Untitled by Nate Page

I couldn’t resist the title.

I have been working on a project that has me scouring the depths of the Jen Bekman Gallery past and it has given me a great chance to be reminded of some really great work that has graced the walls here. With our current exhibition, Summer Reading, trucking along, the work of Nate Page from the Good on Paper exhibition back in 2005 seemed the perfect place to start for what I hope will be a reoccurring post on the blog as we revisit work from the last six years of Jen Bekman Gallery.

Nate’s work:

investigates the confrontations between materiality and images, occupied space and presence, potentiality and reality. Using methods of drawing and assemblage to set new rules to my physical surroundings and to alter found objects across my daily path. Personal memories and consumer culture angst inform the work’s content while generating a visceral dialog between the banality and spectacular of the everyday.

As an artist that deals with consumer culture myself, I appreciate the consumer angst and am drawn to the objects that Nate creates for both their eerie beauty and the elevation of the ordinary mass-consumed item, into the extraordinary: a reverse of Stephen Sprouse’s making the high low by bringing tagging to Louis Vuitton luxury. Or did he do the opposite and elevate the bags to fine art, making them extraordinary?

And while it is easy for me to get distracted by a Louis Vuitton which-came-first argument, it is easier still as I sit here surrounded by Summer Reading to be distracted and make further comparisons with the work of Michael Mandiberg’s laser-cut phone books and Lauren DiCioccio’s color codification of fashion and lifestyle magazines that are currently on view. All take the idea of the everyday mass-produced-and-consumed object and create the spectacular, in the way that Nate’s cutting and reworking of magazines creates a unique object that results in a new life for the object as art.

Relationships Work Best by Hey, Hot Shot! Volume IV, Edition II winner Yijun Liao

Hey! Yes, you! Did you hear that we’ve happily announced the opening of the 2009 Second Edition Hey, Hot Shot! competition? It’s true, and it’s high time you submitted!

Hey, Hot Shot! offers photographers at all stages of their careers unrivaled opportunities for exposure and advancement.

All entrants have their work reviewed by top-shelf panelists and enjoy the potential to be promoted online (more than sixty were featured on the Hey, Hot Shot! blog last season alone!), selected for 20×200 (HHS! is the only way we review photography for 20×200) and exhibited in our New York gallery. Now in its fifth year, the competition has been acclaimed by curators, critics, educators and journalists alike.

A panel of seasoned photography professionals—including founder Jen Bekman, photography book evangelist and publisher Darius Himes, Aperture Foundation publisher Lesley A. Martin, former Creative Director of Colors magazine and photographer Stefan Ruiz and Chronicle Books chairman and CEO Nion McEvoy—review all the photographs that are entered.

Apply Now!

The deadline for entries is Friday, October 23, 2009 @ 8pm EDT.

Hot Shots will be announced on Monday, November 30, 2009.

There is a $60 handling fee for your entry.
Submissions are open to everyone, from anywhere in the world!
The competition is now open.

Questions?

Check out our informative and frequently updated FAQ, follow us on Twitter or find us on Facebook.

Photographer Alec Soth’s show The Last Days of W opened at Gagosian Gallery on Inauguration Day (January 20th, 2009). Originally conceived without explicit political intent, the select body of work spans both terms of George W. Bush’s presidency and reveals a “a panoramic look at a country exhausted by its catastrophic leadership.”

Following a tradition of seers such as Robert Frank, Soth captures America in a deep state of cultural malaise.  The images―a collection of portraits, landscapes, interiors, and group shots―are irrevocably stagnant.  In this way, they refuse to be an opinionated commentary and are simply meant to expose (almost as a revelation) a vision of what America became during the eight years leading up to President Obama’s inauguration.

Camp Purgatory, Ontario, California (2008)

Critic Michael Wilson writes of the image above, “[A] flag hangs inverted over a grubby mess of tents while a lone woman looks on as if in the aftermath of a disaster.”  Is this not Soth’s perspective?  Haven’t we all been standing in that very spot?

In an interview with Photo District News the artist explains how “a lot of people have woken up to how horrendously things have gone awry [in America], so I guess to a certain extent I was waking up to some of that too.”  Soth recognizes his need to downplay the social commentary aspect of his work but realized that the series “was really about this idea that it’s over, it’s now this kind of in-between time, this lame duck period[,] … so I was just thinking about the future.”

A newspaper catalog of The Last Days of W, published by the artist himself, is currently for purchase at JBG for $28 including tax.  Another piece from this series can be found hanging on the walls of Summer Reading.

You can also see the entire Summer Reading show online or in the gallery until August 22nd.

20×200 offers fantastic art each week, so I frequently find myself obsessing over images. Today the photograph that I cannot get out of my head was made by Rachel Hulin. Her edition print, Globe, was released earlier today.

Read all about it, and perhaps add one to your collection, by visiting 20×200.

Image by Alison Grippo

Hello beloved art enthusiasts! This fine Tuesday I am delighted to bring you an interview with photographer Alison Grippo. Alison was christened a Hot Shot and named a Ne Plus Ultra, gaining her representation by Jen Bekman Gallery in 2006.

Alison has just finished a book, Chasing, which is available here on Blurb.com.

Her two edition prints Untitled (Mott Street), and A Man and His Horse, are available on 20×200 in limited supply.

Let’s start by breaking the ice, shall we? Do you have any guilty pleasures?
Cheese. I’m addicted to Cheese. I’m not ashamed. I am a little, but I can’t stop myself.

When did you realize you wanted to be an artist?
I’ve always enjoyed the camera, and a few years back I decided I’d take my camera with me everywhere for 30 straight days. I was determined to always come home with a photo. After that, I couldn’t stop. I became slightly obsessive, and I set goals for myself, and the next thing you knew I was on my way to becoming a photographer.

Can you remember your first photograph?
The very first photo I took (and developed) was of Washington Square Park from a friend’s window one winter in 7th grade. The very first photo I took that made me turn the corner and realize I loved photography was of a woman leaving a senior citizens home on bingo night which I called “Bingo Thief”. It was digital and I lost the hard drive it was on so it only exists on flickr:

If you could live anywhere and photograph, where would it be?
Ideally I’d live nowhere. I’d like to constantly be on the move. Deep down all I want to do is travel to places no one has ever heard of and find stories to photograph and tell. I’m always looking up airfares. Maybe I’d get an RV and drive around the country endlessly but I don’t have a drivers license, which I’d have to remedy…

What does an ideal day look like for you?
Contrary to my wanting to move all the time, I think a day of napping is just delightful. Ideal day? It changes with the tides. Last week I climbed to the top of huge cliff and thought this is it the week before that I jumped out of plane and thought perfect today I napped the day away and I’m sure it can’t get any better.

Do you have favorite artists that inspire you?
Your favorite painter?
Edward Hopper. I’m a sucker for lonely.

Photographer?
Mary Ellen Mark. I feel in love with her documentary Streetwise, I’ve always just found her work to be right in front of you, but almost surreal.

Musician?
Right now I’m listening chronically to Tim Fite.

Author?
J.K Rowling – lies! Nabokov. I real a lot of non fiction so I go through phases with Mark Bowden, Kurt Eichenwald, and now Steven Coll.

How do the above influence your art making?
I photograph documentary style more than anything; street shooting; long form narratives which resembles what I like to engulf myself in during my free time. I’m intrigued by the details of people, what drives them, how they arrived wherever they are things like that. Usually the people or the scenes you walk through and take little notice of have the most amazing background which creates a context that you might be lucky enough to know. Everyone has a story, I like finding it out. I’m nosy.

Do you collect art?
I collect books and some photographs. It wasn’t until I really started working with Jen Bekman that I was introduced to more contemporary photography. I don’t know them, but now I know the work and when I have the chance to own some I’m not going to pass it up. I collect images I think, more than artists, images and stories.

Untitled (Mott Street) by Alison Grippo
Available on 20×200

You’ve had two edition prints sold on 20×200. How important is it to you to keep art affordable?
For someone like me, who wants to tell stories, it’s critical. I don’t want to take a picture of boxer who has worked his ass off, given me time and trust, and a portion of himself so that no one can know he exists. People do exist, people are special and unique and have something about them which deserves to be admired. If I take a photo of a woman just released from Bellvue, or Bernie for that matter, and no one can appreciate her story, or feel it then I am not really doing my job I think. Beyond that, I always agreed with the image Ishmael Reed created about the horror of art prisons—cold lonely rooms where you keep the art locked away where the pretension continues.

If you didn’t make photographs what would you make?
I’d love love love to be an industrial designer and make amazing furniture and fixtures people didn’t think twice about – like the best toilet paper holder ever, or the perfect suspended modular kitchen.

Sounds dreamy!

See more of Alison’s work on her site and on flickr.

Kinds of Love from BookPace, 2002 by Nina Katchadourian

Ever since I first read about Nina Katchadourian in The Photograph as Contemporary Art by Charlotte Cotton, I have been in love. There is something so delicate and purposeful about her work that makes me want to hold it in my hands and hug it close to me forever, which I acknowledge is not normal behavior for interacting with art.

We’re lucky to have a piece in Summer Reading (placed high on the wall, out of reach of any hugs) but for those of you that are elsewhere in the world, Nina has two shows that might be a little closer to home.

On view now at the Weatherspoon Art Museum is Our Subject is You, a group show that focuses on the work of artists who use the public or an audience as an element to complete their work. Through social interaction, performance and engagement, all of the artists on view (including another Summer Reading Star, Steve Lambert!) aim to “collapse traditional boundaries” normally found in museums and bring visitors to a new perception of themselves and how they interact with art. This exhibit is on display until September 13th, so you’ve got plenty of time to get down to Greensboro, North Carolina to see it.

A little closer to the city, at the Omi International Art Center in Ghent, NY, is a site specific commission at the Fields Sculpture Park. The exhibit, titled Twitchers and Cheaters, is located on the 400 acre outdoor museum and will be up until November 2009. Take note though, go visit her work while the weather is still warm, it won’t be on view once the cold hits! I just found out that this piece is no longer on view due to damage this winter. I’ll keep you posted on upcoming Nina events but in the meantime I just discovered that Steve Lambert will be speaking at the Weatherspoon Art Museum on September 3rd. Add it to your calendars and support another fantastic Summer Reading Artist.

Summer Reading is on view at Jen Bekman Gallery until August 22nd.

Squelettes se disputant un hareng-saur (Skeletons fighting over a picked herring) by James Ensor

Planning to get to the James Ensor exhibition at MoMA as soon as I can.
Also, as much as I am looking forward to seeing the design show Rough Cut: Design Takes a Sharp Edge while I am up there, there is no need to call a chair fierce.

Before I get off topic, so easy for me today it seems: Ensor’s work led me to think about the paintings of Hernan Bas who shows with Lehmann Maupin—the outpost is located just next door to the Jen Bekman Projects office. Flavorwire interviewed the painter back in February, during his show at the Brooklyn Museum.

Of course, the next obvious leap for my mind was this year’s Pulse NYC fair favorite Allison Schulnik, whose paintings were a highlight and high seller at the fair. (We were named Best Installation at Pulse by AFC with the work of Beth Dow. Off topic again, I know.)

If you have not been out to Governor’s Island, you need to go. Plus, Fridays through Sundays, Creative Time presents This World and Nearer Ones, featuring 19 works by international contemporary artists. There is a great death of the art world zombie video piece by The Bruce High Quality Foundation in the old movie theater.

Help, nicely packaged.

Loving Edgar Martins’ Accidental Theorist series of beaches at night. Makes me think of William Lamson’s work.

AFC reports on the auditions for what I am convinced will be a horrible nightmare, the art reality TV show.

To send you off into the weekend with some good tunes, Grace Jones live footage set to Williams’ Blood from her most recent album. The living legend/artist will be performing one show only next week at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom.

Jen Bekman Projects is happy to announce the opening of the 2009 Second Edition Hey, Hot Shot! competition.

Entries will be accepted now through Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. EDT.

The premier international photography competition, Hey, Hot Shot! offers photographers at all stages of their careers unrivaled opportunities for exposure and advancement.

All entrants have their work reviewed by top-shelf panelists and enjoy the potential to be promoted online (more than sixty were featured here on the Hey, Hot Shot! blog last season alone!), selected for 20×200 and exhibited in our New York gallery. Now in its fifth year, the competition has been acclaimed by curators, critics, educators and journalists alike.

A panel of seasoned photography professionals—including founder Jen Bekman, photography book evangelist and publisher Darius Himes, Aperture Foundation publisher Lesley A. Martin, former Creative Director of Colors magazine and photographer Stefan Ruiz and Chronicle Books chairman and CEO Nion McEvoy—review all the photographs that are entered.

The guidelines are simple: contenders submit three photographs from a single body of work, using an online upload tool, with an entry fee of $60. The 2009 Second Edition will add new features and more benefits for all entrants—among the many reasons why Hey, Hot Shot! remains one of the most desirable photography competitions around. Stay tuned for details!

So what are you waiting for? Get your work out there: Apply Now!
We only accept submissions online.

The deadline for entries is Friday, October 23, 2009 @ 8pm EDT.

Hot Shots will be announced on Monday, November 30, 2009.

There is a $60 handling fee for your entry.
Submissions are open to everyone, from anywhere in the world!
The competition is now open.

Questions?

Check out our informative and frequently updated FAQ, follow us on Twitter or find us on Facebook.

I was thrilled to see the work of 20×200 artist Jorge Colombo in the Summer Reading show here at JBG.  His series of Subway Readers is a collection of sketches of various people reading while riding the subway. Each sketch marks the illustrator as a wanderer, an onlooker, and a traveler. They are quiet moments sketched as if journal entries from a curious and hungry eye.

For the length of time the subject sits reading in his sight line, Colombo is either able to sketch the fullness of the surrounding scene or merely the subject sitting, hanging in air. This gives us, as viewers, a sense of time. Looking at these, I wonder if Colombo sketches until his subject reaches their destination or until he reaches his own destination. More questions begin to arise: Are they even done in the moment? Are they memories? Does he capture them with his iPhone?

As João Paulo Cotrim writes of Colombo, “The richness of his details and the exactitude of his line work help our eyes to find a photographic peace, but it’s a fake fidelity.” I like thinking of this idea of a “fake fidelity” as an implied depiction of realism from the “sentiment of [the] author.”  There is an obvious sense of intent with every pen stroke, a need to show something―but what?

Whatever that something may be, Colombo finds a way to take these particular moments and make them about solitude and imagination.  The reader portrayed becomes a character of fiction, full of mystery, full of life, yet entirely undisturbed and unaware of an onlooker’s artistic hand.  What we take away from each sketch is the interpretation of the moment, inferred ”easily from bodies and faces: they’re as far from caricature as they are from portrait. Jorge Colombo’s pen interprets; it doesn’t reproduce. And it’s through this door that mystery enters.”

See the entire Summer Reading show online or in the gallery until August 22.

Orb 5 (Long Island, New York), by Carlo Van de Roer

Today’s editions on 20×200 are by photographer Carlo Van de Roer. Van de Roer was a Fall 2007 Hot Shot who has seen his work on the walls of the gallery, and now is offering his fifth and sixth edition prints on 20×200.

Today’s edition prints are super special as all of the print sales will go directly to Carlo! From Jen’s newsletter:

We’re releasing Orb 5 as a new kind of benefit edition, one offered specifically in support of the artists themselves. In this case, all profits from the sales of this print are going toward funding Carlo’s critically acclaimed, ambitious Portrait Machine Project. The project also happens to be an expensive one, as the equipment he uses to make the portraits is costly.

Doing an edition like this puts the spotlight on 20×200’s ability to directly support artists in their practice — it’s one of the things that really drives me to want to make the site a sustainable, successful endeavor. As you all know, I work with lots of artists; what causes many of them to give up on making art is something I’m all-too-familiar with. Unsurprisingly, money is probably the biggest obstacle. It’s all too easy for the making of art to become a luxury, especially these days. By participating in 20×200 as a collector, you’re a patron. You’re helping them not give up.

Yes, you read that right. With just a few clicks, you can help yourself get some excellent art and help an artist keep on keeping on! How fantastic is that? Click on over to 20×200 to enact a mutually beneficial purchase now!

I’m particularly fond of the Orbs photographs, which I wrote about here last summer. I was amazed to discover that there is a burgenoning population of people on our planet that believe that lens flare is more than just lens flare. It’s true, and it is this fascination that started Van de Roer on the project. You can see and read more coverage of the Orbs project:
but does it float, The Exposure Project, design work life, ISO50 Blog, Abecedarian, Dossier Journal,Beautiful Decay,Dear Ada, SeeSaw Designs.

More about The Portrait Machine Project, which, yes, I also love here:
The Portrait Machine Project site, The Moment Blog (NYTimes.com), Interview Magazine

Bears Bite | 18.5” x 24” | Gouache on Paper by Carrie Marill

Last week we had our opening of Summer Reading here at Jen Bekman Gallery and it definitely turned out to be a mid-summer treat. If you haven’t been to visit yet, stop by soon, Artlog and Elle recommend you do too!

Earlier in the week we posted photos of the installation but for those of you that wanted a closer look, we just posted all the art, on Flickr. Head on over there and leave us a comment, let us know what you think! As always, if you have questions about the work, please direct them to sale AT jenbekman DOT com.

Furniture Barn by Colleen Plumb

Photographic Center Northwest recently selected a distinguished group of artists for their 14th Annual Photo-Op exhibition competition. The winners now have their work on display through September 4, 2009 at Photographic Center Northwest Gallery in Seattle to be judged by Ms. Jen Bekman. Four of the finalists are part of the JBP family, Colin Blakely; Katie Baum; Kevin Miyazaki; and Colleen Plumb are vying for first, second, and third prize. Youngna gives a thorough review on the Hey, Hot Shot! blog here.

If you’re not in the Pacific Northwest, have a look at the photographers 20×200 edition prints:
Colin Blakely
Colleen Plumb
Kevin Miyazaki
Katie Baum

With the rise of technology to help us communicate, we have reached a point where hearing someone’s voice is no longer necessary to say the immediate. It puts an emphasis on the importance of reading non-verbal cues—whether via text message, IM, or calls not made.

But, should we be pleased about this? 15 years ago, whoever would have had the advanced-right-brained-capacity to know that “idk my bff jill” carried the emotional weight of “whatever mom, my best friend Jill is way cooler than you”?  Teens are reported to send an exorbitant amount of texts and a recent New York Magazine article questioned whether all of these constant distractions were turning us into over-stimulated message-sending zombies.

How does instant communication relate to the Jen Bekman Gallery, you ask? Well,  20×200 artist and Spring 2007 Hot Shot Kelly Shimoda has taken up a new project all about texting called, I guess you don’t want to talk to me anymore.

I’ll try. it’s a little lonely tonight though., 2008 by Kelly Shimoda

I like to think of this new series as the artistic sister spawned from texts from last night, a website that allows us to peer into the the inner soul of the late-night text-messager while they reveal their at-times hilarious, at-times contemplative, and often non-sequitur thoughts. Texts are off-the-cuff, an instant response, and a quick reaction to what is going on as conveyed to you. Each text is loaded with content all condensed down into a few words. As I look at Kelly’s work I feel like a fly on the wall trying to imagine just who the senders and receivers of these messages are. Kelly transforms these messages into portraits, so not only are you now the recipient of the message, but also a viewer able to create your own mental image of what scenario and which person is behind the screen of that Nokia or Blackberry.

Kelly’s images translate these feelings for us and give them a sort of materiality, a weight that indicates each message was sent with intent from one person to another because it appears on the physical screen of the chosen mobile phone. Looking at the whole series, each photograph feels like a secret discovery; I can’t wait to see what Kelly finds next.

Work from this series appears in Summer Reading, which is on view now through August 22nd. See more work from the show here and take a look at Kelly’s ongoing project here.

Untitled, 2005 by Kent Rogowski

Brooklyn-based artist Kent Rogowski, featured in our Summer Reading show, is speaking to viewers with neon lights. Much like walking down Times Square, Rogowski’s lights are captivating, however, unlike the sometimes wincing effect of city advertising, his neons induce calm with reassuring catch phrases. The piece featured in the show states: Someday It Will Happen, something I’m sure we all mutter to ourselves at least once a day.

Also, one of his fantastical prints from Love = Love, Untitled #10, is featured on 20×200 and still available in the 11” x 14” and 30” x 40” sizes.

Rogowski’s earlier project Bears, takes the idea of soft and cuddly teddy bears and flips it inside-out…literally.

Most recently, Rogowski has started the non-profit, Scaffold Fund, offering fellowships for emerging and mid-career artists.

Using a variety of mediums from lights to teddy bears, Rogowski is speaking to us by taking our everyday concepts of ordinary subjects to a higher level of consideration.

Full gallery view.

West wall view.

 
West wall reverse view, anchored by Steve Lambert’s It’s About Power.

 
East wall view.

 East wall detail featuring Coast / Coast, 2009 by Michael Mandiberg.

Back corner view.

 

Front of the gallery and It’s About Power, 2009 by Steve Lambert.

 

Come in and see for yourself. Summer Reading is on view through August 22, 2009.

We Love Having You Here, 2001-08 by Zoe Strauss

Summer Reading
Opening Reception | Wednesday, July 15, 2009 | 6pm-8pm
See images from the show!

Please join us today, Wednesday, July 15, from 6pm to 8pm, at the opening reception for Summer Reading. The exhibition features over sixty works from twenty-seven emerging and established artists who are using interdisciplinary ideas about text, in all of its forms, in the mediums of photography, drawing, painting, sculpture and installation.

Summer Reading features work from: Thomas Allen, Kate Bingaman-Burt, Kotama Bouabane, Lizzie Buckmaster Dove, Christine Callahan, Jorge Colombo, William Crump, Lauren DiCioccio, Nina Katchadourian, Gregory Krum, Steve Lambert, Michael Mandiberg, Carrie Marill, Mike Monteiro, Jane Mount, Kirby Pilcher, Jason Polan, Kent Rogowski, Ed Ruscha, Kelly Shimoda, Victor Schrager, Mickey Smith, Alec Soth, Zoe Strauss, Shaun Sundholm, Brian Ulrich and Tim Walker.

Summer Reading will be on view through August 22, 2009.

As many of you know by now, our stellar Summer Reading exhibit opens this Wednesday, July 15th at the gallery. We’ve previewed a few of these artists over the past two weeks, but if you are just bursting at your seams with excitement and can’t wait for the opening, here are a few of the artists who you can get out and see right now at other exhibits around the world.

Chemistry, 2006 by Thomas Allen

Thomas Allen’s photographs can be found on view at the Galleria 1000 Eventi in Milan as part of a group showed, titled 5 + 1: From a Big Crash to a New Deal, and investigating the effects of the economy on contemporary art while suggesting that a renewal and re-energization of ideas is still possible. Thomas’s work uses old pulp book covers as sculptures to create a playful theatrical interaction. If you find yourself in Milan, please go check out the show! Also, Thomas’s work has recently been added to the permanent collection of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Congratulations, Thomas!

Goodbye Horses, 2008 by William Crump

William Crump has had a few shows on each coast since we first saw him on 20×200, with exhibitions in LA and New York, including X Marks the Art at Jen Bekman Gallery. His most recent, on display now until July 31st at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Gallery in Philadelphia, is titled Manifest Desination. This two man show puts forth the idea that looking forward to the future is always a dangerous and delicate balance. William’s “bittersweet, wistful” drawings convey this idea in that they “are a metaphor for all of us, as they survey and travel on towards a grand and abstract horizon.” Be sure not to miss William’s work in this show and check out his prints available on 20×200.

Dance?, 1973 by Ed Ruscha

Lastly, the great Ed Ruscha has recently been bestowed the honor of taking part in the Tate Modern’s new d’Offay Artist Rooms. This brand new collection at the Tate was made possible through several generous grants and aims to be a new resource for contemporary art in Britain. Sponsored by The Art Fund and Department of Culture, Media and Sport, this new project will display some of the best work from the nation’s collection, including work by Joseph Beuys, Gilbert & George, Agnes Martin and Jenny Holzer. Twenty-two pieces of Ruscha’s work are presented in the d’Offay Artist Rooms and are on view now.

Come see work by all of these artists, and many more (24 more!) at the gallery tomorrow night at the Summer Reading opening from 6 – 8 p.m.

Adam Zaremba from the series, Purple Hearts by Nina Berman

Last fall lauded photojournalist Nina Berman opened her second solo show at JBG, Homeland, which documented America’s obsession with the threat of terrorism. In her previous solo show, Purple Hearts, Nina photographed and interviewed wounded Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. The show gained Nina much acclaim, and she has steadily been showing her work internationally.

This month Nina joined Noor Photo Agency, an international photographic cooperative of award winning photojournalists. From the press release:

We are delighted to announce that Nina Berman joined Noor. Nina is a documentary photographer with a primary interest in the American political and social landscape. Her work, to be integrated on our website and archive soonest, has been widely recognized with awards and has been the subject of exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide.

Currently Nina has exhibitions on view in Louisiana, Croatia and England.

New Orleans Museum of Art
The Art of Caring
May 16 – October 11, 2009
New Orleans, Louisiana

War Photo Ltd
Solo Exhibition – Purple Hearts/Marine Wedding
May 1st – July 29th 2009
Dubrovnik, Croatia

Side Gallery
Solo Exhibition – Homeland/Marine Wedding
July 4 2009 – August 22, 2009
New Castle, England

Nina has two 20×200 edition prints available:
9-11-02
G.I. Goat

View more images on JenBekman.com, and on Nina’s website.

Greetings, fair readers. It is a beautiful Wednesday afternoon and I wanted to share some inspirational images to carry you through to the rest of your day and perhaps into Thursday. The following images were found with the upcoming Summer Reading show in mind. Enjoy!

Things Could Be Worse, 2007, by Jim Torok

Untitled (My Bad), 2009, by Mike Monteiro

OOF, 1962, by Edward Ruscha

Addicted to the Internet?, 2009, by Michael Mandiberg

I always think about art as a world-saving endeavor when it’s done right—transforming the minds of millions while evolving culture…and spreading the gospel of creativity. So, while I think of these things as I sit on my couch, two artist are actually going out there and saying what needs to be said about how to keep creativity flowing during these tough times, and how to be an artist with a mission. These two women, Jane Mount and Kate Bingaman-Burt, are both 20×200 stars and also featured in the upcoming Summer Reading show at the gallery.

Jane, who is also important member of the 20×200 team, was part of a panel this past March at the SXSW Interactive Conference titled “What Do I Do With Myself, Now that the Economy Has Collapsed?”. Along with four other experts in the field of media and the interwebs, Jane gave her two cents about what direction we could all be taking ourselves, personally and professionally, in the current economy.

Bookshelf 43 (MM & CE, Oakland, CA), 2009 by Jane Mount

The best thing about Jane? She’s a tremendous artist as well as fountain of knowledge. Her work has been featured on 20×200 several times and we are so grateful to have her in Summer Reading. This is just a sneak peak at the body of Jane’s work which will be featured in the gallery when the exhibit opens on July 15th; don’t forget you can also get work from this series on 20×200!

Random Receipts and Their Contents #1, 2009 by Kate Bingaman-Burt

Another leader in the field is Kate Bingaman-Burt, who you will also recognize as a 20×200 artist and a Summer 2006 Hot Shot. Kate has been spreading her knowledge recently at the How Conference, speaking on the subject of: “Craft + Activism = Craftivism”. If you missed her there, you can hear Kate speak at the Make/Think Conference in Memphis where Ms. Jen Bekman will also be representin’, both as “inspiring leaders” in the world of design. Admire her work being featured in the show (above); it will look even better up on the gallery walls!

Don’t miss seeing their work, and that of many more at the gallery when Summer Reading opens on July 15th.