BIO- This is who I really Am

Ruben Natal-San Miguel
"Duo" 122 Street and Frederick Douglass Blvd, West Harlem, July 2007
C-Print
From NY, NY: Concete Jungle Series

Other than my professional work life and resume, this is my other so called life involved in the arts. This all came about while writing the info for the AQUA Art Fair During 2009 Miami Art Basel which I am part of + Kris Graves Projects . I figured if some of you don't know what I am all about by now ...here is the real memo for you.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel is an architect, curator, writer, art collector, consultant, blogger and photographer who specializes primarily in the art of emerging photography. In addition, Ruben is involved with non-profit art organizations such as ACRIA, Printed Matter, Aperture Foundation, AIDS Chicago, Humble Arts Foundation, Photolucida and Visual AIDS. He has also collaborated in several projects with prominent artists including Magnum Photographer Susan Meiselas for a project about the identity of The Puerto Rican Flag shown at the Museum Park de la Villette, Paris, France April 7- July 6, 2009.

Ruben is the Editor-in-Chief of ARTmostfierce, an online Art blog he founded. ARTmostfierce's main purpose is to promote emerging art, artists and photographers, and to benefit non-profit arts organizations while encouraging the art of "fast paced" but affordable collecting. Ruben wrote the introduction to The Humble Foundation Collectors Guide for Emerging Art Photography released in March 2009. Besides curating a show on line titled “Warriors” for Visual AIDS during May 2009, most recently, he also was the curator of UNSEEN: A Photographers Salon @ Randall Scott Gallery in NYC Oct 22-Nov 21, 2009. UNSEEN is a group show of 16 prominent photographers.

For the past five years during the summer months, Ruben has traveled by bicycle throughout Upper Manhattan camera in hand in search of what is like to live in NYC areas that, till most recently and for many prior many decades, had been ignored by the government and most of society. This is not the “Sex and The City” Manhattan that most people clamor and aim for. Ruben has been able to find, not only a vibrant and colorful vision of that other Manhattan but, also a happy, endearing and very meaningful life lesson of what is like when the human spirit and communities make the best of others may considered to be so little. The culmination of this 5-year survey will be shown at + Kris Graves Gallery in NYC , curated by Matthew Pillsbury in a show titled NY, NY: Concrete Jungle opening March 4, 2010.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel holds a Bachelor and Master Degree in Architecture from Boston Architectural College and Finance and Business Administration from Boston University. He works and lives in Manhattan NYC where after 16 years he continues to live "La Vida Loca."

Jason Hanasik @ Kris Graves Projects-9/10/09

Jason Hanasik
Two bottles

Jason Hanasik
Steven in a bed of flowers


Ok folks, if you can't be in Manhattan September 10, Brooklyn has some great openings the same night also. Here is one not to miss!

Or do both like... I plan to do!

JASON HANASIK
He Opened Up Somewhere Along The Eastern Shore
&
LIZ JAFF
Diagramming a Fold

September 10th through October 10th, 2009

An Opening Reception of these works will be held on Thursday, September 10th, from 6:00-9:00pm

+Kris Graves Projects is proud to announce the first New York solo
exhibition of photographer Jason Hanasik. Curated by Kris Graves.

“He Opened Up Somewhere Along The Eastern Shore” is a photography
project which engages image-making as a platform to intervene inside
Western culture’s traditions and expectations related to masculinity,
class, and heroism. This project opens up a space for a
counter-narrative to exist. This new narrative focuses on individual
experience, vulnerability, and intimacy as opposed to that which is
enforced by the State, an impenetrable unit of men.

“We, the men of these images and I, might not sit at an equal distance
from the center, but we all have a complicated relationship to what is
considered normal -- to our benefit and our destruction.”

Jason Hanasik was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1981. He received his MFA in Fine Arts with a focus in photography and video from California College of the Arts in 2009. Hanasik's work has been exhibited internationally and is represented by +Kris Graves Projects in Brooklyn, NY. He currently resides in San Francisco, CA.


In the project space, +Kris Graves Projects is pleased to present
Liz Jaff's newest series of works on paper entitled “Diagramming a Fold”
running simultaneous with Hanasik’s photography. The artist has created a sequence of 400 ink drawings that suggest motion using the format of film strips and photographic contact sheets. These works continue the artist’s investigations of ways of defining space through folding.

Liz Jaff lives and works in New York City.

Jason Hanasik’s “He Opened Up Somewhere Along The Eastern Shore” and Liz Jaff’s “Diagramming a Fold” will be on view during regular gallery hours, Tuesday through Saturday, 1:00 - 6:00pm and by appointment. For further information, please do not hesitate to contact the gallery at 212.796.7558 or email us at: krisgravesprojects@gmail.com
www.krisgravesprojects.com/