SLIM AARONS – PHOTOGRAPHER

Posted on 2016-11-14

Slim Aarons made a career, in his words, “photographing attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places.” His subjects were the beautiful and the celebrated, the rich and the powerful, high society and aristocracy. Slim Aarons captured their image for the picture magazines throughout the second half of the twentieth century. In doing so he defined the image of the Beautiful People, the international Jet Set who strode the world’s stage in the postwar decades.

As a chronicler of the good life, as lived by the upper classes and aristocracy in the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s, Slim Aarons has no peer. He was a classic outsider looking in, and as such he idealized the rich. The women are beautiful and exquisitely dressed, the men handsome and poised. The houses, shown in detail, range from European palazzos and castles to Palm Beach palazzos to suburban and Southhampton castles. Though we may catch a whiff of boredom and perhaps a lack of purpose in his subjects, the overwhelming luxury of their surroundings and ease of their lives may cast such doubts aside.

Opposite – Poolside Glamour, 1970

Exhibition runs through to November 26th, 2016

Staley-Wise Gallery
560 Broadway
New York
NY 10012

www.staleywise.com

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TOMAS VAN HOUTRYVE – BLUE SKY DAYS

Posted on 2016-11-14

Blue Sky Days presents a visual record of the drone war through aerial imagery that elegantly weaves together documentary and fine art.

Starting in 2013, van Houtryve traveled across America to aerially photograph the kind of gatherings that have become habitual targets for drone strikes abroad — including weddings, funerals, and groups of people praying or exercising. He also flew his camera over settings where government surveillance drones have been used domestically.

In October 2012, a drone strike in northeast Pakistan killed a 67-year-old woman picking okra outside her home. At a U.S. Congressional hearing held in Washington in October 2013, the woman’s 13-year-old grandson, Zubair Rehman, spoke to a group of lawmakers. “I no longer love blue skies,” said Rehman, who was injured by shrapnel in the attack. “In fact, I now prefer gray skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are gray.”

“By creating these images, I aim to draw attention to the changing nature of personal privacy, surveillance, and contemporary warfare. Underpinning my work is a belief that human activity becomes increasingly absurd and dangerous when it loses empathy,” van Houtryve says. “As more drones fill the sky, we should consider how this technology will be used and experienced. Will the sight of drones overhead eventually seem as ordinary as an airplane or bird? Or will people start wishing for gray skies like Zubair Rehman?”

Opposite – Twilight Gathering, 2015

Exhibition runs through to December 31st, 2016

Anastasia Photo
143 Ludlow Street
New York
NY 10002

www.anastasia-photo.com

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JEFF BROUWS – TYPOLOGIES, PROJECTS & PORTFOLIOS

Posted on 2016-11-14

Practicing what he terms “visual anthropology” Brouws, over the past twenty-five years, has persistently pursued a body of work that closely examines the evolving American cultural landscape. Taking inspiration from the “anonymous sculpture” studies of Hilla and Bernd Becher, the New Topographics Movement, and the deadpan artist books of Ed Ruscha, Brouws has produced visual archives—focused mainly on architectural forms—that forge his own photographic territory. Without romanticizing his subject matter, the photographs subtly ask us to consider the economic or social forces that have shaped the built environment—from its initial development to its eventual demise.

In 1991, for his Twentysix Abandoned Gasoline Stations project, Brouws began documenting elements of the evolving highway landscape: service stations owned by independent operators (instead of multi-national corporations) were being challenged by new EPA mandates to replace aging underground storage tanks or risk closure. Many, sensing government collusion with Big Oil (as later substantiated by the Los Angeles Times), were unable to upgrade and forced into abandonment. Brouws recorded them at this moment of discard. While doing this project Brouws simultaneously became aware of Ed Ruscha’s book Twentysix Gasoline Stations from 1962. Referencing Ruscha’s title (with a slight modification) he created a body of work reflecting a changing car culture environment vastly different than the era depicted in Ruscha’s photographs—where fuel was cheap, the open road beckoned, and friendlier global relations prevailed. This early project became an act of art “appropriation” that also signaled a growing awareness (for the artist) that every physical structure in the man-made environment is a “tell” that references political, economic, or social relations.

Opposite – Coaling Tower #94, 2014

Exhibition runs through to December 10th, 2016

Robert Mann Gallery
525 West 26th Street
Floor 2
New York
NY 10001

www.robertmann.com

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