laura letinsky @ carroll and sons

7 Turkish Artists engages the social themes that define contemporary Turkey, specifically examining the imagery of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, its revolutionary leader after World War I. This show provides a critical visual exploration on the meaning of Atatürk’s imagery and how it is used in Turkish society today. Between 1997 and 2010, artists Zakari and Mandel, one Turkish, one American, chronicle their experiences photographing people, secular and Western, or religious and conservative in appearance. They conducted interviews and collected found material from archives, gathering popular historical illustrations and found Atatürk postcards that span a thirty year period and illustrate the cult status of his image. The artists’ recent book, The State of Ata, seeks to recognize the complex relationship in Turkey between secularists, the Islamist movement and military power.

Filed under: emerging photographers, Exhibitions, Local communities

a century of photogravure @ aib

CEW — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:55:44 +0000

ART INSTITUTE OF BOSTON

September 6 – October 232011

Reception: September 15, 5pm to 7pm

Works by Edward Steichen, Frederick Evans, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Aaaron Siskind, Lee Friedlander, Parke-Harrison, Kiki Smith, Ruth Thorne-Thomsen, David Levinthal, Lothar Osterburg, Melagros de la Torre, Paul Taylor, and many others.

Adolf De Meyer, The Fountain of Saturn, 1912

This exhibition brings together 20 artists and over 60 of the finest works ever produced by the photogravure process. An invention that coincided with the birth of photography, photogravure transforms the silver image into an intaglio print. Initially used as a means of reproducing photographic imagery in journals and books, gravure—especially hand pulled gravure–became prized for its own luminous syntax and has attracted major photographic artists and printmakers.

Alfred Stieglitz’s publication Camera Work (1903-1917) established the highest standards for photographic reproduction in gravure and when printed directly from the original negative. He considered the gravure image an original print. Selections from Camera Work include images by Evans, Coburn, Steichen, Stieglitz, Seeley, Keiley, White and De Meyer.

A few early artists like Evans and Coburn became skilled plate makers while others like Steichen and Strand collaborated with photogravure craftsmen associated with large printing houses. With the end of mechanical photogravure, today there are only a few studios that still produce gravure. Jon Goodman in Northampton, Lothar Osterburg in Brooklyn, Paul Taylor in New Hampshire, and Jim Stroud outside Boston are among the few. Among the contemporary artists who have collaborated with them are Kiki Smith, Lee Friedlander, John Dugdale, Parke-Harrison, Thorne Thomsen, Levinthal, among others.

This exhibition celebrates their work and the continuation of this beautiful and expressive medium.

Lothar Osterburg, Piranesi State 1, 2008

As demanding as any of the intaglio processes, gravure allows for manipulation of the print from image to image by adjustments to inking, wiping the plate, and additional work post-production. Lothar Osterburg, one of a handful of contemporary artists working in gravure, approaches each print as the basis for additional drawing and painting.

Exhibition has been curated by exhibition director Bonnell Robinson and majority of works drawn from Boston area collections.

Filed under: Exhibitions, Faculty news, Local communities

for the record @ montserrat gallery

CEW — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 01:37:16 +0000

For the Record: Searching for Objectivity in Global Conflict

Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, MA

August 22 – October 22, 2011

Left image: Matthew Ernst, Bomb Swimmy, 2004, Mixed media on paper; right image: Sophie Ristehueber, Fait (Fact), 1992, Chromogenic color print

Bombarded by information from a variety of sources, it is often difficult as observers of current affairs to fully make sense of the concepts and facts presented. Artists offer us the opportunity to engage and interpret this information in an alternative way. They were the first compelled to record and present the events of the world. Artists illustrate and record many aspects of war in a variety of ways, whether through genuine factual representation (witness accounts of war) through war reportage drawing and/or documentary work or as artistic interpretation (visual response to war). The artists in For The Record offer a testament of the effects of war and conflict on people, societies and the physical earth.

Featuring: Fiona Banner, Nina Berman, Matthew Ernst, Harun Farocki, Benjamin Lowy, Steve Mumford, James O’Neill, Gerhard Richter, Sophie Ristelhueber, and Rob Roy.

Curated by Montserrat Faculty Rob Roy and Gordon Arnold
in collaboration with Gallery Director Leonie Bradbury

SYMPOSIUM

Filed under: emerging photographers, Exhibitions, Local communities