People’s Park #38 by Kurt Tong

We are pleased to announce that Kurt Tong, one of the two 2009 Hey, Hot Shot! Ultras has been added to the Jen Bekman Gallery site.

We have included a selection of images from Kurt’s22 Steps to the Sea, Farewell in Labrador, and People’s Parkseries. Kurt has a large body of work and we encourage you to explore both the gallery site and Kurt’s personal site to see full bodies of work and other series.

A Bit More About Kurt:
Tong has worked and traveled extensively across Europe, the Americas and Asia. In 1999, Kurt co-founded Prema Vasam, a charitable home for disabled and disadvantaged children in Chennai, South India before becoming a full-time photographer in 2003.

He received a Masters in documentary photography from London College of Communications in 2006. He has since been chosen as a winner in the first Lens Culture – Rhubarb Photo Book Award, the Blurb Photography Book Now competition and the prestigious Jerwood Photography Award.

Kurt’s photographs have been widely exhibited around the world at venues including: Jen Bekman Gallery in New York, Impressions Gallery in Bradford, The Royal Academy in London, La Casa Encendida in Madrid, Abbaye de Neumunster in Luxembourg and the CPA Exhibition in Chengdu, China. This summer and fall, several of Kurt’s projects will be on view in the UK and France.

Farewell in Labrador #19 by Kurt Tong

22 Steps to the Sea #26 by Kurt Tong

To see more work from Kurt Tong check out his site. and make sure to get on the gallery mailing list to make sure you hear more about Kurt and his solo exhibition coming to the gallery in the next year.

Speaking of Hey, Hot Shot! the 2010 deadline for submissions is this Sunday, August 22nd at 8 p.m. (EDT). Note that the deadline for Alec Soth’s Curator’s Choice Award is slightly earlier, Friday, August 20th at Midnight (EDT).

The prizes this round, other than getting your work seen by our amazing panel: $5K, gallery representation, a solo exhibition at JBG, a $1K Blurb credit to each Hot Shot, and a chance for editions on 20×200.

For more info head over to heyhotshot.com or just click here to apply now!

Untitled (Goleta) by Liz Kuball

Over at Dwell.com, Aaron Britt had a few things to say about the current show, and featured a quote from me about the curation of Land Use Survey.

A group show that ranges across media that tries to understand how we use land in America, and it’s at once elegiac, angry, and bedeviled by the strange geometry of our present day infrastructure. Ranging from views of a single plant to aerial shots of our squirreling highways, Land Use Survey investigates where we are while still managing to suggest where we’ve been and intimate where we might be heading. ‘I think it is easy to focus on the dire, overdeveloped imagery but in the show I wanted to show as much of the diverse ways that the land is used alongside the diverse ways artists are capturing the land around them,’ says curator Jeffrey Teuton.

Come check out the show before it closes on August 15th!

Placed Places by William Wegman | 42” x 46” | oil and postcards on panel

Please join us on Wednesday, June 30th from 6 to 8 p.m. at the opening reception for Land Use Survey, featuring photographs, paintings and works on paper by twenty-seven artists.

Land Use Survey functions as a critical appraisal of land use across the country, as a document of the changing landscape vernacular, and as a celebration of the artists who take diverse approaches to capturing this genre. The show opens with a series of landscapes that remain untouched by man. Slowly, signs of human intrusion begin to appear: car tracks, empty bottles, a retaining wall and piles of dirt. As one progresses through the exhibition, both in the gallery space and within the areas described by the works, increasingly more land turns over to commercial and residential development, before finally giving way to the dizzying geometries of the modern metropolis.

The exhibition features work by Ian Baguskas, Chris Ballantyne, Beth Dow, Christoph Gielen, Todd Hido, Liz Kuball,Nick Lamia, Scott Lawrence, Michael Lundgren, Alex MacLean, David Maisel, Paho Mann, Louisa McElwain, Sarah McKenzie, Joel Meyerowitz, Dana Miller, Brad Moore, Matthew Moore, Michelle Muldrow, Justin Newhall, Ross Racine, Tyson Anthony Roberts, Andrew Scott Ross, Aili Schmeltz, Bryan Schutmaat, Alec Soth and William Wegman.

The exhibition will be on view from July 1 through August 14, 2010. (The gallery will be closed on July 3rd, 4th and 5th for the holiday).

Zermatt (2007) | 18” x 13” | Archival Pigment Print

Sarah Fones of the The New York Times T Magazine Blog, The Moment writes about Gregory Krum’s ...Practice… exhibition.

Photographic evidence — say, the kind of indefatigable proof that one has, in fact, visited the Great Wall of China — typically suffices as testament to having actually been there and done that. The photographer Gregory Krum (who is also the director of retail for the shop at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum) has been to the base of the Matterhorn and has seen the tombstones erected there in a climbers’ cemetery. The photos he took are on display as part of his first solo exhibition, “…Practice…,” at Jen Bekman Gallery in SoHo. These images, along with shots of flowers, dust, still-lifes and interiors also seek to illuminate something inherently more tenuous: devotion. “The idea behind the show is those things that become true solely by belief,” he says.

Belief is twofold in this instance, with Krum both exploring the confines of his own (in the guise of photographer) and that of others (embodied in inanimate objects left behind). The tombstone portraits, for example, are literal markers of a failed endeavor. Five interior shots evocative of Dutch still-lifes, including a tiny bedside porcelain skull (a nod to the tradition of vanitas) and a copy of Alcoholics Anonymous, examine the extent to which all manmade objects more literally communicate meaning. An orange rind might imply a sense of inevitable decay, while Ettore Sottsass’s Memphis-style lamp — not to mention Krum’s own corkboard of inspirations — impart the boundless capacity for human innovation and endurance. Finally, a series of 24 small photographs of devotional, sculpturelike offerings convey the idea of repetition and quotidian ritual, or as Krum puts it, “the daily practice.” Just as the spiritually inclined are compelled to participate in these rituals, so the artist is consumed by the desire to create.

Such belief systems are self-reflexive, Krum explains, and in fact the show itself became a sort of meta example of his own devotion. It also coincided with Krum’s fascination with the kind of books that act as personal bibles, outlining an artist’s rules of conduct and recasting the process as a daily spiritual/intellectual/aesthetic regimen. “A particularly good one is Gerhard Richter’s The Daily Practice of Painting,” Krum notes, “from which I ultimately stole the title of the show and postcard design.”

Read the article full article and view the accompanying slideshow here. ...Practice… is on view through June 27th, 2010.

Sand No. 98 (2006/10) by Gregory Krum | 18” x 13” | Archival Pigment Print

A few treasures from the Internet to get you through the week:

The Frick has a bowling alley!

Check out the installations and paintings by Jacob Dahlgreen.

I just have to post this- Jeffrey Deitch after getting a bloody nose at the Shepard Fairey (yawn) swan song Deitch opening- the video. I think a little blood helps butch up a pink suit.

Dave Harper is killing it with awesome clips for Best Link Ever at Art Fag City. This week is good but nothing beats this!

Donald Judd library online! All I know is intern Casey G. spent the better part of a night on this site.

Reverse volume bowls by Mischer Traxler are the perfect thing to add to my odd fruit/vegetable mold collection. (not kidding)

Flying Spaghetti Monster or Spaghetti Cat?

Mamma Andersson at Zwirner. Go see it.

Great new Darren Almond photogravures at Crown Point Press. They are not on the site just yet, but you can catch a glimpse in the new Artforum.

William Powhida is giving a lecture on Surviving the Art World Using the Art of Sorcery on May 14.

Vantasy by Ryan Humphrey

Please join us on Sunday, May 16th from 2-5 p.m. for a leisurely afternoon stroll to a few of our favorite LES galleries led by JBP’s own Philae Knight. The group will meet at 2:00 p.m. at Invisible-Exports and finish up at JBG, where you can relax with a glass of wine and a brief talk by Associate Director Jeffrey Teuton about the work of Gregory Krum, whose solo exhibition, ...Practice…, will be on view.

Artists Penelope Umbrico and Ryan Humphrey will also be on hand to talk about their work and exhibitions at LMAK and DCKT galleries, two stops along the way.

Space is limited so please RSVP to info@jenbekman.com by Saturday, May 15th.

JBG LES Gallery Walk Schedule
2:00 – Invisible Exports: A Vernacular of Violence, Group Show
2:30 - Stephan Stoyanov Gallery: Future Tense, Group Show
3:00 – LMAK: As Is, a solo exhibition by Penelope Umbrico (artist will be in attendance)
3:30 – 11 Rivington: Hilary Berseth, a solo exhibition by Hilary Berseth
4:00 – Salon 94 BOWERY: T-Shirt Paintings: Hippie Punk, a solo exhibition by Richard Prince
4:30 – DCKT: Early American, a solo exhibition by Ryan Humphrey (artist will be in attendance)
5:00 – Jen Bekman Gallery: ...Practice…, a solo exhibition by Gregory Krum

We look forward to seeing you; don’t forget to RSVP and reserve a spot!

Reid’s Farm by Derek Henderson

We’ve quickly reached the one month mark of Hey, Hot Shot!, and I decided to delve back into the archives of gallery shows past with a special look at 2008 First Edition Hot Shot Derek Henderson. A 40” x 50” print of Reid’s Farm by Henderson used to hang in the office and I was mesmerized by it. I relished the times when I could be alone in the office and take as long as I wanted to gaze at the image in silence.

There is a certain type of work I gravitate towards, and I tend to shy away from anything involving people (just a personal thing). However, there is something magical about this photo to me. At first, the subject matter seems straightforward—and Derek’s entire Mercy Mercer project is indeed a documentation of the Waikato River in New Zealand and its people. But where so often documentary work easily hands you the story, Derek has crafted a project that both tells of a community while simultaneously creating images that allow for the viewer to create their own narrative. While recently flipping through the pages of Derek’s gorgeous book of this series, on each page, I created a new story of my own making.

Even with my aforementioned aversion to people-focused work, I find the portraits magnetic. In Reid’s Farm, contemporary folk are surrounded by contemporary objects like nylon fold out chairs, yet the work takes me more to the Hudson River Valley painters than to anything contemporary.

On this note, I am pleased to share that Derek has forthcoming solo show at the gallery. You can visit his site or find his book here for a sneak preview at what you may see on our walls.

Also, don’t forget: Hey, Hot Shot! is open RIGHT NOW! Since its inception in 2005, Hey, Hot Shot!, the premier international photography competition, has provided one hundred and twenty-nine photographers from all over the world with unrivaled exposure, support and recognition. This year marks the 5th anniversary of the competition and the 7th anniversary of Jen Bekman Gallery.

In addition to the hallmark awards of past competitions, this year we are offering a $5,000 honorarium and five Curator’s Choice Awards. The deadline for submissions is August 22, 2010 at 8:00 p.m. (EDT) and there will be only one season of competition in 2010, so apply now!

We’re busy preparing for Gregory Krum’s upcoming solo-show but we were excited to stop and see that Sight Unseen, an online magazine founded by two former editors of I.D., has featured a peek inside Gregory’s “perfectly appointed” Brooklyn home. In addition to being a fantastic photographer, Gregory daylights as Director of Retail at the Cooper-Hewitt Shop in New York, curating one of the city’s best spots for design shopping.

Gregory’s certainly got a knack for mixing high-design with thrift store finds to create a space that is uniquely his own. Throughout the house you will find Italian chairs and a custom-made bed frame mixed in with eclectic objects, art found at a thrift store, and several of Krum’s own photographs.

The slideshow is accompanied by an article on Gregory’s experience as an artist, in design retail, and details about his upcoming exhibition ...Practice…, which opens May 15th at Jen Bekman Gallery.

Gregory’s sold out edition Chateau Pool can be spotted behind this plant with a pair of googly eyes (an homage to SNL).

Make sure to check out the full tour on Sight Unseen and then head over to Gregory’s 20×200 page to see his four gorgeous editions.

What I love in the artworld:

• Artists that make profound, engaging and hard work that has the capacity to connect us to the time and place in which we live as well as to one another.


• Those that are able to make an art in and of itself about how they live to make their work; i.e. making it really and truly accessible, favoring real solutions to artistic problems (such as vehicle by which to most honestly display and show work) versus gimmickry.


• Creators that are truly contagiously enthusiastic (grateful, even!) about what it is they do and the forum they get to do it in.


• Art makers that possess an innate fluency in talking about their work and the trajectory of art as a whole in addition to managing to fashion new and innovative ways to connect their art to new audiences and to create a venue for people to have the experience of art in surprising and unaffected ways.

Untitled by Zoe Strauss

Artist-We-Love Zoe Strauss is and continues to do and be all of the above, and raging force of awesomeness that she is, we can’t say enough good things about her. What we can do, however, is give you the skinny on what she’s doing right now so that you can see some of this genius goodness for yourself. Check it:

In anticipation of Strauss’s 10th Annual I-95 Show (more on that in a second), she is preparing a couple of fundraising events that any enterprising collector of contemporary American photography should seriously consider supporting.  The first is a Polaroid event tomorrow, Saturday March 27th, in Philadelphia. For $25 dollars, you can get your portrait taken by Zoe in front of one of these four hopelessly amazing backdrops. The one of the lights at Philly Stadium is my favorite:

There are only 50 portrait appointments available, so if you’re interested act fast.  Here are the details as per Ms. Strauss:

Come get a polaroid taken by me.
25 dollars per polaroid

50 polaroids are available and you must rsvp to insure getting a photo.

Reserve a photo by emailing me at info (at) zoestrauss (dot) com…

put Polaroid in the subject line

and

tell me your name
and the time slot you’ll be coming
1pm-2pm
2pm-3pm
3pm-4pm

that’s it! Then just get over to the studio!

25 dollars per polaroid
cash only

March 27th
1 to 4 PM

At PAP headquarters

838 Cantrell St.
Philadelphia, PA
19148

The second fundraiser you can do sitting from your chair where you’re reading now. Strauss is offering limited-edition photographs of the 1-95 project from each year running for $250 a piece.
Untitled Countdown Dated Edition Photo page.

Finally, if you don’t yet know about Zoe’s epic I-95 project, you are in for that rare example of applied ingenuity and raw talent that is hoped for in any artistic endeavor.  In short, Strauss has been making images of denizens and place in her hometown of Philadelphia, in worthy succession to a street photography lineage echoing Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand  and even William Eggleston, for more than 10 years, and annually holding a public art installation of these images on the concrete supporting slabs in the same underpass of I-95 every first Sunday in May.  Of the project, she has said:

I’m very proud to be an American, while simultaneously I’m really very devastated by our history and our actions.  How to reconcile these two things is very interesting to me.

The story is less about Philadelphia, a specific place, and more about a kind of all-encompassing epic that’s about everyplace.

The show is a 10-year long project; it won’t be so much speaking about the current moment as it will be about talking about the entire decade…At 4pm the show is done, and that means if people want to take the photographs they can.  It’s not a commodity in terms of “I’m putting these up, and then I’m going to take them down”—as if there is some worth for that.  The worth is the moment in which they’re up.  That 3 hour time period in which it’s all up and together.

Searching for a bit more context?  Need a reason to journey to an interstate underpass in Philadelphia in the spring?  Watch this mini-documentary about the project:

This will be the very last year that this public installation will be put up by Zoe Strauss, so mark your calendars now for this last chance at a truly unique American art event:

I-95.10

Sunday, May 2th, 2010
On view: 1:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Under I-95 at Front St. and Mifflin St.

Untitled by Joseph O. Holmes

If you are a photographer and an avid follower of Jen Bekman Gallery, you might just know that it’s through the Hey Hot Shot! photo competition that we discover artists that often later appear in both JBG and 20×200. Joseph Holmes, Ian Baguskas, Colleen Plumb and Nina Berman all first graced us with their presence through their entries in HHS! prior to their representation at Jen Bekman Gallery. The competition has always been a fantastic source of new artists for sharing between various Jen Bekman Projects, but we just thought we’d bring this little fact to your attention, because the HHS! 2010 competition is now open for entries!

The deadline for submissions is August 22, 2010 at 8:00 p.m. (EDT). There will be only one season of competition in 2010, so don’t dally, read on for all the details, and get your work in!

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Since its inception in 2005, Hey, Hot Shot!, the premier international photography competition, has provided one hundred and twenty-nine photographers from all over the world with unrivaled exposure, support and recognition. This year marks the 5th anniversary of the competition and the 7th anniversary of Jen Bekman Gallery. In celebration, we are introducing even more incredible opportunities for every contender.

In addition to the hallmark awards of past competitions, this year we are offering a $5,000 honorarium and five Curator’s Choice Awards.

A diverse panel of photography professionals—including founder Jen Bekman, Aperture Foundation publisher Lesley A. Martin, Chronicle Books chairman and CEO Nion McEvoy, a founding editor of Radius Books Darius Himes and photographer Kent Rogowski—reviews every entry.

This season, we are thrilled to welcome Tod Lippy, editor-in-chief of Esopus magazine and president of the Esopus Foundation Ltd., to our panel. Tod served as a senior editor at Print magazine from 1990 to 1997, is an award-winning filmmaker and also a frequent lecturer on topics ranging from screenwriting to graphic design.

Our panel will select five photographers as the 2010 Hot Shots. Each photographer will be awarded:

+ A $500 honorarium.
+ Participation in the 2010 Hot Shot Exhibition at Jen Bekman Gallery.
+ The opportunity to release an edition on 20×200.

Jen Bekman will select one of the five 2010 Hot Shots for the Grand Prize and announce the recipient on March 15, 2011. In addition to the honors as a Hot Shot, the grand prize recipient will be awarded:

+ A $5,000 honorarium to support a personal project.
+ A solo exhibition at Jen Bekman Gallery.
+ Representation from Jen Bekman Gallery for two years, commencing with his/her selection.

All entrants are reviewed for participation in 20×200; entering the competition is the only way for photographers to have their work considered for an edition. In addition, we will feature one contender each weekday during the competition on the Hey, Hot Shot! blog. Every contender receives ample opportunity for online exposure through our blog and on Facebook, Flickr and Twitter, where HHS! has thousands of fans and followers and serves as a leading voice in the dialogue about contemporary photography.

Ever looking to expand contenders’ opportunities for recognition, each month, a guest curator will choose a photographer from those who have applied todate for a Curator’s Choice Award. This contender will be featured in a Hey, Hot Shot! newsletter and awarded a prize from the curator’s affiliate organization.

Stay tuned on our blog, mailing list and Twitter for upcoming details about the first Curator’s Choice Award.

The guidelines are simple: submit five photographs from a single body of work, using our online upload tool, with an entry fee starting at $60.

The entry fee will increase throughout the competition, so don’t delay: Apply now!

Got more questions? Check out our frequently updated FAQ.

A photograph by Jen Bekman Gallery artist Nina Berman is featured in the Wall Street Journal today as part of an article titled “The Whitney Biennial Lightens Up”. Kelly Crow writes, “The country’s pre-eminent survey of new American art has a reputation for focusing on angry or anxious young things. But the latest edition, opening Feb. 25 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, aims to be something else: fun.”

About Nina’s work Kelly writes:

The biennial doesn’t abandon politics altogether, but Mr. Bonami says he went looking for art that reflects the American psyche about war without being “bombastic.” New York photographer Nina Berman is showing a series about the postwar daily life of former Marine Sgt. Ty Ziegel, who was severely disfigured in a car bomb in Iraq but returned home and married his fiancée, Renee Kline.”

You can read the full article, which features a slideshow as well as profiles of Charles Ray and Aurel Schmidt, online or in today’s print edition. More information about The Whitney Biennial: 2010 is available at the Whitney’s website.

Ty With Gun by Nina Berman from Marine Wedding

Jen Bekman Gallery artist Nina Berman spoke with Mike Melia of PBS’ Art Beat to discuss her work, particularly the series Marine Wedding, which will be exhibited at the upcoming 2010 Whitney Biennial. In the article, Associate Curator of the Biennial Gary Carrion-Murayari says of Berman’s work:

You come away with a real emotional connection to the individual she is depicting. Anybody could take a picture of someone who is disfigured and make a shocking image. These go beyond that and get to the emotional experience of soldiers.

PBS’ site also features an audio interview with Nina. Click HERE to read the full text and to hear Mike and Nina’s conversation about her exceptional bodies of work, Purple Hearts, Homeland and Marine Wedding.

Untitled work image by Holly Lynton

Since last summer, I have been having a back and forth with JBG artist Holly Lynton as she works on developing her newest body of work. One of the great aspects of my job is getting to be a part of the process: watching projects develop and getting sneak peaks into all of the images that photographers go though before choosing what will make the final cut.

Holly’s new images, photographs of the relationships between man and animal, have such a quiet intensity. It is as if she captures these moments of connection that transcend the implied chaos and noise that is surrounding the subjects. Think of a beautiful and peaceful picture of a man whose face is covered in bees. In the above work, it is this almost “divine” moment between the girl and these turkeys amidst squawking I can only imagine and the commotion of flying feathers – an often used cinematic gesture for any type of chaos or crash in a rural scene. She becomes, as Holly and I have been referring to her in our back and forth, “The Turkey Madonna.”

Holly normally likes to keep her projects under wraps until completion but thankfully I could convince her to let me show one image from her current work in development. Here is what Holly had to say via email about her recent work:

I left New York for Massachusetts farm country in part to live the locavore life, defined mainly as eating locally, sustainably, and organically. What I hadn’t anticipated is how it is more often than not an extension of people’s spiritual lives. In my photography, I was initially drawn to photographing individuals who confront dangers in nature, allowing themselves to be vulnerable. Examples of these are bee keepers who wear no protective clothing and catfish noodlers who fish for seventy pound catfish with their bare hands. While photographing them, I watched them enter a transformative and meditate state that I see also exists in certain farm activities. I observed a reverence for nature rather than the absence of fear. Much of the current literature and film presents the negative sides of industrial farming without enough celebration of the positive aspects of small scale, sustainable, local, organic farms. I am interested in photographing people who work with animals on these farms and in the wild to expose the spiritual conviction they have for this way of life, as a gesture to my commitment and belief in its importance as well.

Velodrome, from The Games We Play by James Deavin

If you happened to miss the excitement, four new 20×200 editions by Jen Bekman Gallery’s own James Deavin were released yesterday! The editions all come from James’s series The Games We Play, which depicts “sporting environments portrayed as simply as possible.” Devoid of humans, these constructed landscapes reveal the strange and beautiful nature of modern leisure and competition.

The series also shows the fascinating scope of James’ work, which spans both the digital and physical worlds. Photographs from the New World, an exhibition composed entirely of screenshots from the computer game Second Life, had its acclaimed debut at Jen Bekman Gallery back in 2005.

Untitled, from Photographs from the New World by James Deavin

James writes:

Second Life is a place where people can live out their dreams. Some people’s dreams are to have a bigger version of what they already have. Others’ fondest wish is to be a talking elephant from Mars. Second Life is not a ‘game’ – there is no “next level,” no “level boss,” there is no winning or losing. Rather, characters enter into complex relationships, build things, earn and spend money. In fact, the world turns over ten million dollars a month. This money is spent in the market place and certain consumer products have become ubiquitous: grand pianos, waterfalls, boats, Japanese gardens. If money were no object, is this how real life would look?

Together, the two series raise an interesting contrast and comparison between what we imagine and what we make real. Taken out of their inhabited context, the environments from The Games We Play seem every bit as absurd and decadent as their virtual counterparts.

All five of James’s 20×200 editions have prints available for purchase.

To inquire about limited edition 30”x40” prints of the aforementioned series as well as other work by James Deavin, send an email to sales AT jenbekman DOT com.

Marine Wedding by Nina Berman

Jen Bekman Gallery is pleased to announce that represented artist and 2007 Hot Shot Nina Berman and 2005 Hot Shot Curtis Mann have been selected as 2010 Whitney Biennial artists.

Berman’s first solo show with Jen Bekman Gallery in 2007, Purple Hearts, the ground-breaking work that placed Berman in the Biennial, received international attention and acclaim. In a review for The New York Times, critic Holland Cotter proclaimed, “the images add up to a complex and desolating anti-war statement.” Purple Hearts received a tremendous response both locally and internationally. The gallery presented Berman’s second exhibition, Homeland, in October 2008.

Both Berman and Mann have released editions on Jen Bekman Projects’ online print program, 20×200.

The 2010 Whitney Biennial is being curated by Francesco Bonami, in collaboration with the Whitney’s Gary Carrion-Murayari, who will be associate curator. This will be the 75th in the series of Whitney Annual and Biennial exhibitions, inaugurated in 1932 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. The show—which is scaled back to exhibit just 55 artists at only one location in 2010—opens to the public on February 25th and runs through May 30th.

Tree Tops, from the series Somewhere in Israel by Curtis Mann

G.I. Goat by Nina Berman

Rolling Acres Mall 1, 2008 by Brian Ulrich

We’re big fans of photographer Brian Ulrich and his beautifully executed work dealing with consumerism in America. In fact, Brian has been included in two past shows at the gallery, Summer Reading, earlier this year, and A New American Portrait, back in 2007. So we were totally delighted to find out that his photographs are currently featured on the expertly-curated photo section of The Morning News. Interviewer Nozlee Samadzadeh writes, “Brian’s photographs of closed-down malls and big-box retail stores reveal the potential ghost towns lying inside successful shopping complexes all across America.”

Though the interview is brief, it has lots of great bits from Brian such as, “I cringe to think we’ll all just be under one giant Costco roof like in the movie Wall-E in the future, though it sometimes it seems quite feasible.” Brian’s strangely haunting mall-scapes, which accompany the Q&A, point out that we may be closer to this dystopia than we would like to imagine. Creating his own work is just one of the ways that Brian wrestles with implications of consumer culture. He also serves as a judge on the panel for Picture Black Friday, a photography competition devoted exclusively to documenting our most stereotypically American ritual. Submissions for this year recently closed and the winners should be announced soon. So lay down your credit card real slow and head over to see the full set on The Morning News.

Tunnel by Holly Lynton

If you find yourself in LA this Friday, November 13th, consider yourself lucky! You’ll have a much easier time bidding on a photograph by Holly Lynton than us New Yorkers! Kopeikin Gallery will be hosting a silent and live auction as a benefit for the Larchmont Charter School, featuring 100 photographs starting at 70% of their retail value. The auction will also include work by Hey, Hot Shot! contenders Alex Leme, Katie Shapiro and Annie Musselman. You can view the auction catalogue here, and visit the gallery for complete benefit information.

Larchmont Charter School Benefit Auction
Kopeikin Gallery
8810 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA

Tickets to the auction are $25, $30 at the door
To order: call Wendy at (323) 664-8034 or email desk@kopeikingallery.com

Speaking of auctions, don’t forget that Holly is also participating in SF Camerawork’s annual auction along with five fellow JBG artists, Nina Berman, Christine Callahan, Holly Lynton, Joe Holmes and Colleen Plumb. The catalogue is available for online preview and the exhibition viewing will begin today, Tuesday, November 10th. The auction will commence Saturday, December 5th at 1 p.m. More details are available here.

Start your bidding!

Howon-dong | 40” x 50” | Edition of 5 | Digital C-Print
Larger views and image details are available on our Flickr page

Jen Bekman Gallery is pleased to announce the extension of  A Square through November 14th. Hosang Park is one of two artists to be awarded representation by Jen Bekman Gallery in 2008 through the international photography competition, Hey, Hot Shot!

Park, a Korea-based artist, began taking aerial photographs of parks that are often developed alongside luxury apartment buildings in Seoul. His resulting images in A Square flatten the spaces into geometric surfaces reminiscent of modernist abstraction.

Recently DLK Collection posted a review of the exhibition; there is more to Park’s photographs than meets the on-screen eye. Associate Director of the gallery, Jeffrey Teuton, also talks about the subtle details of Park’s work in the 20×200 reprise of the artist’s two editions.

Thank you. That is all.

Taken from The Impossible Project website:

We are pleased to herewith announce a history-making cooperation between Polaroid and The Impossible Project:
As we have created quite some buzz about Analog Instant Photography over the past 12 months, the Polaroid licensee – The Summit Global Group – now can’t resist any longer and announced at a press conference on October 13th in Hong Kong where they will re-launch some of the most famous Polaroid Instant Cameras.
Therefore they are commissioning The Impossible Project to develop and produce a limited edition of Polaroid branded Instant Films in the middle of 2010.
The Impossible Project is proud and excited that its ambitions and all the relentless work that has already been invested are now becoming the foundation for Polaroid’s comeback as a producer of Instant Cameras.
Large-scale production and worldwide sale of The Impossible Project’s new integral film materials under its own brand will already start in the beginning of 2010 – with a brand new black and white instant film with the first color films to follow in the course of the year.

On Tuesday, October 20th, the gallery will host the Official Release Party for City Walks Architecture: New York, published by Chronicle Books.

First, join us for drinks and view Hosang Park’s photographs included in his exhibition, A Square. Then, author Alissa Walker will lead the group on a stroll through the ever-changing Lower East Side with special stops at the New Museum, the Storefront for Art & Architecture and more. The evening winds up back at the JB Gallery for a tasting of four special New York-inspired flavors of gelato from il laboratorio del gelato. You will be able to purchase a copy of the book, on-site, that evening, and Alissa will sign your favorite neighborhood!

Order of Events:
6 p.m. — Meet at Jen Bekman Gallery, 6 Spring Street
7-8:30 p.m. — Walk through the LES
8:30 p.m. — Gelato reception at Jen Bekman Gallery

Alissa will be leading a Week of Walks, from October 18th to the 24th, taking six different urban adventures based on City Walks Architecture: New York! For a full list of other walks you can check out Alissa’s blog—Gelatobaby. The Brooklyn Bridge, High Line, Broadway Skyscrapers and more are all on the schedule!

All walks are free and require no advanced reservation, simply show up at the denoted time ready to walk. All tours include a complimentary serving of gelato or ice cream, plus all attendees will receive a coupon good for a discount on City Walks Architecture: New York.

About City Walks Architecture: New York (stolen from the Chronicle website):

City Walks Architecture: New York—Packed with 25 walking adventures, this unique guide uncovers the Big Apple’s most breathtaking buildings, parks, and monuments! Each card focuses on a specific area and features helpful background information, detailed walking instructions, a full-color map, and stunning photography. Covering both landmark structures and little-known wonders, this is the perfect gift for design-savvy travelers and adventurous locals alike.

Walks include:
Greenwich Village
Empire State Building
Central Park
World Trade Center Site
And more!