New Photography 2009 at MoMA

Just returned from a visit to NYC and Boston. While in NYC, I went to see the New Photography exhibit at MoMA. It featured six photographers: Walead Beshty, Daniel Gordon, Leslie Hewitt, Carter Mull, Sterling Ruby, and Sara VanDerBeek. They all work very differently, though a couple had similar methods. The unifying feature, though, is that the photographic process is used as a medium itself, and sometimes recursively (photographs of photographs).

Walead Beshty is the most “painterly”: he takes a very large sheet of photographic paper, and exposes parts of it to various colored light, masking out areas by using the sheet itself. 

Leslie Hewitt’s work departs the least from traditional photography, and I found it very evocative. He photographs other photographs which are placed within a setting of common objects, sometimes with some personal significance.

Anyway, will write more about my trip soon.

New York City trip

I'm just back from a brief trip to NYC. A painter friend had her first solo show at the Bowery Gallery in Chelsea.

Mostly I slept a lot, and ate out: Franchia (a vegan Korean restaurant, with some really fancy tea -- favorite place of the friend I stayed with), Corrado, a ramen/sushi place (run by Koreans), a cheapo sushi place. No street meat this time around, though.

I didn't go to the Guggenheim, as I usually do, but they've finished the renovations so it's not covered up. I did go to the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum: they had a special exhibit on felt. Watched some cool videos of Mongolian felt-makers making it the traditional way with ponies.

There was a surprise art stop at the Niagara Bar. My friend Marissa who I stayed with runs a weekly music and art show there, and some of her artist friends know Nara. He did some graffiti in the bar, which is now preserved behind plexiglas sheets. Unfortunately, he was arrested for doing graffiti in Union Square station.

Sarah wasn't the only Boston friend who happened to be in NYC that weekend. Some other friends happened to be playing in Brooklyn.

All in all, a fun, short vacation. Sucks to be back, since I came back to a ton of broken things.

NYC, Clown Theatre

Took a day trip to NYC to see Bony Lil and Val Thompson perform at the NY Clown Theatre Festival. Click for more.

Technorati Tags: clown, new york, nyc, photography, brooklyn, theatre

I ♥ film

Despite the convenience and consistency I get with digital, I find that the shots I love best seem to be on film. Partly because I use lovely fast lenses which give nice bokeh (background blurring). These two shots were taken with a Nikon FM2n, using a Nikkor AI 85mm f/2; film was Kodak Tmax 3200, which is no longer being made. I didn’t record exposure details, but they were handheld, available light.

Technorati Tags: art, film, fm2n, nikon, photography

Mass Art Iron Pour, Spring 2008

Pix are up. Click image for more.

Technorati Tags: art, iron, mass art, photography, pour

Photo backlog reduced

Finally uploaded a bunch of photos taken in the past two months or so. Here they are.

• The East Coast Whatsies at the Bulfinch Yacht Club


• NYC trip


• Fort Point Open Studios


• The East Coast Whatsies play a Halloween party


• Marissa’s party

Technorati Tags: photography, travel

Published photo

So, one of my photos was selected for inclusion in the Schmap Guide to Cambridge (England). No money involved, but my (first) name is listed, with link back to the flickr photo page. It’s actually one of my favorite pictures: I have it framed and hanging on my wall. Well, it was hanging, and it will be again as soon as I move into my new digs.

I guess all that time I spent taking pictures of my daily coffee and pastry paid off.

Technorati Tags: cambridge, photography, schmap

Salvador Dali on TV

Followup to the John Cage post, here’s Salvador Dali on What’s My Line?, a classic game show.

Here’s more of him, this time appearing in commercials. See the related videos.

Technorati Tags: advertising, dali, what's my line, game show, television

Deep breath

I love this picture.

Flit

One of the artefacts in Brittonie’s apartment. (Click image for more.)

Technorati Tags: flit, insecticide, artefact, spray