Tonight!!! William Greiner opening at Klompching Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

April 30, 2008 in art openings, Artist, blogs, Brooklyn, events, gallery

Loungers
Noac, 1995, Digital C-Type Print, Signed & Numbered Verso

I am exhausted, spent and still unfinished with my final projects for the School year but I have to go to this for a bit tonight. I'm looking forward to seeing the final images in printed form. So far, I have only viewed Greiner's work on his website and his blog.

FALLEN PARADISE — William Greiner
May 1 — June 27

OPENING RECEPTION: May 1, 6pm — 8pm

This is the underbelly of pre-Katrina New Orleans. Greiner presents an image of a city that was already devastated, by neglect and abandonment, long before natural disaster struck. His imaging of New Orleans' urban vernacular is perceptively pictured through a carefully constructed use of color, form and content.

William Greiner's modus operandi is the American Color Tradition — the snapshot that isn't. Here, the familiar becomes unfamiliar. The seemingly objective actuality of the city, its banality, its ordinary everyday impression, is transformed into a vista of flush saturated palettes of color. Born, raised and (until Katrina) living and working in the city, New Orleans has always been an importnt source of inspiration for Greiner's work.

Here, a decade of looking and picturing his immediate environment, is brought together and displayed for the first time. Fallen Paradise is a celebration of apparent incidental imagery that is, of course, abound in formal devices — frame, vantage point, shape and line. Although there exists an autobiographical subtext, Greiner is most successful in compelling us to also look, not just at his city, but at the photograph itself. Whilst the importance of his subject does not disappear, these images function as photographic artifact — at once, they are observation and cultural object.

William Geiner lives and works in Baton Roughe, Louisiana.

KLOMPCHING GALLERY

111 Front Street, Suite 206
Brooklyn, NY 11201

What is wrong with AIPAD?

April 21, 2008 in art notes, events, gallery, General Art, New York

Photo of the 2008 New York APAID show by Susan Sermoneta.

A few weekends ago, I went out to see The AIPAD Photography "show". I wouldn't call it a show - that would give it too much credit. The only thing that was like a show was the price.

$25 dollars for the day.

No student ticket pricing.

Zero.

What is wrong with these people? Are they that elitist that they need to overcharge EVERYONE? Even the bigger more prestigious and more historically significant show, The Armory Show has a fair student price of $10. I am glad I didn't post this right after I went since I was in a angrier mood then and I maybe would have said something rash.

I almost didn't go until I found an artistic method of entry. As for how the fair was? It was ok there were some highlights and some embarrassments. I would post them here but I wouldn't want to help them. One thing I will note is how interesting it is to see who isn't represented at these fairs but are in other fairs. Those famous Germans with the big price tags weren't there at all as far I saw.

So, next year AIPAD please consider at student pricing all the cool Art Fairs are doing it.

Lots of blog coverage here here here here and countless others...

Black Sun Project, debuts at Bas Fisher Invitational, Miami, FL (UPDATED x2)

April 09, 2008 in art openings, events, gallery, Miami, my pictures

UPDATE: The show will be up for on more gallery walk this Saturday April 12th 7-10PM. Although I can't be down in Miami the gallery will be open, please invite everyone you know, stop by, check it out and let me know what you think.

On Saturday, March 8th, 2008, I opened my first solo show at the Bas Fisher Invitational. It was great to be back in Miami to get some fresh air and see all my friends there. Please check out the images of the show below the Press Release.

PRESS RELEASE

The Bas Fisher Invitational presents “Black Sun Project,”
a new series of photographs by Harlan Erskine.

Harlan Erskine
“Black Sun Project”
March 8th - April TBD, 2008

Opening Reception: March 8th 2008 7-10PM
Closing Reception: April 12th 2008 7-10pm

other viewings by appointment only: lightofman[at]gmail.com

Bas Fisher Invitational
upstairs on the 2nd floor
of the Buena Vista Building
180 NE 39th St. Suite 210
basfisherinvitational.com

Black Sun Project

“The sun is not fiery after all, but a dead planet. We on earth give it its light.”
—Minor White

My photography certainly began in a formalistic project based practice but this particular project is very much a departure for me because I am experimenting in photographic abstraction. Not long after photography’s invention, many photographers experimented with abstraction of photographic space. Even the early contact prints of plants produced by the inventor of the Calotype, Henry Fox Talbot, are in essence an exploration in photographic abstraction. I am particularly interested in the later abstraction from the 1930’s of Man Ray and his then assistant Lee Miller and their rediscovery of Solarizations or the Sabattier Effect. Particularly interesting are the more direct echos of my project in the singular images from Ansel Adams and Minor White. Their Black Sun images, through overexposure solarization, are the analogue version of my images. Therefore, in a similar way, they explored abstraction in relation to the contemporary photographic technology of their time-this exploration, titled Black Sun Project, explores photography through a significant contemporary technology, the mobile phone.

Contemporary practice has very much brought a particular kind formalism into vogue but with new sets of guidelines. I am certainly guilty of applying many of these parameters within my own work but in moving away from my previous methods of working, I have found some clarity in my previous explorations as well as a new avenue to explore. I will continue to work the way I used to but every so often, it is beneficial to perform radical change and see where it leads. Taryn Simon’s photograph of the albino tiger is good example of a photographer who is photographing an evolutionary glitch/mistake. Nature normally weeds out albino tigers born in the wild since they are not well suited to their surroundings and have a very tough time surviving–they tend to get horribly sunburn and stick out in its surroundings. By the same logic, technology companies normally weed out glitches from their products (we hope they do anyway) to improve their products. The manufacturer of this cellular phone eventually weeded out the black sun solarization effect so this artwork is self–reflexively about that mistake or glitch in the technological evolution of mobile photography and photography in general.

The Bas Fisher Invitational is a artist run alternative art space, located in the Buena Vista Building in Miami’s Design District. It was founded in July 2004 by artists Hernan Bas and Naomi Fisher in the wake of losing their favorite alternative art space “the House” to Miami’s rapid gentrification. Their premise is to simply invite artists who they are inspired by to publicly showcase their work, exposing additional exciting voices to Miami's growing art scene.

For additional information please contact the gallery at lightofman[at]gmail.com or contact Harlan Erskine at Me[at]harlanerskine.com