Rickery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Florida, 2009 by Daniel Cheek

Is it really almost the end of the summer? I say boo to that. Some links to help you take your mind off that thought:

In case you cannot get enough text-based artwork (I never can), the art collectors have a great post about two new books that deal with the “rise of text in art.”

Don’t forget that JBG will open the Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition exhibition on September 9, with a reception from 6 – 8 p.m. The show features work from Michelle Arcila, Daniel Cheek, Mike Sinclair, Parsley Steinweiss and Kurt Tong.

Michelle Arcila’s Flickr stream has long been a favorite around here.

As we mentioned earlier, Mike Sinclair’s blog is regularly updated as he makes new work.

And Parsley, Daniel and Kurt’s personal sites are all chock-full of their recent projects. Take a peek!

See you at the opening!

American Heritage Encyclopedia by Hot Shot Parsley Steinweiss

Mark your calendars! Before you know it it will be Thursday, September 10th! On this day from 6-8pm be sure to swing by Jen Bekman Gallery to see our Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition Group Exhibition. You’ll see photographs from a brilliant bunch:

Michelle Arcila
Daniel Cheek
Mike Sinclair
Parsley Steinweiss
and Kurt Tong

See you there!

Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring Street
(between Elizabeth + Bowery)
New York, New York 10012

Gallery Hours:
Wednesday – Saturday | Noon – 6pm
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 10th, 6pm – 8pm
On View: September 10 through September 19, 2009

Art & Project Bulletin 89, August 1975 by Bas Jan Ader 

Looking back at the Summer Reading show, I am reminded of an exhibit up at MoMA titled, In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art, specifically, the exhibition in the Prints and Illustrated Books Gallery of Art & Project Gallery’s 156 bulletins, from the time they opened in 1968 to their closing in 1989.

The gallery “supported an international group of artists associated with Conceptual art, both through the organization of exhibitions and the mailing of an information bulletin.” Participating artists included Robert Barry, Alighiero e Boetti, Daniel Buren, William Leavitt, Sol LeWitt and Lawrence Weiner.

Art & Project Bulletin transformed a simple mailed letter with images into an “exhibition by mail.”  The show is up until November 9th, so you can continue to get your art and text on.

Boy and Girl at U.S. Marines Recruiting Event, Orchard Beach, The Bronx, New York by Nina Berman

Jen Bekman Gallery artist, 20×200 denizen, and internationally lauded documentary photographer, Nina Berman, will be showing work from her Homeland and Purple Hearts series nationally and internationally over the next two months. Nina will have work in two shows in New York and three shows opening in The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany:

Noorderlicht International Photofestival
Group Show: Human Conditions
September 6 – October 4, 2009
Groningen, The Netherlands

Media Alliance
Solo Exhibition: Homeland & Purple Hearts
September 7 – December 18, 2009
Troy, New York

Galerie Cerami
Group Show: No Comment
September 11 – October 17, 2009
Charleroi, Belgium

Kunstraum Potsdam
Exhibition: Purple Hearts & Marine Wedding
October 23, 2009 – December 6, 2009
Potsdam, Germany

Suffolk County Community College
Solo Exhibition: Purple Hearts
October 14 – November 10, 2009
Brentwood, New York

Homeland Security Advisory Billboard, Country Club Hills, Illinois by Nina Berman

View more of Nina’s work on her JBG page, purchase a print from 20×200, and visit her website.
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Tree Tops, from the series Somewhere in Israel by Curtis Mann

With Summer Reading behind us and Hey, Hot Shot! coming up, I figured it would be a good time to dig into the archives and look at some of the previous Hot Shots and what they have been up to.

Let’s go back a few years, to the Fall 2005 Hot Shots; their success is incredible.  Curtis Mann, who has almost sold out his edition on 20×200, is currently showing at the MoCP in Chicago. MoCP mentioned us in talking about Mann—always appreciated.    

Untitled (Arika) by Dorthe Alstrup

Dorthe Alstrup, another Fall ‘05 Hot Shot, has sold out prints on 20×200 like it’s nobody’s business. Her untitled works are a huge hit.

Prospect Park #2 by Joseph O. Holmes

Also to rise out of this super group of Hot Shots is our very own Joseph O. Holmes.  Holmes has definitely proved to be another popular 20×200 artist.  He also has quite a following on his blog, where he posts pictures every day and blogs about upcoming events. There is always something fresh to see.

There have been so many great things and so much awesome work to come out of Hey, Hot Shot!.  Now that the 2009 Second Edition is open and people are applying there will be more great Hot Shots to come, more emerging artists vying for exposure, and their work just waiting to be blogged about. Take a peek at this round’s contenders, and if you’re a photographer, apply to get your work out there.

Facade by Beth Dow

JBG artist and 20×200 superstar Beth Dow will have four of her Ruins images on view as part of Decadence & Decay: The Mansion Project, on view at Rutgers University Paul Robeson Galleries. The exhibition will open on September 8 and run through October 29, 2009.

Curated by Director Anonda Bell, the exhibition takes its title from the Krueger-Scott Mansion in Newark that carries an interesting story behind its more than hundred-year history.

A Louis XIV-Style Victorian mansion and the most expensive home built in the city. The 40-room mansion was constructed by an immigrant worker named Gottfried Krueger. Arriving penniless in the United States he eventually rose to prominence through ownership of a brewery. Built as a celebration of his achievements and opportunities afforded to him in this country, after his death the mansion moved through a succession of owners until it was occupied by Louise Scott from 1966 until 1982. It was from here that she ran a string of black beauty parlors and became one of the wealthiest women in city, possibly Newark’s first African-American millionaire. After her death, and with the changing prosperity of the city, the building defaulted into the hands of the city and has since become a ruined, cavernous shell of its former self. The surrounding domain has changed since the time of construction from graceful single family housing on a prominent city boulevard to high density, government sponsored housing, which has recently ceded to low rise, urban townhouses. Over time the Krueger-Scott Mansion has remained a constant presence in a city which has undergone significant physical and psychological change, and fluctuating economic successes.

Bell uses the nearby mansion as a jumping off point in curating an exhibition that focuses on contemporary artists working with, “notions of memory, ruination & decay, decadence & excess, urban planning, architecture, socially defined ideas of beauty, African-American culture, and immigration.”

It’s a good fit for Dow whose Ruins series:

looks at the ways we appropriate and approximate the romance of ruins into modern American environments, and what this says about our longing for historic precedents. While genuine ruins remind us of our own mortality, they also suggest the opposite by showing it’s possible to endure, even if only in a reduced and degraded form…[the pictures in Ruins] attempt to evoke nostalgia for inaccurate history, to wrestle with ideas of authenticity, and to question the value we place on Classical ideals. It is natural to challenge the relevance of nostalgic longing, and I exploit this dynamic in my contemporary landscapes.

On view September 8 through October 29, 2009.

You might have seen the buzz on the 20×200 and Hey, Hot Shot! blogs or on Twitter, but I thought I would give you all a gentle reminder to vote YES for the most wonderful panels on the SXSW PanelPicker!

Ms. Jen Bekman has proposed a talk titled, Inbox Hero: Why Newsletters Matter More Than Ever. Even if you haven’t been following Jen’s Twitter posts about Slow Web, I’m sure you are familiar with the idea that it is very difficult to sort through all of the mess on the internet and read content that is valuable, well crafted and carefully considered. Jen’s newsletters are a stellar example of what newsletters should be, sending you must-read, compelling information straight to your inbox. Now you know she’s the expert, give her a thumbs up!

Sara Distin and Youngna Park, Associate Director and Associate Producer at Jen Bekman Projects respectively, pitched a panel titled, Supporting Artists with Social Media. Using their experience as artists as well as in important roles at Hey, Hot Shot! and 20×200, Sara and Youngna will be providing artists with the knowledge to set themselves apart and find new audiences using the plethora of social media tools. They’ve become masters of this subject, so you are gonna want to hear what they have to say!

Remember, it’s free and easy to register for the PanelPicker, so do it right now! Browse the other great proposals that are on offer and have a great weekend!

Voting closes September 4th.

Bible Study Book (Prophet in the Wilderness), Vicksburg, Mississippi by Alec Soth

So be sure to get yourself over to the gallery to view our group show, Summer Reading. The exhibition is up now through August 22nd—this coming Saturday! Before you know it, the walls will be cleared and painted as we ready ourselves for the Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition Group Exhibition.

Summer Reading
Closing Saturday, August 22
Jen Bekman Gallery | 6 Spring Street | NYC

Really can’t make it? You can view all of the work here.

Untitled by Mike Sinclair

Since the 2009 First Edition Hot Shots were announced at the beginning of June, everyone at Jen Bekman Projects has been excitedly looking at the photographers whose work will be hanging in the Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition Group Exhibition opening September 9, 2009 here at JBG.  One of those Hot Shots, Mike Sinclair, caught my and Jeffrey’s eye with his spectacular artist blog.

I think Youngna said it best when she wrote that Sinclair “takes large ephemeral portraits of crowds at sun-soaked fairgrounds, beaches, and baseball games capturing a sense of nostalgic Americana that many of us get lost in, but hardly look at with any distance.” The work on the blog continues in this vein offering images, most recently, from the Missouri State Fair.

Untitled by Mike Sinclair

I’m a sucker for portraiture so I can’t stop looking at images like the one above. Everything from the subject’s poncho to her modest toe ring to the bangs flowing from her visor describe something normal and everyday, but her posture and Sinclair’s lighting transform it into something out of 16th century Dutch paintings. Nothing is particularly invasive or exploitative about what Sinclair captures in the festival goers—what he captures is honest and true.

When asked about the best advice he’s ever received as a photographer (and/or a human), he responded that his wife told him: “You don’t know what you don’t know.” Sinclair seems to view every subject with new but knowing eyes.

I’m excited to see more of his work in the upcoming Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition Group Exhibition opening September 9, 2009. Stay tuned for more!

Jen Bekman personally took to the Hey, Hot Shot! blog yesterday to introduce the project’s new Associate Director, Alan Rapp. I won’t repeat too much of the eloquent Ms. Bekman’s introduction (you can read the full post), but here is a brief bit about Alan and the path that led him to Jen Bekman Projects:

Alan recently joined the JBP team as the Associate Director of Hey, Hot Shot!. As our intrepid panelist Nion McEvoy can attest, we’re awfully lucky to have him! Alan arrived here in NYC about a year ago, leaving behind SF and his plum role as Senior Editor of art, design & photography titles at Chronicle Books. Nion—Chronicle’s Chairman and CEO —was recently telling me how hard it’s been to fill Alan’s shoes, giving me the opportunity to proudly announce our good fortune. (There might’ve been a little bit of “Nyah! Nyah!” in there, not that I’m competitive or anything.)

It is a busy time for Alan to come aboard and we are pleased to have him.

The 2009 Second Edition of HHS! is currently open for submissions! The deadline for entries is Friday, October 23, 2009 @ 8pm (EDT).

And the gallery is in full swing for the upcoming opening of the Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition Group Exhibition.

HHS! 2009 First Edition Group Exhibition Opens September 9th

Artforum by Parsley Steinweiss

Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition Group Exhibition
Please join us at the gallery Wednesday, September 9, 2009 from 6-8 p.m. at a reception for the artists.

The exhibition will be on view from September 10 through September 19, 2009 and features photographs by 2009’s First Edition Hot Shots: Michelle Arcila, Daniel Cheek, Mike Sinclair, Parsley Steinweiss and Kurt Tong.

See you there!

I think we all have one image that sticks with us throughout our personal art histories and that we can attribute to being the one that started it all.

It’s the one image that made us fall in love with photography, made us fall in love with art; and in turn, inspired us to be involved as artists, collectors or curators. For my mother, it was USSR. Russia. Moscow. The Bolshoi Ballet School by Cornell Capa (I used to secretly imagine my mother was one of the dancers when I was young!). For Ms. Jen Bekman, it was Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Theaters.

Man in the Window, 1978 by Roy DeCarava

I can remember the first time I saw the photograph that changed it all for me. A lifelong lover of the arts, my aesthetic preferences hadn’t quite been shaped as I headed to the Smith College Museum of Art in 2005. It was filled with tremendous art. As I walked around the second floor galleries gazing at the permanent collection, I saw the work that was going to change the way I looked at and understood art: Man in the Window by Roy DeCarava.

Oh it sucked me in and made me melt, it made me yearn to see more in the darkness. The softness and the delicate nature of the image paired with the unidentified man made it even more of a mystery I wanted to solve. It made me want to disappear in the shadows, into the darkness, with just a glimmer of myself peeking out. In other words, I was so moved by this one photograph that I haven’t looked at art work in the same way since.

As I walk around the JB Gallery, looking at the walls of beautiful and soul-filling works of art, I can imagine someone finding their singular work of art to fall in love with. It could be Tim Walker’s playful and colorful photographs, or perhaps Lauren DiCioccio’s delicately detailed text-inspired work. Maybe it’s the allure of Shaun Sundholm’s message that is beckoning you to alter your world or Kate Bingaman-Burt’s hand-drawn translation of consumerism that makes you more aware of yourself.

Whatever work of art it is, give into it. Let it transform you and make you see the world in another light. Also, stay tuned for more inspiring work at the Jen Bekman Gallery! There’s definitely more in store.

from the series 58 Empress Pines Drive by Christine Callahan

JBG’s Christine Callahan will be participating in the 2009 Pingyao International Photography Festival, the world’s largest photography exhibition. Art Director of the PIP Festival, Zhang Guotian, announced in June that the festival will be held from September 19th to 25th in Pingyao, a Chinese city and county in central Shanxi province.

The theme of this year’s festival is “Life & Dream:”

Each photographer is full of life; each photographic work is the visual life; and each artistic creation can represent life. The dream is just the reason why life has aroused our concern. Only by endowing life with dream can it give the act of thinking and get into the act in its diverse splendor, and, in this case, life is worth while to consider, document and break new ground.

Callahan’s photographs seen above will be on display in the “Young Artists Emerging in America” portion of the festival.  For more information on this year’s Pingyao International Photography Festival, please visit the 2009 festival website.

More work by Christine Callanhan can be found on the gallery website or on her personal website.

Coast / Coast by Michael Mandiberg

Once upon a time Phaedrus warned us that Things are not always as they seem, yet seldom do we challenge ourselves to see beyond the perceptible or reimagine daily objects. Luckily we have artists living among us that can twist our insight and help show us the extraordinary lying in the ordinary. This week Eric Baker from Design Observer culled together images of artists who do just that. The artists he’s selected all look at the book as an object to be reconsidred.

Three Jen Bekman Gallery artists have made the grade this time around: Mickey Smith, Nina Katchadourian and Michael Mandiberg. Unsurprisingly these very artists are included in our summer group show, Summer Reading, on view now through August 22nd.

View all of Eric Baker’s selections on Design Observer.

Bookshelf 43; MM/CE, Oakland, California by Jane Mount

JBG Summer Reading artist and 20×200 superstar Jane Mount is featured on The New Yorker’s Book Bench today. Monica Racic comments that Jane’s painting “moves beyond the obvious interest in who someone is reading to what they are reading, in a visual sense.” The artist herself goes on to discuss what drew her to paint her brother and sister-in-law’s bookshelf (pictured above):

My brother studied industrial design and works at IDEO in San Francisco. I love that this shelf combines several of my dad’s old books with ones my brother has more recently accumulated. Books are mementos, badges, inspirations and reminders of life-changing moments, and this shelf shows all of that to me. And I also just like the crazy colors that happened to end up next to each other.

Read the full article and check out the original work on view as part of Summer Readingat Jen Bekman Gallery, through August 22.

Ps: I just added the original to the show, so it gives you a good reason to come in and see the show again!

Ciao amici! Seems as though our darling Kate Bingaman-Burt is warming hearts with her illustrations on an international scale! I spotted our Kate on an Italian design blog this moring. Congratulazioni!

Nearer to home, Kate has work up this very minute at the gallery’s Summer Reading exhibition, on view through August 22.

Want more Kate?

Visit her site, Obsessive Consumption.

Purchase her editions, I Bought All of These and Plattsmouth, Nebraska, Carts #1 on 20×200.

See Kate in the recently released documentary, Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design and her exhibit at Jen Bekman Gallery.

 
Vanity Fair APR09:pg 145 (it must have seemed like a no brainer) by Lauren DiCioccio

Damien Hirst’s work is currently on view at the Gagosian until August 21st.  Looking at his work, I was instantly reminded of 20×200 artist Lauren DiCioccio who is also in Summer Reading.  Her color codification dot drawings are similar to Hirst’s “spot” paintings.  Hirst’s work in the Ecstatic Abstraction show is a little different from his some-what morbid (but still totally awesome) installations and sculptures.

However, Hirst apparently can’t escape controversy even when he gets involved in a good cause.  He just joined up with some big names, including Summer Reading artist Ed Ruscha, for Lance Armstrong’s global cancer awareness exhibition.  Hirst and a few other artists were commissioned to design bikes that Armstrong rode in the Tour de France finale; however, true to form, Hirst’s bike is covered in dead butterflies, sparking some negative reactions about his involvement in the event. Dead butterflies glued to a bike doesn’t exactly scream “let’s be positive and find a cure for cancer!”.  

Either way, Armstrong’s show’s proceeds will be donated to cancer research which is always a good thing. 

So, there are a couple weeks left of Ecstatic Abstraction and  I recommend you definitely check it out because I’m no mathematician but Damien Hirst + Roy Lichtenstein+ Jeff Koons = worth seeing.

As Youngna posted over on the Hey, Hot Shot! blog, PetaPixel, the photography blog geared towards the tech-savvy, has an interview up with our very own two-time Hot Shot and Jen Bekman artist, Joseph Holmes. In it, he talks about his popular blog, joe’s nyc, his work-flow, which camera he takes out on the streets and how he got acquainted with Jen Bekman Projects.

New York Times Digital by Joseph Holmes

Here’s a wonderful sentiment from Joseph when asked about his goal in photography:

My goal is to continue to explore and learn. Photography isn’t a journey with a final destination, it’s a life-long process of discovery. That sounds corny, but it’s important: photography is infinitely deep, and becoming a photographer never ends. I’m a beginner, and that’s something I embrace, not rush away from.

With that in mind, check out joe’s nyc and visit the archives to see Joseph’s work from the very beginning, dating all the way back to 2004! I’ve chosen a few of my favorite images from Joseph’s Workspace series.

Don’t forget to head over to PetaPixel for Joseph’s full interview!

Ideal Bookshelf 1, JMM by Jane Mount

Frequent 20×200 artist Jane Mount is back today with an offering from her Bookshelf series, choosing her favorite—and most influential—childhood tomes, in a painting created just for 20×200. You may recognize Jane’s bookshelves from Summer Reading, on view through August 22, at the gallery. Both the pieces in the show are sold and the edition is moving fast so you should really get on it.

Here is what Sara Distin had to say about the piece in this morning’s newsletter:

I have a theory about this. Most impressionable when we’re young, books and other sources of great ideas are given more weight. These books have also, often, been given to us by adults who regard these gifts as important and inspirational in their own lives. The Little Engine That Could, Goodnight Moon and The Little Prince are all titles that have passed the test of time.

How often—recently or long ago—were you able to accomplish a great task while chanting in your head, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!”? Am I the only one who still nods off some nights with sweet thoughts for the moon and all the other good things in life? And really, where would we all be if we hadn’t learned from the young prince to listen to our hearts as often as we listen to our heads? Generations of us owe these books thanks! And so it is fitting that Jane has memorialized them here in Ideal Bookshelf 1, JMM.

You can read the full newsletter here.

If you haven’t seen the show yet, make sure to make it in before the show closes in just over two weeks on August 22nd. NY Art Beat critic Laura Meli writes, “Just as a summer read should be, the exhibition is intriguing, short, and fast-paced, with a few welcome surprises buried within.” If you still don’t believe me, see what Elle and Artlog have to say.

Ideal Bookshelf 1, JMM (detail) by Jane Mount

Hot Water, 2009 by Carrie Marill

Jen Bekman Gallery artist, Carrie Marill, will open a solo show of new work this Thursday at Seattle’s Howard House Gallery. The exhibition, Visual Aides, recontextualizes educational images found at a Parisian flea market. Of the work, Marill writes:

Originally these visual aides were didactic drawings used in classrooms in the late 1950’s to illustrate for children different aspects of the world (farming, industry, water tables the seashore, etc). I scanned, archived and reproduced these images on watercolor paper and updated them with specific current events which relate to the state of our environment and how humans anthropomorphize the planet. The chosen events were applied to the drawings in a similar style as the originals so the completed image becomes a “Where’s Waldo” of what’s evolved and devolved environmentally and socially since the 1950’s. Collectively the works introduce contemporary issues and ideals into a 1950’s world view creating a sometimes satirical, but persistently critical look into to our collective past and future.

Visual Aides
Howard House | 604 Second Ave | Seattle, WA
Opening reception: August 6th from 6-8pm
August 6th-29th

View more of Marill’s work on her site, and on her gallery page. You can also purchase her work from 20×200 here.

Michael Jackson and Bubbles (1988) by Jeff Koons

I’ve been avoiding most of the news regarding the King of Pop’s passing but Hilton Als’ heartbreaking piece on Michael Jackson for The New York Review of Books was hard to miss.

See more of the art world’s response to MJ and his death via the round-up of links below:

Of course we all know the image above by artist Jeff Koons, but apparently French artist Jean-Baptiste Seckler is sculpting a public tribute to the icon in front of Paris’ Pompidou Center. The sculpture is a rendering of Jackson during the Thriller era. Sculptor Seckler explains, “I’ve spent quite a lot of time on the eyes to try and capture the intensity of the personality.”

A shopping mall in Berlin is hosting a 200 ton sand sculpture constructed as a memorial for the late star.

Hip-hop video blogger Jay Smooth responds to Jackson’s passing noting his decision to process memories without making media.

Could Gary, Indiana, Michael Jackson’s birthplace, be the new Graceland? Maybe not:

Their house shows no mark of its former occupants’ success, save for the renamed streets—it sits at the corner of Jackson Street and Jackson Family Boulevard. It’s incredible to imagine that a family of 11 once lived in the tiny two-bedroom bungalow. There is no garage. Maybe there was, once. Maybe they just practiced in the yard, though dancing in the grass is hard. Maybe there’s a basement we don’t know about.