Feature - Pascal Shirley

I came across Pascal Shirley's work via Conscientious the other day and was really happy I clicked through, as I ended up spending some time with the work. The series I like the most is The Other's Body, made up of images of what I take to be the photographer's girlfriend - a modern day, color version of Callahan's Eleanore or Weston's Charis etc. I've mostly chosen images from this series but have thrown in a few more from his other series too, which merit a look. Pascal received his MFA from California College of the Arts and lives in Venice Beach.

At the Getty - Engaged Observers

Engaged Observers: Documentary Photography since the Sixties opens tomorrow at the Getty, focusing on stories that used to be funded by magazine but which are now threatened with extinction:

In the decades following World War II, an independently minded and critically engaged form of photography began to gather momentum. Since then a host of photographers have combined their skills as reporters and artists, developing extended photographic essays that delve deeply into humanistic topics and present distinct personal visions of the world. Embracing the gray areas between objectivity and subjectivity, information and interpretation, journalism and art, they have created powerful visual reports that transcend the realm of traditional photojournalism. Engaged Observers: Documentary Photography since the Sixties looks in-depth at projects by photographers who have contributed to the development of this approach, including Leonard Freed, Lauren Greenfield, Philip Jones Griffiths, Mary Ellen Mark, Susan Meiselas, James Nachtwey, Sebastião Salgado, W. Eugene and Aileen M. Smith, and Larry Towell.

While there, you can also check out their food photography show, In Focus: Tasteful Pictures, which runs through August 22nd.

Related: LAT piece

Feature - Lauren Ward

Lauren Ward's fashion work has an artistic sensibility I'm liking a lot. She is based in LA, of course. Well, Topanga actually.

On Editions

So Roger Ballen has an photo out today over at 20x200. It is being offered in the following editions:

10"x8"
Edition of 500 each $50

14"x11"
Edition of 250 each $100

20"x16"
Edition of 50 each $500

30"x24"
Edition of 25 each $1000

Now, I'm a big fan of Roger's and I'd love to own a print but here's the thing:

First, they aren't signed. Yes, I know they give you a separate certificate that's signed and numbered but the print itself isn't actually signed plus, it's an edition of 500! Now, that doesn't exactly sound like a collectors item at 8"x10" to me.

So, this leaves me ignoring the speculation potential to decide whether a) I love this print (the answer is that it's not one of my favorites) and b) I should take my $50 and buy one of his books instead.

Having just received Boarding House for my birthday, I'm inclined to say buying Shadow Chamber is the better way to spend $50 ($40.46 actually) here but that's just my personal take on this one and I have bought editions from 20x200 in the past.

Quote of the Week - Robert Adams

"I remember one working through more than a hundred drafts of a four-paragraph statement for a catalogue, all to find something that would just keep out of the way of the pictures."

- Robert Adams

Bonus quote (also Adams):

"Or as Robert Frost told a person who asked him what one of his poems meant, 'You want me to say it worse?'"

Feature - Billie Mandle

Billie Mandle grew up in CA and now lives in Brooklyn and teaches at ICP. Her Reconciliation series portrays empty confessionals in Catholic churches and reminds me of how spooky it seemed in those things as a child. I like how they have a still life feel despite a lack of actual objects.

Thursday Openings

There are two openings happening tomorrow evening, one at Kopeikin and the other at M+B. Both look worth checking out and they're a block away from one another. I know, unheard of in LA...

Denis Darzacq at Kopeikin

6-8pm
8810 Melrose Avenue
West Hollywood, CA. 90069

Kopeikin Gallery teams up with De Soto Gallery to present Hyper, an exhibition of photographs by French photographer Denis Darzacq. The exhibition will include images from his new series - "Hyper" - as well as selections from the preceding series, "La Chute."

See Denis at work:



Joseph Szabo - Jones Beach at M+B
June 10 - August 14, 2010

Artist's Opening Reception
Thursday, June 10, 6-8 PM612 North Almont Drive
Los Angeles, California 90069

This:


Copyright Joseph Szabo

...reminds me of this, painted down the road at Coney Island 70 years prior, which is on view at LACMA:

Paul Cadmus

Quote of the Week - Christopher Knight

From this review on the LAT of Bravo's sure to be car crash I'll find myself watching nonetheless for the laugh factor new reality show:

Fifty years of marvelous, disruptive paintings and photographs by Alex Katz, Chuck Close, Dan McCleary, Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, John Sonsini, Rineke Dijkstra and countless other first-rate artists, internationally known and not, and we're still trotting out the wheezing cliche about portraiture's required significance being bound up with the revelation of the sitter's inner essence?

Really? The 17th century lives on.

Equally disturbing: Not a single artist challenges this antique idea.

- Christopher Knight

Goodbye Sodium!

Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times

If you're a night shooter like me, you'll be excited to hear we're replacing 140,000 of the city's sodium lights with cheaper LED's. Good riddance!

I'm off for a short vacation so see you all in a week's time.