MIKE MANDEL – GOOD 70S

Posted on 2017-05-08

The exhibition, which is rife with nostalgia, will feature works from many of Mandel’s cutting edge series including Myself: Timed Exposures, People in Cars, The Baseball-Photographer Trading Cards, Making Good Time and Evidence, one of the many collaborations done with artist Larry Sultan.

Mike Mandel was greatly influenced by his childhood in the San Fernando Valley, which at the time was undergoing a major transformation into a commercial landscape. Living in a place that seemingly produced a new strip mall, billboard or stretch of freeway every week, Mandel was immersed in a society that was bombarded with imagery. Thus, Mandel’s work is largely informed by the pervading question: what is the meaning of photographic imagery within popular culture?

Seeking an answer to this question, Mandel looked to infuse meaning back into imagery through the appropriation of commercially successful ventures, such as billboards and baseball trading cards, transforming them into an artistic medium. Many of these projects were undertaken in collaboration with Larry Sultan, a relationship that would span over 25 years. Their book Evidence, 1977, was recently ranked second on a list of the Greatest 150 Photobooks. In the upcoming months the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will exhibit retrospectives of both Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel’s work.

Exhibition runs through to June 30th, 2017

Opposite – From the series People In Cars, 1970

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

www.robertmann.com

  

EYES WIDE OPEN! 100 YEARS OF LEICA PHOTOGRAPHY

Posted on 2017-05-08

The exhibition EYES WIDE OPEN! 100 years of Leica photography opens on 11 May on the second floor of Espacio Fundación Telefónica, and is curated by Hans-Michael Koetzle. It aims to show for the first time, what the change that the invention and marketing of the Leica camera signified for photography. How this small, reliable and versatile camera, equipped with a high resolution lens, designed specifically for it by Max Berek, marked a paradigm change in the history of photography.

The exhibition is made up of more than 400 photographs, along with documentary material including newspapers, magazines, books, advertising, catalogues and camera prototypes. They tell the story of a century of 35 mm film photography from its origins up to the present day.

The exhibition is structured in several sections, such as ‘Leica and the “Neues Sehen” (New Vision)‘, where the idea is developed that the lightweight, always available Leica was fundamental in the creation of a new visual language; ‘Photojournalism‘, the new camera could quickly take one photo after another, which encouraged the recently emerged type of news article; ‘Subjective photography‘, now any experienced amateur could also create artistic photographs; ‘Humanist photography‘, the urban universe as the stage, everyday life as a theatrical performance; ‘New colour photography‘, in the forties, the Danish photographer Keld Helmer-Petersen had captured the world of everyday life with a Leica ; ‘fashion photography and the Leica camera‘, the essential features of the Leica M favoured aesthetics acquired by fashion photographers, course grain, natural light and the drive to get out of the traditional studio; or ‘Signature photography‘ with different types of creators who used different resources.

Opposite – F.C. Gundlach, Fashion Editorial for Nino, Hamburg Harbour, 1958

Exhibition runs through to October 10th, 2017

Espacio Fundación Telefónica
Calle de Fuencarral
3, 28004 Madrid
Spain

espacio.fundaciontelefonica.com

  

ELIAS SIME – TWISTED & HIDDEN

Posted on 2017-05-08

Elias Sime’s work is a meditation on connectivity and transformation. His unorthodox materials include reclaimed cell phone bodies, Soviet-era transistors, computer motherboards, brightly colored electrical wires, sections of plastic keyboards with other e-waste that has been discarded and sent to trash heaps across the African continent. This technological flotsam eventually washes up in the open-air markets of Addis Ababa, where Sime repurposes it into artworks. The works on view are part of an ongoing series entitled “Tightrope,” which refers to the contemporary balancing act between technology and tradition, humanity and the environment.
Sime achieves effects from dense narrative to austere modernist abstraction. Some works recall pure color-field painting while others refer to architectonic geometries, textile patterns and information flows. Figurative moments emerge in some – a human face, a bird wing, a frog leaping from a tree branch. The artist resists the collagist’s shorthand of using discarded objects as poetic stand-ins for individual lives and instead finds renewal everywhere, taking the greatest interest in new ways that objects and ideas connect. The emphasis is on the transformative power of human creativity.

Opposite – Tightrope: Narcissism, 2017

Exhibition runs through to June 17th, 2017

James Cohan Gallery
291 Grand Street
NY 10002
New York

www.jamescohan.com

  

GÜNTHER FÖRG

Posted on 2017-05-08

The centre of the exhibition is formed by a six-part series of paintings by Günther Förg from 2003. The canvases show vertical stripes and structures in various hues of grey, repeatedly interrupted by light traces as well as red and pink dashes. Every brushstroke is visible and changes from dense, opaque colour fields to nearly transparent areas. Although the brushwork appears expressive and the paint is seemingly applied intuitively, it immediately becomes apparent that the paintings underlie a precise composition and elaborated balance. The six paintings appear like repetitions, offering variations of the same structure on each canvas and are, as if in rhythmic motion, constantly developing.

Alongside this series the exhibition presents a selection of small-sized paintings on wood and canvas from the same time. The classic form of the grid appears repeatedly. It structures the surface and units geometric strictness with Förg’s expressive, seemingly spontaneous application of paint. Although abstract, the works evoke associations of landscapes and constantly shift their focus between foreground and background. Some of the works of this selection remind of Förg’s earlier series of the so-called “Fenster-Aquarelle” (window watercolours) that can be found in the artist’s oeuvre already in the mid 80s. They suggest a glimpse out of the window which never truly allows a direct view. Black dominates the image structure in most of these works and the overlapping areas dissolve into impalpable, vague planes. Occasionally, only a few coloured spots light up and recall lights in dark street scenes. Especially a small painting on wood captures this approach in a particular way. Between two broad, dark areas a light, yellowish part shines through in which one seems to recognize a nocturnal scenery and a hazy figure in front.

Opposite – Untitled, 2003

Exhibition runs through to June 3rd, 2017

Galerie Max Hetzler
Bleibtreustraße 45
D-10623 Berlin
Germany

www.maxhetzler.com

  

HAN YOUNGSOO – PHOTOGRAPHS OF SEOUL 1956–63

Posted on 2017-05-08

This exhibition is the first major U.S. showing of the work of Korean photographer Han Youngsoo, who captured the dramatic transformation of Seoul in the years after the end of the Korean War.

After taking part in bitter frontline fighting as a young South Korean soldier during the Korean War (1950–53), Han Youngsoo returned to Seoul at the conflict’s end and found a devastated, impoverished city. Choosing photography as a profession, he witnessed a period of profound transformation in Seoul that saw the rapid creation of a modern city and urban society. His photographs, rarely seen outside of Korea until now, offer a fascinating window onto the changing everyday lives of the city’s inhabitants during a historic moment.

Exhibition runs through to June 9th, 2017

International Center of Photography
250 Browery
New York
NY 10012

www.icp.org

  

TRAVIS SCOTT FREE THE RAGE T-SHIRT

Posted on 2017-05-08

Houston rapper Travis Scott was arrested for inciting a riot, following his performance at the Walmart Amphitheater in Arkansas. Scott capitalizes upon this by releasing a limited edition “Free The Rage” T-shirt featuring his mugshot.
Released the limited edition t-shirt only in a white, the t-shirt features his mugshot on the front and the back reads “Free The Rage” written vertically in black letters down the back.

shop.travisscott.com