 2005, Matt Siber.

PHOTOESPAÑA visits Latin America: Call for regional photographers

Emiliano Valdes — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:59:03 -0500

PHotoEspaña, by now one of the important photography festivals in Central Europe is going Latin American. After 10 years, the event that began in Madrid as a group of local exhibits on contemporary photography has increasingly become a platform for the diffusion of the still image in the Old Continent. Until now. read more »

The Amalgamation of Creative Media

Matthew Siber — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:34:43 -0500

My fourth post is going to keep with the introspective nature of the last one. While the previous post dealt with the changing nature of socio-politically motivated art, this post will address the more concrete issue of the medium of art. This is something I've been thinking about for several years and have found myself going through many phases in my thinking and attitude towards it. I have a feeling that my trajectory isn't all that different from many other artists working in photo-centric art today. read more »

From a series in Alexanderplatz, Berlin, ©Matt Siber, 2008.

Art in the New World Order: Part II

Matthew Siber — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 15:47:24 -0500

Before I delve into part two of this entry, I'd like to share some thoughts about reactions to the first part. I was pleased to get positive reactions from everyone so far and several people expressed sympathy or compassion for my lessening art sales. I found this interesting because this was not the point of my post. The idea was that most of us are dealing with similar issues regardless of what line of work we are in. I don't think I am much different than many people today who are trying to deal with a shift in the paradigm. However, as artists I believe we need to keep in mind the level of privilege we enjoy just by being able to make art for a living. I don't mean to downplay the importance of what we do but I don't think we should start feeling too sorry for ourselves given the plight of so many people much less advantaged than we are. It's important to keep things in perspective, especially in this time of economic and political uncertainty. read more »

Decatur, Illinois, 2004 ©Matt Siber

Art in the New World Order: Part I

Matthew Siber — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:15:47 -0500

As artists, I think there are very few of us who haven't spent a great deal of time thinking about the current economic atmosphere and what it means to us as creative people. I definitely fall into that category so my next two post will be a two-part series about what it means to be an artist at the end of the first decade of the third millennium. In today's post I will write about the practical, economic side of the issue. How do we remain art professionals and resist the pressure to get that job waiting tables to pay the mortgage? read more »

Flag Sign, 2007 ©Matt Siber

Exbition Review – Lothar Baumgarten at Marian Goodman Gallery

Chris Wiley — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:50:31 -0500

Considering its themes--the ethnographic gaze, colonialist knowledge/power systems, the ineluctable battle between culture and nature--Lothar Baumgarten's show at Marian Goodman Gallery would seem to have no right to be beautiful. Almost as a rule, when one confronts this kind of exhibition it is wise to gird oneself against a coming onslaught of boring work bolstered by dry, grinding pedantry or (worse) boring work justified by way of obfuscatory warblings lifted from a litany of fashionable "post-"s (structuralism, modernism, colonialism, feminism, etc.). Nevertheless, Baumgarten's show is subtle, considered, and ravishing. read more »

The Origin of Table Manners (1971)

"The Constant Gaze" or the faith of photojournalism in Guatemala.

Emiliano Valdes — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:24:34 -0500

In a country where the sole possession a camera can jeopardise the bearer's integrity, being a photojournalist is not only an act of resistance but also one of faith. Faith in that the acknowledgement of such a situation by a wider audience will somehow improve it. In that by showing it to the world, capturing it in a still frame, it might become less real, less dangerous. As in a place far away from the witness. read more »

Doriam Morales, From the series 'Violencia en Guatemala', 2007-2008

A Few Words About Me and My Work

Matthew Siber — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 12:56:21 -0500

Remarkably enough, this is my first ever blog entry. Most of my friends and colleagues have their own blogs but I've resisted the pressure to start my own. When Brian Ulrich asked me to participate in this blog for Daylight, I felt that the timing was perfect. For one, I really like the idea of a specific time frame to work in. There is a clear beginning and end to the process which should end up encapsulating this short time period in a definable work. It also happens to coincide with one of the most interesting, worrisome, frightening and hopeful times in world history. I have a BA in history from The University of Vermont so history has long been an integral part of my consciousness and has helped immensely in shaping my world and artistic view. read more »

Invites 1. Matt Siber

Brian Ulrich — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:16:01 -0500

When I first started graduate school in Chicago, Matt Siber was one of the people I met who was pleasant enough to not only school me on the inner workings of the MFA program (he was one year ahead of me) but generous enough to lend one of his medium format cameras for several months. This began a friendship that took us photographing on road trips, traveling to lectures and exhibits together and sharing ideas and strategies. This summer I was honored to be in Matt's wedding and returned the favor by some super slick moves on the dance floor. read more »

Invites First Post!

Brian Ulrich — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:44:01 -0500

Some time ago friend and photographer, Bill Sullivan and I were brainstorming about the blog and what it could and could not do. It occurred to us that far too often many were trying to impose older (non internet) forms upon the photography blogs rather than focus on what they are indeed good at. It also became clear that the blog was a wonderful way to get insight into ones artistic character. With this in mind we approached a few museums with the idea of creating a blog residency. read more »

Party Time

Of Interest – Luciana Lamothe

Chris Wiley — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:32:12 -0400

Luciana Lamothe is a criminal. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she stalks the streets of her home city, making mischief and sowing mayhem at all hours of the day and night: overturned potted plants; the doorbells of whole apartment blocks rung incessantly; padlocks added onto chains, necessitating bolt cutters; chairs deconstructed in swanky lobbies; cans of paint spilled. What (perhaps) makes Lamothe different then your run-of-the-mill petty criminal is that she positions her acts of vandalism as urban interventions, designed to rearrange, reimagine, and generally shake up urban space. Also, she takes pictures. read more »

Luciana Lamothe
from the series "Clandestinas"

The document as gesture: ‘Zoned Out’ by Jose Manuel Castrellón

Emiliano Valdes — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:32:45 -0400

A hundred years after the invention of the Lippman plate, whose colours and textures are suggested by the work of Jose Manuel Castrellón, it seems like photography has never been as free as it is today. Similar to the process that painting went through about a century ago, photography has been left behind by video and other forms of reality-recording; thus it is dismissed from any obligation to be objective. With this, it has acquired the intentional hue that it rarely possessed before. Now it is much less about the decisive instant (although its shadow shall linger for its entire existence) and much more about the narrative, expressive, exclaiming gesture. About the intention of that gesture, which rises from the need to express oneself. read more »

Arja Hyytiäinen – NOTES (exhibition in ZPAF i S-ka Gallery, Cracow from October 17th to December 6th 2008)

Inga Schneider — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:11:30 -0400

Arja's photographs tell emotional stories combining her life with her art. In one example intimate human relations lead us to the floor boards of Swedish country houses and in rough casted private rooms in eastern European apartments, where the emotional world of the protagonist is created by a mattress on the floor and a sheet soaked through with the smell of the previous night. read more »

Arja Hyytiäinen - Notes

Exhibition Review – Stan VanDerBeek (On view at Guild & Greyshkul thru Oct. 18)

Chris Wiley — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:39:21 -0400

Stan VanDerBeek was once a major figure of the New York avant-guard. He associated with luminaries like Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine, Robert Morris, Allan Kaprow, and Yvonne Rainer, showed at major museums, participated in international art events, and worked as an artist-in-residence at NASA and M.I.T. In 1977, he was the subject of a retrospective at the Anthology Film Archives. But, since his death in 1984 at the age of 57, he has been largely forgotten. read more »

From Wheeeeels No. 2
1959
Photomontage on Board

Yousuf Karsh in Obit Magazine

Daylight — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:42:34 -0400

Obit Magazine has published an article by Phyllis Tuchman on the famed portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002), who is now the subject of a centenary exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. read more »

Yousuf Karsh
Giacometti
1965
Silver Gelatin Print

Exhibition Review: Leigh Ledare – You Are Nothing To Me. You Are Like Air. (on view at Rivington Arms thru Oct. 25)

Chris Wiley — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:27:09 -0400

Leigh Ledare's solo show at Rivington Arms (which was at Andrew Roth Gallery in a different permutation earlier this year) is comprised of photographs, video and mixed media works that are mostly related to his unusual family life. Taken from the accompanying monograph Pretend You’re Actually Alive, the Oedipally-charged work in You Are Nothing to Me. You Are Like Air. largely focuses on depictions of the artist’s mother, a ballerina turned stripper. She often appears before Ledare's lens in various states of undress, sometimes even in bed or in flagrante delicto with one of her significantly younger lovers (though never, it should be noted, with Ledare himself). Also included is a selection of somewhat less prurient self-portraits that the Ledare has produced in collaboration with older women that he has found through their personal ads. read more »

Mother with Catch 22
2002
C-Print

Martin Schoeller limited edition portrait of Barack Obama

Daylight — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:11:50 -0400

Hasted Hunt Gallery, NYC offers a Martin Schoeller limited edition portrait of Barack Obama, 11"x14" archival pigment print, edition of 500, signed and numbered by the artist for $250 (plus $18 shipping and handling). All proceeds support the Obama for President campaign. Phone: +1 212 627 0006 or E-mail: info@hastedhunt.com

Barack Obama, by Martin Schoeller, 2004
11"x14" archival pigment print, edition of 500

Exhibition Review: Roe Ethridge – Rockaway Redux (on view at Andrew Kreps Gallery thru Oct. 4)

Chris Wiley — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:06:24 -0400

In Rockaway Redux Roe Ethridge continues to carve out his position as a kind of Paul Outerbridge for the post-modern era, creating pleasingly off-kilter photographs in a wild array of styles that refract the banal world of commercial photography to disquieting effect. None of these images go so far into the realm of the perverse as, say, Outerbridge’s Women with Claws (1937), but there is a feeling in Ethridge's images of too-pretty sunsets and his awkward nude posed in an art-historically confused studio setup that something just beneath the surface is amiss. read more »

Beach Scene (Louis Féraud)
2008
C-Print

The Short List – September

Chris Wiley — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:44:37 -0400

CHRISTIAN MARCLAY - Cyanotypes (Paula Cooper, thru Oct.11)

ROB PRUITT - iPhotos (Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, thru Oct. 11)

ABELARDO MORELL - PICTURESinPICTURES (Bonni Benrubi, thru Dec. 6)

ALLESSANDRA SANGUINETTI - The Life That Came (Yossi Milo, thru Oct. 18)

JEFF WHETSTONE - Post-Pleistocene (Julie Saul, thru Oct. 25)

MATTHEW DAY JACKSON - Drawings From Tlön (Nicole Klagsbrun, thru Oct. 18)

LORRAINE O'GRADY - Miscegenated Family Album (Alexander Gray Associates, thru Oct.11)

Christian Marclay
Untitled (Madonna, Thy Word and Sonic Youth)
2008
Cyanotype
22 3/4 x 30 1/8 in.