Jacqueline Hassink was signing copies of her new monograph, Car Girls, at Dashwood Books last night, which happened to coincide with the New York International Auto Show. An instant hit with the New York Times, the luscious, glossy pages of the book, designed by Irma Boom, are in line with the sleek automobiles featured inside. Next week, Aperture hosts another opportunity to meet Jacqueline at an artist talk and book signing at Aperture Gallery. Details below.

Click here to read the full article on Jacqueline Hassink’s Car Girls in the New York Times.

Car Girls, Jacqueline Hassink
Artist’s Talk and Book Signing
Tuesday, April 14, 2009  6:30 pm

FREE

Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street
New York, New York
(212) 505-5555

Boarding House © Roger Ballen, 2008, from the series Boarding House.

Exhibition on view:
Roger Ballen: Boarding House
Thursday, March 5–Sunday, May 31
Ontario College of Art and Design, The Professional Gallery
100 McCaul Street
Toronto, Ontario

FREE

The Ontario College of Art and Design currently presents a solo exhibition by the critically acclaimed South African photographer Roger Ballen. The exhibition was produced in conjunction with Ballen’s latest publication The Boarding House (Phaidon, April 2009).
Ballen is known for his thought-provoking photography and his particular attention to rich detail. His photographs are like images from a waking dream: compelling and surrealistic with sparkles of dark humor and an altered sense of space.

For Ballen, standard divisions as subject, object, motif and background are elusive. Rather, his controversial artistic vision for photographic detail transforms ordinary objects and fragmented figures into powerful social statements with a sense of psychological complexity.

Join the artist for a talk on Wednesday, April 8, 6:30 pm at the Professional Gallery at OCAD.

Roger Ballen was featured on the cover and in the in the winter 2003 issue of Aperture. Also available from Aperture is Roger Ballen’s limited edition print, Hideaway, 2003.

In this video interview, Dutch photographer Jacqueline Hassink presents her new book Car Girls (Aperture, 2009) coming out this month. Hassink explains how she began this project five years ago. Photographing major car shows in seven different cities on three continents, Hassink discusses how she captured moments of these women’s performances and then how she “mapped” the project by dividing these car girls into different categories. Her project takes a subversively fun yet conceptually astute approach to issues of gender, power, and commodification. Hassink also speaks about the sexy and clever design of the book by award-winning Irma Boom and shares her memorable experience as she dresses up as a car girl in one of the auto shows. If you want to meet the artist and hear more about the project, Jacqueline Hassink will be in New York for a book signing on Tuesday, April 7 at Dashwood Books followed by a talk and book signing at Aperture Gallery on Tuesday, April 14.


Car Girls, Photographs by Jacqueline Hassink
Book Signing
Tuesday, April 7, 2009  6:00 pm

FREE

Dashwood Books
33 Bond St.
New York, New York
(212) 387-8520

Car Girls, Jacqueline Hassink
Artist’s Talk and Book Signing
Tuesday, April 14, 2009  6:30 pm

FREE

Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street
New York, New York
(212) 505-5555

Come out to support LEAD Uganda Monday, April 6, 2009 at the Canal Room in New York City. A joint project from the Stephen Shames Foundation and Concern for the Future, LEAD Uganda provides educational support for Ugandan youth with a focus on leadership. Tonight, LEAD Uganda hosts a benefit concert and silent art auction at Canal Room featuring music from Atomic Tom and Nate Campany. Show your support for this important cause and have fun doing it! Tickets are $10, with all proceeds benefiting the foundation. If you are unable to attend, show your support through the organization’s website at leaduganda.org.

Check out the interactive FLYP Media feature on LEAD Uganda here.

LEAD Uganda Benefit Concert and Silent Art Auction
Canal Room
Monday, April 6, 2009  8:00 pm
285 West Broadway, New York

Untitled Film Still #43, 1979, © Cindy Sherman

Exhibition on view:
Into the Sunset: Photography’s Image of the American West

Sunday, March 29–Monday, June 8, 2009

MoMA
Special Exhibitions Gallery, third floor
11 West 53 Street
New York, New York
(212) 708-9400

Into the Sunset: Photography’s Image of the American West is now on view at the Special Exhibitions Gallery at MoMA. The exhibition’s theme evolves around the importance of photography in shaping our collective imagination of the West.

Since 1850, photography has certainly played a fundamental role in the revolution of the American West, and has helped form and change our perception and image creation of the West’s physical and social landscape, through a variety of photographic traditions and genres.

Into the Sunset brings together over 120 photographs, dating from the ninetieth to the twenty first century, that integrate a range of different artistic strategies and motifs. The photographs, which are organized thematically, illustrate a piece of cultural heritage, and help us understand how general ideas about the West, as Manifest Destiny and the “land of opportunity,” have evolved through the years.

The exhibition features work of approximately seventy renowned photographers including Aperture-published Robert Adams, Katy Grannan, Dorothea Lange, Timothy O’Sullivan, Cindy Sherman, Joel Sternfeld, Edward Weston.

In conjunction with the exhibition, MoMA also holds lunch lectures and discussion panels on Monday, April 6 and Thurday, April 9 both at 12:30 p.m.

In addition, the museum offers a special lecture for deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors, as a part of Interpreting MoMA, on Thursday, May 14, at 5:30 p.m. 

Now on view in Zürich are the latest works by contemporary artist Vik Muniz in an exhibition appropriately titled Pictures of Garbage. Muniz creates large scale replications of iconic Western images using refuse, food, dust, and more,and then photographing them from a distance before destroying the production and leaving only the photograph as the artwork. This labor intensive process abstracts the original images and creates a whole new platform for these icons to be considered, like the Mother and Child pictured above.

Aperture published Muniz’s monograph, Reflex: A Vik Muniz Primer in 2005, which gives insight to the artist’s modus operandi and much of his earlier work. Utilizing his art for a philanthropic cause, Muniz will be donating all of the proceeds from the sales of his larger prints to the Garbage Pickers Association of Jardim Gramacho. Serving as the resource for this series, Jardim Gramacho is the largest dump in Latin America and a major resource for many people. This organization was founded to support the 5,000 workers and their families whose lives are about to be dramatically affected by the imminent closure of the dump. Also part of the exhibition is work from a series titled Pictures of Paper (2008) which creates the illusion of classic photographs from artists like Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, and others through layers of black, white and gray papers.

Vik Muniz: Pictures of Garbage
Friday, April 3–Saturday, June 20. 2009

Arndt & Partner – Zürich
Lessingstrasse 5
CH-8002 Zurich
Switzerland

The New York Photo Festival 2009 starts May 13, 2009, bringing together the latest and greatest in contemporary photography. NYPH09 Curators include William A. Ewing, Chris Boot, Jody Quon, and Jon Levy.

Aperture is proud to announce the return for the second year a series of events titled Aperture Presents to be held Thursday May 14 through Sunday May 17. This series will feature panel discussions and conversations with notables such as Lesley A. Martin,  Philip Gefter, and Lyle Rexer among others. Details to be announced shortly.

The New York Photo Festival
May 13-17, 2009
37 Main Street
Brooklyn, New York
(212) 604-9074

The New York Photo Awards 2009 will once again honor talented photographers from all over the world whose exceptional work breaks new grounds visually, intellectually and aesthetically. The Awards will give these visual artists the opportunity to reach key decision makers in the photographic community and the editorial, fine art and commercial worlds. Submissions will be accepted starting March 2^nd through May 1^st, 2009. The Award winners will be announced in May during the second edition of the Festival.

OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN. Enter Here.

To kick off the annual Society for Photographic Education conference, the Amon Carter Museum in Ft. Worth hosted a talk by Chicago-based photographer Barbara Crane on March 25. The lecture and reception accompanied Challenging Vision, a retrospective of Crane’s work now on view at the museum through May 10, 2009 . Click here to see a video podcast with the artist.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by Aperture’s booth at the conference in Dallas, TX, last week.

Barbara Crane graciously stopped by the booth to sign copies of her new book, Private Views, on March 27.

Everyone loved Barbara’s manicure!