Yesterday GlobalPost, a digital news website, published an interview with Jen Bekman Gallery artist Beth Dow. In addition to seeing a slide show of Beth’s series “In the Garden” you can hear her explain her love of British smog and how that has influenced her choice of lighting in her work. I could not agree with her more on the British smog comment, nothing says happiness to me like a lovely overcast day at home in London town. Watch the video below or on GlobalPost’s website.

No. 6. 8/6/2005 (plane) by William Lamson

I have been in love with William Lamson for a while.

I love his 20×200s.

I was thrilled to have No. 13. 3/11/2006 (plane lifted by men) in the X Marks the Art Exhibition.

And I am psyched to go see his show Work and Trade opening Friday, May 29, 2009 @ Pierogi 2000.

William is even blogging about the exhibition, here.

You must watch his videos.

Jen Bekman will be a part of the Collecting in Brooklyn panel TOMORROW Wednesday, May 27, from 7 – 8:30 p.m. at the Brooklyn Museum. The panel is part of the museum’s Collecting Currently program, a conversational evening series on art collecting in the fluctuating market for both the savvy and the curious.

Collecting in Brooklyn
Wednesday, May 27, 7 – 8:30 p.m.
Familiarize yourself with the work of emerging Brooklyn artists and develop insider strategies for collecting. Moderated by Andras Szanto, senior lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art and co-founder of artworldsalon.com, the panel includes noted artist and collector Danny Simmons, Joe Amrhein, from Williamsburg’s Pierogi gallery, Steve Weintraub of Arts in Bushwick, and Jen Bekman of the here fine Jen Bekman Projects, Inc.

Registration
$20 per session ($15 for members)
To Register go to www.museumtix.com

Brooklyn Museum
Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery, 5th Floor
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11238
MAP

At the Sea-Side

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
    To dig the sandy shore.
My holes were empty like a cup.
In every hole the sea came up
    Till it could come no more.

—

It’s amazing how one show comes down and another one goes up, and how, in that brief moment where the gallery sits in an empty stillness, the walls seem to yearn to have something on them again. The newest exhibition satisfies that void, featuring nine images from photographer Christian Chaize’s Praia Piquinia series, a body of work spanning five years and a total of twenty-seven images where the artist “faithfully returned to the same beach in Portugal, taking photographs from approximately the same elevated angle to create the images.”

I’ve been in the gallery all day and I find myself drifting in and out of the pictures searching for the place I’d like to be most: on the beach alone? or maybe just on a less crowded day—there, underneath one of those umbrellas.

As the sky is now overcast, I’ll close up tonight with my fingers crossed with the hope that the rest of the weekend can be like what’s seen in these images of Praia Piquinia.

JBG artist Christine Callahan is part of a group exhibition at ICP on view until June 7th, 2009.  The exhibition features the work of eight students in the 2009 ICP-Bard MFA program, a rigorous exploration of all aspects of photography through an integrated curriculum of studio and professional practice, critical study, and master classes.  Nayland Blake, chair of  the MFA program writes:

For these eight students, the photograph is hammer, scalpel, confessional, playground. Their varied approaches to such time-honored subjects as childhood, social space, personal identity, and cultural history yield startling insights into the way we live today. They blend their images with video and installation, producing works both quietly intimate and deceptively offhand. It is not until well after our encounter with them that we realize the true depth of their concerns, and the seriousness with which they pursue them.

Education Gallery: 1114 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street
Hours: Monday–Sunday, 10:00 am–6:00 pm

Install shot of Praia Piquinia 06/08/07 09h52 and 06/08/04 15h40

First of all please pardon my mediocre install shot. I hope that my poor photography skills do not diminish the integrity of this fine pair or images from Christian Chaize’s Praia Piquinia.

Out of a series of twenty seven images, Praia Piquinia 06/08/07 09h52 is the only image that lacks human action on the beach. I had included the image in my original selection and had to push to include the image during work selection conversations with both Jen and Christian.
I find that the empty beach brings out the life of the other images. It is easy to start and accept the subtle variation in shape and color, until you are reminded that more than just sea and rock define the image. It is these subtle human changes and actions that make the images, as Ms. Jen Bekman noted in Christian’s 20×200 announcement, “less about humanity and more about being human.”

Paired with the first image taken in the series, Praia Piquinia 06/08/04 15h40, the photographs work together in a way none of us would have thought. The pairing acts as a reminder of the dialog had between all of the pieces in the show, spoken of in the press release as playfully rendering the passage of time through otherwise un-photographed (and therefore unobserved) changes in light, tides, the weather and the beachgoers’ configurations.

That is the case for the empty beach.

Praia Piquinia | 06/08/04 15h40 | 44” x 37” Lambda print | Edition of 9

Opening Reception | Wednesday, May 20, 2009 | 6pm-8pm
images | artist statement | press release

Please join us at the gallery this Wednesday, May 20th, from 6-8 p.m. We’ll be celebrating French photographer Christian Chaize’s debut US exhibition, Praia Piquinia. Comprised of nine large-scale color photographs, the exhibition will remain on view through Saturday, July 11th.*

Jen Bekman Gallery
e: info@jenbekman.com | w: www.jenbekman.com | p: +1.212.219.0166

6 Spring Street
(between Elizabeth + Bowery)
New York City 10012

The gallery is open Wednesday — Saturday from noon-6 p.m., or by private appointment.

* Please note that our regular gallery hours will be in effect for the duration of this exhibition and throughout our upcoming group show, Summer Reading.

A nod to the pairings of Ms. Jen Bekman

Stealth Bomber, Atlantic City, New Jersey by Nina Berman

The near presence of F-14s overhead,
not so near that the people can reach out
and touch them any more than the planes
can convey their double negative unaltered

to the mechanic and to the scientist.
Not one person can see the beautiful woman
painted on the noses of columbine bombers That distance is too great.

Even the distance of transcendence is transcended
by the variety of revelation equipment, never to return,

and it pastes across its limit the image of loved-ones,
beyond which extends an impossible fiend of absolute corpses.
it is feasible for the user to carry the distance
within herself, but she is instead carried
out of her senses in the belly of the aircraft
never to return.

*

When I am feeling not at all myself
I go into my house
where all my cool stuff is.

When I feel alive,
I am feeling you feeling me feeling
this rhythm. This canister of sulphur dioxide
reminds me of Haitian Vacation,
Guadeloupean Vacation. This Hum-
vee pattern clicks upside the embassy’s landscape lighting, rinsed by automatic masochism of
Livyatan or Levittown.com.pr
Forward slash: Sign my guestbook. Contact Terrorizor.
Put the Internet into the hands
of a bunch of fucking no-names
Slang for “Urban dictionary.”
Put’er there, in that cybercrawlspace.

As for the supposed incumbent hoards awash
in verification,

an exit woulnd uniting
Kitty Harris with the liveliness
of pre-venison. For clarification,
Super Contra, and not his
expressionist day-gown.

For Putamayo, the human-rights
group groped uniques styles
in a timeless pit. Handbook for
negotiating privacy. Burberry
to enter or inter

the body of Christians,
Rogaine of Minoxidil, dildo of False Member.
I put the Prada in the Gucci,
the dada in Susan Lucci,
the few, the proud in Fallujah.

From Lawrence Giffin’s Get the Fuck Back Into That Burning Plane. Available from An Ugly Duckling Presse.

The work of JBG artist Carrie Marill has been featured on the website BOOOOOOOM!. BOOOOOOOM! is a multimedia blog dedicated to “fostering a community of people excited to go out and be creative!” Other JBG artists have been featured on this site as well such as Amy Ross & William Crump.  

BOOOOOOOM! also listed 20×200’s blog as one of the ‘17 creative websites to bookmark (unless you are dumb)’ saying, “It’s a great cross-section of artists and all the work you see is available for purchase.” Ain’t that the truth? I should probably mention here that I just bought my first piece of art off 20×200 a couple of weeks ago and now that I’m looking again, I kind of want this one to be my second. I just can’t get enough!

Now, I think I’ll spend the rest of the day surfing BOOOOOOOM!. Happy Friday, everyone…

I’ve been living with Beth Dow’s series Ruins for the past six weeks and the time has come for us to move onto the next show. When I first encountered the work I soaked it up, let the quiet sunlight sneaking through the clouds in, gazed at the absurdity and chance of the images and decided that I liked it. I decided that I would be more than content to be accompanied in the Gallery for a month and a half by these photographs because of the tactile quality and weight that they held, how the grey-sepia made me feel nostalgic for old photographs, the social commentary it was making but most importantly the second look nature of the images that made me notice something new every time I walked into the Gallery. I took the opportunity to take a critical eye to the series and made and aesthetic decision about the images. A decision that not only related to myself but also what these images meant in the greater discourse of society. How often are people doing this in today’s culture?

Recently, on several occasions, I’ve been confronted with the idea that art criticism doesn’t exist anymore—at least in the effective medium it used to be. At the Affordable Art Fair I attended Artlog’s Panel discussion (featuring Ms. Jen Bekman) I heard that art criticism has been replaced with the instant gratification of having your name mentioned or not; In a recent interview, Boris Groys, Professor of Aesthetics, Art History, and Media Theory at the Centre for Art and Media, said “People are not so interested in why they should look at it; they’re interested in the question of whether they should look at it at all…the classical critic believed that his failure would be a failure of mankind. And he had a responsibility for something bigger than himself. I don’t think the contemporary critic believes in that”; but most significantly Art Fag City presented us yesterday with Eight Fallacies About Contemporary Art which included “I don’t know enough about art to talk about it.”

These three instances have brought to the forefront of my mind the idea that either art is no longer accessible to the audience it is intended for but more likely is the thought that we just aren’t looking in the right way. How are we going to get it back?

Nick wrote a blog post the other day posing the question “What is American art?” I’m going to give his question one possible answer, in the words of Nicholas Bourriaud “Art is a state of encounter”. In the words of that ridiculous GM commercial, ‘come on America, lets put on our rally caps’, We need to revitalize this state of encounter, but not just so that the viewer is receiving what he or she wants from a piece of art work (another problem we are faced with) but rather in a sense-of-self altering way, a thought changing way. So that in turn we can learn how to look at art work and form our own opinions on how it relates to the larger cultural dialogue what it means for the future of humanity.

Lawn, Agua Dulce, California, 2007 30×38” C-print by Ian Baguskas

As almost every intern here can tell you I can be predictable in my tastes. I am very much a New American Landscape man. I love the stillness and quiet beauty of subtle transformations in the land by man (and then on the other hand harsh architectural juxstaposition is nice too). The collision of the created with the natural as the wild is attempted to be tamed by man. What can I say it is my soft spot. JBG artists Ian Baguskas’ Sweet Water series is a fine example of mans attempt (both achieved and failed) to change the desert into a lush oasis, while Brad Moore’s work often depicts the subtle way that we “control” our landscape through the taming of shrubbery in southern California.

At the Hey, Hot Shot! review I got to see contender Bryan Schutmaat’s body of work, Western Frieze that looks at the western landscape not just a landscape invaded by man and roadside culture, but looks to put back the mystique and allure that, “loneliest of landscapes” and “sleepy towns” of the American West once held. The images on his website remind me a little of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. The images are both modern but tinged with nostalgia to for the stories and dreams of past travelers. My favorite quote from his statement is his reference to the west as, ” that vast bulge of land whose allure never seems to fade.”

Y Motel at Sunrise by Bryan Schutmaat

Jeffrey Teuton and Sara Distin will be representing Jen Bekman Projects as reviewers @ the New York Photo Festival. Jeffrey, the gallery’s Associate Director, will be looking for new talent to include in upcoming group shows or help with any questions you might have about the gallery process, and Sara Distin is always on the lookout for new talent to do editions @ 20×200. Grab your portfolio and SIGN UP!

NYPH09 Powerhouse Portfolio Review
Thursday, May 14 through Sunday, May 17, 2009.
PowerHouse Arena
For more information or to schedule a review, click here.

Untitled (You Are Not Yourself) by Barabara Kruger

Associate director of JBG Jeffrey Teuton told me a couple of weeks ago that he put together some information concerning the ‘American’ vernacular in photography, a concept I find difficult to wrap my head around. I haven’t exactly received said information from my busy boss so while I wait, I contemplate:  What does ‘American’ mean exactly? The Oxford English Dictionary gives the figurative definition of ‘America’ as “an object of personal ambition or desire.”  Thus it seems that art in the history of America is cultivated through a combination of ‘ambition’ and the continually thriving process of self-expression as, not only “personal expression[, but also] as objective result [that] are organically connected with each other” (John Dewey, Art as Expression).  I suppose, then, that art created by the ‘American’ has a greater goal: achievement of outward expression, in relation to the self, and a general application of the objective for an eager audience.

Enough rambling! The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an exhibit up called The Pictures Generation featuring over 160 works by 30 different artists like Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Richard Prince, and more:  “Educated in the self-reflexive and critical principles of Minimal and Conceptual art, this tightly knit group of artists brought those lessons to bear on a return to recognizable imagery, exploring how images shape our perceptions of ourselves and the world.” I will definitely journey over there before it closes on August 2 to gain insight on this nagging question. I don’t expect that this deep, philosophical inquiry will be answered but, hey, it doesn’t hurt to look, right?

Heads up!  If you’re in the LES tonight, you should know about these shows opening tonight in the area…

DCKT Contemporary (195 Bowery 6-8pm) has a new show called Abundant Creatures by artist Michael Velliquette.  The artist “hand cuts and glues paper cardstock into complex dimensional assemblages reminiscent of the interiors of large-scale pop-up books or mosaics in high relief. In his current body of work Velliquette returns once again to garden and jungle settings where humorous and visually dense paper tableaux are populated with animistic spirits, beasts, goons and gods.” Click here for more information.

Thierry Goldberg Projects (5 Rivington Street 6-8pm) presents painter Ben Grasso and his new body of work, Clearing. “With his new body of work, Grasso continues to explore the boundaries between notions of representation and abstraction. Tossed like confetti, hurtling parts of man-made structures freeze in midair and mingle with nature—suggesting a potential surprise within all objects.” Click here for more information.

Other shows opening tonight:

• Alex Asher Daneil’s Private Cosmogony at Kate Robinson Fine Art, 95 Rivington Street from 7-9pm.


• Carrie Moyer’s Arcana at Canada, 55 Chrystie Street from 6-9pm.


• Everyman’s An Angel, a group exhibition at NY Studio Gallery, 154 Stanton Street from 7-9pm.

Get your bids in! The Fifth Annual BAMart Silent Auction closes MONDAY, MAY 11 at 8PM.  JBG artists Kent Rogowski and Carrie Marill both have wonderful pieces up for auction. Take a look at what Ms. Jen Bekman has to say about Carrie’s piece, Optical (shown above), on her Tumblr.

Remember! The Silent Auction Cocktail Reception is TOMORROW, May 9, from 5-7 PM at BAM (30 Lafayette Ave in Brooklyn) with special guest emcees Andrew Andrew. After that, you can follow the party to Diety Lounge (368 Atlantic Avenue between Hoyt and Bond Sts.) 7:30PM until 11PM where there will be drink specials and DJs helping BAM celebrate another successful year!

While reading the most recent issue of Frieze Magazine I was struck by the article “Future Conditional” by Jonathan Griffin. In this article the assistant editor of Frieze reminisces about the lost art of looking forward. He makes the valid point that in our current cultural climate we are over ridden with “dysotopic” images. In films, in art and in the news we are constantly reminded of threats to our society.  Towards the end of the article he writes,

“At the opening of his poem ‘Burnt Norton’ (1935), T.S. Eliot reflects on the nature of temporal cross-fertilisation: ‘Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future, / And time future contained in time past.’ His response is fatalistic resignation – ‘If all time is eternally present’, he reasons, ‘All time is unredeemable’ – implying that, in this world, we are all bound to trudge through prescribed futures, burdened by inescapable pasts. There is another possibility, however: that we create the future as we imagine it; that, as Walter Benjamin wrote (also in 1935), ‘Every epoch, in fact, not only dreams the one to follow, but in dreaming, precipitates its awakening.’”

The words “eternally present” time scares me the most in this paragraph because of how true it is, that in only thinking of the present, it is no wonder we have reached such negative depths in our society.

When looking at Beth Dow’s photographs in her series Ruins, I can only imagine what the masterminds behind the Wisconsin Dells were thinking when they constructed their buildings in 1970’s. To them “[dreaming] of the ones to follow” was their way of looking to the future. To recreate the grandness and progress our past civilization but only to make a string of water parks seem more enticing, an odd idea indeed.

However, what Beth’s photographs do is open a dialogue as these nostalgic photographs hold weight and intrigue. They reference the high points of past society and replicate our memories but at the same time in looking back we are looking forward, hopeful of what the future holds. Beth’s images remind us that it is possible for an odd utopia to co-exist in our ever-disparaging society. Beth’s photographs, in the words of Walter Benjamin “precipitate [an] awakening.”

Due to mysterious and unforeseen (and frustrating!) circumstances, the Hey, Hot Shot! site has been down for the last 24+ hours! We are very aware of this problem, and working and our webhosts to get this fixed as soon as possible!

For those of you who have been trying—or are still planning to apply to HHS! and didn’t get the chance to yet—we are extending the entry deadline once more, and will fill you in with more details once the site is live again. We apologize for the snafu!

Please stay posted here and over at the 20×200 blog and on our Hey, Hot Shot! twitter account for the latest details.

I love TV. I especially love trashy TV (don’t judge I am going somewhere with this). Imagine my surprise while watching a recent Real Housewives of New York City episode to get an eerie feeling of, why do I know that plastic surgeon’s office? Not one to frequent upper east side parlors of beauty enhancement it had to be from somewhere else, but where?

The answer is: Ramona keeps herself forever young at the same location as Hey, Hot Shot! 2008 Second Edition winner Cara Phillips’ White Consultation Chair, Upper East Side. 2006 from her Singular Beauty series.

White Consultation Chair, Upper East Side. 2006 by Cara Phillips

I just love it when I can validate my television habits!

Exciting news! Jen Bekman Gallery’s booth at NEXT Art Fair in Chicago was named as one of Time Out Chicago’s ‘fave booths!’ Lauren Weinberg reports on a more compact fair this year noting, “NEXT, an invitation-only fair for ‘emerging’ (often hipper) galleries, dropped from 192 exhibitors in 2008 to roughly 86.” Due to this downsizing, the fair is more easily navigable so your “eyes won’t glaze over before you reach our fave booths, [...] NEXT’s Jen Bekman [...].”

Click here to read the full article.

If you happen to be in Chicago, stop by and see Sarah McKenzie’s work and our booth’s sweet digs courtesy of Design Within Reach! We’d love to see you… We are here at The Merchandise Mart in Booth 7-8033 until Monday, May 4, 2009. Don’t have passes? Drop us an email at info at jenbekman dot com and we’ll give you some!