An Image A Week: Sage Sohier

Sage Sohier's project Perfectible Worlds shows the elaborate, sometimes even obsessive collections and hobbies of people in their environments. In the press release to Sohier's show at Foley Gallery, is states:

"But time and again, obsessions lead to moments of wonderousness," reminds John Beardsley in his afterward "Adorable Improbabilities", concluding the publication of "Perfectible Worlds". It is Sohier's ambition to redeem this obsessive underbelly in exposing its true marvel, its rarity, its superlative, its beauty. Without such exceptional vigors and all-consuming studies, our worlds would stand bereft of its progressive connoisseurship; above, Sohier photographs a surgeon as he intently regards his molds of the many hands he has masterfully reshaped, and re-gifted to grateful patients."

Perfectible Worlds
Foley Gallery
547 W 27th Street, 5th floor
New York, NY
Through August 15th

British redcoat re-enactor, Battle of Concord and Lexington, Lexington, MA, 2002

Image © Sage Sohier

Antonio López García

I had a chance to see the Antonio López García exhibtion at the Museum of Fine Arts yesterday. For anyone unfamiliar with his work, López García is a wonderful, psuedo-photo-realist painter from Spain. I say psuedo because from a distance in paintings truly do resemble photographs, however, as you approach them the artist's hand becomes increasingly visible. He mostly paints the commonplace spaces that pervade his life, doing so with a palpable and haunting beauty. In an essay entitled The Timeless Realism of Antonio López García, Jason Edward Kaufman observed:

"Though García is devoted to the mundane--he depicts humble people, buildings, plants, and cluttered interiors--his meticulousness is exhilarating. In his hands, starkly lit studies of his studio or bathroom beguile like rare jewels. The red brick wall in his backyard becomes a subject of tremendous interest. His extraordinary deftness prolongs our attention to these quotidian prospects, disrupting our perceptual complacency and directing us to reexamine forms, often leading us to experience their beauty."

Antonio López García
Museum Of Fine Arts
Foster and Rabb Galleries
465 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA
Through July 27th










From Top To Bottom:

The Dinner, 1971–80

Home of Antonio López Torres, 1972-75

View of Madrid from Capitán Haya, 1987–94

Sink and Mirror, 1967

All Work © Antonio López García

Photographic Typologies: Sarah Pickering

Sarah Pickering's series Explosion depicts a series of military and police test bombings in the countryside of rural England. What makes this typology interesting (at least from an aesthetic standpoint) is the marked difference in appearance of the various kinds of artillery explosions. Unlike other typological studies in which the differences are more subtle in nature, each of Pickering's images is immediately distinguishable from the others. These distinctions, however, manifest themselves in the subject matter rather than in her approach to the subject matter.

More overtly, the images from Explosion explore the psychology and industry of war. As Nicole Rudick wrote in Artforum:

"Detonated on the proving grounds of the British military and police, the bombs are used to prepare troops for actual combat, and Pickering's images cleverly investigate "representation" and "real," and aesthetics and death, in photography and warfare. These explosions are the illusionist's light show and the soldier's shield. More subtly, however, they point to the fusing of these qualities, to misdirection's thrilling flash."











From Top To Bottom:

Artillery, 2005

Landmine, 2005

Ground Burst No1, 2004

Fuel Air Explosion, 2005

Fire Burst, 2004

All Images © Sarah Pickering

Look At Me: A Collection of Found Photographs

Look At Me is an online archive of found photographs that attempts to preserve a legion forgotten photographic moments. Comprised largely of family portraiture, the photographs amassed here capture everyday people in commonplace situations. The utter normalcy and familiarity of found photographs is what I have always found so appealing about them. They speak a language we all understand and convey the human impulse to document and remember the important people and places that have impacted our lives.

In the statement about the project, it declares:

"Some of the photos were found on the street. Some were stacked in a box, bought cheap at a flea market. Showing off or embarrassed, smug, sometimes happy, the people in these photos are strangers to us. They can't help but be interesting, as stories with only an introduction."

I highly reccomend taking a few minutes to browse through the archive, which now contains an impressive 634 images.











Photographers Unknown

Popel Coumou

I happened upon the work of Dutch photographer Popel Coumou today and I'm really glad that I did. There is something striking and surreal about her images, which I admittedly did not recognize as photographs when I first saw them. In an effort to discover something about her process, I found this helpful description on the I Heart Photograph blog:

She starts by building in two dimensions with paper and clay and then aptly lights and photographs things to add the appearance of a third dimension.






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Images © Popel Coumou

Luis Mallo's In Camera

I am often biased towards photographs that rely on a visual device, or cliche to unify a body of work. This is frequently how I feel about images shot through fences and other foreground obstructions. However, the images of Luis Mallo transcend this bias for me. There is a certain visual democracy at play in Mallo's work, one where equal emphasis is placed on the items in the foreground and background. Instead of becoming aesthetic barriers, the foreground obstructions become portals to what lie behind them. The fragmented, layered compositions create intriguing images that give compressed details of two obviously different focal planes.

For anyone who enjoys this series, you should also check out the work of Nathan Ian Anderson.











All photographs from the series In Camera

Images © Luis Mallo

TV Books Exhibtion and Catalog Viewing

Tim Barber's new publishing project TV Books is having a special two day exhibition and catalog viewing at Partners & Spade on June 28th & 29th. The event will feature new books, posters and artwork by: Aurel Schmidt, Chris Dorland, Gordon Hull, Jason Lee, Jason Nocito, Julia Burlingham, Kim Krans, Mark Delong, Michael Schmelling, Patrick Griffin and Tim Barber.

For anyone interested in attending, you can find all the specifics below.

TV Books Exhibition
Partners & Spade
40 Great Jones Street
(Between Bowery & Lafayette)
New York, NY

Saturday June 28th, noon-8pm
Sunday June 29th, noon-6pm