photo by Alison Grippo

On July 24th Alison Grippo (jb photographer often known for her Friday Night Fights series) is participating in a rather interesting event:

PHTHRD: Master-Disaster Photography Duel is a timed photography competition between teams of photographers, stylists, make-up artists, and assistants. Through a series of rounds, each photo team will have to create an image that best responds to a given theme. After each round, images will be voted upon by the audience and the winners will progress.

5 teams of 1 photographer, 1 stylist, 1 make-up artist, and 1 assistant will have 2 hours to produce 3 images that address creative briefs assigned to them at the event. For their tools, they will have access to their own photo equipment, a designated area, a female model, male model, select props and members from the LVHRD audience.

As photographers and their teams create each image, attendees will walk through the space observing the creative process at work. At the conclusion of the evening, photographers will have 1 day to edit their images before online voting begins.

All photos from the evening will be displayed on the LVHRD or event partner sites. Event attendees and an online audience will then vote on their favorite images.

Buy your tickets ASAP if you want a spot to see this. I should mention the event will have good eats, Dewar’s whisky, and, according to the website, it’s also being held in “an amazingly secret venue.”

We’re rooting for you, Alison!

Just as many of the artists in the A New American Portrait exhibition write blogs of their own, quite a few of them also have excellent photography books worth adding to your collection.

Alec Soth

Alec has a fine selection of books, the chronology below:

Sleeping by the Mississippi (Steidl, 2004)

Niagara (Steidl, 2006)

Fashion Magazine: Paris Minnesota (Magnum Photos, 2007)

Dog Days Bogotá (Steidl, 2007) COMING SOON!

Brian Ulrich

Brian has been included in a box set that was published by Aperture in collaboration with the MoCP, Chicago called MP3: Midwest Photographers Publication Project. The book presents the work of three new emerging talents: Kelli Connell, Justin Newhall and, of course, Brian Ulrich.

MP3: Midwest Photographers Publication Project (Aperture, 2006)

I’ve also heard word that Brian is in the midst of putting together work from his Thrift series. Look out for that one.

Todd Hido

Mr. Hido’s books sell like hot cakes:

House Hunting (Nazraeli Press, 2001)

Outskirts (Nazraeli Press, 2002)

Roaming (Nazraeli Press, 2004)

Between the Two (Nazraeli Press, 2006)

Due to popular demand for the book when the first edition came out, the second printing of House Hunting will be available very soon.

All these great books… It seems like everyone else in the show should be hard at work on book dummies themselves, don’t you think?

And wouldn’t A New American Portrait be a great title for a book that Jörg and Jen co-edit?

Genius.

Image currently on view at jen bekman thru August 3
© Todd Hido

Jörg Colberg, co-curator of the A New American Portrait exhibition, writes one of the internet’s most widely read blogs on photography. Jörg’s blog, Conscientious, considers the scope of contemporary photography, some current photo-related news, and acts as a hub for many of the other photography blogs online. Somehow, Jörg also manages to find the time to interview interesting photographers, one of my favorite parts of his blog. He then shares these interviews in a category he’s labeled “Conversations.”

Over the course of time that he has been conducting these interviews, Jörg has actually spoken with many of the ANAP artists: Amy Elkins, Todd Hido, Alec Soth, Alec Soth (again), Brian Ulrich, and Shen Wei.

Take some time to read through all the conversations, learn more about the photographers and see what each of them have to say about their own work.

ANAP blogs (Alec Soth, Brian Ulrich, Amy Elkins, Shen Wei)

A few of the ANAP artists also keep personal blogs on photography, which I’m deeming “required reading.”

For your perusal:

Alec Soth
Brian Ulrich
Amy Elkins
Shen Wei

Stay tuned for more required reading.

Co-curators Jörg Colberg and Jen Bekman with Alec Soth at the ANAP opening

Hi there, readers. This is Shane—photographer, blogger, and short-term summer intern at jb—here to give you a bit of news about your favorite gallerist.

Though first, let me just say that if you were not at the opening for A New American Portrait you did miss quite a fantastic event—and I’m not just saying this because I feel obligated to. As already mentioned, the turnout was remarkable and the work looks especially nice “in the flesh.”

Gallerist Ed Winkleman had quite a few kind words to say about the exhibition on his blog, describing the show as “a wonderful survey of contemporary portraiture in photography.” And Padddy Johnson of the notorious Art Fag City had a bit of fun with the digital snaps that Alec took on her camera at the opening. If you’re curious, there are more pictures from opening night available online in both Jen and Jörg’s Flickr streams.

And fortunately, for those of you who weren’t able to make it on Friday, the work will be on view at the gallery until August 3.

Now back to the original point of this post, eh?

Just yesterday, Jen was on a radio show where she spoke with Eva Lake about the ANAP show, the gallery, her new 20×200 project, Hey, Hot Shot!, Personism, blogs in general, her List of Women Speakers for Your Conference, plus a whole lot more.

Basically, she talked about everything ever.

I found that the conversation was very interesting especially for those less familiar with what goes on the at the gallery. Listeners will get a good sense of Jen’s motivations as a gallerist and a bit of information about her plethora of projects.

The podcast is worth a listen if you’ve got the time.

You can download the .mp3 archive here (0:56:55).

Co-curator Jörg Colberg: tall, lanky, German. Check out the ANAP Opening Reception Set on Flickr.

Friday night’s opening for A New American Portrait lived up to all the hype. It was one of the funnest openings we’ve ever hosted and it went so smoothly which was a relief. As you might know from pictures or in person, the gallery is tiny and the pre-show buzz was huge. Packed openings are fun and all, but can be anxiety provoking – I worry about pictures being knocked askew and cops issuing open container summonses (when the festivities inevitably spill out on to Spring St.) and about running out of booze. A million little things! It’s often hard for me to relax and have a good time. There were a few tense moments on Friday, but generally speaking I had a blast. The show looks gorgeous, all but two of the artists were in attendance and the weather was stunningly perfect.

I put up a set of opening night photos compliments of the ever-excellent Joe Holmes.

It was a really special night – I’m grateful to the jb intern crew for being totally on top of stuff and allowing me to relax and have a good time. (Not to mention the fact that most of them stayed behind to clean up so I could go on to the closing party at Silverstein for the even better in person than on her blog Zoe Strauss and her totally kick-ass show.) It was wonderful to have Christine Collins, Ben Donaldson, Amy Elkins, Alec Soth, Peter Haakon Thompson, Brian Ulrich and Shen Wei come from near and far to be there for the opening. And of course, I cannot even begin to tell you how great it’s been working with Jörg, my collaborator and my friend, who is seriously terrific and smart and wonderful. I wish he and his lovely wife Karen Tozzi lived here in NYC - then we could meet for breakfast at Veselka all the time!

Thanks to everyone who made it out, and I hope to see many more of you between now and when the show closes on August 3rd. We might even throw another event into the mix between now and then. Watch this space for more on ANAP, it’s artists and etc – we’ll continue to update the blog with juicy tidbits for the duration of the show.

Pushing Mesh by Peter Haakon Thompson, from the exhibition A New American Portrait

Over on the Saatchi Your Gallery blog , Lupe Nunez-Fernandez has some thoughtful words about A New American Portrait. Here’s a particularly juicy bit:

...the show offers a variety of issues to think about, but point of view might be one of the most fascinating here. All of the works share an ambiguous, theatrical sense of detachment, a way in which the exhibition suggestively opens up a conversation on the inherently contradictory elements in contemporary portraiture.

Have a look at the entire write-up here.

We are nearly finished hanging the show, and it’s looking good. Hope to see lots of you tomorrow!

Josh, Joelton, Tennessee 2004 by Alec Soth

Jörg has very kindly agreed to the occasional jb blog contribution in conjunction with our upcoming A New American Portrait exhibition, and I’ve promised to contribute some of my own thoughts on portraiture and the exhibition too. I’m working on it and will be posting here later this week (and throughout the show.) For some reason it’s easier for me to go on and on about, say, parking than it is for me to write about what I like and why when it comes to photography.

In the meanwhile, Alec Soth is articulate and on video talking about portraits, and the segments below are really worth a viewing. I’m especially fond of the third, The Ground Glass, where Alec describes a portrait as “A picture of the space between us.” Good stuff.

Odessa, Joelton, Tennessee, 2004 by Alec Soth

These videos were made by Mike Dust for The Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program. I’ve added some relevant links below and included two of the images referenced in the post here too. Josh, Joelton, Tennessee 2004 is a favorite of mine and was on my short list to be included in the exhibition. Odessa, Joelton, Tennessee, 2004 looks entirely different to me after watching Alec shoot the photo in the video.

In October of 2004, photographer Alec Soth went on assignment for LIFE magazine to capture weekend soldiers at an Airsoft military simulation in Joelton, Tennessee.

In anticipation of his upcoming exhibition, filmmaker Mike Dust traveled alongside Soth for this three-day excursion, interviewing and shooting alongside him as he worked to capture images for, both the magazine shoot as well as for his personal work.

A number of these photographs (Odessa, Joelton, Tennessee, 2004 and Josh, Joelton, Tennessee, 2004) became part of the exhibition Alec Soth: Portraits at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts the following spring. The video piece created during that shoot was installed in the gallery as an accompaniment to the exhibition.

The video is broken into three segments entitled On Assignment, Portraiture, and The Ground Glass.

Alec Soth: Portraits – On Assignment (2:33, segment 1 of 3), 2005, Video, 8 minutes, produced and directed by Mike Dust, © 2005 National Projects

Alec Soth: Portraits – Portraiture (2:25, segment 2 of 3), 2005, Video, 8 minutes, produced and directed by Mike Dust, © 2005 National Projects

Alec Soth: Portraits – The Ground Glass (3:06, segment 3 of 3), 2005, Video, 8 minutes, produced and directed by Mike Dust, © 2005 National Projects