PROJECTS: DONE is an exhibition of works from fourteen projects completed by photographer Candida Höfer between 1968 and 2008. Architects Kuehn Malvezzi developed displays in close cooperation with Höfer, and collaborated with curators Markus Heinzelmann and Doreen Mende to create rumination on the interplay between photography, architecture and presentation as the fifteenth project. Here, the term “project” is associated with a planned work that reaches a point of completion or achievement and is thereby distinct from regular artistic activity. By the consideration of the exhibition as a project unto its self, the concept of “project” becomes a sum of smaller project-components bound by themes and limited by time and space. By exploring this “inner order” of art, Candida Höfer’s photographs become less about what is being presented in the frame, and move toward a provocative reflection on art, as it exists in the world.

Click here to view Candida Höfer: Architecture of Absence, published by Aperture.

CANDIDA HÖFER
Saturday, May 16—Sunday, August 2, 2009
Museum Morsbroich
Gustav-Heinemann-Str. 80
D-51377 Leverkusen
Germany
++49 (0)2 14/85 556-0

Aperture, Pratt, and the Strand Book Store are pleased to announce the winners of the Eye on the Strand photography contest, which kicked off last fall and concluded March 31, 2009. The winners were chosen by a prestigious panel of judges from over 500 submissions featuring unique and creative photo representations of the Strand Book Store. The Grand Prize Winner will get to have lunch at New York City’s famous Balthazar Restaurant with world-renowned photographer Mary Ellen Mark, and receive a collection of Aperture books, among other prizes.

The work of the grand prize, second and third place winners and twenty finalists will be featured in a special exhibition to open at the Pratt Institute CCPS Gallery on July 16, 2009. An opening reception will take place Wednesday, July 15 from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. To read about contest details, including prizes awarded, and to view the winning images, click here to visit The Strand’s online photography gallery.

Grand Prize Photo Winner: Josh Robinson/“Strand Shadows”
Second Place Photo: Cary Conover/“Upside Down”
Third Place Photo and Viewers’ Choice Winner: Manjari Sharma/“Strand, The dreamer’s land”

Opening Receptions with the Winners and Finalists
Wednesday, July 15, 2009  6:00–8:00 pm
Pratt Institute CCPS Gallery
144 West 14th Street, 2nd floor, New York
(212) 647-7199

As part of the interview series, watch new video clips of artists Bill Armstrong and Seth Lambert from the exhibition now on view through July 16 at Aperture Gallery, The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography curated by Lyle Rexer.

In the first video clip, Bill Armstrong puts in context his Mandala #450 piece that is in the show with his Infinity series of abstract blurred meditative images that he has been working on for the past 12 years. Going through his work since the 1980’s, Armstrong explains why he uses blurring as a process and his “painterly approach to photography.” At the end, he also introduces his new video work.

Bill Armstrong from Aperture Foundation on Vimeo.

In the second clip, Seth Lambert contextualizes his work in the show Nothing on the Bed of an Epson Expression 10000XL within his Failures series of grids mapping out anything from beard hair, mirror pieces to nothing with a blank scan. The latter on view in the show still presents small residues called “artefacts” that Lambert has mapped out individually into a perfect grid that always fails. He also highlights the importance of the physical object in photography even if his work is often all digital and computer generated.

Seth Lambert from Aperture Foundation on Vimeo.

Click here to hear more about his process in an online radio show he did last week on ARTonAIR with curator Lyle Rexer, artists Charles Lindsay and Penelope Umbrico included in the exhibition.

Stay tuned next Thursday for video clips of Barbara Kasten and Ellen Carey.

Click here to view The Edge of Vision limited-edition portfolio including Bill Armstrong.

Click here to view related microsite.

Watch previously posted videos with Lyle Rexer part 1 & part 2, Charles Lindsay, Jack Sal, Penelope Umbrico, and Silvio Wolf.

Monday June 29, New York Times writer and former picture editor Philip Gefter will introduce his new publication, Photography After Frank at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This title presents the tale of contemporary photography starting with a pivotal moment as Robert Frank’s seminal work in the fifties; Gefter then connects the dots of photography’s transformation into what it is today. The book signing will immediately follow the lecture in the adjacent Director’s Roundtable Garden.

Photography After Frank, Essays by Philip Gefter
Lecture and Book Signing

Monday, June 29, 2009  7:00 pm

FREE

Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Brown Auditorium
5905 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, California
(323) 857-6000

© Yolanda Delamo

El Ojo de Tu Vecino (The Eye of Your Neighbor) is an exhibition that attempts to recreate the vision of a number of young Spanish-speaking photographers who live and work in New York, and to open a space where they can express their thoughts on coexistence in our metropolis. The photographic visual essays gathered here attempt a reading on different levels; where the public, the private and the intimate are theorized. El Ojo de Tu Vecino creates a visual discourse surrounding the reality, fiction and imagination of the subjects being photographed and, without a doubt, on human behavior.

Curated by the Cuban Rafael DíazCasas, El Ojo de Tu Vecino responds to a collaborative desire between three institutions: Aperture Foundation, under the leadership of the Mexican Juan García de Oteyza, El Museo del Barrio, whose director Julián Zugazagoitia made the project his own, suggesting through his collaborators a curatorial course of action, and Instituto Cervantes New York, promoter, producer and host of the exhibition.

El Ojo de Tu Vecino (The Eye of Your Neighbor)
Thursday, July 2—Saturday, September 5, 2009
Opening Reception: Thursday, July 2, 2009  6:00 pm

Galería Amster Yard, Instituto Cervantes de Nueva York
211-215 East 49th Street
New York, New York

Last week Aperture’s work scholars attended a private tour of Dutch Seen: New York Rediscovered with Sean Corcoran, Curator of Prints and Photographs at the Museum of the City of New York.  The exhibition, curated by Kathy Ryan, is in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the Dutch arrival in Manhattan and features a collection of work from Dutch photographers including Helen van Meene, Rineke Dijkstra, Erwin Olaf, Hendrik Kerstens, and others, all aimed to create a ‘portrait of the city’. Alluding to Dutch traditions, each of the artists employs a unique approach to his or her interpretation of present day New York City.

Click below for more pictures from the tour.

The Dutch Seen: New York Rediscovered
Wednesday, June 10—Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, New York
(212) 534-1672

Click here for more information on Aperture’s Work Scholar Program.

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Aperture would like to say thank you for all who made our first Some Like it Hot Summer Party such a huge success.

Co-Chair Michael Foley and artist Thomas Allen

Co-Chair Cathy Kaplan and friends

Co-Chair Michael Hoeh and friends

Co-Chair Severn Taylor and friends

Aperture intern Jenny Plath hands off original Hannah Hooper drawing titled Self Portrait with Thomas Allen Print, June 2009 to the lucky winner.

Magnum wine bottle raffle winner

Spencer Throckmorton, Juan García de Oteyza, Susana Leval and Sofia Ortiz

the Willowz

Thomas Allen’s Beachcomber limited-edition print, specially commissioned for Aperture’s 2009 Some Like It Hot Summer Party, are available for a limited time! Contact prints@aperture.org

Learn more about how to become a part of the Aperture Foundation Young Patrons Program, Snap!

All images courtesy Elliot Black Photography

Watch new video interviews with artists Penelope Umbrico and Silvio Wolf speaking about their work in the exhibition now on view at Aperture Gallery, The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography curated by Lyle Rexer.

In the first video clip, Penelope Umbrico presents her installation of photographs TVs (From Craigslist), a series of TV images for sale she culled from Internet with the reflection of flash, giving insight of the seller’s presence and creating an indirect intimacy. Interested in conceptual rather than formal abstraction, Umbrico considers herself a documentary photographer, “a traveler through media,” sourcing found generic images and examining in this work, the shift of value from an Internet image to a physical one in the art market.

Penelope Umbrico from Aperture Foundation on Vimeo.

In this second clip, Silvio Wolf, one of Italy’s entries into the 2009 Venice Biennale, speaks about his Horizon and Chance series combining straight photography and the unexposed ends of film rolls as negatives exposed to light. The end results are mesmerizing and meditative colorful images about light and absence of light. Wolf also mentions the importance of space in his work where the viewer reflected in the plexiglas is part of the image.

Silvio Wolf from Aperture Foundation on Vimeo.

Stay tuned next week for video clips of Barbara Kasten and Bill Armstrong.

View related Silvo Wolf print.

View related Penelope Umbrico print at 20×200.

View related microsite.

Watch previously posted videos with Lyle Rexer part 1 & part 2, Charles Lindsay and Jack Sal.

Saturday, May 16th the unprecedented exhibition curated by Lyle Rexer, The Edge of Vision opened to a crowd of over 1,000 attendees. Thanks so much to all the artists and supporters of this fabulous evening.

Note that Aperture has now extended the exhibition on view through July 16th!

Curator Lyle Rexer (on right)

Artist Ellen Carey (middle)

Artist Jack Sal (on left)

Artist Edward Mapplethorpe (on left)

All images courtesy Elliot Black Photography

Click here to view full event details and buy tickets.

Click here to purchase raffle tickets through Aperture.

This event is sponsored generously by 44 North Vodka.