Vivitar ViviCam 3000 Digital Camera

Vivitar ViviCam 3000 Digital Camera

Vivitar ViviCam 3000

(c) Vivitar Corporation

Vivitar Corporation has announced the newest addition to its family of digital cameras, the ViviCam 3000. Capitalizing on the latest in solid-state imaging technology, not found in comparably priced units, the ViviCam 3000 delivers high resolution and advanced color capability in an easy-to-use, point-and-shoot unit that offers editing and multimedia options. Matching the image quality of many film-based cameras, the ViviCam 3000's digital technology allows the storage of dozens of photos and provides the ability to edit images and output them directly to photographic printers. These images can be integrated into virtually any digital application at an affordable price. Made in the USA, the ViviCam 3000 received an Innovative Product Award from the Photo Marketing Association for the camera's "newest and most promising" imaging technology.

"Photo-and computer-savvy consumers as well as business professionals are now able to take digital snapshots, record short segments of live audio and even save captured images onto removable memory cards," said Alex G. Wijnen, President and Chief Executive Officer, Vivitar Corporation. "From capturing birthdays and weddings for family occasions to creating marketing brochures and Internet web pages for business purposes, the ViviCam 3000 combines true versatility with high performance for just about every photo situation."

Crystal Clear Resolution

Based on a solid-state Complementary Metal Oxide Silicon (CMOS) active pixel array, the ViviCam 3000 stores photographic images in file sizes as small as 20KB with resolution up to 1000 x 800 (800,000 pixels) in best mode surpassing the resolution and image performance of many computer monitors. The unit's improved high-grade color balance uses a four color sensor (RGBT) to store photos in 30-bit (one billion) color, thus producing realistic, true-to-life images once associated only with high grade film photography.

As photos are shot, up to 24 image files are stored in the internal memory, and an optional PCMCIA removable memory card enables storage of up to 50 images per megabyte of storage. In low light situations, the electronic flash automatically engages, and the fixed focus lens is specified at f/4 for one meter to infinity.

Multimedia Capability

PC or MAC compatible, the ViviCam 3000 features up to five seconds of audio recording per image. Connected to a computer in live-video mode, the camera automatically imports continuous images at up to one frame per second. It can be used for video conferencing and sending video mail via e-mail networks, with real-time images posted on a Web site or video segments recorded for later playback.

Ergonomically designed, the ViviCam 3000 measures 5 x 2.5 x 1.75-inches. It is a lightweight companion, weighing in at six ounces and powered by six AA alkaline batteries or a 6-volt A/C power adapter. The included image editing software, LivePix, is a powerful tool for enhancing and manipulating images and creating unique greeting cards, calendars, stationery and photo albums.

The ViviCam 3000 also includes a very unique feature found on no other digital camera on the market today. The camera's internal operations software may be upgraded after purchase by downloading camera software updates. For no charge, updated versions of the camera software will be posted on Vivitar's Web site www.vivitarcorp.com, allowing consumers to download the information directly to the camera's memory.

The ViviCam 3000 will be available in April 1997 at major PC and electronics dealers nationwide at a suggested retail price of $499.95.

VIVITAR CORPORATION
www.vivitarcorp.com

HP PhotoSmart PC photography system with a digital camera

Hewlett-Packard Company introduced the HP PhotoSmart PC photography system, the first PC photography system designed for home users.

The new PhotoSmart PC photography system, which includes a photo printer, photo scanner, digital camera and photographic papers, allows home consumers to take original digital photos or scan in existing photos, slides or negatives and then edit or reproduce those photos at home. The system offers a new level of flexibility and creativity, enabling users to make professional-looking prints, reprints and enlargements of photos that can be incorporated into personalized greeting cards, calendars and postcards.

"We expect PC photography to change the way people take, enhance and develop their family photos," said Antonio Perez, HP vice president and general manager of the Inkjet Products Group. "The new PhotoSmart PC photography system enables families to create and share their pictures on personalized cards, invitations or even calendars. Even antique photos can be reproduced, without the risk of loss or damage."

All three PhotoSmart PC photography products come with Picture It!, Microsoft Corp.'s new image-manipulation software. Picture It! enables home users to edit and enhance photos easily in a variety of creative ways, including cropping out unwanted elements, removing "red eye," adding borders and clip art or merging several photos together for a collage or other project.

The first product to be available is the PhotoSmart digital camera, which shipped today to retailers in the United States. The PhotoSmart photo printer and photo scanner are expected to be available to U.S. users this summer. The system is expected to be available in other parts of the world later this year.

PC Photography Market Poised for Growth

"I predict that this market will be as hot or hotter than the Internet this year," said Alexis Gerard, executive editor/publisher of the Burlingame, Calif.-based "The Future Image Report." "We have reached the point where the average home computer has enough performance to process images interactively. As users discover how much more value they can get out of photos by using a PC photography system, their excitement will drive the next expansion of the technology industry."

The potential size of the market is staggering, in light of the following statistics cited by the Photo Marketing Association: Amateur and professional photographers take 2,000 pictures every minute of every day all around the world, yet fewer than 2 percent of these pictures are enhanced or enlarged. In the United States alone, more than 710 million rolls of film were developed in 1995 -- the equivalent of 2.5 billion pictures.

"HP's position as the leader in the computer printer and scanner markets makes us uniquely qualified to develop this new PC photography system," said Perez. "HP first included photo-quality features in its products last year, when we introduced the HP Pavilion multimedia PC with a built-in photo scanner and with our DeskJet 693C home color printer. The new PhotoSmart PC photography system is the next logical step in making this rapidly emerging market a reality."

HP PhotoSmart PC Photography Components

Each component in the PhotoSmart PC photography system may be purchased separately. 

HP PhotoSmart digital camera eliminates the need to wait for photos to come back from a processing lab by enabling users to download their pictures to a PC instantly. Using removable HP Photo Memory Cards, which are available in 2MB or 4MB configurations, the PhotoSmart digital camera allows users to take an unlimited number of photos. The camera, which is built around an all-glass, seven-element lens, is designed to capture images in any of three resolutions -- normal, fine or superfine. The camera is equipped with an integrated flash and features automatic focus and exposure control and an automatic date and time stamp. HP expects the new digital camera to sell for about $399.

HP PhotoSmart photo printer is designed to provide users with professional-quality prints that look and feel as if they came from a professional photo-finishing lab. The printer features a straight-through paper path designed for thick photo papers. The printer uses six ink colors (in two tri-chamber cartridges) to deliver richer, smoother colors and the subtle tones associated with photos. The printer prints an 8 x 10 photo in five minutes and 4 x 6 photo in 2.5 minutes. The printer is capable of printing a sheet up to 8.5 x 11 for collages, photo album pages or newsletters. HP expects the new photo printer to sell for about $499.

HP PhotoSmart photo scanner is designed to achieve unsurpassed picture quality. It is the only photo scanner that can help users preserve precious memories by enabling them to scan and restore their favorite photos, negatives and slides. The ability to scan negatives and slides provides the clarity of detail necessary to produce high-quality enlargements. The scanner comes with software that allows the user to preview a scanned photo in order to balance colors, correct exposures and flip or rotate images before completing the final scan. The photo scanner will allow a user to preview the image on-screen in about 10 seconds. It completes a typical scan in less than a minute. HP expects the new photo scanner to sell for about $499.

HP PhotoSmart photographic papers are available in matte and glossy finishes. Photos printed on these papers are virtually indistinguishable from traditional photos. In addition to the photographic papers, HP also offers PhotoSmart Greeting Cards and Note Cards (with coordinating envelopes), which can be printed on both sides, and PhotoSmart Post Cards. The PhotoSmart Calendar Kit can be purchased to make customized 12-month photo calendars at home. The papers work seamlessly with the PhotoSmart photo printer.

Hewlett-Packard

www.hp.com

Alexander Calder, National Gallery of Art, Washington - The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Klaus G. Perls

Alexander Calder 

The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Klaus G. Perls 

National Gallery of Art, Washington 

March 9 - May 26, 1997 

Thirty-five works highlighting aspects of the career of modern master Alexander Calder, perhaps best known as the inventor of the mobile, are on view at the National Gallery of Art. The exhibition, Alexander Calder: The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Klaus G. Perls, celebrates a recent gift of forty works to the National Gallery from the Perls, who represented Alexander Calder in their New York gallery from 1955 until the artist's death in 1976. Many of the works seen in this installation will be included in the Calder retrospective scheduled to open at the Gallery in March 1998.

Alexander Calder is well known to National Gallery audiences through such late works as his monumental Untitled mobile (1976) in the East Building and several late works given by Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, including the large stabile Obus (1972) and a group of ten "Animobiles" (1970-76). The Perls collection, however, presents an extensive view of Alexander Calder's oeuvre with seminal examples of his early work, dating from the late 1920s through 1973. In addition to fifteen pieces of sculpture, the objects on view include seventeen works on paper and three pieces of jewelry, and span six decades of the artist's career.

Featured in the exhibition are two outstanding examples of Alexander Calder's wire constructions, his first important work made from the mid-1920s through 1930. These sculptures -- mainly portraits and animals - show the artist's remarkable facility for line and form, as well as an early interest in motion.

After Alexander Calder visited the Parisian studio of Piet Mondrian in 1930, he began making spare, abstract paintings and wire constructions. Soon thereafter he introduced movement into his abstract constructions, first with small motors and then by way of available air currents. Alexander Calder's innovative abstract moving sculptures were named "mobiles" by artist Marcel Duchamp in 1932 and his static constructions were called "stabiles" by sculptor Jean Arp. The Perls collection traces the development of the mobile, from the early Untitled (The McCausland Mobile) (1937), to the lyrical Cascading Flowers (c. 1945) and the sound-producing Triple Gong (1951).

Trained as an engineer with an appetite for inventing new forms, Alexander Calder constantly sought to find new solutions to abstract sculpture. These innovations can be seen in Ruby-Eyed (1936), an early example of his "stabiles" that Alexander Calder later developed on a monumental scale: Little Spider (c. 1940), a delicate indoor standing mobile; and Four White Petals (1960), a sculpture that previously resided in the Perls Galleries sculpture garden.

Among Alexander Calder's most striking formal inventions are the group of "Constellations," biomorphic shapes carved in wood connected by thin metal wires, and "Towers," architectural constructions of metal wire mounted on the wall. Two superlative examples from these series, Vertical Constellation with Bomb (1943) and Tower with Pinwheel (1951), can be seen in the exhibition. Likewise, Alexander Calder applied his skillful hands to household objects and jewelry and was an accomplished draftsmen. The drawings in the Perls collection, including pen and ink, watercolor, graphite, and gouache on paper, illustrate the remarkable scope of Alexander Calder's graphic oeuvre with examples of both his abstract "Space" drawings and his figurative line drawings made simultaneously in the early 1930s.

During the time the Perls represented Alexander Calder, Mr. and Mrs. Klaus G. Perls organized eighteen Calder exhibitions and developed a close relationship with the artist. Klaus Perls first opened a gallery in New York in 1937 and three years later was joined in the business by his new wife, Dolly. Together they ran the gallery until 1995. Over the years, the Perls represented many distinguished artists including Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Fernand Léger, André Derain, Amedeo Modigliani, and Maurice de Vlaminck.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

Fourth Street at Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20565

www.nga.gov

Joseph Kosuth at Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

Joseph Kosuth: Guests and Foreigners, Rules and Meanings
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
13 March - 11 June 1997

The first solo exhibition in Ireland of the work of Joseph Kosuth, one of the founders of Conceptual art, opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on 13 March. The exhibition, entitled Guests and Foreigners, Rules and Meanings (James Joyce, Pola, Roma, Trieste, Paris, Zurich, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Dublin, County Wicklow, Connemara), includes a large scale installation which utilises the writings and history of two important 20th-century figures; James Joyce and Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. This installation, one of his most ambitious to date, will counterpoint 14 seminal works (from 1965 to 1997) which established Kosuth as one of the pivotal figures in Conceptual art. 

Joseph Kosuth’s work played a key role in the redefinition of art which took place in the 1960s and ‘70s, which questioned traditional art forms and practices and the assumptions surrounding them. The questions asked then are still contested as a new generation comes under their influence, and Kosuth is at the centre of these debates. For Kosuth the meaning of art, as expressed in language, is more important than its appearance, the concept more important than the object. Through a variety of means, from dictionary definitions to advertising billboards, he presents abstracted information to the viewer. This information simultaneously explains itself and broadens the perceptions of artistic practice as it reveals the mechanisms which produce meaning. 

Joseph Kosuth describes the process used in works such as One and Three Chairs 1965, one of the key works in the exhibition: “I used common, functional objects - such as a chair - and to the left of the object would be a full-scale photograph of it and to the right of the object would be a photostat of a definition of the object from the dictionary. Everything you saw when you looked at the object had to be the same that you saw in the photograph, so each time the work was exhibited the new installation necessitated a new photograph. I like the fact that the work itself was something other than simply what you saw. By changing the location, the object, and still having it remain the same work was very interesting. It meant you could have an art work which was that idea of an art work, and its formal components weren’t important ... The expression was in the idea, not the form - the forms were only a device in the service of the idea.” 

Born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1945, Joseph Kosuth studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art; the School of Visual Arts, New York City and New School for Social Research. He was a founder member of the Art and Language group and contributed to the defining debates of that period in the late 1960s and early ‘70s before leaving in 1975. He has been a prize winner at the 1993 Venice Biennale, and was made Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1993. His collected writings Art after Philosophy and After were published by the M.I.T. Press in 1991. He has lectured widely throughout Europe and North America, and is presently a professor at the Stuttgart Kunstakademie. His work has been shown in countless solo and group exhibitions worldwide and forms part of all the major public collections and many key private collections. He lives in New York City and Ghent, Belgium. 

Irish Museum of Modern Art
Royal Hospital, Military Road, Kilmainham, Dublin 8
www.modernart.ie

Objectif corps, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal - Exposition sur le corps humain dans la photographie

Objectif corps

Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal

6 mars – 1 juin 1997

Le Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal présente Objectif corps, une importante exposition entièrement consacrée au thème du corps humain dans la photographie, de 1840 à 1990. Inspirée d'un livre de William A. Ewing intitulé Le corps - les grand maîtres de la photographie, cette présentation comprend près de 200 oeuvres superbes, étranges, parfois cruelles, provenant d'importantes collections publiques et privées d'Europe et d'Amérique du Nord. Organisée par le Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, l'exposition Objectif corps est présentée en exclusivité à Montréal.

Couvrant 150 ans de photographie, l'exposition se veut une exploration de la variété des regards posés sur le corps humain, qu'il s'agisse d'un point de vue artistique, scientifique, publicitaire, anthropologique, ethnologique ou commercial. Les photos sont divisées en huit thèmes : Forme, le corps en morceaux, détaillé, en gros plan ainsi que la tradition du nu en pied; Exploration, le corps objet de recherches, mesuré, disséqué, sous surveillance médicale; Idoles, le corps idéalisé, idolâtré et publicisé, le corps athlétique en mouvement, à l'apogée de sa condition physique; Chair, le corps érotique, objet de désir; Esprit, le corps imaginaire, obsessionnel, spirituel, en tant que révélation, en tant que contemplation, le corps transformé, devenu paysage, nuage, animal; Miroir, l'appareil photographique tourné vers le corps du photographe lui-même; Autre, le corps exposé au danger, opprimé, victime et mortel; Politique, le corps comme lieu de signification et de valeur contesté.

Des artistes majeurs figurent dans l'exposition, tels que le peintre et photographe Man Ray, l'un des chefs de file des mouvements dada et surréaliste, le Norvégien Edvard Munch, considéré comme l'expressionniste le plus influent avec Van Gogh. Les oeuvres de maîtres tels Eadweard Muybridge, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Steichen, Brassaï, Dieter Appelt, Andres Serrano, Diane Arbus, Richard Hamilton, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, parmi d'autres, seront également présentes. Plusieurs artistes canadiens font partie de cette sélection, dont Suzy Lake, Geneviève Cadieux, Jana Sterbak et Donigan Cumming.

Scientifique ou esthétique, la photographie a eu indéniablement un profond impact sur la perception que l'on a du corps depuis plus d'un siècle, positif aussi bien que négatif. D'une diversité inégalée, l'exposition Objectif corps s'inscrit dans ce courant d'intérêt accru, à l'heure actuelle, pour le corps, qui occupe une place essentielle dans l'art contemporain.

William A. Ewing, historien renommé de la photo, est le conservateur invité de l'exposition Objectif corps. Il a présenté dans le passé de nombreuses expositions dans des musées et galeries d'Europe et d'Amérique du Nord. Il est également l'auteur de plusieurs ouvrages importants sur l'histoire de la photographie. En 1994, il avait présenté l'exposition Flora Photographica au Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal.

MUSÉE DES BEAUX-ARTS DE MONTRÉAL

Pavillon Jean-Noël Desmarais, 1380 rue Sherbrooke ouest, Montréal

www.mmfa.qc.ca

Tony Oursler at Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles - Colors, Heads, and Organs

Tony Oursler: Colors, Heads, and Organs

Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles

1 March - 12 April 1997

Margo Leavin Gallery presents an exhibition of new work by TONY OURSLER. The exhibition, entitled Colors, Heads, and Organs, includes three separate bodies of work incorporating video, sound, sculpture and installation art.

Tony Oursler's diverse and provocative art has consistently challenged the mechanics of contemporary American culture, specifically the way in which popular media (particularly television and film) have shaped society's perceptions of itself. Tony Oursler's work reflects society's obsession with media, while simultaneously investigating the struggle between humanity and technology, the trafficking of cultural lore, and the transference of ideas from the vernacular to the universal. Informed by the vocabulary of Surrealism, late 20th century performance and video art as well as cinema verité, Tony Oursler has produced a body of work that is engaging, entertaining, wry and metaphorically loaded.

This exhibition includes projections onto body organs; faces reciting urban folk tales projected onto ceramic and glass spheres; and a three part installation based on the primary media colors of red, blue and green incorporating found objects, sculpture, light and sound.

Tony Oursler's work has been recently seen in one-person exhibition at the Stedlijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, California. His work was included in the 1995 Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Documenta 9, Kassel, Germany; and the 1989 Biennial Exhibition, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. His work is currently the subject of a one-person exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and will also be included in the upcoming Documenta 10. This is the artist's first exhibition with the Margo Leavin Gallery.

MARGO LEAVIN GALLERY

812 North Robertson Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90069

Picasso: The Early Years, 1892-1906, National Gallery of Art, Washington & Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Picasso: The Early Years, 1892-1906
National Gallery of Art, Washington
March 30 - July 27, 1997
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
September 10, 1997 - January 4, 1998

Nowhere has the early genius of the twentieth century's most prolific and influential artist been more clearly realized than in the extraordinary exhibition Picasso: The Early Years, 1892-1906, which will premiere at the National Gallery of Art, March 30 through July 27, 1997. It will then travel to its only other venue, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, September 10, 1997, through January 4, 1998.

This is the most comprehensive survey ever assembled of works created by Picasso between the ages of eleven and twenty- five, including his famous Blue and Rose periods, prior to the advent of cubism. The master's early work is distinguished by a remarkable range of styles and techniques.

Organized by the National Gallery of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the show will contain approximately 150 paintings, drawings, pastels, prints, and sculpture, including works that have never before been exhibited in the United States.

"Picasso: The Early Years, 1892-1906 examines a short period in Picasso's career characterized by innovation, brilliant draftsmanship, and a virtuosic succession of styles, ending with works of great monumentality," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery. "It would be impossible for the Gallery to mount important exhibitions of such depth and breadth without corporate sponsors like Bell Atlantic."

"Pablo Picasso revolutionized twentieth-century art, experimenting, innovating, and striking out in new directions," said Raymond W. Smith, chairman and chief executive officer of Bell Atlantic. "Through this exhibition and the outreach programs that bring it to schools, to the Internet, and to a public with a demonstrated passion for great art, Bell Atlantic is proud to continue its long tradition of making information -- inspired and inspiring images included -- available to the people we serve." This is the fourth exhibition at the National Gallery sponsored by Bell Atlantic since 1987.

"This extraordinary assemblage of works tracing Picasso's development is unprecedented," said Malcolm Rogers, director, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "This exhibition reveals not only the beginnings of Picasso's early genius, but also the origins of the modernist movement in European art. We are extremely grateful to NYNEX for making this exhibition possible in Boston."

Pablo Ruiz Picasso, born in Málaga, Spain, on October 25, 1881, began to draw and paint around the age of seven and was registered in the School of Fine Arts in La Coruña in 1892. His real artistic training began in Barcelona three years later, a city to which he often returned after sojourns to Madrid and Paris, until he took up permanent residence in Paris in 1904.

The exhibition begins with Picasso's academic studies of plaster casts and nudes and early portraits, such as Girl with Bare Feet (1895) from the Musée Picasso, Paris. His subsequent introduction to post-impressionist and symbolist painting is shown in such works as Spanish Couple before an Inn (1900) from the Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art and Moulin de la Galette (1900) from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Works from the artist's Blue period, named for the monochromatic palette he used to represent figures largely drawn from the socio-economic underclass in Barcelona and Paris, include the paintings Two Women at a Bar (1902) from the Hiroshima Museum of Art, Crouching Woman (1902) from the Art Gallery of Ontario, and La Vie (1903) from The Cleveland Museum of Art, as well as the 1904 etching The Frugal Repast.

Distinguished by a palette of roseate hues, works in the show from Picasso's Rose period include the paintings Family of Saltimbanques* (1905) from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and Harlequin's Family with an Ape (1905) from the Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden.

By 1906, inspired by a trip to the Spanish Pyrenees, Picasso imbued his figures with a monumentality that can be traced to the reductive proportions of ancient and medieval Iberian sculpture. This is illustrated in such paintings as Woman with Loaves (1906) from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Nude on Red Background (1906) from the Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris. The exhibition ends with this phase of Picasso's work, as his subsequent interests foreshadow a new epoch in the artist's career.

The curators of the exhibition are: from the National Gallery of Art, Mark Rosenthal, former curator, and Jeffrey Weiss, associate curator, twentieth-century art, who will be the coordinating curator for the exhibition in Washington; and from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, George Shackelford, curator, and Robert Boardingham, assistant curator, European paintings, who will be the cooordinating curator for the exhibition in Boston. The advisory committee includes John Richardson, author of A Life of Picasso: The Early Years, 1881-1906 and A Life of Picasso 1907-1917: The Painter of Modern Life, parts of a four-volume series on the life of Picasso, and Picasso specialist Jean Sutherland Boggs.

A 400-page fully illustrated catalogue will be published by the National Gallery of Art in paperback and by Yale University Press in hardback. It contains ten essays by Picasso scholars, arranged chronologically with color plates of early works by the artist, as well as an extensive chronology of Picasso's early life from 1881 to 1906. The scholarly editor is Marilyn McCully, an art historian based in London, who is a collaborative author with John Richardson on his series on the life of Picasso.

* - Family of Saltimbanques was presented to the National Gallery of Art by Chester Dale and by the terms of his bequest may not be lent.

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
www.nga.gov