INTERIORS

These last few months have been a struggle, as art sales have been very, very slow and I've had to give massive discounts to even sell anything---my life has been basically a perfect mirror of the economy lately. I console myself with the thought that Edgar Allen Poe was found dead a pauper in a gutter and Dickens was often quite broke. However, this situation has been giving me time to assess what I should focus on in my art and photography career and be ultra-productive: shooting, grantwriting, etc. Specifically I have been photographing architectural interiors to beef up my commercial portfolio, and studying my Julius Shulman books like crazy. Here's one of my favorites so far, of a kitchen in a charming Fort Greene brownstone.

Fast Chelsea Gallery Hop Update

A blow-through of some art I have seen recently that made an impression:

David Hockney: Recent Paintings at Pace Wildenstein in Chelsea--
These paintings were great fun for me, giant, vividly hued canvases of landscapes and trees that fell somewhere in between Dr.Suess and Pissaro.

















Yao Lu's New Landscapes at Bruce Silverstein:
These elegant digital paintings depict mounds of garbage covered in delicate green nets; the effect from afar is to experience an ancient imperialistic dynasty painting; up close, the digital work and contemporary subject matter come into view, including construction waste, polluted water, and other environmental catastrophes. I quite liked the concept and the shapes of these works. However, the digital 'crunchiness' of the garbage mounds I found detrimental to the feeling of the work.

The Big Wait

At this point, I have submitted work to approximately 8 grants and competitions over the last few months. A week and a half ago, I delivered my portfolio to the Guggenheim Foundation (previous recipients including Alec Soth, Brian Ulrich, etc and so on) on Park Avenue. I'm proud to have even made it past the first tiny intermediate level, which consisted of submitting a proposal, artist CV, and references; it was upon receiving and approving these that the Foundation requested work samples. I delivered to their office 16 16x20 world's fair photographs and one 30x36: I feel confident about my portfolio and for now....must patiently wait, and wait, and wait...

Knoxville World's Fair Site: New Work Preview

Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 --- including yours truly!

There is a huge photo competition, Photolucida Critical Mass, in which about 600 photographers enter, there are 50 finalists, and then one winner who gets a book published and lots of other wonderful things. The jurors' list includes an impressive array of professionals in the fields, including gallerists, photo editors, fellow pro photographers, and curators. I am proud to announce I was one of the 50 finalists. Congrats to all! Here is the winners' list:

Jenn Ackerman
Jody Ake
Leslie Alsheimer
Jane Fulton Alt
Carl Bower
Andrea Camuto
Manuel Capurso
Alejandro Cartagena
Pelle Cass
Edmund Clark
Victor Cobo
Caleb Cole
Scott Dalton
Dorothee Deiss
Mitch Dobrowner
Jade Doskow
Ed Freeman
Lucia Ganieva
Judy Gelles
N W Gibbons
Toni Greaves
Alexander Gronsky
Jessica Todd Harper
Jessica Ingram
Samar Jodha
Mary Shannon Johnstone
Jimmy Lam
Laurie Lambrecht
David Leventi
Larry Louie
Benjamin Lowy
Simone Lueck
David Maisel
Sarah Malakoff
Rania Matar
Tim Matsui
Mark Menjivar
Brad Moore
Kate Orne
Ara Oshagan
Rachel Papo
Bradley Peters
Alexis Pike
Birthe Piontek
Ellen Rennard
Betsy Schneider
Peter Sibbald
Christopher Sims
David Taylor
Phillip Toledano
Will Steacy
Serkan Taycan

ERICA ALLEN is on fire!

One of my good friends from graduate school, Erica Allen, has been getting much-deserved attention and exhibitions for her Untitled Gentlemen series. I feel quite proud, as I first curated Erica while were still in school at SVA in two shows at the Broadway Gallery downtown. Currently Erica has work up at both Melanie Flood Projects in Brooklyn and at the Camera Club of New York in Manhattan (additionally, you can bid on her work at the Camera Club's auction in December). If you can, go on by and see her fabulous, intense, vividly hued portraits, created by combing appropriated portraits and backgrounds in a painterly and meticulous fashion.

KIPTON ART at Saks Fifth Avenue

This Monday night I attended the Kipton Art announcements of the 'Kipton Rising Artists of 2010' at Saks Fifth Avenue. The winners---Kiritin Beyer, Julie Combal, Bon Duke, Emily Korman, Avery McCarthy and Matthew Satz---were announced following music and cocktails---congrats to all!

ROBERT FRANK at the METROPOLITAN MUSEUM

One of the most inspiring shows up right now is Robert Frank's work up at the Metropolitan Museum, curated by Jeff Rosenheim. Elegantly presented, the show was fulfilling on multiple levels; presenting the flow of the carefully selected edit of Franks' book; showing contact sheets and workprints from Franks' work process; and cases with original correspondence between Frank and Walker Evans and others of his mentors. For many of the photographs was a brief description of the image, but the text never detracted from the pure enjoyment of the image itself. Perhaps not shockingly, the America depicted was not so radically different from our world today.

On a more personal level, I greatly enjoyed--and was very inspired by--- reading Frank's original Guggenheim proposal, as I am in the thick of preparing my own. His writing was passionate, poetic, and lyrical, a realm wholly separate from the academic artspeak I have been educated in.