Three mid-February Chelsea picks from my Wednesday ramblings:
Bruce Yonemoto @ Alexander Gray Associates
Through March 15
Yonemoto’s latest work consists of photos of Asian Americans in Civil War costumes taken from Hollywood costume suppliers. The images, shot in a palette that resembles early Technicolor film, inhabit a dream space between Civil War cartes de visite, race […]
A post on MAO and the provocative imagery (a photographer of fire?) drew me to Sarah Pickering’s show “Fire Scene” at Daniel Cooney Fine Art. I knew next to nothing about her, but as I looked over her images, I became increasingly excited. Each photograph confronted me with an elaborate detective story. […]
Does anyone really want a close up? Martin Schoeller’s latest exhibition of new work at Hasted Hunt continues his quest to present the human face writ large. The first examples of this work premiered in his 2006 exhibition, “Close Up.” Schoeller’s images are shot with a large format camera placed extremely close […]
Something in me didn’t want to warm to Bertien van Manen’s photographic exploration of post-Cold-War Russia at Yancey Richardson. I like photography with a strong conceptual backing. I distrust “street shooters” and their ilk (see my post on Alex Webb here), and documentary, as a genre, feels cluttered with photographers who depend on […]
291 stupidly missed the Jeff Wall retrospective when it passed through MoMA last year. So you can imagine my excitement when I saw that, as a part of my holiday travels to London, I’d have the chance to see both Jeff Wall and White Cube, Mason’s Yard at the same time–Wall’s show at White […]
Last night 291 stopped by Aperture to see old friends and catch the talk and book signing by Hans Eijkelboom.
Eijkelboom is an amazing and ridiculously underappreciated Dutch conceptual photographer. Aperture just published a book of his work entitled Paris|New York|Shanghai, which represents a selection from a larger body of work called “Photo Notes.” […]
Squeezed for time, I barely had 5 minutes to spend at Antony Gormley’s recent opening at Sean Kelly before I had to catch a train downtown. But they were some of the most memorable 5 minutes I can–well, remember.
The guy who really turned me on to Gormley is W.J.T. Mitchell, easily my favorite contemporary […]
Even among the numerous jumbo-sized boats that dot Chelsea Piers on any given day, it was impossible to miss the SeaFair this past week. The shiny white megayacht, complete with its name in (neon blue) lights on either side, has garnered a lot of media attention recently with its novel approach to the game […]
Over the weekend, the Times reported on the surprising importance of “stuff”–material goods, especially luxury goods that confer social status on their owners–in Second Life, the massively multiplayer virtual world.
I’m not convinced this is so surprising. What makes a place like Second Life unique is its visual aspect. AIM, Gmail, and other messaging […]
Kent Rogowski’s photographic work marks the third show this year at Foley Gallery that appears to encourage a distinctly consumerist view of pictures.
That’s not a bad thing. The purpose of galleries, lest we all forget, is to persuade enthusiasts to purchase art–even art that sells itself as a critique of capitalism. Rugowski’s show […]
