Wednesday, November 23, 2011

2012 Palm Springs



 The website is live for the 2012 Palm Springs Photo Festival.  While I'm not sure it's the "America's most talked-about photography event," there are certainly some interesting things going on.  Sadly, if you're like me and have a day job, you won't be able to attend any of them since they're scheduled during the work week but if you're a freelancer, take a peak at the offerings.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Weegee: Naked Hollywood at MOCA

In 1947, the tabloid photographer known as Weegee relocated from New York City to Los Angeles. In moving west, he abandoned the grisly crime scenes for which he was best known and trained his camera instead on Hollywood stars, strippers, costume shops, and naked mannequins, sometimes distorted through trick lenses and multiple exposures. “Now I could really photograph the subjects I liked,” said Weegee of his life in Los Angeles. “I was free.”


Show info here.



Thursday, November 10, 2011

Opening Sat. - Hedi Slimane @ MOCA

It's probably no secret that I'm a Hedi Slimane fan, having given him the only double feature thus far on here. I spent $320 bucks I didn't really have at the time on a copy of his Anthology of a Decade so I could have it signed when he came to LACMA.  His first LA solo show opens at MOCA on Saturday at the Pacific Design Center space.

When I moved back to LA after a decade of living elsewhere, it struck me that people would ask where I was from and when I'd answer that I was from here, they'd find that odd.  There are so many transplants in LA and Hedi is one of our finest adopted photographer sons.

Related NYT article.

The Museum of Contemporary Art presents Hedi Slimane's California Song, the first West Coast solo museum exhibition of the photographer's work, on view at MOCA Pacific Design Center from November 12, 2011, through January 22, 2012. California Songspans the photographer's "California period" and traces his explorations of cycles of urban youth culture and artistic communities, through installations of photographic essays, exhibitions, and publications.


Copyright Hedi Slimane



Friday, November 4, 2011

Quote of the Week - Edward Steichen



"Photography is a major force in explaining man to man."

- Edward Steichen



Thursday, November 3, 2011

Saturday Openings

Allan Sekula, California Stories opens with a reception from 6-8pm at Christopher Grimes.

Copyright Allan Sekula

Scot Sothern, Lowlife opens at DRKRM Gallery with an opening and book signing from 7-10pm.

Copyright Scot Sothern
JANE
Jane explains to me that she is really a model. She's going to stop the ho stuff real soon and get a job as a dancer or maybe doing television commercials. She wants my phone number, so if the pictures are good she can use them in her portfolio.

We burn through two rolls of film. Afterward, I give her another fifteen bucks for a quick dip. We do it the old fashioned way with me on top, her looking up. She turns her head away, closes her eyes and curls her hands into hard fists.

Six months later Jane calls me. She says she is working as a dancer and has a boyfriend who takes care of her and can she buy the negatives from me for a hundred dollars? I tell her no but promise never to show her face. I suggest we get together to take some more pictures. She calls me a scum-bag and hangs up. 

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Required Reading

Debra Klomp Ching posted a link on the Flak Photo Network to this piece in Frieze, which more eloquently discussed the thing I alluded to held in common by many of the photographers in my In Rainbows post. I recommend a read.

WTF Quote of the Week - Gagosian

""The diverse and sometimes abstruse nature of Ethridge’s imagery -- vintage movie posters, fashion models, a pink rose, a mop bucket, a concrete mixer -- originates from his direct experience of the world, which oscillates between the spontaneous and the staged with such subtlety that it is often difficult to ascertain his elected approach with regard to individual images. His oeuvre melds conceptual photography with commercial work, including out-takes from his own shoots and borrowed images already in circulation in other contexts. With this democratic attitude, Ethridge works to capture the vivid and intimate details of his shifting locales within photography’s classic genres of portrait, landscape, and still life."


READ: There is no rhyme or reason or coherence to Etheridge's photography.  It's just a hodgepodge of random imagery. This show will leave you asking, "WTF, how'd he pull this off?"