Sunday, October 30, 2011

Ruben Natal San Miguel@ La Lettre de la Photographie Weekend Portfolios





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NY : The Concrete Jungle : Ruben Natal-San Miguel


In December 2002, right after surviving The World Trade Center attacks, I decided to move to a quieter, lower rise scale neighborhood, leaving the ’’Prada’’ comfort of the Central Park West area to the so considered ’’Nada’’ of West Harlem. Being a trained Architect immediately, felt in love with its historic architecture, scale, sense of community and more than anything, its rich and vibrant street culture that motivated me to become a photographer.
Over the last 9 years mostly during the summer months and traveling by bicycle, camera in hand, I had been documenting with photographs how Harlem in search of what is like to live in NYC areas that, till most recently and for many prior decades, had been ignored by the government and most of society.
The main focus of my 10 Year Project called NY: The Concrete Jungle has been mostly in Harlem, which has become the ultimate symbol of forced gentrification and urban renewal. For many decades private corporations and the government ignored this Manhattan NYC area. Only liquor and cigarettes sponsors will advertise in the area encouraging use and addiction. This is not the Sex and The City of Manhattan that most people clamor and aim for. I had 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.
Ruben Natal-San Miguel

A very nice feature of my work!

http://lalettredelaphotographie.com/entries/4520/ruben-natal-san-miguel-west-harlem

Marilyn Minter @ Salon 94 10/28-12/4/11


Marilyn Minter

 Marilyn Minter keeps on wowing the world  with her great artworks, this time with Babies as the theme. Go and see it! 
Marilyn Minter
Salon 94 Bowery
243 Bowery, (212) 979-0001
Oct. 28-Dec. 4
After 30 years of exhibiting her work, Ms. Minter's inclusion in the 2006 Whitney Biennial catapulted her to the top of the art world—a testament to the unpredictable nature of any artist's career path. For her third show at Salon 94, set in the gallery's Bowery location, she presents five large-scale paintings based on composites crafted from negative scans of her photographs. The central work is "Mercury" (2011), a 10 foot-tall painting depicting a baby behind a plate of glass, smeared with silver pigment. Ms. Minter further explores the motif of babies bathing in silver with "Play Pen" (2011), a video projected on a first-floor gallery wall.
The artist says: "[The babies] represent a blank slate for the human condition—a beginning, and the clearest articulation of the 'human condition,' unaltered. With adult models you've a lot more control, but the babies were doing things on their own that I would never have even thought of. I just let them loose and shot them playing."

Nan Goldin Scopophilia-10/29-12/23/11 @ Matthew Marks Gallery

Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin



Nan Goldin's documentation of her own life and those of her friends has long pursued intimacy at all costs, in the process inaugurating a confessional genre of photography that has influenced a generation of artists. For her eighth solo show at Matthew Marks, Ms. Goldin will stage a 25-minute installation of slides, commissioned by the Louvre Museum in 2010, which offers a new perspective on the voyeuristic nature of art-viewing. She was allowed unusual access to shoot within the museum, and has selected more than 400 photographs, juxtaposing details of iconic works by artists such as Delacroix and Ingres with selections from her archive featuring a cast of characters, including family and friends, familiar to fans of her work. A soundtrack with narration provided by the artist accompanies the slides. A great show! Nan Goldin is back! Go and see it!



Nan Goldin

Scopophilia


October 29 - December 23, 2011 522 W 22 Street, New York, NY 10011 Opening: Friday, October 28th, 6:00 to 8:00 P.M.


Press Release
Matthew Marks is pleased to announce Nan Goldin: Scopophilia, the next exhibition in his gallery at 522 West 22nd Street. This will be the artist’s first exhibition in New York since 2007 and includes the U.S. debut of Scopophilia, a new 25-minute-long slide installation commissioned last year by the Louvre Museum.
Scopophilia, which consists of over 400 photographs culled from Goldin’s career, pairs her own autobiographical images with new photographs of paintings and sculpture from the Louvre’s collection. Organized around themes of love and desire, Scopophilia, which means “the love of looking,” reflects on Goldin’s intensely personal photographs, as well as the unique permission given to the artist to photograph freely throughout the Louvre Museum. Of this project, Goldin explains, “Desire awoken by images is the project’s true starting point. It is about the idea of taking a picture of a sculpture or a painting in an attempt to bring it to life.”

Nan Goldin’s work has been the subject of two major touring museum retrospectives, one organized in 1996 by the Whitney Museum of American Art, and another, in 2001, by the Centre Georges Pompidou. Goldin was admitted to the French Legion of Honor in 2006 and received the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in 2007. Last year 
Nan Goldin: Berlin Work, Photographs 1984-2009 was seen at the Berlinische Gallery in Berlin. Goldin’s seminal work, the slide installation called The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, is currently on view at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis through October 16.
Scopophilia, will be the artist’s eighth exhibition at Matthew Marks Gallery since 1992.

Nan Goldin: 
Scopophilia, will be on view at the Matthew Marks Gallery, 522 West 22nd Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues), from October 28 through December 23. Gallery hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M.

For additional information, please contact Jeffrey Peabody at (212) 243-0200, or email jeffrey@matthewmarks.com.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

2011 PDN PhotoPlus Expo- Friday Night Bash + Benefit for Japan Relief 10/28/11



''Duo'' 2007, Harlem, NYC.

©

Ruben Natal-San Miguel


Hope to see you tomorrow evening, October 28. 2011. I donated  a 11 x 14 AP of''Duo'' 2007, Harlem NYC . A great benefit  Japan Relief bash in NYC's , The High Line! Place your bids and take home the boys by helping a great cause!

Friday Night Bash + Benefit for Japan Relief
The PhotoPlus annual Bash will host a special fundraising event on Friday evening, October 28th, to benefit the victims of the Japan earthquake and tsunami.  The benefit will take place at the Highline Stages located at 440 West 15th Street (between 9th / 10th Ave.) in New York City, from 8:00 p.m. to 11 p.m.

To help raise funds for the Red Cross, fifty of the world's most respected photographers will donate an original print as part of a silent auction that will take place throughout the evening.  Benefit attendees will have an opportunity to bid on original, signed images from a broad range of world renowned photographers including Harry Benson, Susan Meiselas, Douglas Kirkland, Ryszard Horowitz, and John Isaac, to name a few.

To learn more about the PhotoPlus Bash + Benefit for Japan, read
 Press Release. 

Join PhotoPlus and WPPI for a picture perfect evening of photography, friendship and fun! Savor a variety of appetizers prepared by one of New York’s most talented chefs, catch a live performance by Tyburn Saints, and enjoy the spinning sounds by DJ Cresce.

Friday, October 28th, 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.
Highline Stages, 440 W. 15th Street, New York, NY 10011
Tickets: $35 in advance; or $50 at the door

Click here to update your registration and purchase your ticket to the Bash + Benefit for Japan.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Your Picture on the Wall: Building a Career in Fine Art Photography



Ruben Natal- San Miguel  is one of the speakers of this great panel at PDN Photo Expo Plus 2011 @ The Javitz Center. 

Hope to see you there!


Sat, Oct 29, 2011 - 1:30 PM to 3:30 PM
Your Picture on the Wall: Building a Career in Fine Art Photography

Speakers:
Type: NEW!
Track: The Art of Photography
Skill Level: Beginner to Intermediate
Show Description
How do photographers at any age find collectors for their work? Are there valid approaches in addition to the gallery route? These panelists are or have worked with the whole range of artists and collectors over their careers and have been involved with programs specially geared for emerging talents. They will offer advice and show examples of success stories.
http://www.photoplusexpo.com

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Sunday Oct 23, 2011- Two great talks! Sponsored by EN FOCO during the Lucie Awards.



Time check your ego at the door , shut up and listen!

As part of the Lucie Foundation Awards Celebration, the En Foco foundation organized  two great talks tomorrow evening Sunday, October 23, 2011 and if you want to lean more about great Contemporary Photography you better reserve your seat and be there!

Afterall... when you get a chance to hear Eli Reed with Jaime Permuth followed by Dawoud Bey in conversation with LaToya Ruby Frazier?

Enough said!  

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Vivian Maier, Photographer - The Very First New York Exhibition

Vivian Maier ( self portrait)

Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier
Vivian Maier

Last Monday, I was so  fortunate to be part of  a breakfast and private tour along with Gabrielle Larew, the Director of the Doma Gallery in Charlotte, North Carolina, Photographer Magdalene Sole and its Vivian's Maier exhibition curator, Mr. John A. Bennette at the Hearst Tower.

 At The Hearst Foundation now on display till January 31, 2011, has  a quite wonderful and the very first NY exhibition of the recently discovered talented photographer, Vivian Maier.


Vivian Maier, Photographer on display until January 31, 2012 is quite wonderful and the very first NY exhibition of the recently discovered talented photographer, Vivian Maier.

Her great photography , mostly of a street photography theme was created throughout her whole life while she worked as a nanny, in a very similar manner of how current photographer Zoe Strauss started doing photography.

The exhibition is just  exquisite, a joy for any fine art photography lover like us truly. John A Bennette its curator, elusive and seldom seen, did not missed a single detail putting this show together  down to the beautiful metal plaques for the photo titles...just so fabulous!

The exhibition starts with a video presentation created by Tom Palazzola suggested byJohn with the help of Jeffery Goldstein and Anne Zakaras of Vivian Maier Prints Inc.. The film of her history and  her work  includes unseen film shorts made by Vivian .There are sixty photographs 20 vintage taken in new York between 1950-54.  The contemporary black and white  photographs (editions of 15 only) are silver gelatin printed by master printer  Ron Gordon with Sandra Steinbrecher. The prints matted and framed in a very classic and striking manner. There is also on display several  cameras and archival material used by Vivian.


Accompanying the exhibition there is a very nice catalog ( which I loved taking home) of the exhibition images and inventory.

The setting for this exhibition is quite fitting for showcasing Vivian Maier work, right in the middle of the city, where the hustle and bustle were the main theme of her photography works but, also in such a perfect and secluded private time capsule that the Hearst Foundation has created for exhibiting true gems of art.

I strongly recommend you to try to see this exhibition (by appointment only). If not possible , Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea and Howard Greenberg Gallery will have subsequent exhibitions of her work this December. Vivian was very prolific so, this is just a slight crack of an open door. More to come.

Lastly, thank you John! No matter how hard my week turned out to be, I can always look back and remember what a  great start, you gave me Monday.

 Gabrielle Larew, Ruben Natal-San Miguel


 Gabrielle Larew, Magdalene Sole and Ruben Natal-San Miguel

 Rube Natal-San Miguel and Gabrielle Larew

 Gabrielle Larew, Magdalene Sole and Ruben Natal-San Miguel

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Bruce Davidson'' SUBWAY'' Exhibition and Book @ Aperture Foundation

Subway, by Bruce Davidson (Aperture and Magnum Photos 2011)

Subway, by Bruce Davidson (Aperture and Magnum Photos 2011)

Subway, by Bruce Davidson (Aperture and Magnum Photos 2011)
Bruce Davidson - SUBWAY

This is by far one of the best, if not the best Exhibition/Book of 2011.

I highly recommend you go to and see it in person. If not, at least  to purchase the already third edition of the always popular and a classic Subway book.  Extra Big Kudos to Aperture Foundation for '' Bringing Back Home'' sort of speak by making it happen this time,  with a more '' American'', '' New York'' and most anything, ''Urban''  exhibition theme that sort of resonates quite well with the current economic times and anxieties that we are experiencing now instead of, looking overseas for something more superfluous , pretty and vapid theme. The exhibition is very well curated and showcases the most iconic images of the Subway series. The book is the perfect souvenir for  you take home and  as  memento of such a powerful exhibition. I highly recommend you to buy the Subway book!

For the ones who did not lived (or were not even born) during the seventies- early eighties in NYC, when the criminals and gangs terrorized the subway system 24/7 in a already bankrupt city, thanks to the risky efforts of photographer Bruce Davidson, we can get a glimpse at this mesmerizing time capsule created with the wonderful color saturated, informative and timeless  photographs and a book that is just as consistent in content.

I personally find this documentary/ street photography exhibition and book is highly inspirational,  extremely well documented and  a very important highlight of a city at a time of financial crisis .Bruce Davidson is one of my most favorite photographers of all time and a true inspiration for my own personal photography work.

We can now look back at that time and reflect what we are experiencing now and sort of foresee what will emerge again if, our current economic climate keeps escalating.

GO AND SEE IT!
www.aperture.org


Press Preview with Davidson: Monday, October 3, 10:00-11:00 am
Exhibition on view: Monday, October 3-Saturday, October 29, 2011
Public Reception: Thursday, October 15, 6:00-8:00 pm
Artist Talk and Book Signing: Wednesday, October 26, 6:30 pm

Aperture Foundation is pleased to announce the highly anticipated re-release of Bruce
Davidson’s iconic Subway (September, 2011)—a groundbreaking series documenting a unique
moment in the cultural fabric of New York City, coinciding with an exhibition on view at
Aperture Gallery. First published in 1986, Davidson’s classic series has since garnered critical
acclaim for its phenomenal use of extremes of color and shadow set against flash-lit skin. In the
artist’s own words, “People in the subway, their flesh juxtaposed against the graffiti, the
penetrating effect of the strobe light itself, and even the hollow darkness of the tunnels, inspired
an aesthetic that goes unnoticed by passengers who are trapped underground, hiding behind
masks, and closed off from each other.”

In this third edition, a sequence of 118 images (including twenty-five never-before-published
photographs) moves the viewer through a landscape sometimes menacing, at other times lyrical,
soulful, and satiric. The images include the full panoply of New Yorkers—from weary
straphangers and languorous ladies in summer dresses to stalking predators and the homeless.


Davidson’s accompanying text tells the story behind the images, clarifying his method and
dramatizing his experience. He details his obsession with the subway, its rhythms, and its
particular madness. His naked prose, together with his compelling images, evoke the speeding
sensation of a subway car, tunneling out of the darkness into new light and unmistakable beauty.
Includes an introduction by Fred Braithewaite (Fab 5 Freddy) and an afterword by Henry
Geldzahler.

BRUCE DAVIDSON (born in Oak Park, Illinois, 1933) is considered one of America’s most
influential documentary photographers. He began taking photographs when he was ten, and
studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the Yale University School of Design. In
1958 he became a member of Magnum Photos, and in 1961, he received a Guggenheim
Fellowship to document the civil rights movement. After a solo exhibition at New York’s
Museum of Modern Art in 1966, followed by a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1967,
Davidson spent two years photographing in East Harlem, resulting in East 100th Street. In 1980,
after living in New York City for twenty-three years, Davidson began his startling color essay of
urban life in Subway. He received a second National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1980
and an Open Society Institute Individual Fellowship in 1998. His work has been shown at the
International Center of Photography, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Museum
Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Museé Réattu,
Arles, France; Burden Gallery (Aperture), New York; Parco Gallery, Tokyo; and the New York
Historical Society. Davidson is also this year’s 2011 Aperture Benefit and Auction honoree,
which will take place on October 17th.

11 x 11 in.
(29.5 x 29 cm)
144 pages, 118 four-color images
Hardcover with jacket
ISBN 978-1-59711-194-2
$65.00

Aperture—located in New York’s Chelsea art district—is a world-renowned non-profit
publisher and exhibition space dedicated to promoting photography in all its forms. Aperture
was founded in 1952 by photographers Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Barbara Morgan, and
Minor White; historian Beaumont Newhall; and writer/curator Nancy Newhall, among others.
These visionaries created a new quarterly periodical, Aperture magazine, to foster both the
development and the appreciation of the photographic medium and its practitioners. In the
comprise one of the most comprehensive and innovative libraries in the history of
photography and art. Aperture’s programs now include artist lectures and panel discussions,
limited-edition photographs, and traveling exhibitions that show at major museums and arts
institutions in the U.S. and internationally.


The Robert Berman Gallery offers Transformation, the companion show to Paid to Play

The Robert Berman Gallery offers Transformation, the companion show to Paid to Play