on the road again...

Driving down south the next few days to make some new work.

Charlie Chaplin

Somehow I missed out on Charlie Chaplin movies until now. I have enjoyed the films of Buster Keaton and others from the silent era but until last week I had never seen a Charlie Chaplin film. That changed for me after seeing Modern Times. It's a great film! Chaplin is so funny, smooth, and he really embodies the comedic physicality that is so often attributed to him. The social realism of Modern Times might make you yearn for Hollywood to make more films today about economic and class struggles - which seem to always fall by the wayside in favor of the fantasies that they are selling.

Aaron Huey

I recently discovered the work of Aaron Huey. I learned that Aaron walked across the United States a few years back and what an all around amazing guy he is by watching his lecture at the Annenberg Space for Photography. You can watch his lecture here.
His work on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is important and really incredible.

Spring has Sprung - Easter Parade 2011

Touching Strangers - new work

hillbilly heroin honey

I came across this book titled hillbilly heroin honey by Hannah Modigh while visiting the bookstore at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm last month. I was drawn to the photographs and decided to make the purchase (published by a small Swedish imprint, I suspected that it might be hard to find outside of Sweden). The photographs were made in the town of St. Charles, Virginia - a poor white Appalachian coal mining town where, like much of the rural east, there is a high rate of Oxycontin addiction. The photographs are a very real window into a poor community that this young Swedish photographer was impressively able to penetrate and document with a respectful eye. There is an interview with the photographer here.

Chinese Sentiment

Advance copies are here! If you are in New York City this week stop by Daniel Cooney Fine Art Thursday night for the opening of Chinese Sentiment by Shen Wei. We have a limited supply of books that will be on sale at the opening.

Daniel Cooney Fine Art
511 West 25th Street, Suite 506
New York City, NY 10001
Opening Thursday April 14
6-8pm

Mark Morrisroe

There is a Mark Morrisroe reemergence at the moment with a new book and two NYC shows. Mark (Dirt) Morrisroe studied at the Museum School during the same era as Nan Golden, David Armstrong, and Philip-Lorca diCorcia. He was born to a drug addicted mother and became a hustler at the age of 15. Having been shot by a client at 17 he lived with a bullet lodged next to his spine for the rest of his very short life. He was boyfriends with Jack Pierson, and sometimes performed as a drag character of his own creation named Sweet Raspberry. He photographed with a Polaroid Land Camera and shot Super 8 Film. His self-portraits are both intimate and raw, revealing desires and sharing vulnerabilities. He also beautifully captured his friends and lovers, what emerges is a portrait of a young man who created his own family out of the scars of a dysfunctional upbringing. Morrisroe died in 1989 from complications of HIV. His work is being show at both Clamp Art and Artist's Space.

A New History of Photography

I've been intending to write a post about A New History of Photography: The World Outside and the Pictures In Our Heads, and its author Ken Schles for some time now. I was reminded to do so recently when I came across a videotaped lecture of Ken talking about his work at ICP. It is an incredible book that is both beautifully made (by White Press) and is a clever and thought provoking thesis on photography. Specifically, Schles' commentary on photography and how memory probes deep into the roots of a photographers' relationship to the medium. If you have not seen Ken's work and his books - you should!