Belated Happy New Year greetings! 2008 is off to a great start for Jen Bekman Gallery.

I’m most happy to announce that we’ve renewed our lease at 6 Spring St! We are looking forward to 5 more years in the ‘hood, which has become quite the art destination, thanks to the recent opening of The New Museum and the arrival of scads of excellent new galleries.

Read on for updates on Friday’s Ne Plus Ultra opening, a Sunday reception at Joe, media mentions and other upcoming events.

Ne Plus Ultra, the Hey, Hot Shot! Annual Opens Fri. 2.8 | 6pm-8pm

Image Credit: Untitled from the series Sub Rosa (2006) by Birthe Piontek

Ne Plus Ultra, the Hey, Hot Shot! Annual, opens @ Jen Bekman Gallery on Friday February 8th, 2008. The reception is from 6pm-8pm, and as always frosty beer beverages will be provided by Crumpler.

Please join me and all of this year’s Ultras at the reception:

Nina Berman
Karolina Karlic
Brad Moore
Birthe Piontek

The exhibition will remain on view through Saturday March 15th, 2008. (The gallery’s official 5 year anniversary!)

Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring St
(between Elizabeth + Bowery)
NYC NY 10012
ph: +1.212.219.0166

Joe’s NYC: jen@joe Presents Photographs by Joseph O. Holmes

Image Credit: Broadway (2007) by Joseph O. Holmes

Please join photographer Joe Holmes, Joe proprietor Jonathan Rubinstein and me on Sunday, February 10th, 2008 from 3-5 pm at a reception for Joe’s NYC, the latest installment of our ongoing series jen@joe:

Joe
9 E 13th St.
(between University Place and 5th Avenue)

The exhibition, Joe’s NYC, is comprised of 29 NY-centric prints and will remain on view through April 25th, 2008.

The prints are available in three very affordably priced sizes and will be available exclusively online at jenatjoe.com.

We’ll be hosting other jen@joe events throughout the exhibition. Sign up for the jen@joe newsletter to stay up to date on announcements.

Points of Interest: Online + Elsewhere

Image Credit: White Ice by Tema Stauffer. Read about it on the 20×200 blog.A portion of the proceeds from this edition will benefit The Art Shanty Projects.

As if two openings in one week weren’t enough, there are plenty of other things keeping me busy over the next few months.

20×200 continues apace with two new editions each and every week. Be sure to sign up for our mailing list to get advance notice on new editions.

I’m packing my long johns and heading off to Minneapolis for a few art-filled days (and nights.) I’ll be doing portfolio reviews (afternoon) and a presentation (evening) at the Minnesota Center for Photography on Monday, February 18th.

I’m also looking forward to attending The Art Shanty Projects and the opening of World’s Away at The Walker Art Center. Another show I won’t be missing is Ultra Karolina Karlic’s exhibition at Franklin Art Works.

In quick succession after that: Santa Fe, where I’m honored to be jurying Center’s Singular Image Prize for color photography, Austin, where I’m speaking on a panel at South By Southwest and Houston, where I’ll be reviewing portfolios at Fotofest.

Points of Interest: Online + In Print

Image Credit: Foam Magazine #13 / searching

Gallery Hours:
Wednesday – Saturday | Noon – 6pm

Please join us on Friday November 2nd, from 6pm-8pm, at an opening reception for Beth Dow’s exhibition of black and white photographs, Fieldwork. The exhibition will remain on view through Saturday December 8th, 2007.

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

View additional images | Read artist’s statement

Installation Shot from Obsessive Consumption on view at Jen Bekman Gallery until October 27.

Please join us at Jen Bekman Gallery this Saturday, October 20 , from 3pm-5pm, where we’ll be hosting an artist talk and book signing from this week’s 20×200 artists, Michael Perry and Kate Bingaman-Burt.

Kate Bingaman-Burt will be talking about her current exhibition, Obsessive Consumption. She’ll be joined by Michael Perry author of Hand Job: A Catalog of Type, which happens to include some work by KBB herself.

Hand Job: A Catalog of Type published by Princeton Architectural Press.

Kate and Mike will talk about art, design, typography and books. Copies of the book will be available for purchase during the event. If you’d like to reserve a copy in advance, send an email to rsvp@jenbekman.com.

Check out Mike’s drawing and Kate’s photo. [Her superb illustration is still available for purchase.]

You can read up on the editions on the 20×200 blog.

See you Saturday!

Postcard Image from Obsessive Consumption.

Also in other news, Jen will be talking about her work at the gallery, Hey, Hot Shot! and her latest project, 20×200 at an event this Wednesday at 6:30pm at the Apple Store in Soho, sponsored by Gothamist and nyc.photobloggers.org. Among the other participants, Jen will be joined by Hey, Hot Shot! ne plus ultra, Joe Holmes and Eliot Shepard, who had a solo show with Jen back in Spring 2005.

Admission is free, and seats are limited on a first come, first serve basis. It should be a great evening with a lot of great discussion and an informative chat, no doubt. Hope to see you there!

You can find the full invite, here or find more information from the official press release, along with info on location and details below:

September 26, 2007 @ 6:30 PM
at the SoHo Apple Store
103 Prince Street @ Greene (map)
After Party Merc Bar

NYCPB’s Featured Photobloggers
Eliot Shepard Eliot Shepard
Jay Parkinson Dark Shapes Prowl
Joe Holmes Joe’s NYC
Matt Weber Urban Photos
Red deLeon 990000

And a special presentation by Jen Bekman of 20×200, Hey Hot Shot, and the Jen Bekman Gallery

Sponsors
Gothamist and nyc.photobloggers.org
Hosted by Jake Dobkin.

As regular blog readers know, Nina Berman’s recent exhibition Purple Hearts, got an amazing review in The New York Times, which was followed by two additional listings in subsequent weeks and an overwhelmingly fantastic array of international press.

20×200 has been getting some attention as well. You can check out our media mentions to date on the 20×200 blog. Also look for us in the current issue of Dwell and the upcoming issue of Ready Made.

In her free time, Jen’s been pursuing her own journalistic endeavors. Look for her interview with photographer Alec Soth in the Fall issue of photo-eye Booklist.

To stay up to date on all the various Jen Bekman Projects, bookmark our blogs, or subscribe to their RSS feeds:

Jen Bekman News Blog

The Hey, Hot Shot! Blog

The 20×200 Blog

Personism (Jen’s personal blog.)

Enough with the virtual, let’s get real – the best way to have the Jen Bekman experience is live and in person. Come visit us at the gallery:

Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring St (between Elizabeth + Bowery)
NYC 10012
+1.212.219.1066

Gallery Hours:
Wednesday – Saturday | Noon – 6pm

The inimitable and indefatigable Kate Bingaman-Burt, a 2006 Ultra, makes her New York City solo debut at Jen Bekman later this month.

Kate’s taking over the space with her paintings, drawings, sculptures and installations – join us at her opening on Friday, September 21st.

Can’t wait till then? Kate’s I Bought All of These is one of the inaugural editions over on 20×200.

Also, Ms. Kate is a media darling. You can currently see her work or writings about her work in the New York Times, Print Magazine, Adorn Magazine, Hand Job! A Catalog of Type, Lodown 55, The Artist’s Guide to Making Money, The Crafter Culture Handbook, How Magazine and Becoming a Digital Designer.

Netdiver included Obsessive Consumption on their Best of the Year / 2006 list as well and Coudal Partners has featured Kate on a number of occasions.

20×200 is a new Jen Bekman Project. We offer original limited edition artworks at ridiculously affordable prices – prints and photographs for as little as $20 each.

We’ve stocked up on the equivalent of 3 weeks worth of editions to give people an idea of the range of work we’ll be showing. You’ll see work from familiar gallery artists like Amy Ross, Tema Stauffer and our favorite obsessive consumer, Kate Bingaman-Burt. There will be lots of new artists to check out too – for our preview we’re offering a great print from painter Jennifer Sanchez. (And as it will always be, the original painting is available too!)

We might still have some kinks and/or hiccups along the way, so please bear with us in these early days. If something doesn’t seem to work quite right, or is confusing, or if you see a typo: do drop a note to hello AT 20×200 DOT com and let us know about it.

Many, many, many thanks to Raul Gutierrez, David Yee, Alison Grippo, Jeff Kirsch and the fine folks at Little Jacket. I have never worked with such an amazing, talented crew of people. Read more about the 20×200 team on the About Us page.

Hey, Hot Shot! Summer 2007 Edition

Please join us at an opening reception in honor of the Summer ‘07 edition Hot Shots:

Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring St (between Elizabeth + Bowery)
NYC 10012

Opening Reception
Wednesday September 12, 2007 | 6pm – 8pm

Tasty beverages provided by Crumpler, makers of excellent bags, in particular excellent photo bags.

Exhibition is on view:
Thursday through Sunday, September 13 – 17, 2007
Gallery hours:
Noon – 6pm.

Learn more about this season’s Hot Shots on the Official Hey, Hot Shot! Blog:
Dan Boardman
Afshin Dehkordi
Rachael Dunville
Jonathan Gitelson
Shuli Hallak
Beth Herzhaft
Gregory Krum
Kalpesh Lathigra
Ari Salomon
Willamain Somma

Check out a Selections from the Winners.(via a Flickr photoset)
Visit the Hey, Hot Shot! web site.

Mosaic Image Credits

NINA BERMAN: ‘PURPLE HEARTS’ One of the more shocking photographs to come out of the current war in Iraq was taken last year in a rural town in the American Midwest. It’s a studio portrait by Nina Berman of a young Illinois couple on their wedding day. The bride is dressed in a traditional white gown; the groom, a former Marine sergeant, is in full dress. Her expression is unsmiling, maybe grave. His face is all but featureless, with no nose and no chin, as blank as a pullover mask, the results of disfiguring wounds sustained in combat. The show also includes 10 portraits of wounded veterans from Ms. Berman’s series “Purple Hearts.” Whatever your politics, the show, installed in a small storefront gallery, adds up to a desolating antiwar statement. Jen Bekman Gallery, 6 Spring Street, between the Bowery and Elizabeth Street, Lower East Side; (212) 219-0166, jenbekman.com, through Sept. 8. (Cotter)

“Purple Hearts”, miroir brisé de la guerre by Thomas Giovanetti for Liberation
La guerre n’est pas que gloire. Enrôlés la fleur au fusil comme on entame une partie de Playstation, ces jeunes gens mis “Game Over” sont aujourd’hui des oubliés. La photographe les a donc saisis dans leur anonymat, au cœur de l’Amérique profonde, bien loin du mythe guerrier et de l’héroïsme des G.I’s.

Closer to home:
Bringing Home the Faces of War by Mary-Ellen Schoonmaker for The Record
[Berman’s] exhibit at the Jen Bekman Gallery in lower Manhattan couldn’t be more timely, given the debate that is raging in Congress over whether to bring the troops home from Iraq and when. The war is continuing in Iraq, and the suffering of so many soldiers who have left Iraq is continuing as well. For many of them, it will go on for the rest of their lives.

First off, the show is once more recommended in the NY Daily News, this time in the Sports section, where columnist Bill Gallo writes:

It’s so very true that a picture can tell a thousand words and more. If you look at Nina Berman’s photographs of Iraq veterans coming home with their Purple Hearts, you’ll hear a cascade of words roaring, “No more War!” “No more War, Ever!” You will never view a stronger anti-war statement.

Go see “Nina Berman: Purple Hearts”

There’s also been a good deal of online coverage, here’s a sampling:

Time Magazine Arts Blog, written by Richard Lacayo:
...these are some of the most affecting pictures I’ve seen of the costs inscribed on the human body by the war in Iraq. No matter what you think of that war, it would be fair to say that over the past few years Berman has paid more compassionate attention to American veterans than their own government has.

Daily Kos:
Looking at today’s NY Times, my heart was broken open. There is a new and devastating exhibition of photographs called ``Purple Hearts’’ opening in NYC by the photographer Nina Berman. To see these photos is to deepen the disgust with today’s talk from our elders…We must have the Senate and House see these pictures and show them to the world.

Flavorpill
Images of the Iraq war were surprisingly scarce this summer in New York’s galleries. Whatever the reason, Jen Bekman — who goes where many gallerists won’t — remedies this in a show of Nina Berman’s series Purple Hearts.

Ion Arts Blog
Showing now at Bekman is Purple Hearts, photographer Nina Berman’s images and interviews with soldiers severely wounded in Iraq, including her award-winning Marine Wedding, shown here. The images are amazing, sensitive, and apolitical: they are a direct testament to the consequences of war.

And if anyone happens to speak Korean, perhaps they can give us a decent translation of this item, which sent a lot of traffic to our web site and brought many visitors to the gallery as well.

Currently the lead story over at The New York Times online:
Words Unspoken on War’s Faces by Holland Cotter:

Ms. Berman adds no direct editorial comment to the presentation. She has said in interviews that she started photographing disabled veterans soon after the war began mainly because she didn’t see anyone else doing so. In what may be the most intensively photographed war in history, the visual documentation has been selective. The fate of the injured veterans was not a public issue until news reports about substandard treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

This background provides the context for Ms. Berman’s photographs, which are themselves tip-of-the-iceberg images. No matter what the viewer’s political position, the images add up to a complex and desolating anti-war statement…

Joanna Molloy, the Molloy in New York Daily News gossip column duoRush & Molloy, attending Nina’s opening on August 8th. She chatted with Nina for a while about the exhibition, and a small knot of eavesdroppers gathered around them loosely while they talked – Joanna was so engaged and asked such good questions, and Nina is just incredibly articulate about the work. (You can find out yourself at the artist talk next week.) Joanna’s interest in the show led to the somewhat unlikely bold-faced appearance of Nina and the subject of one of her portraits, Luis Calderon (pictured above) in yesterday’s Rush & Molloy column:

Luis Calderon was paralyzed in Iraq — but can’t get a Purple Heart. The 22-year-old was injured when a mural of Saddam Hussein he was ordered to pull down with his tank crashed onto him, and you must be injured in combat with an enemy to receive the medal. Photos of him and other disabled Iraqi vets are now up at the Jen Bekman Gallery, where photographer Nina Berman, who includes the pics in her book, “Purple Hearts,” will speak Aug 29.

James Wagner and Barry Hoggard stopped in to see the exhibition on Saturday. You can read about James’s response to the exhibition over on his blog.

“From my neckline down, I can not feel anything…. I got an Army Commendation Medal. I didn’t get a Purple Heart. I feel like I deserve one. It would make me more confident that I really did something.”

Join us at the gallery on Wednesday August 29th, from 6pm-8pm, at a reception and artist talk with Nina Berman. Nina will also be signing copies of her monograph Purple Hearts, which can be purchased for $25.

Space is extremely limited so an RSVP is required: send an email to rsvp AT jenbekman DOT com if you’d like to attend and/or reserve a copy of the book.

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

Gallery Hours:
Wednesday – Saturday: Noon to 6pm

Spc. Robert Acosta, 20 years old, 1st Armored Division, was wounded July 13, 2003 in Baghdad when an Iraqi teenager threw a grenade into his humvee.
In the explosion, Acosta lost his right hand and the use of his left leg.
The Iraqi was killed.
“In California, nobody really knows what the soldiers are going through. They see on TV, oh yeah, two soldiers got wounded today and they think yeah he’ll be all right. But that soldier is scarred for life both physically and mentally.”
Before I would go to a lot of parties. I haven’t been to a club. I just don’t like dealing with the questions. Especially people around here. They don’t know what’s going on.
They ask stupid questions like, ‘Was it hot? Did you shoot anybody?’ They want me to glorify war and say it was so cool. The reality of it is, seeing all that crap, fucks you up in the head man. I can’t sleep at night. It sucks. It really sucks.”

More Information about the Exhibition:

Images | Press Release | Artist Information

Gallery Location, Hours + Etc.

We just recieved news that jb photographer Alison Grippo and her team (make-up artist Susie Sobel and stylist H. Tate Reynolds) won the previously mentioned PHTHRD competition.

We knew she’d win, but still… big congrats to Alison!

Read about it here.

In other news, the deadline for the Summer Edition of Hey, Hot Shot! has just been extended. Work will now be accepted until Tuesday, August 14, 2007 at 11am ET.

As you may know, Alison was a 2006 Ultra and Nina Berman, having a solo show at the gallery opening tomorrow, a Spring ‘07 Hot Shot. What this means? Being a Hot Shot definitely pays off…

Submit your entry today!

The opening reception for Nina Berman’s Purple Hearts will be held tomorrow from 6pm – 8pm at the gallery. There will be copies of Purple Hearts, the book, available at the opening.

Images from the exhibition along with the artist’s statement and the press release have been posted online.

Purple Hearts will be on view August 8 through August 30, 2007.

Those of you hoping to catch the final stretch of A New American Portrait will be happy to hear that the show will stay up one extra day!

Tomorrow, the gallery will be open from noon to 6 – your last chance to see, all together, the wonderful photographs of Christine Collins, Jen Davis, Benjamin Donaldson, Amy Elkins, Peter Haakon Thompson, Todd Hido, Alec Soth, Brian Ulrich, and Shen Wei.

Spc. Tyson Johnson, 22, wounded in a mortar attack on Abu Ghraib prison
by Nina Berman

Catch the last day of ANAP and then stop by again on Wednesday, August 8 at 6pm, as the gallery will reopen with a reception for Purple Hearts, photographs by Nina Berman.

Mark your calendars, the New York Times says so!

The New York Times ran a feature on Sunday called Summer’s Seven Day Week, covering the myriad galleries which actually have August hours. Here’s the snippet about the gallery:

A brief zig and zag down the Bowery onto Spring lands you at Jen Bekman Gallery, which is scheduled to take down its cool group exhibition “A New American Portrait” on Thursday [Ed. note: It’s actually open through Friday], and reopen on Aug. 8 with “Purple Hearts.” This solo show, by the photographer Nina Berman, looks at wounded soldiers back from Iraq. Ms. Berman won a World Press Photo Award for her wedding portrait of Ty Ziegel, a disfigured Marine sergeant, and his wife, Renée.

Haven’t you heard? jen bekman is at the SCOPE Hamptons art fair.

We’ll be featuring quite a few paintings by the lovely Amy Ross and plenty of excellent photography from the gallery’s artists: Christine Collins, Christine Callahan, Ben Donaldson, Holly Lynton, Brad Moore, Karolina Karlic, Joeseph Holmes, Dana Miller, Ian Baguskas, Mara Bodis-Wollner.

Stop by our booth (59A) and say hi!

SCOPE Hamptons: July 26-29, 2007
FirstView & Opening Night Benefit: Thursday, July 26, 2007 @ 5pm

East Hampton Studios
77 Industrial Road
Wainscott, NY 11937

You may recall her award-winning portrait of disfigured Iraq vet Ty Ziegel and his fiancée, Renee, on their wedding day in the Spring Edition of Hey, Hot Shot!. On view from August 8 – 30, 2007, Nina Berman will be showing more from her body of work entitled Purple Hearts—portraits taken in soldiers’ homes, in military hospitals, and on Army bases across the U.S.—at jen bekman.

Jen was very excited to show her photograph in HHS! but felt the work deserved more—that an audience would benefit from looking at additional stories from Purple Hearts. “This is an important project, and I’m thrilled to be able to offer a venue for it to be seen in,” she said, “It tackles what I consider to be one of the most disturbing, and over-looked, aspects of this war: the stories of those soldiers who have been maimed and the lives they continue to lead once they’ve come back home.”

To coincide with the exhibition, there will be a signing held at the gallery for Purple Hearts, the book (dates for this signing TBA —check back here or on the gallery site for updates). The book, along with the photographs, features interviews with the American soldiers who were wounded in Iraq.

Luke Strosnider, writer for Afterimage, wrote on his blog about his initial reaction to seeing Nina’s image at the gallery in the Spring: “At first I felt the inclusion of this image in the popular quarterly contest seemed totally wrong,” he writes, but “after some sustained thought and attempts to untangle all the threads, I’ve arrived at the conclusion that the walls of jen bekman – or any art gallery – are an ideal place for this image.”

Nina says in an interview with Salon that what makes the photographs compelling is that “they provide the space for the viewers to contemplate.”

More about the Purple Hearts project can be found here.

Nina Berman
Purple Hearts
jen bekman
August 8 – 30, 2007