Laura Letinsky

"I began to think about the idea of leftovers. It became important for me on a number of levels, because it has to do with what you do after the promise, when you realize the promise is not possible. This is fundamental to any utopian notion--the promise and its demise. You can't have utopia without its loss."



Letinsky’s new work pictures the detritus of contemporary culture in
meticulously composed and exquisitely lit still lifes. Utilizing discarded styrofoam cups, paper napkins, plastic cutlery, paper plates, crushed cans and paper bags, Letinsky conflates the timeless beauty of the classical still life with the chaotic banality of contemporary consumer culture.

Letinsky’s earlier still lifes of decaying food on empty tables in vacant rooms explored themes of gratification, indulgence and abandonment and suggested the tensions and disappointments of domestic life. In To Say It Isn’t So,Letinsky has moved the sphere of engagement out of her home and into the studio where the objects she has retrieved from the street are arranged on a simple table in a spare setting. In addition, she has dispensed with the implied stories of her earlier series: Venus Inferred, which pictured couples in intimate domestic settings, and Hardly More than Ever, comprised of still lifes of abandoned tables strewn with the debris of a meal consumed. As she states,“Through my choice of objects and the formal aspects of my pictures, I have tried to strip away the narrative or symbolic inferences to determine what’s left for pictures.”



By selecting primarily white and neutral-colored objects and blanching them with bright natural light, Letinsky explores a wide range of white tints while challenging our ability to perceive them. The absence of color reduces these familiar, recognizable products to a simplified geometry of circles, cones, rectangles and lines. With her oblique perspective and emphasis on forms, Letinsky heightens the tension between three-dimensional objects in a volumetric space and the flat picture plane of the photograph, animated by lines and shapes.



Temporality plays a role in all of Letinsky’s work. Previously Letinsky invoked a sense of events having transpired or a particular moment unfolding. In To Say It Isn’t So, the objects she chooses were originally designed to be quickly used and discarded; but, in the stillness of her images, Letinsky grants them a timelessness at odds with their original purpose. As with the still lifes of Italian painter Giorgio Morandi, Letinsky’s precise compositions and delicate modulation of light bestow a value and beauty upon the banal and disposable objects of contemporary life.

Born in Canada in 1962, Letinsky has exhibited both nationally and
internationally. This is her third exhibition in New York and her first with the gallery. Letinsky received her MFA from Yale University in 1991 and was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000. Letinsky’s work is held in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, The Amon Carter Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others. Her
publications include Hardly More than Ever (Renaissance Society) and Venus.

Lucas Samaras & The Article

Lucas Samaras was born in the small town of Kastoria in Macedonia, Greece, 1936. He moved to New York in 1948, and graduated from Rutgers University College of Arts and Sciences, New Jersey in 1959. His first solo exhibition in New York was held at the Reuben Gallery in 1959.

He was already a recognized sculptor, painter, and performance artist when he began experimenting with photography in the early seventies, the work for which he has become best known. His work is in the collections of many museums world wide, including: The Museum of Modern Art (New York), Tate Gallery (London) and Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, (Japan). His first retrospective was in 1972 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Other major solo exhibitions include: The Pace Gallery, New York (1974) Denver Art Museum, Denver (1981-83), Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama (1991), Galerie Xippas Paris, France (1997) and Waddington Galleries, London (2004). A major exhibition of his self-portraits opened at the Whitney Museum in 2003. He was the 2002 winner of the American Academy Award in Art.

September 3, 2006

iHappenings: Slicing Art Out of Life

Article

Senior Portfolio Individual Meetings and etc.

Here is the schedule for the next few weeks. Be prepared for a formal critique with at least 3-5
finished prints or 1-3 minutes of edited video prepared for the class on Correction 10/11 and 10/16. I will be giving out September grades in a week or so -- grades will be based on research (blog entries (should have minimum of 8 substantial entries as of now) and individual meetings, production (new work every week), class participation/assignments (attending oncampus events and blogging substantial review, substantial review of fellow student's work) and critique.

I would suggest that all of you begin focusing the blogs on research of influences rather than personal stories or diatribes on artistic doubt. Please read the syllabus in reference to the presentation you will give in November -- your blog should be building this material.

Just so you know, I keep a log of every individual meeting we have. The log is a record of commitment by you towards the next week's work in reference to research and production. This log will come into play with your grade.

Tuesday 9/25

9 Rachel Albright
9:35 Amanda Meyer

10- 11:30 Open Office Hours



Lunch

12 Amalia Berner
12:25 Jessica Cambell
12:50 Shawn Chamberlin
1:15 Jessica Coleman
1:40 Rachel Craddock
2:05 Karl Elchinger



Thursday 9/27

9 Jessica Oriole
9:25 Kathryn Parker
9:50 Adrianna Pellegrini
10:15 Meaghan Pugh
10:40 Oscar Contreras

Lunch

12 Erin Ramon
12:25 Kristen Jensen
12:50 Candice Christiansen
1:15 Maha Patel
1:40 Reid Fallow
2:05 Laura Saunders


Tuesday 10/2

9 Jacquelyne Pierson
9:25 Rachel Albright
9:50 Matt Harvey
10:15 Shanna Jackson
10:40 Shanna Merola
11:05 Amanda Meyer

Lunch

12 Amalia Berner
12:25 Jessica Cambell
12:50 Shawn Chamberlin
1:15 Jessica Coleman
1:40 Rachel Craddock
2:05 Karl Elchinger



Thursday 10/4

9 Jessica Oriole
9:25 Kathryn Parker
9:50 Adrianna Pellegrini
10:15 Oscar Contreras
10:40 Meaghan Pugh

Lunch

12 Reid Fallow
12:25 Kristen Jensen
12:50 Candice Christiansen
1:15 Maha Patel
1:40 Erin Ramon
2:05 Laura Saunders

Colin Pantall and Wolfram Hahn

Colin Pantall






"Sofa Portraits is a series of images showing my daughter, Isabel, as she watches television. portraits portray the flawed physicality of childhood and its mental and physical freedoms - but also the constraints that are applied by the adult world - the furnishings Isabel is so often pushing against, the dress determined by the educational system she is now part of, or even the attitudes to her physical self-expression as she watches television."

Artist Site


____________________________________________________________________________________

Wolfram Hahn





A Disenchanted Playroom
(2006)

The children depicted in this series are between three and twelve. The children depicted in this series are between three and twelve. Their regards are sad? Their regards are sad? With facial expressions rather to be associated with adults, unusual for children this age. With facial expressions rather to be associated with adults, unusual for children this age. They regard a spot below the camera; focusing on something in that space not revealed to the viewer. They regard a spot below the camera; Focusing on something in that space not revealed to the viewer. As such they seem lifeless like dolls, or bodies bereft of their spirits. As such they seem lifeless like dolls, or bodies bereft of their spirits.

“… for the mass media it is unpossible to keep any secrets, but childhood cannot exist without secrets.” (Neil Postman, “The Disspearance of Childhood”, 1980) "... for the mass media it is unpossible to keep any secrets, but childhood cannot exist without secrets." (Neil Postman, "The Disspearance of Childhood, 1980)

These kids were photographed watching TV. These kids were photographed watching TV. To show how sensitive children react to this mass medium and on what level their emothoins are exposed to the surface of broadcast transmissions: the subtle charm of real life is lost when under the influence. To show how sensitive children react to this mass medium and on what level their emothoins are exposed to the surface of broadcast transmissions: the subtle charm of real life is lost when under the influence.

Artist Site

Artist Site

disCONEXXION Interview

Born in Xi'an, China. As a teenager, Xing Danwen took a professional study in painting at the primary art school affiliated to the Xi'an Academy of Fine Art from 1982-1986. She continued painting and did her BFA at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing from 1989-1992.

In the late 80s, she discovered photography and was immediately drawn into this medium. As a self-taught photographer she was the one of a few artists in late 80s and 90s in China that was exploring the bounderies of photography and using photography as an art form. Through the camera, she observed and challenged the questions on the chinese society, humanity, female identity and the generation that was born 60s.



With an ACC grant and fellowship, she enriched her artistic experience and improvement her knowledge of photography and new media during her MFA study at the School of Visual Arts in New York from 1998-2001. In her current art-practice she works, beside photography, also in the field of video and multi-media installations.

Xing Danwen exhibits domestically and internationally and her works are collected widely by museums and private collectors. Her artistic practice is both rich and varied and her subjects include: Dislocation between cultural status, conflicts between globalization and traditions, problematic environmental issues created by the developemnt, the urban drama between the desire and reality. Fiction, truth and illusion often play an important role in her works.

She currently lives and works in Beijing.

Bettina von Zwehl

By replacing the intimacy and insight which one conventionally expects from portraiture with something far more objective and rational, von Zwehl's project recalls the 19th century's faith in the potential of both science and photography to unravel the mysteries of life. Her sitters appear anonymous, stripped of all personal details but united by identical posing and subject to the same controlled experiment. The nature of these experiments be they the effects of gravity on the body whilst holding one's breath, being awoken in the middle of deep sleep, or subject to rigorous exercise, is largely inconsequential, being merely a means to von Zwehl's real interest, an exploration of the relationship and expectations inherent in the act of portraiture. Equally important as an influence on von Zwehl's work has been Western European painting. The impassivity of all her sitters as well as the use of various pictorial conventions suggests the importance of Renaissance painting. In her new series Profiles 2001, the reference to a specific Renaissance source (Piera della Francesca's 1470 diptych of the Duke and Duchess of Montefeltro) is clearly acknowledged. Here however the couples don't really know each other and are linked only by their stare, which is fixed and reciprocated but from which the viewer is totally excluded.


Born Munich, 1971. Studied photography at London College of Printing and Royal College of Art in London.
Lives and works in London.

Jan Dibbets

The Dutch artist Jan Dibbets, born in Weert in 1941, numbers among the main representatives of European Conceptual art. His artistic strategies center around the problem of perception, of delusion, and illusion, and he relies on photography as his investigative means. Dibbets is especially interested in issues of perspective and its correction. In the late 1960s, the artist realized several temporary interventions in the form of land art projects outlining the problem of perception in a very poetic manner. Skillfully outwitting the camera eye, he turned the trapezoid form he had left on a stretch of sandy North Sea beach into a square in the photograph documenting it.




In recent years, Dibbets has focused on painted and built architectures famous for their perspectival effects. Photographed in perspective, both rose windows of old cathedrals and light openings of secular buildings constitute the elliptical or rhomboidal elements in the center of his pictures. The windows turn into frames through which the camera eye looks out from within, discovering the infinity of the sky and, increasingly, nature and the landscape.
Internationally acclaimed for more than three decades, Jan Dibbets has presented his work in solo exhibitions in numerous major museums, such as the Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (1971), the Oxford Museum of Modern Art (1977), the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1980), the Guggenheim Museum New York (1987), and the Witte de With, Rotterdam (1996). Dibbets participated in the "documenta V” (1972), the "documenta VI” (1977), and the "documenta VII” (1982), as well as in the Biennials of Tokyo (1970), Sydney (1979), Venice (1972, 1988), and São Paolo (1983).
Jan Dibbets, who has held a professorship at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts, lives in Amsterdam and San Casciano Bagni.

Reminder: 2 Mandatory Campus Events Per Month

Please plan to attend two campus lectures/events/exhibits per month for September, October, and November. You must review these lectures on your blog with a clear Subject Heading e.g. "September Lecture 1 : Person's Name". Attendance and review of these events are part of your class grade outside of the blog. Do not put this off --plan now.

I have posted the Visiting Artist Lecture Series for our Department. All Senior Portfolio students are required to attend these lectures. These events will count towards your 2 lectures for a particular month.

Check out this calendar to find some interesting things on campus:

http://events.vcu.edu/

Also:

PAINTING AND PRIINTMAKING/ Fall 2007 LECTURE SERIES AND EVENTS

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS, VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY



James Hyde – Artist lecture – Thursday, September 27, 11am “Fishbowl” rm 301 School of the Arts Bldg. James Hyde’s exhibition record includes solo exhibitions at Brent Sikkema Gallery, NYC, Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris France, Elizabeth Kaufmann Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland and Solvent Space. Group exhibitions include “Working in Brooklyn,” Brooklyn Museum of Art and “Material Pleasures,” Green on Red Gallery, Dublin Ireland. James Hyde is the visiting artist for the Painting and Printmaking Dept. Fall 2007. For more information please visit: http://www.brentsikkema.com/exhibition_jameshyde.htm



Marthe Keller – Artist lecture – Tuesday, October 23, 11am, “Fishbowl” rm 301 School of the Arts Bldg. Marthe Keller’s exhibition record includes solo exhibits at Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art New York, NY and Atrium Gallery Storrs, CT. Group shows include Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY and Centre Pour L’arte e la Culture, Aix-en-Provance, France. Fore more information please visit:

http://www.keller.com/marthe/



Katherine Bowling – Artist lecture – Thursday, November 1, 3pm “Fishbowl” rm 301 School of the Arts Bldg. Katherine’s exhibition record includes solo shows at Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, NYC and St. Louis, MO, and Winston Wachter Fine Art Seattle WA. Group exhibits include New Jersey Center for Visual Arts, Summit NJ and Galleria Seno, Milano, Italy. She also received a National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1991. For more information please visit: http://www.artnet.com/artist/2900/katherine-bowling.html



Douglas Melini – Artist lecture – Wednesday, November 7, 11 am “Fishbowl” rm 301 School of the Arts Bldg. Douglas’s exhibition record includes solo shows at Rocket Gallery, London, and White Columns, New York, NY. Group shows include Southfirst Gallery, Brooklyn, NY and DaimlerChrysler Contemporary, Berlin, Germany. For more information please visit: http://registry.whitecolumns.org/view_artist.php?artist=312



Naomi Chung – Artist lecture – Tuesday, November 20, 12:15-1:50. Naomi’s show record includes solo exhibitions Gross Mcleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA and Thos. Moser, Washington, DC. Group exhibitions include Andrews Gallery, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA and Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ. For More information please visit: www.naomichung.net



Fabian Marcaccio – Artist lecture – TBA. Fabian’s extensive show record includes solo exhibits at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, NY and The Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH. Group shows include Miami Museum of Art, Miami, FL, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia and Marella Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy. For more information please visit: http://www.paintants.com/



Joan Snyder – Artist lecture – TBA



Stephen Westfall – Grad Critiques – In conjunction with Solvent Space exhibition. Exhibition Opening Reception Friday October 12. Exhibition runs October 12 – December 1. Stephen Westfall is an artist, writer, and curator. He is a regular contributor to Art in America. Exhibitions include Lennon Weinberg Inc, NYC, Galerie Zurcher, Paris and Aurobora Press, San Francisco. This lecture is co-sponsored by VCUArts Anderson Gallery. For more information please visit: http://www.artnet.com/artist/562156/stephen-westfall.html


___________________________________________________________________

Sculpture/ Fall 2007 LECTURE SERIES AND EVENTS

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS, VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY

Rosamond Purcell

lecture: "THINGS is where it’s at"
September 13 at 4:00 pm
Oliver Hall, 1001 W. Main, Room 1031

“By the time she became intrigued (even obsessed) with the etching of Olaus Worm's 17th-century natural-history cabinet in the mid-1980s, Rosamond Purcell was already a photographer of note. She had created a fascinating body of large-format photographs with the Polaroid Corporation's experimental 20-by-24-inch camera, and she had embarked on several collaborative projects with the renowned paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The etching of Worm's room turned her already intense passion for collecting (she grew up with collector parents) in a new direction: She wanted to recreate it in three dimensions. Purcell contemplated every aspect of the engraving, imagining herself in it, studying the strange and rare objects, and, over the last two years in particular, systematically planning what would have to be found, created, and concocted to replicate both the letter and spirit of that room. …The exhibition "Two Rooms" is the apotheosis of Purcell's 20-year preoccupation. It recreates on site and in exact scale Olaus Worm's naturalist cabinet, adjacent to the reconstructed deconstruction of her own studio. The intersection of these two rooms, separated by time but joined by sensibility, determination, and vision, provides a magical and scintillating journey into the mind of a singular and gifted artist. Life and art are one for Purcell. She is an original and poignant thinker. She makes us marvel, contemplate, and see anew.”
(from http://chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i26/26b01901.htm)


Via Lewandowsky
day, time, location TBD

This Berlin artist was born and educated in Dresden East Germany where he studied Scenography. Lewandowsky was a member of the artists’ group “Auto-Perforation Artists.” He works in sculpture, installation, film, painting, and graphic art. He is a self-described conceptualist, and as such, none of his works hang together stylistically, rather they all ask difficult questions in an ongoing conversation - each in non-matching garb – often about the nature of a divided consciousness or country. His work was highlighted this summer in Gregory Volk and Sabine Russ’ heralded exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in NYC.

http://www.vialewandowsky.de/
http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/exhibit.php
http://www.juedisches-museum-berlin.de/site/EN/03-Collections/05-Contemporary-Art/02-Via-Lewandowsky/lewandowsky.php


Connie Butler
day, time, location TBD

Connie Butler is the Robert Lehman Foundation Chief Curator of Drawings at The Museum of Modern Art, a position she has held since February of 2006. From 1996-2006, she was Curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Butler is the curator of WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, an international survey of feminist art which opened at MOCA in Los Angeles on March 4, 2007, and which will travel to The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC, PS 1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, NY and The Vancouver Art Gallery.
A selection of Connie Butler’s previous exhibitions at MOCA include Robert Smithson, September 2004, Willem deKooning: Tracing the Figure, 2002, Flight Patterns, 2000, and Afterimage: Drawing through Process, 1999. She is currently working on a monographic exhibition of the South African artist Marlene Dumas, which will be co-organized by MOCA Los Angeles and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Connie Butler completed graduate work in art history at Berkeley in 1987 and, in 1996, did further graduate studies in the PhD program at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Butler has taught and lectured extensively and contributed to publications including Art + Text, Parkett and Art Journal.
(from http://www.moca.org/wack/?p=273)

http://www.frieze.com/feature_single.asp?f=1235
http://www.laweekly.com/general/features/connie-butler/174/


Mary LeClère
November 7
lecture location TBD

LeClère is the Associate Director of the Glassel School of Art Core Program, at the Fine Arts Museum of Houston, a residency program for artists and writers. Their website describes the program as one and two year residencies to exceptional visual artists and art scholars recently out of school who have not yet fully developed professional careers. The Core Program encourages intensive and innovative studio practice as well as the elaboration of an intellectual framework through which to understand that practice. LeClère is currently a PhD. candidate in art history at the University of Virginia. She has written extensively about artists for multiple settings and venues.

http://www.core.mfah.org/perimeter.asp


Ivan Day

November 12 at 12:00 pm
lecture location TBD

The Edible Edifice - from the medieval period to the early twentieth century, food was frequently used as an artistic medium to create edible sculpture for the tables of the rich and powerful. A papal dinner in seventeenth-century Rome for instance, was not complete without a table centrepiece made of sugar which depicted scenes from Christ's Passion, executed by pupils of Bernini in a lively Baroque style. Full scale architectural structures, such as pavilions and palaces were constructed every year in the Piazza Reale in Naples for the annual coccagna festival. These huge edifices, made of cakes, hams and parmesan cheeses, were used as sets for open air operatic performances before they were ransacked by the poor of the city. In this illustrated lecture, British food historian Ivan Day discusses the history and development of edible art of this kind from the period of the early Florentine Renaissance to the rise of modernity.

http://www.historicfood.com/portal.htm
feed://www.artisan-food.com/DotNetNuke/readin/newsviewsfromthekitchen/tabid/210/rssid/4/Default.aspx

Senior Portfolio Blogs

The blogs of your fellow classmates.

http://williammatthewharvey.blogspot.com/
http://albrightseniorportfolio.blogspot.com/
http://jacksonseniorportfolio.blogspot.com/
http://saundersvcuseniorportfolio.blogspot.com/
http://contrerasseniorportfolio.blogspot.com/
http://reidfallow.blogspot.com/
http://elchinger.blogspot.com/
http://pughseniorportfolio.blogspot.com/
http://pellegriniseniorportfolio.blogspot.com/http://merolaseniorportfolio.blogspot.com/
http://orioleseniorportfolio.blogspot.com/
http://christiansenvcuseniorp.blogspot.com/
http://rcraddock.blogspot.com/
http://schmbrln.blogspot.com/
http://meyerseniorportfolio.blogspot.com/
http://piersonvcuseniorportfolio.blogspot.com/
http://jensenvcuseniorportfolio.blogspot.com/
http://imtpainuknowmeee.blogspot.com/
http://campbelljn.blogspot.com/
http://parkerseniorportfolio.blogspot.com/
http://colemanjm.blogspot.com/

Idris Khan, Meggan Gould, Jason Salavon

Idris Khan

“every…Bernd and Hilla Becher Prison type Gasholders” Idris Khan 2004.

“every…Bernd and Hilla Becher Spherical type Gasholders” Idris Khan 2004.

Working with appropriated imagery, Idris Khan’s photos are all-encompassing composites, consolidating iconic cultural symbols of similar type into single ‘super-images’. In this selection of his every… series, Khan aggregates the work of renowned artists Bernd and Hilla Becher, famous for their vast photographic collections of buildings and industrial sites. Exposed in translucent layers, anchored by the compositions’ continuous shapes, the Becher’s gasholders and gabled houses loose their commanding simplicity and rigid formalism, descending into fractured and gestural blurs merely suggestive of the originals. Through this process of layering, Khan creates a poetic malleability from the fixed codes of history. Compressing the timeline of repetition into indivisible subsuming moments, his photos offer a glimpse into the sublime.

Meggan Gould

Artist Website

The series Go Ogle by photographer Meggan Gould takes the first 100 responses to a Google image search, then overlays those 100 images into a single photographic "average."


[Image: leaning+tower+pisa].

As Gould herself writes:
"The results, a visualization of intersections between Boolean logic and the popular imagination, are more often than not a hopeless jumble of unidentifiable pixels – but occasionally a recognizable form does emerge." See animation.
"Word choice, spelling, and textual hints are all critical to conducting an effective search, and the averages reflect their importance: a search for coke+can reveals a crisp, almost legible average, whereas coca+cola+can is muddy and barely recognizable. Truly iconic imagery is elusive, particularly considering the glut of computer graphics through which internet spiders and archivers crawl daily; only a small fraction of searches retains any degree of legibility through the averaging process."

[Image: tower+babel].


[Image: pyramid+giza].


Jason Salavon
Artist Website

Working around art, information technology, and daily life.

Using software processes of his own design, Jason Salavon generates and reconfigures masses of communal material to present new perspectives on the familiar. Though formally varied, his projects frequently manipulate the roles of individual elements arranged in diverse visual populations. This often unearths unexpected pattern as the relationship between the part and the whole, the individual and the group, is explored. Reflecting a natural attraction to popular culture and the day-to-day, his work regularly incorporates the use of common references and source material. The final compositions are exhibited as art objects, such as photographic prints and video installations, while others exist in a real-time software context.

Born in Indiana, raised in Texas, and based in Chicago, Salavon earned his MFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his BA from The University of Texas at Austin. His work has been shown in museums and galleries around the world. Reviews of his exhibitions have been included in such publications as Artforum, Art in America, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Examples of his artwork are included in a number of prominent public and private collections. He has taught at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was employed for numerous years as an artist and programmer in the video game industry.

The Late Night Triad 2003
Part I: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
Part II: Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Part III: Late Show with David Letterman
3 Synced single-channel DVD projections
Running time: 3 min 35 sec looped. Dimensions variable. Ed. 3 + 1 APs.

In this installation, from a broader series begun in 1997, 64 nights' worth of the major US late night talk shows have been aligned and averaged using basic transformations. The result is a triptych of video projections with soundtrack, presenting an amalgamation of monologues which reveals the ghosts of repetitious structure and nightly activity.


________________________________________________________



The 1960s The 1990s
Every Playboy Centerfold, The Decades (normalized) 2002
Digital C-prints
60" x 29.5" ea. Ed. 5 + 2 APs

From a broader series begun in 1997, the photographs in this suite are the result of mean averaging every Playboy centerfold foldout for the four decades beginning Jan. 1960 through Dec. 1999. This tracks, en masse, the evolution of this form of portraiture.

Photo Contests : Mandatory Submissions

All Senior Portfolio Students are required to submit to the following contests by the end of November 15th 2007. You must provide proof of submission to get credit towards grade.

American Photo on Campus

Submissions: We invite students to submit work for consideration for our Student Portfolios section. Send to Student Portfolios, American Photo On Campus, 1633 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

Digital image files should be accompanied by reference printouts.



Virginia Museum Fine Art Fellowship

Deadline:

Mailed applications must be postmarked by Thursday, November 15, 2007. Hand-delivered applications must be brought to the main entrance of the Pauley Center on the west side of the Museum campus, by 5 pm, Thursday, November 15, 2007. The Museum does not accept application materials via fax or other electronic means. Late applications will not be considered.

Print, fill out, and mail VMFA a 2008-2009 Fellowship Application Form This form is a PDF file requiring Adobe® Acrobat® Reader.

Visiting Artist Schedule

Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Photography and Film

2007-08 Visiting Artists Series
___________________________________________________

Lecture Dates
(AFO Bld Rm. 535)

Kate Gilmore
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
2 pm


Su Friedrich
Thursday, November 1, 2007
2 pm


Justine Kurland
Tuesday, November 13
2 pm

Anthony Goicolea
Wednesday, February 6
2 pm

Todd Hido
Monday, March 3
2 pm

TJ Demos
Tuesday, March 18
2 pm

Alan Berliner
TBA Spring 2008


Calendar and Info

Visiting Artist: Kate Gilmore
Tuesday, Oct 16 -Wednesday Oct 17, 2007



Bio:
In her video performances, Kate Gilmorecreates uncomfortable situations for herself and the viewer. These are real predicaments—sometimes painful and even potentia y dangerous—bu ones that she has created for herself. Gilmore’s video works force you to squirm in a strange empathetic reactionto her predicaments
Kate Gilmore’s work has been exhibited at PS1 “Greater New York 2005,” The J. Paul Ge yMuseum, and the Haifa Museum of Art, and a two-person exhibition at the CAC, Cincinnati an in a group show at Mary Boone Ga ery, curated by AmySmith-Stewart.
Awards: Rome Prize, American Academy in Rome, Rome, Italy (2007-2008), Franklin Furna ce Fund for Performance, New York, New York, 2006/2007, Art Omi Residency Award, Ghent,New York (2007), Visiting Scholar Award, New York University, NewYork, New York, 2006,New York Foundation of the Arts Fe owship, New York, New York 2005-2006

Visiting Artist: Su Friedrich
Wednesday, Oct 31 -Thursday Nov 1, 2007

Bio:
Friedrich began filmmaking in 1978 and has produced and directed eighteen 16mm films and videos, including From the Ground Up (2007), Seeing Red (2005),The Head of a Pin (2004), The Odds of Recovery (2002), Hide and Seek (1996), Rules of the Road (1993), First Comes Love (1991), Sink or Swim (1990), Damned If You Don't (1987), The Ties That Bind (1984), and Gently Down the Stream (1981). Her films have won many awards, including the Grand Prix at the Melbourne Film Festival and Outstanding Documentary at Outfest. Friedrich has received fe owships from the Rockefe er and Guggenheim Foundations as we as numerous grants from the Jerome Foundation, NYFA, NYSCA and ITVS, and in 1995 she received the Cal Arts/Alpert Award. Retrospectives of her work have been held at theMuseum of Modern Art in NY, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Ro erdam International Film Festival, The Stadtkino in Vienna, the Pacific Cinematheque in Vancouver and the National Film Theater in London, among others. Friedrich is the writer, cinematographer, director and editor of a her films, with the exception of Hide and Seek, which was co-wri en by CathyQuinlan and shot by Jim Denault. Her work is screened and distributed widely throughout the US, Canada and Europe. She teaches film & videoproduction at Princeton University. Her DVD co ection is distributed by Outcast Films.

Visiting Artist: Justine Kurland
Monday, Nov 12 -Wednesday, Nov 14, 2007

Bio:
Justine Kurland (b. 1969 in New York City) is a fine art photographer, based in New York.

Kurland graduated from Yale University in 1998 with a Master of Fine Arts degree, after studying with Gregory Crewdson and Philip Lorca di Corcia. Kurland first gained public notice withher work in the group show Another Girl, Another Planet (1999), which displayed her larg c-print staged tableau pictures of neo-romantic landscapes inhabited by young adolescent girls, half-sprites, half juvenile delinquents.
As landscapes she chose the'secret places' of late childhood; wasteland on the edges of suburbia, 'owned' only by a feral nature and unsupervised children. Her limited-edition book Spirit West (2000) featured similar work on a more ambitious scale.

In her show Community, Skyblue(2002), Kurland turned to documenting the utopian communes of Virginia and California, highlighting the unworldly aspirations of the communard by having them appear naked in her pictures and showing them as only distant figures in their landscape. In 2003she had European solo shows Golden Dawn (London) and Welcome Home (Vienna), based around these series of commune images.
Her latest book, Old Joy (2004) turns to men. She shows visionaries trekking naked into the wilderness, where they undergo spiritualexperiences. In her 2004 show Songs of Experience she explored medieval and Biblical imagery. In 2005 she had a solo show in Japan.

Visiting Curator: Charlie Stainback
Thursday,Dec 6 -Sunday,Dec 9, 2007 4 days Miami Art Basel -PHTO Research Trip


Bio:
Mr. Stainback received a MMI in Museum Management from the University of California,Berkeley, an MFA in Photographic Studies from the State University of New York at Bu alo, and a BFA fromthe Kansas City Art Institute. He has served a Director of SITE Santa Fe, Ta n Museum at Skidmore Co ege, International Center of Photography, the Burden Ga ery at the Aperture Foundation, and the Visual Studies Workshop. Stainback has curated many major exhibitions, is the author of several essays, book introductions and forwards, and was Professor of Liberal Studies at Skidmore Co ege.




Visiting Artist: Anthony Goicolea
Wednesday, Feb 6 -Thursday, Feb 7, 2008

Bio:
Born in 1971 in Atlanta, GA/ Based in Brooklyn, NY
Anthony Goicolea obtained a BA in Art History and a BFA in Painting from the Universi of Georgia and received his MFA from Pratt. He was accepted into the “AIM” program at the Bronx Museum of Art and has been awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship, the 2005 BMW Photo Paris Award and the 2006 CINTAS Fellowship.
Goicolea lives and works in New York and exhibits in the US and overseas. Goicolea’s work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum, MOMA, The Guggenheim, The Chicago Museum of Contemporary Photography, The ASU Museum of Art The Helmond and the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands, The Herbert Johnson Museum Art at Cornell University, El Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Castilla in Leon, Spain, The Yale University Collection and 21C Museum in Kentucky.
Twin Palms press has published two books of Goicolea’s work & a collection of videos.

Visiting Artist: Todd Hido
Monday, Mar 3 -Tuesday, Mar 4, 2008

Bio:
Todd Hido is a San Francisco-based artist whose work has been featured in ArtForum, The New York Times and Vanity Fair. His photographs are in the permanent co ections of the Guggenheim, NYC, the San Francisco Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum and others. The editions of his books of photographs, Househunting and Outskirts, published 2001 and 2002 respectively, have both sold out.
Hido makes color photographs using available light and long exposures. His subjects are contemporary quotidian suburbia, empty of people and otherworldly, suggestive of abandonment and isolation.

Visiting Critic: TJ Demos
Monday Mar 17 -Saturday, Mar 22, 2008
2 days Grad Studio/Lecture in Richmond, VA 1 day PHTO Research topic course in Richmond, VA 3 days NYC PHTO Research Trip

Bio:
T.J. Demos is a critic and a lecturer in the Department of Art History, University College London. A member of Art Journal’s editorial board, he writes widely on modern and contemporary art. The author of The Exiles of Marcel Duchamp (MIT Press, 2007), his essays have appeared in international journals such as Artforum, Grey Room, October, and Texte zur Kunst. He is currently at work on a new book, provisionally titled Migrations: Contemporary Art and Globalization.

Visiting Artist: Alan Berliner
TBA Bio:

Alan Berliner has completed over 14 films in the last 25 years and has also worked extensively on insta ations using video imagery. His recent film work addresses issues of family and history, using unexpected sound/image juxtapositions toreveal searingly powerful insights on how identities are tempered and shaped by our sense of the past. His films have been shown at the New York Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art and the Jerusalem Fil m Festival. He received a Guggenheim Fe owship (1993), a Rockefe er Foundation Fe owship(1993) and has received a New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artists Grant seven times. His insta ation work has been shown at the Tribeca 148 Ga ery (NYC), the Miami Art Museum and the International Center for Photography in NYC.

Sarah Hobbs

Before Sarah Hobbs begins staging scenes in her Atlanta home (which doubles as her studio), she first researches such human behavior as phobias and obsessive compulsive activity. Small Problems in Living, her sixth series to explore the psyche, is also her first solo exhibition. It ranges in subject from clautrophobia to vanity but consistently constructs acute tableaux within domestic settings. Obsessiveness is seen as a room painted in chocolate, the empty candy wrappers clustered in a mound on the dropcloth. Insomnia is a bevy of yellow notes suspended just above an empty bed. These neuroses and mental disturbances manifest themselves in objects cluttering otherwise sparsely furnished rooms, multiplied to overtake if not quite overwhelm the space. There is just enough space left to allow the room an occupant (though one is never pictured), one who could hardly help but notice the unique elements featured there but would not yet be immobilized by them.

Sarah Hobbs was born in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1970, and began to photograph when she was seven years old. She earned both her BFA in Art History (1992) and her MFA in Photography (2000) from the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. Her solo exhibitions include SubUrban: Sarah Hobbs at Knoxville Museum of Art in Tennessee, Small Problems in Living at Yossi Milo Gallery in New York, and Small Problems in Living at Solomon Projects in Atlanta, Georgia. She has also exhibited in Chicago at Woman Made Gallery; in Poughkeepsie, New York at Barrett House Gallery; in Athens, Georgia at Athens Academy and Georgia Museum of Art; and in Atlanta at Georgia Stage University Gallery, Artwalk, The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Upstairs Gallery, and Trinity School Art Auction. Her work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey. Hobbs lives and works in Atlanta.

Working Crits

Sarah Pickering

Sarah Pickering explores the role of fantasy in the real-life preparation for war by allowing us a glimpse of rarely seen commodities – the scaled-down, mock explosives produced for use in military training exercises and action movie battle scenes. Pickering brings her camera to the sales demonstrations of these simulated pyrotechnics, detonated for executives from the military and movie industries. Pickering’s work exposes the theater involved in the preparation for war, and offers refreshing insight to the unlikely marriage of military culture and the entertainment industry.

Sarah Pickering received her MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art in London (2005). In the same year she was awarded the Photographers Gallery Graduate Award and the Jerwood Photography Award, established in 2003 to support promising young or emerging photographers. In 2005, Daniel Cooney Fine Art in New York hosted Pickering’s first solo show and her work is included in the recent Phaidon anthology on contemporary photography, Vitamin Ph. Pickering lives and works in London.

Andy Freeber

Sentry -Gallery Desks in Chelsea
It was an odd moment when I walked into that first gallery in Chelsea and saw a large white desk with a head poking up from the top edge of the computer screen. I took out my camera, carefully framing and exposing the scene, and the head never moved or took notice of my gaze. As I walked around that booming Chelsea neighborhood of art galleries, I began to notice a trend: at some of the biggest galleries there are giant entry desks, where the top of the head of the desk sitter is often the only other human presence. This leads me to wonder, in this digital world of email and instant messaging that supposedly makes us more connected, are we also setting up barriers to the simple eye to eye contact that affirms our humanity?

Gallery