->Aura Boutique on 1528 Montana will have prints from the Peter Fetterman Gallery
-> Engels & Volker real estate at 1123 Montana has photography up from Ana Gibert, George Deloache, Angel Burns, Astor Morgan.
-> Drkrm/gallery/west on 729 Montana currently has Ryan Herz "The Children of Edgewood" on exhibition.
-> Leona Edmiston on 1007 Montana has Laura Killian - Treated photographs
-> Semi-Precious on 1023A Montana has underwater photography of Gisele Lubsen
“The camera is an excuse to share the life of the people, the rhythm and simplicity of festivities, to discover my country. While using my camera I am, above all, an actress participating in the scene taking place at the moment, and the other actors know what role I play. I never think of my images as a project, I simply live the situations and photograph them; it is afterwards that I discover the images.” --Graciela Iturbide
This is an exploratory portfolio review focused mostly on photography. The idea is to find new talent in the West Coast for a bi coastal portraiture show opening simultaneously in NYC and Los Angeles January 2011. The show will be called EAST MEETS WEST.
The fee for the portfolio review is $75.00 and will guarantee time with both Elizabeth and Ruben.We will consider work shown for the portraiture show if applicable. This a great opportunity to have your work to be seen by two highly experienced NYC gallerists.
LA is my home away from home.
LA can be anything you want it to be. Precisely because LA is so sprawling makes it natural for clusters of communities and groups to organize and occur. From the Valley to Santa Monica and everywhere in between, there are thriving art scenes. People say that the geography divides us but I think it's created this dynamic place of subcultures and communities where one can easily navigate within, or get to. That's the undercurrent I get...you have to be pretty organized and determined here; there's not much whimsy.
LA is large enough that local communities now have their own artwalks, from North East LA (NELA), Downtown, Miracle Mile, Venice, Culver City, LIttle Tokyo. People have a tendency to organize around geography and local communities that serve the needs of those areas. With the recession, we're seeing more pop ups shops, and group collaborations that occupy retail spaces and share/absorb the expenses in order to promote art.
I LOVE LA is about the artists who chose LA, who create in LA and who help to inspire Los Angelenos and the world. These artists belong to their own respective communities. In bringing them together under Edition One Hundred, they get to belong to another community, or the first "class" of Edition One Hundred artists, if you will.
I selected artists that have inspired me, or inspired hundreds of individuals here in Los Angeles; artists that are total unknowns but are super-prolific; and artists whose fame has secured them legions of fans. The artists all have different end products, some will chose the digital path, and some will remain in the traditional photo printing technology. Some will chose to use serigraphs as their prints, and other digital reproductions, so it's about what feels right to the artist themselves.
I am a lover of the arts, especially photography. For me, collecting is a luxury that I most often cannot afford. I, alongside many of my friends, follow many artists and hope to be able to afford their pieces in the future that are sold through galleries, but in the meantime, there is this great possibility where new technology can create a new space for selling art more affordably. Every artist that I am inviting is an artist that I'd love to support and also to collect. It's that simple. - Cat Jimenez, founder
"I started photographing in my style in '78, '79, and I worked for magazines that allowed more creative freedom in those days. My commercial rep kept saying "I can't get any work, this is just too artistic!"
Am I a moralist? Hmm, I don't know. The whole story about photographers doing what they do because they want to change the world, expose harsh reality of wars, starvation, violence—is aaaaaagh, crap. They (me too, I guess) do what they do because it gives them thrills. They become addicted to the adrenalin rush, to the world not everyone is allowed to see. You go to the crackhouse, and there is a chance that something bad will happen to you—then everything turns out to be OK. You get out of there, take a deep breath, and trust me, it's your best breath of air, ever. I don't judge people I am photographing. They made some wrong choices in life, and they were too weak to keep fighting, they just gave up. So I guess we're not gonna change the world, but rather show it as is, fucked up to the bone. (via)
In late summer through early fall of 1976, Ryan Herz’s job was taking ID photos for the patients at the Edgewood Center, a Southern California facility for the developmental disabled. This gave him a unique opportunity to document a fragment of humanity the public at large rarely, if ever, sees. The resultant images are of patients who cover the landscape from mental retardation and severe autism to Down’s syndrome and brain damage. It is important to know that, even though some may look like adults, they are emotionally and developmentally children. These never-before-seen portraits were completed in three or four sessions. “I had just a few minutes with each person,” Herz explains. “This both forced me and freed me to be instinctual rather than manipulative.” That spontaneity coupled with the intense humanity and the unfiltered emotions of the subjects gives the photographs their power.
Viewing these beautiful and sometimes brutal black and white images, one almost feels the need to reach out to the children, not only to provide comfort but to let them know they are not forgotten or abandoned. One cannot help but see in their faces our own emotions. We look at them and wonder what they feel, what they dream of, what they aspire to. We become overwhelmed with sorrow, sympathy and an appreciation for the human spirit. Drkrm. gallery is proud to present the first public exhibition of this powerful and important body of work.
COME PREPARED TO:
- Swap lies, stories, business cards, as you please.
- Eat pizza, maybe some veggies and fruit, maybe some beer and wine.
- Stand up and talk about your images - or not - as you please.
- Wander around the gallery and ignore the slideshow - as you please.
- Show (no more than) 10 slides.
- Or just show up without any images and admire everyone else's work and wonder why you
couldn't get it together to bring your own. Just sayin'.
I moved here in 1986 and have been here ever since. I left England in 1985, and lived in Mexico City for a year, where I learned to speak Spanish and did a lot of street photography.
...
I've been photographing this gang (Westside Playboys) since 1992, and it was just a long, slow process.
I first started going down to the neighborhood in January 1992, and I kept going back every week — and a mutual trust evolved. Then back in 1994, when there was a lot of trouble with the Rampart CRASH unit (Anti gang police).
I was a finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund Award and was asked to photograph "everyday violence" So one element that I tried to take pictures of was the police with the gang members, but the police would harass me and threaten me whenever I'd try to photograph them.
