Gordon Parks, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University - Bare Witness

Bare Witness: Photographs by Gordon Parks
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University
March 21 – July 1, 2007

As part of an ongoing series of exhibitions based on the photographic collection of the Los Angeles-based Capital Group, the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University presents a retrospective of the works of the late Gordon Parks. “Bare Witness: Photographs by Gordon Parks” features 73 works chosen specifically by Parks for The Capital Group as examples of his most potent imagery. 

Born in 1912 in Fort Scott, Kansas, Gordon Parks, who died in 2006 at age 93, documented crime and poverty, as well as its opposite - glamour. An African American photographer who began working professionally in the 1940s, Gordon Parks tackled the harsh truth and dignity of the black urban and rural poor in the United States. He photographed aspects of the Civil Rights movements and individuals associated with the Black Panthers and Black Muslims. Gordon Parks established himself as a foremost fashion photographer, providing spreads for respected magazines such as Vogue. For 25 years, from 1945 to 1970, he served as staff photographer for Life, the magazine of current events that mirrored mid-century American society. In addition to his documentary and fashion photography, Gordon Parks was a filmmaker, author, musician, and publisher, a renaissance man whose career embodied the American ideal of equality and whose art was bound up with his personal life.

“ 'Bare Witness' includes many of Parks's iconic images, such as those made for the Farm Security Administration, the Office of War Information, and the Standard Oil (New Jersey) photography project,” said Hilarie Faberman, Robert M. and Ruth L. Halperin Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Cantor Arts Center. “Whether photographing celebrities or common folk, Harlem gang leaders or intellectuals, children or the elderly, individuals who were well or barely dressed, Parks brought his straightforward, sympathetic eye and mind to bear witness to late-20th century civilization. As writers on Parks have noted, his photographs balance the dichotomies of black and white, rich and poor, and document and artifice, revealing his strengths and struggles as an artist and man.”

The exhibition includes an illustrated catalogue with an essay by photography scholar Maren Stange who writes frequently on modern American culture. A member of the faculty at Cooper Union, Stange's recent publications include Bronzeville: Black Chicago in Pictures (2003) and Symbols of Ideal Life: Social Documentary Photography in America 1890-1950 (1989). Following its showing at the Cantor Arts Center, the exhibition will travel nationally to the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia (January 24 - March 30, 2008), the St. Louis Art Museum (May 30 - August 24, 2008), and Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington (mid-September 2008 - January 4, 2009).

The exhibition, associated catalogue, and related programs are made possible by The Capital Group and the Hohbach Family Fund.

CANTOR ARTS CENTER, STANFORD UNIVERSITY
328 Lomita Drive (at Museum Way), Stanford, CA 94305-5060
ccva.stanford.edu

FotoGrafia Rome International Festival 07

FotoGrafia 

Rome’s International Festival - 6th Edition 

April 6 – June 3 2007 

The Italian Issue - Investigation of contemporary photography 

FotoGrafia – Rome’s International Festival is this year celebrating its 6th Edition. Produced by Zoneattive with artistic direction by Marco Delogu, it is sponsored by the Municipality of Rome’s Department of Cultural Policies and under the High Patronage of the President of the Republic.

  

Exhibitions The Festival grows continuously and year after year offering an increasing rich and articulated programme. The heart of the festival as always consists in the main exhibitions presented in some of the most suggestive locations of the ‘Museums in the Municipality’ system, such as the Palazzo Braschi Museum of Rome, the Museum of Rome in Trastevere and for the first time the Museum of the Ara Pacis and the Carlo Bilotti Museum, with the addition of the National Gallery of Modern Art, the Hendrick Cristian Andersen Museum, the Sala Santa Rita and Hadrian’s Temple. To all this, one must add the circuit of exhibitions presented by over one hundred art galleries, among them VM21, LipanjePuntin, Studio Trisorio, Sala1 and foreign cultural institutes, among them the Swiss Institute, the British School of Rome, the Polish Institute, The Academy of Romania, the Goethe Institute and the IILA (Italo- Latino American Institute). In addition to traditional locations, from the centre to the suburbs, exhibitions are presented in unusual locations such as bookstores, cafés, bars and social centres, places in which new trends and talents are often discovered, such as Spazio Fare, the Odradek, Bibli and Bar à book bookshops. 

Events In addition to many exhibitions FotoGrafia has now added three very important projects: the ‘European Month of Photography’, an international network sponsored by Alcatel Lucent, that the festival is part of alongside 6 other European capital cities, the FotoGrafia- Baume & Mercier First International Award and the creation of ‘Lazio, Terra’, a new project for the Latium Region. To this one must also add a programme rich in events, portfolio readings, workshops, screenings and meetings that this year will be based on the idea of carrying out a real census of Italian photography. Appointments that are an important part of FotoGrafia, capable of attracting an increasingly attentive and numerous audience; some of these events will be hosted at the Foresteria, the beautiful location in the park surrounding the Casa del Jazz, of which Zoneattive has recently become the manager. 

Web This is all completed by FotoGrafia on line with a series of increasingly important opportunities and openings to the world of the web. Addressed in particular to communities such as myspace.com, where the festival has its own site for promotion and sharing and above all Flickr.com, the largest online community in the world for photographers, within which the Festival sponsors a competition with “Sguardo Urbano” entitled “Boundaries”, with over a thousand members. Furthermore, the initiative with Repubblica.it, for the 1944 thirtieth anniversary, asks readers to send their photographs and to identify themselves in those already published on the website. The best images will then be exhibited at the Festival. 

Subject This year FotoGrafia has chosen “The Italian Issue” as its main theme. An investigation of contemporary photography in Italy, an in depth reflection so as to valorise an extraordinary "school" that generation after generation is renewed in new and original forms and styles. Great maestros and young new artists to discover and rediscover an artistic heritage that the Festival wishes to bring to the attention of wider audiences with monographic exhibitions and projects created specifically for this objective. 

Trastevere Among the most awaited events there is the exhibition entitled "E’ il ‘77", curated by Marco Delogu and Giovanna Calvenzi, in which there will be an exclusive collection for this Festival of the images by photographers that witnessed turning points in our society, portraying its contradictory characteristics, between a creative soul, playful and wishing for change and the devastating spreading of unstoppable violence; among the exhibition’s leading photographers, Tano D'Amico, the photographer who is a symbol of that movement. In addition to images by Toni Thorimbert, Cesare Colombo, Gabriele Basilico, Uliano Lucas and Dino Fracchia, there will also be photographs taken by ordinary people, selected from the website Repubblica.it and shown at the same exhibition presented at the Museum of Rome in Trastevere. There will also be a collective exhibition entitled "Other Worlds", curated by Renata Ferri, presenting new images by a group of photographers, born in Rome or Romans by adoption, who started their artistic careers during the Eighties, exploring other countries, and who then became reference points for Italian photo-journalism. Photographers such as Roberto Koch, Fabio Ponzio, Angelo R. Turetta and more recently Francesco Zizola, Riccardo Venturi and Paolo Pellegrin. To this group of well-known artists the exhibition will also add work by three young photographers who have in some way inherited their legacy: Lorenzo Castore, Massimo Berruti and Davide Monteleone. Berruti and Monteleone won this year the World Press Photo Award, that will as always be hosted during the month of May by the Museum of Rome in Trastevere. Paolo Pellegrin is present at the Festival for the first time also as the curator of the exhibition of work by Paolo Woods, also held at the Museum of Rome in Trastevere. Still in Trastevere, at the EX GIL,(Casa della Gioventù Italiana Littoria), a jewel of rationalist architecture created by Luigi Moretti and never before used for an exhibition space, FotoGrafia presents the exhibition entitled ‘Not all roads lead to Rome’, consisting in works commissioned to Xavier Ribas, Raphael Dallaporta, Guy Tillim and the Italians Luca Campigotto, Giuliano Matteucci, Angelo Antolino and Luca Nostri. The result is a reconnaissance of all the territory of Latium: 7 different perspectives of its history and the landscape changes in the most suggestive and unusual locations, situated in both the countryside and on the seashore. This exhibition will be a preview for the Festival (opens on March 16th) and is the first project created with the "Lazio Terra" brand name, created by Zoneattive for the Latium Region with the objective of promoting projects linked to image and photography. 

Centre For this edition too the splendid setting of Hadrian’s Temple is confirmed as a multifunctional location for the Festival, hosting on May 16th the prize-giving ceremony for the first FotoGrafia - Baume & Mercier International Award, for all professional photographers. The creation of this award is the result of interest shown by Baume & Mercier for the world of photography and an awareness of the importance of being linked to one of the most important Festivals in Europe, sharing ideas of proximity, authenticity and creativity. The Award consists in the winning photographer being commissioned to create the project presented and also in the production of an exhibition for the next edition of FotoGrafia, with a monographic catalogue. Yet another step forward on the path to the promotion and development of photography at an international level, which has always been the Festival’s priority. Also at Hadrian’s Temple, thanks to partnership with Rome’s Chamber of Commerce, there will be an exhibition of the work dedicated to the Capital that each year the Festival commissions toan internationally known photographer. After Josef Koudelka, Olivo Barbieri, Anders Petersen and Martin Parr it is the Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide who interprets a hidden and amazingly suggestive Rome. Homage to the city paid by one of the world’s most important photographers, to whom in September 2007 the Getty Museum in Los Angeles will dedicate a great exhibition, and whose publishing house Phaidon recently published a book of retrospective work. Rome’s Chamber of Commerce becomes an important partner of FotoGrafia, contributing to develop this project on Rome’s contemporary image, which is a part of a wide promotion of the city that the institution has developed during these years. A new production of work by Antonio Biasiucci, curated by Giuseppe Prode and dedicated to Exvoto will be presented at the prestigious location of the Ara Pacis Museum. This is a new stage in the photographer’s "from Genesis to Catharsis". In this beautiful location designed by Richard Meyer, there will also be an exhibition entitled "Inheriting landscapes", by Maddalena D’Alfonso and Giovanna Calvenzi, in which for the very first time seven great photographers who have contributed to the redefinition of criteria for research in the aesthetics of landscapes, compare their work with that of their possible "heirs". And so Olivo Barbieri, Gabriele Basilico, Vincenzo Castella, Giovanni Chiaramonte, Guido Guidi, Mimmo Jodice and Massimo Vitali have invited two young photographers each to exhibit their work with them. At the Sala Santa Rita the Festival will instead present work by Giorgia Fiorio entitled ‘Figures’, a selection of images from an ongoing project, “the Gift”, a study on humankind’s spiritual inheritance, on which the artist has been working since the year 2000. The exhibition presents 14 imaginary landscapes or different interpretations of landscapes that are symbolic in collective imagination: places that really exist or miniature landscapes, created to make their viewing easier, or views that give one only an abstract idea of a landscape, that of the soul. 

Villa Borghese In the heart of the exhibition space in the Villa Borghese, FotoGrafia addresses international reality with an exhibition entitled "Mutations 1", who presents the final works of the first edition of the Alcatel Lucent Award for ‘The European Month of Photography’: Philippe Ramette, Beate Gutschow, Marek Kvetan, Nina Dich, AES+F, Elisabeth & Carine Krecke' and Italian Eva Frapiccini, for a preview look at new European photography. This exhibition, sponsored by Alcatel Lucent and presented with great success in other capital cities will be held at the Carlo Bilotti Museum. Alcatel Lucent, renews his promotional and mecenate position on European photography and for the second year is confirmed as a partner of FotoGrafia Festival. 

 At the National Gallery of Modern Art, FotoGrafia presents two other important productions, both curated by Giovanna Calvenzi:“20.12.53-10.08-04”is the title of the exhibition of work by Moira Ricci, a young thirty year old artist who mainly works using videos and photography to portray the world of family feelings, “intruding” in antique images. “A journey of remembrance” instead is the title of new work by Paolo Ventura dedicated to Italian cities in the Fifties. As in her previous work, “In wartime”, exhibited last year at the Rencontres Internationales de la photographie in Arles, it is dedicated to the crude and intense scenarios of the world at war, and Ventura’s images are the result of meticulous preparation and each one represents an invented but plausible memory. 

The Andersen Museum instead will host for the very first time a selection from the important collection of historical photographs belonging to the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo per l'Arte Foundation, with about 2500 images almost all never exhibited previously. The exhibition, curated by Francesca Bonetti for the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica and by Filippo Maggia, presents over 100 photographs, dated from 1850 to the first decades of the 20th Century, from the leading patrons of the Club at the Café Greco to the pictorialists from the Turin area. This year too will be a unique event for international photography with over 100 exhibitions and two months filled with events making Rome a stable reference point in the calendar of great festivals for this sector. 

FotoGrafia 

Rome’s International Festival 6th Edition / April 6th – June 3rd 2007 

www.fotografiafestival.it

Tamron Systeme anti vibrations PMA 2007

Tamron présente à la PMA 2007 son système Anti vibrations

Le dispositif anti vibrations développé par Tamron (VC) permet d’obtenir des images piquées et exemptes de flou de bougé léger. De plus, grâce à des composants mécaniques novateurs, l’encombrement et le poids minimum de l’optique ont été maintenus, conservant ainsi les caractéristiques essentielles d’un "zoom de voyage".

Edvard Munch – Signes de l’art moderne – Fondation Beyeler

Edvard Munch

Signes de l’art moderne

Fondation Beyeler, Riehen / Bâle

18 mars – 15 juillet 2007

Pionnier de l’art moderne, précurseur et fondateur de l’expressionniste, le peintre et graveur norvégien EDVARD MUNCH (1863-1944) est un des plus grands noms de l’histoire de l’art. La Fondation Beyeler consacre à Edvard Munch, une grande rétrospective,  la plus importante exposition de ses oeuvres organisée en Suisse depuis une vingtaine d'années.

Edvard Munch porte un regard pénétrant, proche de l’obsession, sur la solitude, l’amour et la mort. Son oeuvre traite de la crise, de la précarité et de la disparition de l’individu au siècle de l’industrialisation. Ses propres ruptures existentielles prêtent à sa création une cohérence suprême.

Cette exposition s’interroge sur la modernité des oeuvres d’Edvard Munch et présente le peintre comme un maître de la matière et de l’expérience artistique. Son caractère thématique permet de redécouvrir sous un jour nouveau des œuvres que l’on croyait pourtant connaître et réunit, à côté d’icônes de l’histoire de l’art comme « L’Enfant malade », « Madonna », « Mélancolie », « Vampire », « Puberté » ou « Autoportrait en enfer », de nombreuses pièces qui n’ont plus été montrées, ou rarement seulement, depuis la mort de l’artiste ; elles proviennent de près de 50 collections publiques et de plus de 50 collections particulières. Les œuvres très colorées de Munch témoignent de son apport original autant que décisif à l’art moderne. Pour la première fois, le thème de l’apparition et de la disparition du motif, qui est une particularité majeure et novatrice de son oeuvre, fait l’objet d’une présentation spécifique.

Le traitement du substrat du tableau et de la matière n’a rien de conventionnel chez Edvard Munch. Il franchit les frontières traditionnelles entre les différents modes d’expression artistique — gravure, dessin, photographie, collage et peinture. Devenir et disparition, destruction et création, autant d’états que le peintre représente de façons diverses : cela va de la dissolution des figures et de leur fusion dans le fond au dépassement opiniâtre de la marge du tableau et au grattage de la surface picturale, sans oublier l’exposition de nombreuses œuvres à l’air libre, soumises aux effets de la pluie et de la neige. Par ce « remède de cheval », Edward Munch n’intègre pas seulement dans son processus de création le hasard, mais également la décomposition naturelle. Dans son oeuvre tardive, il érige ce qui relève du processus et du temporaire, disparition physique concrète de la matière, en expression générale du caractère éphémère d’une modernité fondée sur la matière. En cela notamment, Edward Munch offre, dès le tournant du siècle, un aperçu de l’évolution artistique du XXe siècle.

Cette exposition présente 130 toiles, 85 dessins et gravures, retraçant toutes les phases de création de l’artiste. Elle s’articule en sept chapitres, et commence par la rupture précoce de Munch avec le naturalisme scandinave dans des oeuvres comme « L’Enfant malade » (1880–1892), dont la présentation en 1886 provoqua une indignation générale. Malgré leurs commentaires accablants — « facture grossière » ou « esquisses à moitié inachevées » —, les critiques n’ont pas pu s’empêcher, dès les premières années, de reconnaître le rôle de précurseur de Munch et l’originalité de ses visions artistiques.

L’intérêt d’Edvard Munch pour les expériences picturales des années berlinoises (1892–1895), objet du deuxième chapitre, conduit à un changement de style marquant et à des oeuvres d’une expressivité incomparable. Ses motifs, influencés par l’impressionnisme et le post-impressionnisme français, cèdent alors la place au thème de l’angoisse existentielle de l’homme civilisé, de la solitude et de la douleur. On voit naître avec « Madonna », « Puberté », « Baiser » ou « Vampire » de grandes œuvres qui l’accompagneront toute sa vie et s’associeront plus tard en une « frise de vie ».

Le troisième chapitre de l’exposition aborde les incroyables expériences que Munch a faites dans le domaine de la gravure pendant ses années parisiennes, en 1896/1897. Ses toiles deviennent ensuite plus monumentales et plus planes. Après des années de bohème marquées par une crise personnelle et d’innombrables voyages en Europe, ainsi qu’un changement de style caractéristique, les oeuvres de Munch prennent une intensité chromatique et une expressivité uniques, comme le révèle de façon impressionnante le quatrième chapitre (1898–1909) de l’exposition.

Après sa dépression nerveuse de 1908 et son rétablissement ultérieur, Edvard Munch poursuit encore avec cohérence ses recherches en matière de photographie et de mouvement (1909–1919), avant de s’intéresser au film muet (cinquième chapitre).

Son œuvre tardive (1920–1944), objet du sixième chapitre, est marquée par la dissolution rapide et la disparition de la matière et du motif, aboutissement logique de ses travaux précédents. Le chapitre final propose une vaste présentation de ses gravures tardives.

Cette exposition rassemble des prêts de nombreux musées américains et européens et montre en outre un grand nombre d’oeuvres appartenant à des collections privées qui n’étaient pas accessibles jusqu’à ce jour. Cette exposition a été montée par Dieter Buchhart, en collaboration avec Christoph Vitali, Ulf Küster et Philippe Büttner.

Ces précieuses oeuvres proviennent du Munch-museet d’Oslo, du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bergen, du Musée National des Beaux-Arts, d’Architecture et de Design d’Oslo, du konstmuseum de Göteborg, du Moderna Museet de Stockholm, du Statens Museum for Kunst de Copenhague, de l’Ateneum Art Museum, de la Galerie nationale finlandaise d’Helsinki, du Museum of Modern Art de New York, du Museum of Fine Arts de Boston, du and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution à Washington D.C., de la Tate de Londres, de la Nationalgalerie de Berlin, de la Kunsthalle de Hambourg, du Sprengel Museum de Hanovre, de la Staatsgalerie de Stuttgart, du Musée Folkwang d’Essen, du Von der Heydt-Museum de Wuppertal, de la collection Würth de Künzelsau, du Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte de Münster, de la Neue Pinakothek de Munich, de l’Osterreichische Galerie du Belvédère de Vienne, de la Narodni Galerie de Prague, du Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza de Madrid, du Kunstmuseum de Bâle et du Kunsthaus de Zürich ainsi que de nombreuses collections privées.

Cette exposition est accompagnée de la publication d’un catalogue richement illustré édité chez Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, avec des articles de Dieter Buchhart, Oivind Storm Bjerke, Philippe Büttner et Ulf Küster ainsi que de textes introductifs aux différents chapitres. Ce volume comprend 288 pages avec 258 illustrations en couleur et est vendu au prix de CHF 68.

FONDATION BEYELER

Baselstrasse 101, CH-4125 Riehen/Bâle

www.beyeler.com

Michel Parmentier : Peintures 1962 - 1994, Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris

Michel Parmentier : Peintures 1962 - 1994 
Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris
15 mars - 21 avril 2007

La galerie Jean Fournier expose un ensemble inédit de peintures sur toile et sur papier de MICHEL PARMENTIER (1938-2000) datant de 1962 à 1965. Cet ensemble est confronté, dans l’exposition, avec une bande grise peinte en 1967 et une peinture sur calque datant de 1994.

Au cours de l’année 1966, Michel Parmentier adopte le pliage et travaille à partir de toiles de grandes largeur (environ 250 cm) achetées au Marché Saint-Pierre qu’il plie au sol après les avoir préparées sur un châssis et qu’il peint, à la bombe ou au pistolet. La surface peinte est laquée, brillante, d’une facture totalement impersonnelle. La couleur employée changera selon les années : bleu en 1966, gris en 1967 et rouge en 1968.

Les peintures qui précèdent l’année 1966 montrent que Michel Parmentier « cherche un temps à produire une synthèse singulière de la peinture américaine et d’une certaine histoire française. S’il est, comme tous ceux qui, dans sa génération, formèrent la véritable avant-garde, d’une défiance absolue à l’égard de ce qui évoque l’Ecole de Paris et son abstraction bien tempérée, et si, à cet égard, il préfère ce qui se délite à ce qui est composé, il y a pourtant quelque chose de Nicolas de Staël qui passe dans sa façon, un temps, de construire l’espace par la couleur. Mais aussi – et c’est là un autre monde – quelque chose d’Henri Michaux qui traverse les toiles les plus sombres, où le gris et le noir balayent la quasi-totalité de la surface.

Mais l’essentiel est ailleurs, dans ce que Michel Parmentier fait subir à son travail : une démarche qui s’apparente à un processus délibéré et systématique de dégradation. Dégradation symbolique, qui le conduit à n’utiliser que des matériaux sans noblesse, c’est-à-dire étrangers au monde des beaux-arts : papiers d’emballage ou journaux, pour importer du motif déjà fait ; papier d’argent et peinture industrielle en guise de couleur. Mais aussi dégradation matérielle, car Michel Parmentier colle, recouvre, arrache autant si ce n’est plus qu’il ne peint, et ses toiles ressemblent parfois à de vastes repentirs qui conservent en leur sein la moindre trace des hésitations qui les ont constituées. Comme des espaces feuilletés dont chaque strate avoue plus qu’elle ne dissimule ce qu’elle recouvre. Singulièrement la peinture de Parmentier tend progressivement vers la maigreur alors même qu’il multiple les ajouts et collages.

Des premières toiles blanches composées de 1962 aux dernières toiles laquées et quasiment blêmes de 1965, c’est l’appauvrissement, la dématérialisation de l’œuvre que vise l’artiste. S’il existe une forme de continuité entre les travaux d’avant et ceux d’après 1966, elle réside dans ce mouvement vers le moins. Car là où il appauvrit peu à peu sa matière picturale de 1962 à 1965, Michel Parmentier fera subir plus tard un même sort à son support qui, à la fin des années 1980, passera de la toile au papier pour finir dans la translucidité du calque. Peinture toute entière tendue entre affirmation et négation. » (extrait du texte de Pierre Wat, « Parmentier, au seuil de la peinture » publié dans le catalogue de l’exposition)

Michel Parmentier est né à Paris en 1938, est mort à Paris en 2000. Il cesse de peindre de 1968 à 1983.

GALERIE JEAN FOURNIER, PARIS
www.galerie-jeanfournier.com

Updated

Feminist Art Revisted 1960-1980, Galerie Lelong, NYC

Role Play: Feminist Art Revisted 1960-1980

Galerie Lelong, New York

March 15 - April 28, 2007

Marina Abramovic, Helena Almeida, Eleanor Antin, Lynda Benglis, Helen Chadwick, Valie Export, Anna Bella Geiger, Birgit Jürgenssen, Shigeko Kubota, Anna Maria Maiolino, Ana Mendieta, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O’Grady, Yoko Ono, Adrian Piper, Martha Rosler, Carolee Schneemann, Hannah Wilke, Francesca Woodman

Converging and simultaneous interests in role play, masquerade, and fragmentation unite the 19 female artists in Role Play: Feminist Art Revisited 1960-1980. A brochure featuring an original essay by Abigail Solomon-Godeau is available at the exhibition.

Shifting and constructed identities are explored in the exhibition through the subversive interpretation of traditional female roles. Helen Chadwick, Birgit Jürgenssen and Martha Rosler play with images of women in the domestic sphere, while Eleanor Antin and Adrian Piper each develop a persona that actualizes a stereotypical concept of women. Two artists in the exhibition respond to “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even,” the iconic work by Marcel Duchamp that features an ambiguous, oft-debated depiction of a female figure.

The sexualization of women and their bodies, and the desire to reclaim their bodies for themselves, are key elements to the exhibition. Marina Abramovic, Lynda Benglis, Valie Export, Yoko Ono and Hannah Wilke propose differing interpretations of female beauty and power. Fragmentation and disappearance figure prominently, most evidently in photographic work by Helena Almeida, Ana Mendieta, Carolee Schneemann and Francesca Woodman. A reliance on photography and film, both transitory mediums, emphasize the sense of identity as a socially fluid and fugitive state.

One of the criticisms of feminism has been that it fails to integrate women of color and women from outside Europe and North America. Role Play highlights women from diverse backgrounds whose work deserves to be more fully assimilated in the existing narrative of contemporary art history, such as Anna Bella Geiger, Anna Maria Maiolino, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O’Grady and Shigeko Kubota.

Though feminism is one of the important social and cultural movements of the 20th century, its influence on art making has not been examined thoroughly until recently. This spring, two exhibitions—WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, organized by Connie Butler for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Global Feminisms, organized by Linda Nochlin and Maura Reilly for the Brooklyn Museum—will contrast seminal feminist artists of the last 40 years and their influence on younger female artists, many of whom do not identify with the term. Role Play: Feminist Art Revisited 1960-1980 aims to contribute to this current dialogue with a thematic selection of artists.

GALERIE LELONG

528 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001

www.galerielelong.com

Real Photography Award

 

ING Real Estate, launched the REAL Photography Award. The bi-annual photography award is open to international artists who depict Nature, Development and Architecture and their interplay in an authentic, original and innovative manner. The winner will receive EUR 50,000 in prize money.

Contemporary artists from all over the world are invited to send in their photographic interpretation of the award theme. Thirty entries will be nominated for first prize. They will be included in an exclusive travelling exhibition in November and published in a full-colour illustrated catalogue to be made available during the exhibition. An international jury, whose members have earned their spurs in modern art, architecture and photography, will select the winning entry from among the thirty nominees. The winning artist will be announced during the exhibition's opening. The work of the short-listed artists may also be acquired by the REAL Photography Collection.

The REAL Photography Award supplements the ING REAL Photography collection. ING Real Estate began the collection over a year ago, which has since then matured into a serious corporate photography collection containing over 40 photographs by international artists with a focus on Nature, Development and Architecture. To inspire artists to participate in the award, ING Real Estate also periodically presents photographs taken by internationally acclaimed artists on request. These will be presented individually in the period leading up to November 2007. The first photograph in this series is entitled Constructing Meaning by Caroline Prisse. German artist Matthias Hoch has been asked to create the second photograph in this series; it will be unveiled in May.

DIFC Gulf Art Fair Dubai 2007

 

 

   Dubai International Financial Centre © DIFC. Courtesy DIFC.

 

© DIFC. Courtesy DIFC.

 

Under the patronage of Her Royal Highness Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, wife of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, the much-awaited DIFC Gulf Art Fair opens with more than AED 360 million ($100 million) worth of original artworks from around the world offered for sale.

Last night, the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) hosted a welcome reception for regional galleries and artists to showcase the art installations currently on view at The Gate, including works by Dubai-based artist Patricia Millns, Conrad Shawcross, Parviz Tanavoli, Khaled Ben Slimane, Patrizio Travagli, Sophie Ernst, Lara Baladi, Nadim Karam and Simon Hitchens.

“The DIFC Gulf Art Fair is intended to establish Dubai as a centre for art commerce, we look to contribute to the cultural life of the emirate, the UAE, the Gulf region and the wider Middle East. As a centre for the global art trade, Dubai will also attract young artists from across the region, and encourage the development of those who already call this land their home. Artists from this region will no longer feel the need to seek a future for their talents outside its borders, and will instead be able to contribute to the flourishing of the cultural life of their homeland from their native soil.” said His Excellency Dr. Omar Bin Sulaiman, Governor, DIFC.

“Today, the DIFC is home to a broad range of regional and global financial institutions. Tomorrow, the centre will be a hub for regional and international contemporary art – and art commerce. We are also moving forward with the expansion of the DIFC District, which itself was created with many artistic features in its architectural design. It has also been specifically designed to publicly display works of art” he added.

The DIFC Gulf Art Fair officially opens today with an exclusive Patrons’ Preview, and includes a three-day Global Art Forum and education programme to foster debate and increase awareness about trends in collecting art.  A number of the world’s leading artists, curators, art professionals, and collectors are confirmed to take part.

Public access to the DIFC Gulf Art Fair is on Friday and Saturday, 9-10 March, with proceeds from ticket sales going to the Al Madad Foundation for START, a project to fund children’s art workshops in deprived communities.

“With prices for art ranging from the hundreds of dollars to millions of dollars, the inaugural DIFC Gulf Art Fair will offer to collectors an extensive range of work from forty of the world’s top art galleries.  Our comprehensive programme offers an unmatched opportunity for regional and international art collectors to interact with gallery owners, artists, and curators to learn more about global trends while enjoying the art on sale,” said Mr. John Martin, Director of DIFC Gulf Art Fair.

 

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X-Rite ColorChecker Products at PMA07

X-Rite unveils its dynamic Color Checker® family of color management solutions for photographers - results of its merger with fellow world leader in the color industry GretagMacbeth – at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) International Convention Trade Show, March 8 – 11, 2007 in Las Vegas. Held at the Convention Center’s South Hall, PMA is billed as the world’s largest annual imaging event attended by more than 20,000 photographers and related professionals from around the globe.

Imagine a totally non-subjective method of confirming the true color balance of any color rendition system. PMA07 attendees can explore first-hand just such a device along with all the XRite i1-Family of color solution products. The ColorChecker Chart from X-Rite is a checkerboard array of 24 scientifically prepared colored squares in a wide range of colors. Many of these squares represent natural objects of special interest, such as human skin, foliage and blue sky; all reflect light the same way in all parts of the visible spectrum – a unique feature that ensures color matching of natural objects under any illumination and with any color reproduction process. With the X-Rite i1-ColorChecker, photographers can check films, lights, filters and paper with ease.

In addition to the standard ColorChecker, X-Rite has variations that meet virtually any needed standard of comparing, measuring and analyzing differences in color reproduction in various processes to streamline processes and avoid costly mistakes. PMA 2007 Show visitors can learn how an X-Rite Digital ColorChecker Semi Gloss (SG) provides checks and comparisons of the digital reproduction of a real scene or a test pattern; makes a white balance with a digital camera; and allows photographers to use the chart with camera profiling software to create an ICC camera-ready profile. Comes included with the X-Rite i1PhotoSG and other PRO bundles as well as a stand-alone product.

To ensure that the camera’s raw image is as close to real life as possible, X-Rite offers photographers a choice among several reference devices that are scientifically engineered to provide precise uniform surfaces that are spectrally neutral (i.e., reflect equal amounts of red, blue and green) under all types of light conditions – natural, fluorescent or studio.

Other X-Rite ColorChecker Products On Display At PMA 07

- The X-Rite ColorChecker Three-Step Gray Scale Card - a full-sized version of the white, 18% gray and black reference square used in the standard 24-patch X-Rite ColorChecker for quick set up of the proper studio lighting ratio between main and fill lights. Captures accurate color without much after-the-fact manipulation and with necessary reference values for quick color adjustments within most photo processing software packages.

- The X-Rite ColorChecker Mini Gray Balance Card – a pocket-sized version of the 18% gray reference square used in the standard 24-patch X-Rite ColorChecker.

- The X-Rite ColorChecker White Balance Card – a full size version of the white reference square used in the standard 24-patch X-Rite ColorChecker.

- The X-Rite Color Checker Mini White Balance Card – a pocket-sized version of the white reference square used in the standard 24-patch X-Rite ColorChecker.

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