Tomorrow night at Art Center College in Pasadena. 7pm

Two nights ago, Graham and I saw Catherine Opie, Alec Soth and the Rodarte sisters talk about their new collaborative book at the Hammer Museum. The lecture was fairly informal, but the result was a conversation that dealt with many facets of art and fashion; the contradictions and the similarities. The book combines photographs that Alec Soth took over a two week road trip that traced the Mulleavy sister’s influences through the California landscape, with the classically influenced studio portraits of Catherine Opie. Opie photographed professional models as well as a few of her friends that have appeared in some of her previous works. There was no conversation between Opie and Soth throughout the project, but the resulting images in the book clearly show us that Rodarte comes from specific place and time, and that, while their clothes may be hung in galleries, their vision stems from similar places as Opie and Soth; the American landscape and the many cultural idiosyncrasies that pocket themselves across the United States.

Buy Here

“Earlier this year Soth resided for a short time in Rome to complete a commission for the tenth FotoGrafia Festival Internazionle di Roma and the resulting photographic project was exhibited at FotoGrafia di Roma in late September 2011 in conjunction with the publication of the hardcover book by Edizioni Punctum. As a frame of reference, the FotoGrafia di Roma commission is an opportunity to portray of the city of Rome with total freedom of interpretation.” The Photo Book

For more info, click photo.

Somewhere to Dissapear

See it this week!

Toronto: May 5th at 7pm and May 7th at 1:15pm at the HotDocs Festival.
New York: May 9th, 8pm at The New School.

Gio and I have been watching a lot of good photographer interviews and multimedia presentations. Magnum In Motion is one of the best producers of the multimedia content. Great sound, photographs and narrations. Here are a few that are rad:

The Taliban – Thomas Dworzak
The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. It’s strict version of Islam allowed no photography or any depiction of Mammals.  All men were required to wear a beard and women were no longer allowed an education and forced to wear burkhas.

Picnic With A Gangster – Bruce Gilden
After the Soviet Union fell apart, the big shots once in charge of organized Russian crime vanished, either dead or unleashed through the world, and small potato villains have survived on the periphery of large cities in a now cleaned up Russian wild West.

Gangster Types and Tough Guys – Bruce Gilden
Bruce Gilden’s black and white imagery is reminiscent of the film noir he used to watch on TV when he was a child. Ever since, he has had an attraction for tough looking characters, bad guys and their acolytes and the underworld where they operate.

Georgian Spring – Alec Soth
“So for my visit, I decided to go looking for the most beautiful woman I could find. Over the course of several weeks, I traveled the entire country. In a small Northern village I found N., the most beautiful woman in Georgia.”

December 08, 2010: 27 street: W 27 street at 7th avenue, Building D, Great Hall, 6:30pm

Open to Public