iGavel's Emerging Artists Auctions

Daniel Cooney has teamed up with iGavel once again to present a new round of artist auctions. For anyone interested in submitting, you can find the details below:

The new auctions include a curated selection of works of art by promising emerging talent. The auction is a showcase before an audience of collectors, dealers, museum professionals and gallery owners. To ensure equal and fair representation all works are presented with reserves set at $200.

iGavel is an international network of fine art and antiques professionals with Consignment Centers conveniently located in many major metropolitan areas. Our regional network enables consignors to minimize handling and shipping expenses while reaching an international marketplace of buyers.

Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis. To submit you must meet the following requirements:

- Undergraduate student works will not be accepted
- All mediums are welcome besides installation works
- Artists cannot have gallery or commercial representation
- Some prior exhibition or publication experience is required


To submit, please fill out this form. Submit one image per work. Images must be at least 800 pixels on the longest side, jpeg saved for web, below 200kb in size, and SRGB color space. Each artist will be required to sign a contract with iGavel. Artists receive a 50% commission on all sold works. Shipping of accepted works to iGavel or the iGavel Associate is the responsibility of the artist, and the return shipment if not sold. After your submission is received, you will be contacted by email.


The first Emerging Artist Auction is slated to launch in early 2010.

Inquiries:

Alana Celii: alana@igavel.com

or

Daniel Cooney: dan@danielcooneyfineart.com

Graphic Intersections: V. 02 Call For Entries!

With the first installment completed and awaiting exhibition, The Exposure Project is pleased to announce that it will be moderating a second chapter of Graphic Intersections. The first round was one of the most unexpected and rewarding projects that we've worked on to date and we are excited to see another installment unfold. For those of you unfamiliar with the project, the statement below explains it in detail:

Graphic Intersections, loosely inspired by the old Surrealist and Dadaist game Exquisite Corpse, is a project that will attempt to unite disparate artists in an interconnected, photographic relay of images inspired by one another. For those unfamiliar with Exquisite Corpse, it is succinctly described here:

"Among Surrealist techniques exploiting the mystique of accident was a kind of collective collage of words or images called the cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse). Based on an old parlor game, it was played by several people, each of whom would write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold the paper to conceal part of it, and pass it on to the next player for his contribution."

Essentially, this is how Graphic Intersections works. We will collect submissions from interested photographers until January 5th, at which point we will select the participating artists and designate one of these photographers to start the whole thing off. The first photographer will be given a prompting word to work from and will subsequently make photographs inspired by this idea. They will send us their favorite and most representative image from this session which we will then send along to the next artist. The succeeding artist, based solely on their visual, emotional, intellectual, or philosophical response, will in turn make photographs in artistic reaction to the one they were given. The artists involved will not be given any written material to accompany the photograph, nor will they know whose image they're responding to. This is designed to propagate randomness and avoid preconceived biases. This process will continue until the chain has been completed.

There are a few stipulations with the Graphic Intersections project. Firstly, participating photographers will be required to shoot, develop/import and submit their chosen image in no more than 2 weeks. I realize that this does not leave a tremendous amount of time to carry out this process. However, in the interest of completing this venture in under a year it seems necessary to instate a time frame. Secondly, chosen photographers will have to exercise a certain amount of patience and trust in the process, as there will be 20 artists each with a two week time slot. Lastly, images submitted for this project must be taken specifically for Graphic Intersections. Each photographer must submit a new image which does exist in a previously constructed body of work.

Submission Procedure

- Interested photographers should visit the "Submissions" page on the website to pay the $10 submission fee.

- You may then submit up to 10 images

- Images should be at least 1000 pixels on the longest side

- Formatted as RGB JPG's @ 72 dpi

- All files should be labeled with the artist's last name and corresponding # (example: smith_1.jpg)

- E-mail submitted images to: ben@theexposureproject.com

Please note that submitted images will not be included in Graphic Intersections. They are simply used reference points in the curatorial process. Additionally, all photographers will receive a confirmation e-mail within 24 hours of their submission.

Submission Deadline

January 5th, 2010 @ 11:59pm

Heather Rasmussen's DestructConstruct

In the spirit of Thomas Demand, Heather Rasmussen reconstructs found photographs using colored construction paper. With her series DestructConstruct, Rasmussen turns to appropriated imagery of shipping container accidents for her inspiration. In the statement for the work, more of which can be seen over at Women In Photography, she explains:

"The series DestructConstruct is based on found photographs of shipping container accidents downloaded from the Internet. Each found image is used as a model for a sculpture that is constructed for the production of the photograph. Individual shipping containers are folded by hand out templates of colored cardstock, and placed according to the found image. The sculpture then exists as a photographic work, which directly relates to the original photograph, including the ship name, place, and date the accident happened. I abstract the scenes of the catastrophes, removing the original context and placing the damaged containers, rendered simply out of colored paper, onto a seamless white background. This process transforms the containers into pristine patterns of color and shape, thereby confusing scale and altering the perception of the shipping container as an object. The paper is now seen as fragile, crushed or torn due to an unknown circumstance."

"Untitled. (M/V MSC Napoli, English Channel, January 2007). 2009"
© Heather Rasmussen


"Untitled. (P&O Nedlloyd Barcelona, Pacific Ocean, June 2005). 2009"
© Heather Rasmussen


"Untitled. (M/V Hanjin Pennsylvania, Indian Ocean, November 11, 2002). 2009"
© Heather Rasmussen


"Untitled. (M/V Saga Spray, Vancouver, Canada, February 2006). 2009"
© Heather Rasmussen


"Untitled. (M/V Ital Florida, Italy, July 2007). 2008"
© Heather Rasmussen

Matthew Brandt's Lakes and Reservoirs 2 & Windows of the World

I found the work of recent UCLA grad Matthew Brandt today via I Heart Photograph. While looking through his series Lakes and Reservoirs 2, I was instantly reminded of Gerhard Richter's expansive and beautiful project Overpainted Photographs. Brandt has an impressive amount of work on his website, so I would recommend taking some time to check out his other projects.


"Lake Selmac OR 1" (From Lakes and Reservoirs 2)
© Matthew Brandt


"Wilma Lake CA 1" (From Lakes and Reservoirs 2)
© Matthew Brandt


"Dead Lake OR 6" ((From Lakes and Reservoirs 2)
© Matthew Brandt


"Window (Niagara Falls)" (From Windows of the World)
© Matthew Brandt


"Window (Tower of Pisa)" (From Windows of the World)
© Matthew Brandt


"Window (New York City)" (From Windows of the World)
© Matthew Brandt

Thomas Demand's Tunnel (1999)

Ubuweb recently added a short film by Thomas Demand to their archives. Entitled Tunnel, the film, much like Demand's photographs, is a meditation on the mass media's pervasive influence over the viewing public. Ubuweb states:

"The film presumably shows a fast-paced tracking shot through the tunnel in which Lady Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales, died in a car crash. At first the viewer seems to remember seeing these images in the media. But in reality the set is a true to life, cardboard mock-up of architectural details. Under closer inspection, one also realizes that instead of reproducing reality Thomas Demand creates a perfectly-constructed model world. The cleverly-lit cardboard scenery takes up an incident of recent history and, in doing so, mirrors the illusionary features of what appear to be familiar images. The film literally reflects upon the model of our relationship to images from the mass media. In the process, the construction, representation and repetition of reality create a complex weaving of connections. That the accident used as the theme was the result of a hectic, car chase caused by paparazzi lends the work yet another aspect of the reflection of the media."

We Can't Paint: Interview With John Feinstein

Noel Rodo-Vankeulen posted an interview with Jon Feinstein on the We Can't Paint today. Their exchange largely centers around the ideas behind Feinstein's latest curatorial effort Still Life - an exhibition which is currently on view at the Camera Club of New York. Below is excerpt from their discussion:

"NRV: Do you feel as if we are at a shifting point in the medium where photographers are beginning to see the notions of ‘the genre’ collapsing? It’s almost as if traditional critical ideas and the complications of being a viewer have become intertwined.

JF: I don’t necessarily think that we’re at a point in which the idea of the “genre” is necessarily collapsing, but instead is shifting and morphing more rapidly than it has before. Many of the photographers in the show come from various practices that allow their work to fit into, or borrow from multiple genres at once. Ann Woo, for example, has a background as a fashion and advertising photographer, which in many ways can be seen in how she makes her personal work. While her non-commercial portraits are not necessarily “product shots”, they are often void of emotional exploration, and generally have the same aesthetic quality as her images of sunsets, and still lifes. Similarly, Lyndsy Welgos’ semi nude, often androgynous portraits borrow from fashion/lifestyle and conceptual practices.

NRV: You make an important point here. Over the last ten or so years photographers have taken on more dynamic roles both in their own practice and within the ‘art world’. It’s almost common for many artists to collectively engage in, say, the blogosphere, or as curators, commercial photographers, writers, etc. I suppose what I’m getting at more specifically is if you think these inverted conventions of portraiture could become problematic in their ‘cool’ navigation of the subject? There has always been is a certain sanctity surrounding photographic portraiture as a mediation between the viewer and subject. Are these new investigations different in relation to the negative aspects of Hutchins and Davidson’s work - or does it matter?

JF: I think there have historically been different camps of opinions regarding portraiture, ranging from the social documentary work of August Sander to the emotive, humanistic or meditative approaches of artists like Rineke Dijkstra, Amy Elkins, and Shen Wei, to the Ruff camp (a large anchor for this show) who critique and reject notions of truth in portraiture, as well as the idea of any kind of sanctity between subject and viewer.

I don’t necessarily think that the photographers inverting the conventions of portraiture are “problematic”, nor do I think that they are necessarily doing something that has not been done before. The kind of inversion that you speak about already occurred decades ago, with artists like Sherrie Levine, and Cindy Sherman and many of the other appropriation based artists included in “The Pictures Generation” show that was recently up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I think we’re at a point where we need to do more than simply cry “problematic” when looking at the work of photographers like Hutchins and Davidson, and instead look to their/ their peer’s work and its criticism, as a means of understanding contemporary work.
One of the ideas behind this show was to look at the idea of objectification from a purely literal perspective. Instead of simply saying “this work is problematic” it attempts to literally investigate the idea of intentionally making pictures of people without any intention of exploring an inner dialogue. Both these new photographers, and Hutchinson/Davidson dealing with similar ideas, but these new photographers are privileged with over 60 years of theory and academic discourse."

Leslie Grant's Pointing

My friend Tim reintroduced me to the work of Leslie Grant the other day. I had seen some of her images at one point, but had no idea how inspiringly prolific she is. The "Found" section of her site has some truly wonderful collections. Of particular interest was her series Pointing, posted below.


From "Pointing"
© Leslie Grant


From "Pointing"
© Leslie Grant


From "Pointing"
© Leslie Grant


From "Pointing"
© Leslie Grant


From "Pointing"
© Leslie Grant