En Foco’s Blog

Please Touch, y otras ideas of Adál

January 20, 2010 by Miriam Romais

Adál’s latest exhibition, Please Touch y otras ideas, is on view at the historical Casa Aboy in Puerto Rico, showing a mixture of earlier photographic work with new multi-media pieces, giving us an opportunity to look at the broad scope of this artist’s vision. The bodies of work in this show include Out of Focus Nuyoricans, Please Touch, The Censored Curtain, Anti-Dote Traffik Signs and Video Word Art.

Adal’s artistic expression often plays with contradictory and conceptual states of being, hybridity, satire and politics – ranging from early post-surrealist works, collages and foto-novelas, to interdisciplinary practices, multi-media performances, cultural resistance, political and social affirmation.

While the full 30 print photographic portfolio Out of Focus Nuyoricans has been widely exhibited stateside, this is the first time it is being viewed in Puerto Rico. Published as a book by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University Press with a Prologue/Poem by Rev. Pedro Pietri, it speaks to the trivialization of an immigrant group rendered “out of focus” due to marginalization.

portraits of Sophie Rivera and Papo Colo, by Adal

While the series is inspired by passport photos created for his El Puerto Rican Passport series, these large headshots imply, or rather, bring into focus the cultural politics imposed on Puerto Ricans – a psychological trauma “caused by the colonial mentality imposed by the dominant group.” Legally, Puerto Ricans are citizens of the US, but they are denied the same first-class citizenship rights as other citizens.

Adál’s ever-present satirical twist takes a government-approved symbol of identity and nationalism (the passport photo) – and subverts its purpose by calling attention to what is overlooked. Disorienting the viewer by blurring the photographic plane, one may begin to ponder what other assumptions are made based on the way one ‘looks’… and what happens now that you can’t see clearly? Fátima Bercht, a former curator at El Museo del Barrio points out that the series also playfully “undermines the negative stereotypes of Puerto Ricans prevalent in the media, which have practically rendered their social contributions to North American culture unrecognizable.”

Yet not being ‘seen’ can have its strengths, and as the lyrics of El Spanglish National Anthem (written by Adál’s collaborator in El Puerto Rican Embassy project, Reverend Pedro Pietri) say,

But the soul nunca dyyyyyed
And junto we survived
And danced after we cried
Defending nuestro pride.”

© Adál. Portrait of Tito Puente (left), and Self Portrait (right).

Out of Focus Nuyoricans include portraits of well-known cultural figures such as the actor Raul Júlia, the musician Tito Puente; the artists Sophie Rivera, Antonio Martorell and Pepón Osorio; the founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café Miguel Algarín, alongside Adál’s superintendent and an older man who plays dominoes on his block.

Adál’s constant play with words, puns and wit is clear as he combines his life experience, with tall or satirical tales he heard as a boy growing up in Puerto Rico.

His ideas are wide-ranging, yet his work are always a response to present circumstances. Please Touch, for example, is an object d’art based on Puerto Rican novelist Edgardo Rodriguez Julia’s seminal work, “El Entierro de Cortijo” (Cortijo’s Wake), on the wake and burial of Puerto Rican musician and bandleader Rafael Cortijo. The book was censored along with three other books this past fall [including Aura by Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes], causing thousands of people to take to the streets in Puerto Rico in protest against censorship laws on the island.

La Censoed Curtain, an installation by Adál

The Censored Curtain reproduces of a page from Rodriguez Julia’s censored novel, with words blacked out to simulate the idea of the Iron Curtain and the Bamboo Curtain in totalitarian regimes, but now dedicated to censorship in the arts in Puerto Rico.

Adál’s newest body of work, Anti-Dote Traffik Signs, is a series of works on paper that change the text of the traffic stop sign, to BLISS, FAITH, or LOVE. It reflects a positive reinforcement in the urban environment, and serve as models for the real signs to be printed on metal and placed at on-site locations around the island. It is eerily hopeful that people may obey these signs.

Lastly, his Video Word Art project scrolls existential verses across a black screen. This series was created for posting on-line, as a type of Internet Graffiti.

Please Touch y otras ideas is on view through February 5, 2010 at Galería Fotográfica PL 900 at Casa Aboy, Avenida Ponce de León, Mirarmar, Puerto Rico

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BIO:

Adál was born in Utuado, Puerto Rico and moved to California in 1968 where he started his formal art studies at The Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, and at the San Francisco Art Institute. In 1975 he moved to New York where he co-founded Foto Gallery with Alex Coleman in Soho, NY. A founding member of En Foco, Adál has also been exhibited (Island Journey) and published in Nueva Luz photographic journal (volumes 9#2, 7#2 and 5#2).
His work has been In addition to his many performances and collaborations with other artists, these are some of his published texts: The Evidence of Things not Seen, DaCapo Press, NY 1975, Falling Eyelids, Foto-Graphic Editions, NY 1980, Mango Mambo, Galeria Luiggi Marrozzinni, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1987. Works related to the Blueprints for a Nation project include, Jibaro/Blueprints for a Nation, Lehigh University Galleries, 2002 and Out of Focus Nuyoricans, Harvard University Press, 2004. In 2002 Adál completed a year long playwright-in-residency at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center in New York where he wrote La Mambopera (www.mambopera.com), a musical that fuses elements of mambo and opera. La Mambopera was performed at the Hostos Center for Arts & Culture, NY. Adál currently lives in Loisaida, NuYol, where he is developing his first full- length creature feature film entitled, Nuyorican Zombies Ate My Baby.

Read more about Adál’s work:

Blurriness In Focus, Adapted text by Jose Luis Falconi, from “Out of Focus Nuyoricans” published by DRCLAS to accompany its 2004 exhibition.

Showcase: New Faces in an Old Gallery, by David Gonzalez, The New York Times, Lens Blog

Visit Adál’s web sites:
www.lostidentities.vox.com
www.elpuertoricanembassy.org

Posted in Artist's News, En Foco, Exhibitions, Latino, Nueva Luz, diversity, fine art, photography | Leave a Comment »

Rania Matar: The Forgotten People

January 12, 2010 by Grace A Ali

By Grace Aneiza Ali

“This is not a political project,” says Beirut-born photographer Rania Matar about her work to document the aftermath of Lebanon’s civil war and the conditions in the country’s Palestinian refugee camps. “It does not try to promote any solution to a complicated and sensitive issue, but is a photographic portrait of a forgotten people in search of a home.” Matar’s work, captured in her stunning debut monograph, Ordinary Lives, (Quantuck Lane Press, 2009) may not be intended as a political project, but at its core, it is a compassion project.

Fatima (pictured) aptly named the “Girl in the Light,” lives in the Bourj El Shamali camp for Palestinian refugees, one of the poorest in Lebanon. Matar was immediately drawn to Fatima because of her “dream-filled eyes.” Fatima lives in a barren corrugated metal house. There is one window. On the ground are futons that serve as beds. You know a family lives here because of the laundry hanging from the walls.

Matar’s lens capture a girl living in her own world. Her face and body are unscathed against the harsh concrete wall she leans on. She is unmoved by the rubble, undeniable markers of war and violence, outside those walls.

Matar, who grew up in Lebanon during the civil war, is drawn to the Palestinian refugee camps around Lebanon because she sees a universal message of resilience and hope there.

I find inspiration in people struggling to keep their roots, spirit, and culture alive,” she says. “And in their incredible capacity to adapt and make the best of their circumstances so they can preserve their dignity, their hope, and their humanity.”

Her point of view, one in which the physical circumstances, at times dire, are treated as secondary, is a running thread through Matar’s work. Her lens instead gravitate towards symbolic points of light—like that of a mother’s joy as she watches her toddler at play. In the image titled Barbie Girl, (Haret Hreik, Beirut 2006), one does not miss that the backdrop of the toddler’s playground is outlined by hollowed-out bombed buildings to the left and right.

But the remnants of war and the presence of mass destruction are supporting characters in a narrative where, for Matar, mother and child are the leading actors.

Despite the title of Matar’s monograph, there is nothing ordinary about the lives she captures on film. Instead, Matar’s images poignantly remind us that we are not our circumstances—a feat that speaks to the extraordinary spirit of her subjects and to her values as a photographer.

Rania Matar’s series The Forgotten People was featured in En Foco’s Spring 2009 edition of Nueva Luz Photographic Journal (Volume 13#3), and was awarded a 2009 Ippie Award for “Best Photo Essay” by the NY Community Media Alliance.

Grace Aneiza Ali is the founder and editor of of note – the online magazine celebrating artists committed to global citizenship and social change.

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Note from En Foco:
Signed copies of Ordinary Lives, can be purchased online via En Foco; her website also offers a beautiful 8×12″ signed limited edition print along with a book. View more of Matar’s work at www.raniamatar.com, or read her article in the Boston Globe (12/26/09).

Posted in Documentary, En Foco, Nueva Luz, culture, fine art | Leave a Comment »

Decisions & Dilemmas: Day in the Life of a Juror

November 30, 2009 by Miriam Romais

© Lisa Mauer Elliott, "Study of the Moon"

What happens once you put all your hopes into a submission package, and the nail biting begins? With many opportunities to submit work for exhibitions and competitions out there, we thought it would be helpful for photographers to hear of the decisions and dilemmas that jurors are often faced with. The ‘behind the scenes’ experience described below, is humorous, humble and honest – and comes to us from photographer and educator Douglas Beasley (published in Nueva Luz 10#1):

Recently I judged the photography competition for the 2009 Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Exhibit. As the sole judge in the photo category, this was an overwhelming task with over 1,100 entries that needed to be narrowed down to 107 (less than nine percent of the entries making the cut). Walking through the room with the photos laid out on the floor and along the walls told me there was going to be a lot of very enticing images to have to choose from, but also that many would be easy to eliminate.

With the help of several volunteer assistants, my first undertaking was to remove all entries that were visually or technically poorly executed, to avoid further visual overload and to save energy for the hard choices I knew lay ahead. “Poorly executed” unfortunately, often means very bad digital printing. With good Epson photo printers starting at under $200, chances are, it is probably more due to lack of experience and judgment than a real technical issue. I also looked closely at the small prints that seemed well executed, so they don’t get lost among the giant oversized works that scream out at you. Small intimate works can easily get overlooked and I really try and see the intent and value in each piece. After this phase, half the photos remain.

I also take into account presentation, but was asked to overlook matting and framing choices and to base my choices purely on the photograph itself. I try, but much of the wildly ‘creative’ framing and colorful mats, carefully chosen to match the colors in the photo and often double or triple matted really get in way of the photograph. People don’t seem to realize how much it detracts from, rather than enhances, their image. People who live in the metro area have a distinct advantage over the rural population, with their access to museums and galleries. Visiting a few museums or galleries that are not in malls, that don’t start with “Thomas,” end with “Kinkade,” or that don’t feature duck art, I think might really help. A mediocre photograph is not made any better by a colorful mat and ornate frame. It is in fact, much worse, sometimes even offensive.

My next task was to eliminate typical or trite responses to clichéd subjects. Way too many cute kittens, cute kids and old barns. I have nothing against kids, kittens or nostalgia but cute gets old quickly when looking at over 1,100 framed images and nostalgia doesn’t replace vision, craft, soulfulness or insightfulness. Cute or nostalgic simply isn’t enough to carry a photo under this level of competition. Use that as a starting point in going deeper. And if you are going to choose subjects such as flowers, that many others are going to submit nearly identical versions of, one should try and find a more unique or personal way of interpreting the subject. I suggest to my very helpful assistants that they should consider having a whole separate exhibit, hopefully in a building far away, for the hopelessly cute, including any photo where your first reaction is “awwww…” It would probably be a very popular State Fair destination but you won’t find me there unless there is something very tasty on a stick on the other side and no other way to get there.

Another category with a lot of entries is “travel.” These span the globe from nice vacation snapshots to some very insightful and beautiful photographs. I feel bad eliminating anyone’s favorite travel shot or the amazing sunrise or sunset, because I love that they stopped and noticed. I know their friends or relatives told them it was a great shot and I’m sure the experience of being there was great – but it is usually the place or moment that is significant, not their photographic record of it. The choices of what was eliminated so far was fairly easy and instinctual and I am confident in my choices. From previous experience, I know that now the real work begins…

My criteria for selection includes concept, execution, creativity and exemplary implementations of a wide range of styles or genres. The most important criteria for me is emotional impact: what makes the viewer think, or even better, feel.

That quality of ‘emotional impact’ is, of course, completely subjective and up to me to interpret. I try to be as objective as possible while also fully realizing that true objectivity is impossible. I recognize many of the photographers by style, content or because they have signed their name on the front. Many of these people are my friends, my colleagues, and my students. How can I be objective about someone’s photo when I know their strengths and weakness, their vulnerabilities, their struggles, their growth and compare that to the photo of somebody I don’t know? I try to be objective but I simply don’t think it’s possible, at least for me. It was much easier when I judged shows in Alaska and Hawaii where I didn’t know hardly any of the photographers. I think maybe the State Fair should bring in judges from outside Minnesota to avoid this dilemma.

Jurying is mostly selection by elimination. I need to take into account balancing how many images in a given genre (ie, nature, wildlife, documentary or digital composite) are accepted so the exhibit shows a balance and range of different methods of working with the medium and ways of seeing.

In the end it is more about trusting my instincts, but there still is a lot of second-guessing myself. In the final selection there are a few that didn’t make it that now, in retrospect, I think should have.

If your photo was rejected please know that it was definitely one of these. There are also a couple I think now, in retrospect, shouldn’t have made it in and I agonize over these decisions. Another day or another time there might be different choices but that is always the case. Today I stand by these choices. I also feel for all those that chose to honor moments in their lives by making a photograph. Who am I to now diminish that moment by saying it’s not good enough to stand with these other moments submitted by those more accomplished, more experienced or more sophisticated photographers or alongside the hundreds of professional and commercial photographers who also chose to enter the fair?

With 250 or 300 photographs left, they are all strong and all very deserving of a place in the show, yet I still had to eliminate two thirds of these. If you made it that far you should know that your work is good but there simply isn’t room to include all of these in the show. To narrow it down to 107 it is no longer about what is better than something else but what appeals to me at this time, this day, this point in my life, my career. But are these really the “best?” No, there is no such thing in art. These are my favorites and I leave it at that. It also becomes about having a well-rounded show with many styles and genres represented.

Picking the first through fourth place and merit awards is by far the hardest part of the day for me. With jet lag swirling through my body and the sensation of my blood turning to cement I am temporarily unable to continue. I ask that all possible candidates for awards be lined up against the back wall but I simply can’t choose. I want to just give them all an equal designation of ‘my favorites’ and walk away, but winners must be chosen.

The task is made harder and more complicated by the fact that I know at least half of the award contenders personally and a couple of them are very close friends. I consider eliminating any awards to friends. I consider only giving friends ‘honorable mention’ status. But either of these choices would be doing their work and them a disservice. I walk away again to try to clear my head and gather energy. When I return I talk with the exhibit director and with several of my helpers about my dilemma in making awards to friends. They both help me realize that I just have to give the awards to what I feel is the strongest and most powerful work, no matter whose it is.

Even though overall I love my choices, I am haunted by a couple images that made the final cut that I let outside factors influence me (who they are, what their previous work is like, their standing in the photo community) and a couple that didn’t make it in that I think I made a mistake on. When I go back the next day I tell the Fine Art committee I think have made a mistake at the last minute by impulsively, under pressure, cutting the photo of a man with a red white and blue straw hat the says “Made In China” on it. Is this photo ‘better’ than many of the other much more ‘fine art’ photos rejected? No, but it has made an impact on me and it is one I want others to see, probably more for the wry political commentary than anything artful, yet it is well done technically and aesthetically. They let me add it back in… Now we have 108, what some say is an auspicious number; the same as the number of prayer beads on a Tibetan Buddhist mala. Perfect.

If your photo didn’t get into the State Fair Fine Arts Exhibit it is important to remember that less than one out of eleven photos were accepted, due to space limitations. It was the highest number of entries ever. Out of the eleven hundred images, many by well known artists and accomplished professionals, I thought there were about three hundred strong enough to be in the show and still only one third of those made it in. Your job is to make it to that top three hundred. If you didn’t make it that far (and I wish there was a way for people to know) you probably need to work on developing your vision and craft.

If you did make it into that top three hundred, from there it is up to the taste and whims of the judge. There are many factors that influence the judging that have nothing to do with the quality or artistic merit of your work: the judge’s taste, how many similarly themed entries there were, the need of the judge to create a well rounded show reflecting many sensibilities. There were some very good photos that didn’t make the final cut and every time I had to eliminate one of these it hurt. Undoubtedly there were also excellent entries that somehow got overlooked in the chaos of the sheer mass of submitted images (or the apparent blindness, ignorance or poor taste of the judge).

I think it is the job of the photographer to submit a photo with a strong enough vision coupled with a high level of execution to be in the top tier but also true to the photographer’s individual vision. Submit images that you feel most passionate about, not ones that you think will get in. From there it is anybody’s guess as to the whims of fate that year…

By Douglas Beasley, 2009

Douglas Beasley Photography/Vision Quest Photo Workshops

www.douglasbeasley.com

www.douglasbeasley.blogspot.com

Posted in Artist's News, En Foco, fine art, photography | 2 Comments »

Photo Ethics and the Necessity of Licking the Queen’s Neck

October 1, 2009 by Miriam Romais

© Ricky Flores. African-American protesters take to the streets in Bensonhurst in Brooklyn after the acquittal of Keith Mondello on the charge of manslaughter in the death of Yusef Hawkins on May 19, 1990 ( Ricky Flores ) Protesters were met by jeers and curses from a mostly Italian community during the demonstration.

African-American protesters take to the streets in Bensonhurst after the acquittal of Keith Mondello on the charge of manslaughter in the death of Yusef Hawkins on May 19, 1990. Protesters were met by jeers from a mostly Italian community during the demonstration. © Ricky Flores

Here we are, continuing to probe into the mind of other photographers so we may hear and learn about (or from!) their experiences. This post is by our dear friend Ricky Flores:

© Ricky Flores. Firefighters raise a flag at the site of the World Trade Center after two passenger jet airplanes slammed into the Twin Towers during a terriost attack on the United States causing a catastrophic collaspe of the buildings on September 11, 2001 (© Ricky Flores/The Journal News)

Firefighters raise a flag after the collaspe of the WTC buildings on 9/11. © Ricky Flores/The Journal News

When I was an intern at Magnum during the mid-1980s, I was able to attend a talk given by Magnum photographer Philip Jones Griffiths about his body of work documenting the war in Vietnam. I asked him how did he understand the difference between taking photos of war then doing corporate photos of executives from companies such as Northrop Grumman and other defense contractors, who made weapons of war that may have killed or injured the people he was photographing.

My fellow interns reacted badly to my question. He quieted them down and replied that it was a fair question and answered it this way:

In England we have a saying: In order to post a letter you have to lick the back of the Queen’s neck.”

He said that he approached those images as technical challenges for himself and didn’t want to think about who the people were. He went on to explain his conflicting emotions about making those portraits and pointed out that the income he generated was a means to an end that help pay for the salaries of the employees at Magnum, and allowed him the freedom to do personal work that he would not have been able to do on his own.

It was the best damn piece of advice I ever got.

© Ricky Flores. From left, Models Cami Shore and Mary Dannegger show off an Elenzon Lace, off the shoulder fitted dress with a chaple train, left, and a mikado silk off the shoulder, fitted and flared trumpet bubble bottom train from Fontana Bridal in Scarsdale at The Ritz-Carlton Something Blue bridal show in White Plains February 22, 2009 (Ricky Flores /The Journal News)

This is a good example for me: "Models Cami Shore and Mary Dannegger show off an Elenzon Lace, off the shoulder fitted dress with a chaple train, left, and a mikado silk off the shoulder, fitted and flared trumpet bubble bottom train from Fontana Bridal in Scarsdale at The Ritz-Carlton Something Blue bridal show in White Plains February 22, 2009." © Ricky Flores/The Journal News

Throughout my career as a photojournalist for a corporate newspaper, that advice continues to play in the back of my mind whenever I had to cover an assignment that I found to be personally distasteful or simply plain boring.

But it also applies to situations in which I want to push myself beyond my technical comfort zone to produce something beyond the editorial photographs that I do on a daily basis.

It is a constant challenge to stay motivated when you shoot for a living five days a week, and you try not to produce the same old image from the same old event. Although the majority of the images that I do are not even near as so sharply conflicting as the ones Griffiths faced doing those annual reports, that advice still applies.

Ricky Flores, Photographer
New York, September 2009

**Ricky will be one of the reporters/journalists at an upcoming event for Puerto Rican Photographic Society’s NYC Collective on November 7, 2009. The lineup includes New York Times‘ journalist David Gonzalez and photojournalist Angel Franco on a joint workshop on photography and storytelling, and a photo critique session with Franco and Flores.**

Happiness is a warm gun, Bang-Bang. Julee Cerda on the set of "Looking For These?" A small horror film short produced by Edwin Pagan and Arnold Acevedo August 29, 2009. © Ricky Flores

Julee Cerda on the set of "Looking For These?" A small horror film short produced by Edwin Pagan & Arnold Acevedo, August 2009. © Ricky Flores

Posted in Artist's News, Documentary, En Foco, Latino, culture, photography | 1 Comment »

Changing the Art World, One Image and Viewer at a Time: En Foco Inc’s Thirty-Fifth Anniversary

September 11, 2009 by lisaleica

A flyer from En Foco's Archives, 1974

Over the course of thirty-five years En Foco has developed a strong following and given many photographers national exposure. It’s a small group that thinks big, and believes deeply in working within their local community. But it is also a national organization that commands a lot of respect in the photo world. Chicago based photographer Myra Greene puts it best, “All artists need support and you can find that support in different communities. En Foco has been great because it’s a community that I’m a part of, but what I think they do well is they engage non-minorities in a conversation about underrepresented artists.”

One of the ways En Foco has changed the art world, is by insisting that the act of looking at photographs made by artist of a particular culture should not exclude any viewer-ship. This along with the unfailing energy of the staff and their pure love of photographic expression have been a constant source of inspiration for me and made me eager to contribute this story. As an independent curator I have seen En Foco change the direction of artists careers in ways both large and small but I have also been personally swept up by the staff’s enthusiastic advocacy for new and interesting work. En Foco is constantly reminding me why I do what I do, and why I love it.

“People learn about En Foco through Nueva Luz or one of their programs, and then they keep learning about it.” Greene, who teaches photography at Columbia College in Chicago, was one of the many exuberant and loyal follower of En Foco that I spoke with. For Greene, the impact of the organization on her career has been tremendous. She describes 2008 as her “Year of En Foco.”

When Nueva Luz issue 12:3 was released, one of Greene’s black glass ambrotypes provided the striking cover image. She recalls, “a lot of people saw it and that was great… My work was on the cover and then I got honorable mention in their New Works Photography Fellowship Awards program. Then they gave me a Touring Gallery show in New York City at Umbrella Arts.”

Nueva Luz 12#3, featuring Myra Greene. The cover image is available through En Foco's Print Collectors Program

After En Foco’s Executive Director Miriam Romais curated that show, she made sure that Greene’s exhibition was on the radar of other curators both in and outside of the New York area. Andrea Barnwell curator at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta visited the exhibition. Greene feels that the exposure she got from appearing in the journal along with Romais’ encouragement lead to being included Spellman’s upcoming show, Undercover: Performing and Transforming Black Female Identities (September 10 – December 5, 2009).

“The thing that’s great about En Foco and why Miriam is so good at her job is because she is all about the artists. It takes a lot of energy, but she does it for a lot of people. In that way, En Foco is like a family but the difference is that this ‘family’ grows every year – En Foco becomes an amazing advocate for artists and that’s really important because as I said earlier, no one can do it alone.” This is a theme I heard over and over. As Greene says,

En Foco reminds me and everyone that the photo world isn’t just about galleries.”

Astonishingly, with as much as En Foco accomplishes with their full roster of established programs, they continue to expand their reach, finding ways to become more responsive to the larger community while still focusing on providing exposure and critical dialog for diverse artists. The organization has just announced the winners of it’s first photo competition (People/Places/Things) open to all artists regardless of nationality, and this fall and next spring the organization will host mini-benefits to raise money for its programs, in true En Foco community spirit.

Founded by Charles Biasiny-Rivera and several other photographers in the Bronx in 1974, the organization has grown tremendously from a small group of Puerto Rican photographers serving their local NY community, to an internationally known organization that serves a broad range of photographers of color. Over the last three and a half decades En Foco’s mission has expanded but the core initiatives of the 70s still inform their guiding principles.

Bill Mindlin, Editor of Photograph, has great respect for En Foco and its unique model for education and exhibitions within the New York art community. In a telephone interview from his office in New York, Mindlin shared his deep admiration for the organization. “They have survived in the Bronx, where there is not a big gallery presence – there is the Bronx Museum and a few institutions … and they continue to do programming and host events in unusual palaces, in community spaces. It’s a very interesting and democratic model. They bring photography from the people to the people.” Mindlin marveled at the organizations determination as well as their consistency.

They show photography in a serious and respectful manner and give photographers a voice. Their events continuously put forward a presence for a lot of people that are talented but just don’t have a chance to get seen.”

Mindlin also points out the value of En Foco to other art professionals such as professors, art critics, curators and gallerists. En Foco “provides an important curatorial function. It let’s you find a nugget of talent among the overwhelming number of photographic works” and practitioners in circulation today. And he was quick to recognize the enormous value of such an organization in today’s world of 24-hour information, image overload and the massive number of artist portfolios now available for review on the Internet.

There are so many unedited avenues of information that it’s impossible to find things. If you can have a place with a consistent reputation that you can turn to online or in print that’s very valuable.”

In a recent interview, En Foco co-founder Biasiny-Rivera recalled the group’s formative years. “We started out as a few New York-Puerto Rican photographers, displaying our work at block parties in the South Bronx. The initial reason that we formed En Foco was that we noticed that we were not visible as Puerto Rican photographers. So we decided to make ourselves visible by organizing exhibitions and creating events. We were interested in identifying ourselves to ourselves. None of the artists seemed to be getting any recognition for their artistry. We decided to show our work in the community – reflecting the subjects that were important to us – reminding the community of our worth – [photographs of our] family, work, our churches… positive and more realistic portraits of our community. NOT West Side Story”, he said with a chuckle over the phone last week.

From the Archives: En Foco's Street Gallery, 1978

Biasiny-Rivera further recalled the organization’s grassroots foundation fondly, “we had a street gallery and would set up a Polaroid studio in the community – parks and schools. We would photograph and teach instant photography with Polaroid’s and wedding photography at block parties, setting up photography booths at either end of the street, answering people’s questions, signing people up for workshops…. We finally decided that we needed an official profile and we got an official certificate of incorporation and we were then able to get more funding.

En Foco had exhibitions at the City Gallery at New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs in Manhattan (where Graciela Iturbide was one of the artists). We also received $5,000 from them to produce Nueva Luz, as a large tabloid. We started printing on newsprint because that’s all we could afford, and we had a wonderful cover that we were all really proud of.”

The first issue of Nueva Luz featured Sophie Rivera (cover), Tony Mendoza and Kenro Izu

“Everybody wanted to be published”, he remembered, “so we did it. Guest editors and writers, that’s very important, and that’s what the journal is still doing – we presented large portfolios every issue, reviewed by independent professionals in the field… Being published is really important for an artist. I’ve traveled internationally a lot as a photographer and I was surprised at how many people new about us through Nueva Luz. We didn’t distribute to those countries but they were finding out about us through the journal from the photographic grapevine. But globally this is what’s next. Our community is not just the Bronx; it is Europe, Latin America… We are everywhere!”

“Even David Rockefeller, Jr found us. He was doing site visits for organizations that had been nominated for the Praemium Imperiale, and he walked into our office one day. It ended up that En Foco was too small to qualify, but he really liked us and later on in the mail we received $5,000 from him. He personally donated that to us.”

New York Times reporter, David Gonzalez became involved with En Foco right after college. After discovering his love of photography as an undergraduate at Yale, Gonzalez moved back home to his parents’ apartment in the Bronx. “My parents were working class … they thought I was going to Yale and would become a doctor. When I graduated and said that I wanted to be a photographer, they flipped. To them, being a photographer meant that I was going to take pictures at people’s weddings. To me, it was what Lee Friedlander did.

Charlie gave me that opportunity to learn and practice, and I immersed myself in it. He called me a photographer. [Biasiny-Rivera] hired me on the basis of one meeting. I wanted to work as a photographer in a cultural setting and En Foco was the only place around that gave me that opportunity. Through En Foco I met many young photographers that greatly influenced me and shaped my vision.” The communal spirit of En Foco’s early days was a great influence to Gonzalez.

"In the Fall of 1979, Perla de Leon and David Gonzalez taught a Visual Literacy workshop at two South Bronx schools. Here, Perla shows a student at CS 61 how to use a Polaroid camera. The images would then be put together in a story book written and illustrated by tams of young people. CS61 was known for two things: it had a principal who actively encouraged the arts as an essential part of the curriculum. It was also one of the few remaining structures on Charlotte Street, the infamous urban wasteland visited by politicians and tourists." Photo © by David Gonzalez, All Rights Reserved 2009

We had this almost naïve idea that we could bring photo to the masses. We thought that if we could teach photography, it could tap into people’s lives. We figured photography was something that everyone could approach – everyone had pictures in their house or had a camera. It was widespread among average people in the community, even more than today with digital cameras, and we thought photography as a medium would be the most important things to teach.”

Gonzalez left En Foco to become print journalist and in recent years has come full circle, back to photography. As a foreign correspondent in Central America and the Caribbean, his photographs were often published alongside his news stories, and he now continues to shoot for the pieces he writes on the Times’ City Room blog. He recently wrote about the early days of En Foco for the blog that includes photographs of the En Foco team in action in the Bronx in the 1970s: From the Archive: Bronx Street Art in the NY Times’s Lens Blog, an audio slide show titled Revisiting the South Bronx, 35 Milimeters at a Time, and Faces in the Rubble.

The importance of being part of an artistic community, recognized by accepted as a fellow artist and professional is something that young photographers still value. Today, En Foco’s annual Portfolio Review Sessions is often the first place that some emerging or self-taught photographers find that sense of community, as it brings together photographers at every level of their careers together with editors, curators and art dealers from around the country.

As Selina Roman, an attendee at this year’s review held this past June commented, “ I was ecstatic when I found an organization dedicated to emerging artists. It’s a great feeling to know that I am not alone… Before the review, my only feedback had been from friends and a smattering of other photographers, which was great. But hearing from professionals entrenched in the art world was amazing. Their comments allowed me to think about my work in different ways, which will ultimately mean a stronger body of work. The whole experience was invaluable.”

Monica Ruzansky, who also showed her work at the 2009 review said, “We live so immersed and isolated in our own work that it is very important to have a community of photographers, to share ideas, work and experiences… that keeps you grounded sometimes.” Ruzansky, who is originally from Mexico City but relocated to New York a few years ago, said that she had found out about the portfolio review from reading En Foco’s journal Nueva Luz.

The photographic journal provides En Foco with a way to celebrate outstanding photography while expanding the dialog about issues of identity and creative expression in the larger art world. In lavish color, it provides each photographer a multi-page portfolio spread.

Nueva Luz is as handsomely produced as it is respected in the field: for the past two years the publication has been a finalist for the Lucie Awards as “Photography Magazine of the Year.” In addition to the accomplished staff, the journal regularly includes commentary and critical writing by distinguished guest editors, writers and curators, such as Los Angeles Times Staff Writer and Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation grantee Sharon Mizota, who recently contributed an article on collaborative artists Tarrah Krajnak & Wilka Roig, Luis Delgado, and Rania Matar for Nueva Luz 13:3. Guest Editor Darius Himes, founding editor of Radius Books, produced a special issue focused on contemporary race and photography in the 13:2 issue that featured images by Hank Willis Thomas, Sanaz Mazinani, Ian Ramirez and Nontsikelelo Veleko.

As Executive Director and Editor, Miriam Romais states, En Foco is all about “Community, Community, Community”, but the community she advocates for is interested in and respectful to all. “While En Foco began with a dream for change 35 years ago, it continues to focus on Latino and other artists of diverse cultures, often telling stories that do not get heard or seen through conventional means or mainstream galleries. We celebrate the vitality of inner neighborhoods and rural areas alike, and rejoice that we can bring attention to an artist or a meaningful project that should be seen by a wider audience. The artists are free to explore or reinvent cultural traditions, challenge preconceived notions, and engage audiences in a manner that honors everyone. Great knowledge can come through art – and photography is no exception.”

If En Foco has made a difference in the lives of artists, this is the time to talk about it – organizations need the support too” says Romais. “It would be nice if we [organizations] were no longer relevant with the rise of the supposed ‘post-racial culture’ in North America, but that is not the case. Are we all still relevant? We think so, but more importantly, our artists and communities adamantly say yes.”

While many people would argue that the En Foco has time and again proven it’s relevance, Romais’ question is an important one. Many non-profit organizations are grappling with this question as the country approaches the end of President Obama’s historic first year as Commander-in-Chief.

The question is also a neat segue to announce that En Foco will be the co-Chair of next year’s Society for Photographic Education’s national conference: next spring En Foco will break new ground. The conference, titled Facing Diversity: Leveling the Playing Field in the Photographic Arts will be co-chaired with Hannah Frieser, Director of Light Work in Syracuse, and feature speakers such as Dawoud Bey, Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie and Veronica Passalacqua, Deborah Willis, Elizabeth Ferrer, Don Gregorio Antón, Kip Fulbeck and many others. The conference will take place in Philadelphia from March 4-7, 2010.

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Want to know more? Anyone interested in photography can see a variety of work by some of the artists that have been exhibited or published by En Foco, by visiting the Photographers Section on their website. By signing up for their free email newsletter (or following them on Facebook, Twitter of Flickr), photographers and photo enthusiasts can also find out about upcoming exhibitions, artist talks and it’s 35th Anniversary events that are open to the public. Soon, their Permanent Collection will be seen by the public for the first time, in a traveling exhibition funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and curated by Elizabeth Ferrer.

Posted in Artist's News, En Foco, Latina, Nueva Luz, african american, culture, diversity, fine art, photography | Leave a Comment »

Nereo: Images from Half a Century – Book Signing

August 20, 2009 by Miriam Romais

Nereo López Meza, a well known and respected Colombian photographer, has spent 60 of his 86 years working for his country’s best newspapers and magazines, photographing personalities such as Gabriel García Márquez, Pope Paul IV, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

But it is in his photographic essays, deep in the Amazon jungle, in the streets of Bogota, or up and down the Magdalena River (made famous by Mr. García Márquez’s Love in the Times of Cholera), where his genius is truly revealed. Nereo’s photographs are acknowledged as one of the most important visual accounts of the history of Colombia.

Meet Nereo in person, at the book release and signing for Nereo: Images from Half a Century, on August 21st at 7pm, at Barnes & Noble/Lincoln Triangle, 66th Street & Broadway. A reception will follow at the Consulate General of Colombia, 10 East 46th Street, from 8:30-10:30pm. For more information contact Editorial Campana, at info@editorialcampana.com or call 212-721-4062.

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NEREO LÓPEZ MEZA, born in the colonial port of Catagena, is one of Colombia’s most respected photographers. He began his career as a film projectionist, quickly moving on to become regional manager of a film distribution company. A photography manual and correspondence course first piqued his interest in photography, and in 1952, he began working as a photographic correspondent for two national newspapers as well as for the magazine Cromos.

Among his accomplishments was his participation as director of photography and actor in the experimental film, La Langosta Azul (The Blue Lobster) in 1954, the screenwriting debut of Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez. Nereo won First Prize at the International Photography Contest sponsored by Kodak at the 1963 World Fair in New York. He also was the only Colombian photographer selected to travel with Pope Paul VI on his trip to South America. In 1982, Nereo acted as the Official Photographic Representative of the Colombian Cultural Agency (Colcultura) in Stockholm, Sweden, where he covered the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony and its presentation to Gabriel García Márquez.

His illustrious career was further recognized when the “Nereo Center for Photographic Education and Culture” opened in Bogotá in 1987. Nereo: A National Photographic Homage was published in 1998. He was also awarded the Medal of Honor by the Colombian Ministry of Culture (the highest honor for an artist in Colombia). In 2000, Colombian President Andrés Pastrana awarded Nereo with the Boyaca Order, the most important award granted by the Colombian government to Colombian citizens.

Posted in Artist's News, Community, South American, culture, photography | Leave a Comment »

The Art of Hope

July 29, 2009 by askmarisol

A few weeks ago we had an award-winning, world famous photographer drop by the En Foco office to say hello and see what we were about. After a mention of our Foot in The Door workshop for emerging photographers, he said to me, “What for? It’s hopeless.” To that I replied, “What is hopeless?” He continued to say, “Giving them hope…”

In defense and frustration, I replied in a way I thought would be clear, by saying that our workshops give people what they need, in order to have a fighting chance, an opportunity: “We don’t offer hope, we offer ‘tools.’ It is up to those that attend to do what they wish with those tools.”

The Foot In The Door workshop was June 9 — today is June 28 and here I am still mulling this over. Yes, it bothers me. It bothers me greatly. I don’t think his remarks we intended to disappoint but the delivery of the words were narrow-minded, as he ended up defending his comment by saying that filmmaking is the future of photography. That is all well and good but, what his comment also did was express what others have said to us in many ways: Don’t be a photographer, it’s a waste of time.

It’s comments like these that so many of us have heard our entire lives, and I have personally struggled with them. So thank you Mr. World Famous Photographer for dropping by and lighting another fire in my belly!

And to those sitting on their bottoms and not showing the world how talented you are, take heed of my warning: don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t, or you won’t, because you can. Believe in yourself, learn enough skills, and create an art of hope. If you don’t have a personal manifesto, use this and add on as you please. Warning: it’s only for those whom are convinced they are destined to be photographers.

Art of Hope

Step 1. Find like-minded people and create a support system. They will come in handy in challenging times.

Step 2. For the family and friends that don’t understand or support your dream, know that they love you and are simply afraid. Love them back and don’t try to change them. They will come around as you continue forward and begin to succeed.

Step 3. Your personal survival and the survival of your photographic career walk hand in hand. Meaning, you may need to have several jobs to support both, and they may not all be related to photography.

Step 4. Practice your Art. Re-train yourself with the latest technology. Things are always changing in the digital world. Stay ahead of the game: the guy or gal next to you is!

Step 5. When you feel you have done your best work, appreciate it, and then go further.

Step 6. Don’t forget who you are or your dreams outside of photography. Create those dreams as well, for no regrets.

Step 7. Submit to residencies, grants, call for entries (like our New Works Photography Fellowship Awards, see below)

Step 8. Tell people what you are doing. Make yourself accountable to your dreams and create a reality.

Step 9. Well, that’s for you to write.

So I hope that after reading this, you will take yourself serious enough to start investing time in yourself – do consider submitting to En Foco’s New Works Photography Fellowship #13, and any other deadlines you come across. Heck, New Works is a free submission. Did I mention Anne Wilkes Tucker , the curator at the Museum of Fine Arts/Houston, is the Juror this year? Several years ago, Time Magazine named her as one of the most culturally influential people in the world.

New Works is designed to give visibility to fine art and documentary photographers of Latino, African, Asian and Native American heritage, living in the U.S. Photographers working in any genre is fair game, so its a great way to push a body of work along beyond the normal scope of what you might think is possible.

If you happen to be selected, you will have an extra $1,000 to play around with, and goodies from different photo companies such as Bogen, Lowepro and Fuji. It comes with an article in En Foco’s publication Nueva Luz photographic journal, not to mention all of the press En Foco will do on your behalf… and to top it all off, a gallery exhibition in New York City.

So now, all you need to ask yourself is how late is that post office open, and get cracking - you just may be on the cusp of greatness!

Click here to take a foot forward.

The postmark deadline is Friday, July 31, 2009

Photos by past New Works winners. L-R: Meg Escudé, Wendy Phillips, Trinidad Mac-Auliffe, Michael Gonzales, Morgan M. Ford, and Ching-Wei Jiang.

Posted in Artist's News, En Foco, Exhibitions, fine art, photography | 9 Comments »

Queitly Questioning Paradise: Hiroshi Watanabe’s Views of North Korea

June 21, 2009 by lisaleica

Hiroshi Watanabe (Nueva Luz Vol.10#3, 2005) may be best known for his meticulously crafted and haunting black and white images, but his first solo show at the Kopeikin Gallery opened June 6th like a fresh summer breeze, awakening the senses to the photographer’s vibrant color images taken in North Korea. These photographs, shot with a Hasselblad, provide a tidy square format within which Watanabe maintains a remarkable balance between beauty and social dis-ease.

During an interview with Watanabe, he was extremely clear about his intentions for this new body of work and the challenge he set for himself before embarking on the first of two trips to North Korea. “I wanted to see North Korea with my own eyes and not pre-judge an entire society.” Though he was aware of the country’s history of kidnappings, famine and human rights violations both from the U.S and Japanese news media, he tried to remain open minded and to make photographs that were neither didactic nor naïve. He said, quite simply, “You can not hate and make a good photograph.”

There is no arguing that these images are highly aesthetic, but many also question the possibility of total conformity or the ability North Korea’s nationalist ethos to completely overshadow basic human individuality. What is interesting about this tightly produced exhibition is that it represents Watanabe’s basic humanistic nature and offers compelling examples of the artist’s eye for gesture and small details. This exhibition and the book that accompanies it, reward viewers that allow themselves the time to look carefully.

Watanabe is neither didactic nor overtly critical of the culture he observed on these recent trips, yet the slightly dissonant colors of his interiors often communicate a sense of underlying tension. As I studied an image of a woman in a dressed neatly in a black suit with her back to the camera, I began to notice that while the figure was tidy and anonymous, everything around her seemed out of place and visually jarring. The combination of the brown floral wallpaper with a bright pink table cloth upon which sat a retro-looking boom-box to the left of the figure seemed stranger the more I looked at it. Gradually, I felt as if I was looking at a still from a David Lynch film. Many of the interiors evoked this same feeling.

By contrast, in the portraits of school children and young people, Watanabe manages to highlight the subject’s individuality and personality by capturing quiet gestures and facial expressions amidst what at first glance might seem like overtly regimented poses. Pointing to the contradictions that seep through the public façade maintained by the North Korean government without telegraphing a set political agenda is not an easy thing to do, and yet Watanabe maintains this balance.

Throughout his career as a fine art photographer Watanabe has taken on a wide range of subjects, from the historical monuments of Washington D.C., New York and Philadelphia, to portraits of Kabuki performers, and most recently an intriguing portfolio devoted to carnival monkeys. But no matter his subject, his philosophical position remains the same.

I don’t want to tell the viewer what to see. I believe in subtlety. I don’t believe in barking at the viewer. Of course it is my vision, but this is what I think is perfect about photography; it is flexible but also subtle…There is always an element that appears in the final frame, it can be very small but if you look closely you can find it. I challenge the viewer to find what I see. If they really look at the expressions, poses and the composition, they will really find something intriguing both visually and socially.

“People are so entrenched in their own ideas, they will construct their own opinions and project their ideas onto the pictures”, he says. “When I mentioned North Korea in Japan there is such a negative reaction about the country. People believe [that what’s in the media] it’s the entire truth, but there are always other elements.” Watanabe mentioned the comments he received while showing the work in Japan last year – “Why would you make beautiful pictures of an awful country?” Others suggested that his driver and official chaperones must have taken him to a “Truman Show” type set to fool him into making pretty pictures. But Watanabe is steadfast in his approach, and to hear him describe his experiences he challenged me to accept commonality and compassion while simultaneously acknowledging abuses of power of another culture.

“We think we are so different – but people, when looked at individually, are the same. People love their families and are trying to make the best for themselves and the people they care about. North Koreans are not stupid, they have feelings just like we do.” In talking about two images depicting North Korean versions of the world map, the artist says, “I thought this was funny [as a photograph] but we do the exact same thing. When you look at a map in Japan, Japan is in the center and Europe is divided into two different sections on either side. Americans do the same thing.”

Ideology in Paradise is also accompanied by a smartly designed book of the same title on sale at the gallery and online through PhotoEye. Published in Japan with a brief commentary by Lesley A. Martin of Aperture, the 119 page book allows the artist to show the full range of images from his two trips to North Korea. It includes a much wider variety than could comfortably fit Kopeikin’s project space.

The publication is laid out simply and to great effect. With one picture centered on each page the photographs have no captions (though titles and dates can be found on his website) and it concludes with a simple one-page statement by the artist. As with the exhibition, there are numerous portraits of school-age boys and girls that reflect both the country’s goal of social conformity as well as the irrepressible individuality that manages to emanate even in the face of uniforms, dress codes and formal portrait poses.

The book and the exhibition are miraculous in their simplicity. In a time when galleries are still exhibiting wall-sized color photographs and where the abundance of digital media have created so many dazzling gallery installations, visiting Watanabe’s jewel-box of an exhibition felt surprisingly new and challenging. I was struck by the feeling that I should take my time and really look carefully.

There is no way for me to completely filter out all the truly reprehensible actions taken by the North Korean government in this age of 24/7 cable news. North Korea’s military actions and human rights issues have been a concern in the U.S. especially now as our newly elected President attempts to juggle so many pressing issues on both the national and international level. But while Watanabe is no apologist for these that country’s political policies, his work is a reminder that particularly in these tumultuous times, we do well to first acknowledge our common humanity before making quick judgments and acting or speaking out of fear.

The exhibition will be on view in Los Angeles through July 11th. The Kopeikin Gallery’s summer hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 11:00 – 5:00. It is free and open to the public.

Watanabe’s work will also be featured in the following exhibitions this summer:

June 18 – September 05, 2009 “Hot Fun in the Summertime”
Bonni Benrubi Gallery, 41 E. 57th Street 13th Floor, New York, NY, USA
June 25 – August 29, 2009 “Summertime…”
Jenkins-Johnson Gallery, 464 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA USA
July 1 – December 31, 2009 “Ideology in Paradise”
Friends’ Center, Angkor Hospital for Children, Siem Reap, Cambodia
Contact: Brenda Edelson, Curator, BGEdelson@aol.com. The Angkor Hospital for Children was founded in 1999 by the internationally-acclaimed Japanese photographer Kenro Izu (Nueva Luz Volume 12#2 in 2007 and Volume 1#1 in 1984). He created the organization Friends Without A Border, to fund and support the Angkor Hospital for Children, which provides free treatment and care to the children in the Siem Reap area.

Posted in Artist's News, Asian, En Foco, Exhibitions, North Korea, Nueva Luz, culture, fine art, photography | Leave a Comment »

New York Photo Festival 2009

May 25, 2009 by delunatic

New York Photo Festival 2009
14-17 May 2009
by Karen Garrett de Luna

Given the overwhelming plethora of exhibits and talks at the New York Photo Festival this year, I was lucky to be able attend a few talks on Friday and Sunday and wander the galleries in between times.

I don't want to be labeled a gay artist.

My first destination was the Aperture presentation, “The Edge of Vision”, at St. Ann’s Warehouse. The previous talk was running behind schedule so I ended up catching the end of “Queer Art Now” during Brian Clamp’s presentation. One of the slides he showed, by a German artist by the name of Matthias Herrmann conveys precisely how I feel about being a (insert minority label here) artist.

Penelope Umbrico, Suns From Flickr, 2006-2007

Lyle Rexer’s panel discussion with Jack Sal, Penelope Umbrico and Silvio Wolf was entirely informative and fascinating. Posing questions about the relationship of abstraction to documentation, he approached the discussion abstract photography from many angles. I look forward to seeing the related exhibition currently at the Aperture Gallery in Chelsea. I particularly enjoyed the Penelope Umbrico’s ‘Suns From Flickr’ which was shown at the New York Photo Festival in 2008.

The post-modern question of whether it was necessary to take any photographs oneself to be a photographic artist came up in this forum but also was addressed a few days later in the ‘New Documentations’ talk. Silvio Wolf’s minimalist photographs are strictly documentarian, but in their binary austerity, hardly give a hint about the context in which the photograph was made. I was especially taken by a colorful picture reminiscent of a Mark Rothko painting created from film leaders which are usually discarded in the photographic process.

In St. Ann’s Warehouse, I also visited the “I don’t really know what kind of girl I am” exhibition curated by Jody Quon from New York Magazine, and the media lounge where I picked up copies of a slew of top notch photo rags, including the latest edition of Nueva Luz. The artists presented in the show all had different takes on the theme, from the beautiful, ethereal, underwater girls of Rene & Radka to Unbranded, black beauties by Hank Willis Thomas featured in Nueva Luz volume 13#2.

At first glance, a gingerbread house by Mondongo (an Argentinian art collective) looks like a typical children’s playhouse, but under close examination, the viewer realizes that what seems innocent at first glance is really composed of adult body parts, breasts and penises and the like. There are two light boxes inside the house each with a mosaic of a young girl; these compositions reflect facets of the realities of adolescence and adulthood they will face in the not too distant future.

William A. Ewing’s “All over the place!” presented the unexpected gem of vintage color photographs by Magnum photographer Ernst Haas. I was surprised that these old photographs were included in a festival of contemporary photography, but in the curator’s own words, “So much fine work slips through our fingers; so much of the past remains unexplored; so much of what is banal today absorbs our attention.”

The makeshift gallery at 81 Front Street was home to FotoVisura’s Latin American Pavilion. “Tu/Mi Placer” featured diptychs with images by Luis González Palma with words by Graciela de Oliveira. The first line of the text was always ‘NO SERA’ followed by a statement reflecting the logic of an imbalanced relationship. Some photographs were set as domestic still lifes, but each had a twist rendering the scene somehow absurd. The most menacing of these photographs was one that featured the leg of a kitchen table piercing the padded seat of a chair; this incongruity in the scene made it feel like the table had violated the chair and that the two were trying to act as if nothing had happened.

The work by Ecuadorian artist Geovany Verdesoto reminded me immediately of Chuy Benitez’s panoramas featured in Nueva Luz volume 13 #1. Geovany reveals the changes afoot in Ecuadorean culture via the surplus of detail captured by his wide angle lens and sweeping views.

Geovany Verdesoto, The Last Supper

On Sunday I attended two discussions, “New Documentations” and “Photography After Frank”. The New Documentarians were led in the discussion by Robert Blake, Chair Emeritus of the General Studies Programs at the ICP. Fifty minutes was insufficient time for the number of photographers on the panel to be able to discuss in depth the many interesting topics that were brought up. Each of the photographers only had the opportunity to speak once or twice and the question and answer session at the end was rushed.

One of the salient points of the discussion had to do with the ability of photography to make the ordinary fantastic, or in other words. Each of the artists on the panel had a different way of revealing the power of photography to reveal the extraordinary in every day life, from Elinor Carucci’s personal portraiture to Lauren Greenfield’s unflinching film, photography and multi-media work in Thin to to Paul Shambroom’s miliary monuments to Alessandra Sanguinetti’s series The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of Their Dreams to Gerd Ludwig’s photos of Russia to Eugene Richard’s color work in The Blue Room.

Eugene Richards made the observation that artists have an insatiable curiosity about the world around them and this drive to discover is what makes us perpetual outsiders, able to discover the currents in the mainstream and to notice the drama in the ordinary. There was a slideshow of the work of all of the artist on the panel Sunday night I was very sorry to have missed.

The satellite shows on view at the Tobacco Warehouse were among my favorites of the entire festival. There were several strong sets of polaroid pictures from Atelier Reflexe and Cobertura Photo.

Both of the photographers presented by the Cedefop/Thessaloniki Photomuseum had gorgeous prints. The theme for the 2009 competition had been Work. Sirio Magnabosco won the competition with square pictures of workers, “The Wait”, and Myrto Papadopoulos with pictures of construction workers, “Out on limb”.

Paintings by Kimiko Yoshida were a stunning series of photographic self-portraits modeled on paintings by old masters. Presented by Eyemazing, a Moving Gallery for Contemporary Photography based in Amsterdam, Kimiko’s work was technically rigorous and whimsical at the same time. I wished for a companion guide with reproductions of the original paintings for reference as I stood enthralled before the canvases.

At the end of the afternoon on Sunday, I went back to St. Ann’s Warehouse for another Aperture presentation, Photography After Frank. Philip Gefter, author of the book by the same name, and Andy Grundberg held a rambling conversation about Robert Frank’s influence on contemporary photography. Frank’s book “The Americans” is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and a re-issue accompanied by an exhaustive exhibition by the National Gallery in Washington, DC is now on tour. One of the interesting points Mr. Gefter made was that Abstract Expressionism was the dominant artistic trend at the time Robert Frank was taking pictures. Being influenced by artists in other disciplines, Robert Frank, too, wanted to document his authentic experience in the moment. In doing so managed to liberate the picture frame from the compositional tidiness that preceeded him. “The Americans” has been on my Amazon wish list for a very long time and now that there is a new edition, I’ll be able to afford a copy!
Robert Frank 'The Americans'
© Robert Frank, The Americans

Posted in Artist's News, Exhibitions, Nueva Luz, diversity, fine art, photography | Tagged contemporary photography, New York Photo Festival 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Interview with Tarrah & Wilka

March 17, 2009 by Sharon Mizota

Tarrah Krajnak & Wilka Roig featued in Nueva Luz 13#3

Tarrah Krajnak and Wilka Roig are self-described “women, collaborative, minority” artists whose work is featured in the Spring issue of Nueva Luz.

Their photographs, almost always created in series, interrogate stereotypical images of women from fine art, popular culture and media.

By taking turns in front of and behind the camera, they raise questions, not just about representations of women, but about women’s role (and power) in the artistic process. In this interview, they provide some insight into their collaborative working process.

Sharon Mizota for NUEVA LUZ: Why do you work collaboratively?

WILKA: Working independently I am stuck in the role and position of artist and photographer, whether behind the camera or in front of it. It is only through collaboration that those roles can be separated and given a voice. You could say I began collaborating so that I might split myself into two, so that together we may play both roles and be in both positions at once, and therefore better articulate those very separate but interrelated perspectives in the process of art making. From there, we discovered that working collaboratively we tap into concepts and ideas beyond our expectations and original intentions, and that sharing that process of art making informs and strengthens our projects. The collaboration becomes an entity unto itself, a third party with its own agenda that we consider, respect, and pursue.

TARRAH: I think there tends to be this myth about visual artists: that we exist in some kind of hermetically sealed bubble, alone in our studio, eating paint and waiting for an epiphany in order to tap into the creative genius that flows through our veins. Well, it never worked like that for me. I need people. I need a community and I don’t think that just because I choose to live in Vermont and not New York that I can’t have this. The art I make and the people I tend to gravitate towards are also not in New York, but all over the place. So, I collaborate as a way to make my own community, as way to be around people that think like me and make the kind of art I want to see in the world. Wilka was my friend first and then we had a “crazy” idea—hey, let’s make art together. We dance together; we eat together; we have a similar circle of friends; we think alike, so why not? Musicians do it all the time, right? I think I am jealous of musicians that way. I wanna be in an “art” band…ha!

Tarrah Krajnak & Wilka Roig, Aftermath 6, Aftermath series, 2008.

NL: How would you describe your process?

W: Our process is structured to some extent as we start out on any given project or idea. We research our ideas and topics extensively, together and separately. We report to each other and discuss our research and ideas over email and on the phone. This gives us a rough outline of possible projects.

Once we’re ready to execute our ideas, the process becomes a lot more organic, intuitive and spontaneous. This part we do when we get together. We place ourselves in the context and circumstances, with our ideas and concepts, costumes, props and equipment, and then we respond to all of that and to each other through the work we make. This is the core of the collaboration.

On the more practical side of the process, we “divide and conquer.” Our individual strengths and skills are very complementary, so we each take care of different aspects of production, management, etc.

T: Wilka Is BY FAR more organized and detail oriented than I am. I tend to think of her photographic style as being more responsive to the idea than the actual physical spaces we shoot in. I’m more “intuitive” in my own process and as an individual photographer I have always been interested in the photograph as an object of beauty. So I tend to shoot in a completely different style—more focused on formal issues, responsive to space and light. So when we come together, we’re great! I am able to channel what would normally be more “unfocused energy” on an actual GOAL (set by both of us) and Wilka is able to “let go” in the shooting process. This translates into an open, healthy working relationship and a balance between the idea and the aesthetics of the image itself. We can get SO much work done in such a little amount of time! I think the reason is because we’re BOTH focused and organic. I seriously am surprised sometimes that we get along so well. We’re opposites in many ways and yet this works.

Tarrah Krajnak & Wilka Roig, Aftermath #2, 2008.

NL: Do you ever disagree? and if so, how do you resolve those disagreements?

W: Yes, as individuals we disagree, and we go through the human process of talking, listening, and coming to an understanding. Funnily enough, most of the time when we think we are in disagreement it turns out we are actually talking about similar things and just expressing them very differently. It might take us a while to get that, and that process ultimately improves the original point of departure. It is interesting, though, and reassuring that in collaborating there is room for many different perspectives and ideas, and what we do is figure out how to integrate those different elements into our process and our project. And when we are working, we usually don’t interrupt the process, we try a lot of different things and make critical decisions later.

T: Yes, of course we disagree. Ariel Shanberg at the Center for Photography at Woodstock brought up an interesting point to us about collaborations. He said, “Eventually everyone wants to be the rock star.” I suppose ego has a lot to do with this statement and ego has a lot to do with the reason why many working relationships ultimately fail. I think Wilka and I have something very special because we’ve found a way to BOTH be rock stars. In fact, Wilka tells me this on a regular basis! She’ll call me with some news about a show or panel talk we’ve been asked to do and she’ll think it’s the BEST thing ever. “Tarrah, we rock!” she’ll say. I respect this about Wilka and the fact that she is genuinely a positive person and has a confidence and energy that is just so addictive. I love this. I feed off this energy. It’s exciting to be making art with her and exciting just to be her friend. I remember a particular conflict while in residence at CPW and we got to this breaking point where we had just been working too long, and both were exhausted, and feeling tension. Ultimately it had nothing to do with the work itself, we just needed a break—we’re human. So, I think we went for a bike ride and then to the movies that day and that is how we “resolved” the issue.

© Tarrah Krajnak & Wilka Roig, Pose 19, Pose Archive series, 2007.

NL: What does it mean to be women photographers when women are more often in front of the camera than behind it?

W: An integral part of our collaboration is that we embody and give agency to both positions. One of the reasons we started collaborating was our shared experience with the stereotypical response to works by women artists that perpetually, if indirectly, place the woman in the preferred (more tolerable?) position of object/subject rather than agent/artist. We’re talking about the negative connotations constantly reaffirmed that works made by women artists are nostalgic, aesthetically pleasing, self-indulgent and overburdened with emotion. We wanted to take a stab at that through our work.

T: This question is the same one we continually ask ourselves through the work itself. Part of the reason this work exists is because even before we started collaborating we shared a similar critical experience as a reaction to our own independent work. A well-respected critic gave us the same exact critique using the same exact phrase, “As many women who turn the camera on themselves, your work is overburdened with emotion.” This sent us on a search to understand WHO we are as artists NOW. As we researched, as we archived, as we analyzed both historical and contemporary images of women we simply had more questions. Our collaboration became grounded in our interest in the complex relationships that exist between artistic intention, responsibility, and power. We are constantly asking ourselves what it means to be an artist today—women, collaborative, minority. The work we do is all about asking these questions and perhaps finding the answer in the visual language and the rhetoric behind both historical and contemporary photographic images.

NL: How important is it that viewers know that you are the ones taking (as well as posing in) the pictures?

W: This is an essential element in our project, and I hope that at least this part is obvious in the constant repetition throughout the series. In all of our works, we are ourselves as Tarrah and Wilka as well as stand-ins to represent the various aspects that we are exploring. We are using ourselves as well as acknowledging the power of the artist/photographer, the subject/model, and the art object.

T: It is absolutely essential for the same reasons Wilka lists above. I think it is quite obvious as well.

NL: Are you concerned that your work might reproduce the stereotypes and tropes that it critiques?

W: At first we were. But the way we designed each of the series in our project and how they relate to each other was our solution. We feel strongly that the work within the context of our collaboration goes beyond the stereotype and that our critique of it is what persists. The strategies we employ in our project are meant to support our intention to disrupt and interrupt the passive consumption of the image.

T: The work is entirely dependent on the language of the archive—the images hold meaning through their relationship to one another, through the multiple, through repetition. I think if you extract one image out of context then you can argue that it may in fact reproduce stereotypes, but that is why the project is simply NOT about the singular image, but rather about a sort of aggressive repetitiveness that ultimately breaks down the belief system that underlies it.

NL: What are you working on now?

W: We’re examining the art institution. We started thinking about doing this as we were getting ready to do our residency at the Center for Photography at Woodstock last summer. We presented our ideas to the wonderful and supportive staff of CPW and we were lucky enough to get connected with the Samuel Dorsky Museum in New Paltz [they house CPW's photographic collections]. With their permission we were able to begin this exploration through performance and documentation, and this lead to the start of our series “Aftermath.”

T: Literally, we did so much work at our residency last summer at CPW that we’ve been involved in post-production for several months. We’re looking forward to making new work with a scheduled live performance that will interrogate the institution itself and the power play between artist, curator, critic, audience. I’m also excited about our collection of video footage we’ve been accumulating for years and personal correspondence that may ultimately be the start to something new. www.tarrahwilka.com

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