I cannot tell you how excited I am about this particular installation at the Center for Photography at Woodstock. The grey walls and frames look great. I’ll take some proper installation photos after the opening this weekend…
…and a great opening it’ll be! This installation of Being Upstate along with the Photography Now 2011 exhibition, curated by Vince Aletti. Not to be missed! Everyone will be there, you know. It all starts this Saturday April 9, 2011 at 5PM and goes to 7. After that, drinks are on me!
I’ll be road tripping in the Southwestern United States this coming May. My head is already on the road and just to galvanize my imagination, this 1984 Wim Wenders masterpiece is playing on Showtime this week. I caught some of it Sunday night after the end of Big Love. Now all I can think about is Travis.
One of the most beautiful movies ever and the pacing is hypnotic. I’m alone this weekend and I’ll probably watch it again. I won’t be answering the phone.
Later this week I’ll announce my upcoming exhibition at the Center for Photography at Woodstock, opening Saturday April 9. Lots going on.
I’ve rarely been one to have a crush on a movie star or musician, but it has happened once in a while. And I have several colleagues who indulge in “photographer crushes” (those and their respective crushes shall remain anonymous). Anywho, my Daily Dose from Flavorpill just turned me on to Anna Calvi and indeed I am turned on. I haven’t told my wife about her yet, but she reads this blog and knows me too well. I feel like I’m watching the nightclub scene near the end of Wim Wender’s Wings of Desire and she and her band have taken the place of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Yeah, I know, that performance in Wings was so beautifully intense there’s really no comparison. It’s just that I think I have a crush on Anna Calvi.
Here’s that amazing scene from Wings of Desire. Nick Cave says in his head: “One more song and it’s over… but I’m not going to tell you about a girl. I’m not going to tell you about a girl.” And then he tells the audience: “I want to tell you about a girl.” and then performs From Her To Eternity.
Now that I’ve revisited that Nick Cave scene, I think my crush is over. Fun while it lasted. I still like her music. That, plus she’s hot. Thanks for spending a few moments here as I indulge in my musical infatuations.
The girl in Wings of Desire was played by Solveig Dommartin, who became Wender’s girlfriend and collaborator. I had a HUGE crush on her. She died of a heart attack in 2007 at the age of 45.
Yes I realize I’ve been somewhat neglecting this blog lately. I’ve been busy with some exciting things that I will be announcing very shortly here. Stay tuned to this channel.
The end-of-year Top 10 photography book lists are cropping up like mushrooms all over the internet forest. Speaking of which, Little Brown Mushroom’s list has been an early favorite this year, having been published two weeks ago. Soth is an astute observer of the photobook publishing world and his 2010 list doesn’t disappoint.
Actually it does. All the lists do. Obviously the top 10 are going to be “the Best”. Truth is, if you just go down one more layer you’ll leave the best and encounter the raw.
I would like to celebrate a book that, for no good reason whatsoever, just couldn’t break into the top-single-digits. I have no idea why.
Maybe because it’s a real book with real photographs about a real place done over many years by a native photographer without much fanfare. André Cepeda photographs his hometown of Porto, Portugal. The downtrodden structures, interiors and portraits could tell a story about poor and misbegotten lifes, but Cepeda is not a journalist. He is documenting his own soul through the faces and bodies of the inhabitants and the melancholic decay they call home. The title Ontem means Yesterday in Portuguese.
The book itself is superbly produced by Le caillou bleu éditions with a nice large tipped-in print embossed onto its elegant linen hardcover, not unlike the third edition of Sleeping By The Mississippi. Is that the problem? Too Sothy? Alec has moved on and I guess we have, too. The trajectory from Sleeping By The Mississippi through Niagara to Broken Manual is that of an artist descending deeper and deeper into his own emotional inner core. The cumulative effect of the three projects in sequence is riveting (a great reason to have checked out From Here To There at the Walker). Soth always seems restless for the next step inward. Or is it downward?
Cepeda is working on a much more intimate level. You can palpably feel his very personal connection with the people and places he photographs. There is a sense of loyalty that has been nurtured through years of living there and being one with his subjects. This is the kind of authenticity that I aspire to with my own work and that often eludes me. To see someone doing it so clearly and intensely makes me want to reach for this book again and again, to feel it once more. He does owe a lot to the amazing legacy of American Color Photography that Eggleston and Soth are the reigning champions of. So many of us do. But that’s a superficial assessment. Don’t let that get in the way of appreciating a truly great photobook experience. Anyone who’s familiar with my work can understand why Ontem is my pick for book-of-the-year. A personal choice, sort of like The Mushroom Collector on the top of LBM’s list. That’s a great book, too, but because of its powerfully intimate emotional tone and the sheer beauty of its color photographs, this year’s coveted 11th place goes to André Cepeda’s Ontem.
Not actually booty, as I had to pay for most of these. I just wanted to use the word. If you were fortunate and/or smart enough to have gone last weekend, do share your favorite finds. Here’s some of what I brought home:
Mandatory Ed Templeton goodies. Still waiting for someone to come out with the Anthology of Ex-Skateboard-Punks-Turned-Photographers, Volume One.
A spread from Richard Prince’s Lynn Valley with a sweet cyan cast.
If I had money to burn, I’d burn it on Takashi Homma.
Good to find Max Goldfarb’s Deep Cycle project at the free103point9 table. Hudson, NY’s most compelling artist, except maybe when Marina Abramović is in town. Maybe.
Whatever was left in my wallet that day went to as many zines and booklets as I could buy. It was hard to linger there broke but I did and saw quite a few things that almost lured me to the nearest ATM. But the Fair can be pretty overwhelming and exhausting. After checking out the Dutch Pavilion and the really great Riot Grrrls exhibition, I crashed and headed back down to Brooklyn.
I’ve pre-announced on my website the raw first efforts of my new publication venture that will soon develop into a full-fledged something-or-other. There will be a steady series of zines by myself and others plus some unique editioned works. Things are beginning to roll as we speak, and my first zine Bath was presented to the Indie Photobook Library at the 2010 Flash Forward Festival’s Self Published Book Expo in Toronto earlier this month. I’m honored to be included in this important collection that focuses on such a vital part of the ongoing history of photography and publishing.
I should also mention that I’m continuing work on my book project Being Upstate and I hope to complete it by year’s end, with a special edition forthcoming in early 2011.
And of course I cannot wait for the NY Art Book Fair next weekend November 5-7 at PS1. I will be attending on Friday and possibly the other days as well. If you see me, say hi because I’ll be giving out my brand new special zine I’m doing for the occasion to anyone who wants one. After that weekend they’ll be sold through my website once I set up PayPal. This is one of my favorite annual events in the city and I’m looking forward to seeing some familiar and new faces. That plus spending way too much on books as usual.
