James Turrell - The Light Inside 1999 Houston Museum of Fine Arts

I, of course, was particularly drawn to “The Light Inside,” which is a site-specific installation of neon lights, gypsum board, plaster, and glass by James Turrell (1999) it is located in the tunnel between the two main buildings of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

James Turrell - The Light Inside 1999 Houston Museum of Fine Arts

James Turrell - The Light Inside 1999 Houston Museum of Fine Arts

If in Houston, I also recommend seeing the show ” Light of the Sufis: The Mystical Arts of Islam” – fantastic show.

In addition this is the last week of “Alice Neel: Painted Truths”.

Alice Neel - Houston Museum of Fine Arts

Alice Neel - Robert Smithson 1962

The first stop was at Yossi Milo Gallery (525 west 25 Street, NYC) to see Myoung Ho Lee’s photographs.  The concept is simple but powerful, Lee singles out one tree in each of his images in Korea, he then separates the tree from nature by putting a huge white sheet behind it.  I like the way it questions subject, representation and art itself.

Myoung Ho Lee at Yossi Milo

I found the backlight one below to be particularly interesting. But I must admit that after reading that the following in his artist statement.

To install the large canvases, which span approximately 60 by 45 feet, the artist enlists a production crew and heavy cranes. Minor components of the canvas support system, such as ropes or bars, are later removed from the photograph through minimal digital retouching, creating the illusion that the backdrop is floating behind the tree.

I was a bit dismayed I would have like an even more process heavy that would require no heavy crane and the digital after removal of them. The industrial nature bothered me and subtracted a bit from my experience.

Myoung Ho Lee at Yossi Milo

Below is an image by Philippe Azaud at FOLEYGallery (547 W 27th Street, 5th floor, NYC).  I loved this image from the group show.  Michael Foley also stopped by the opening at the Hearst Biennial show that I’m in, so we had a couple of chances to talk this month, which was quite nice.

Philippe Azaud at Michael Foley

From there we went to ClampArt (531 West 25th Street, Ground floor, NYC). At FotoFest in Houston I meet Frank Yamrus, who recently had several shows with his “Rune Lagu” which is a series of water bottle portraits.  A new series of his is self-portraits as he turns 50.  They are excellent and you can see them in the back room.  Take a look below…

Frank Yamrus Clampart

The main show at ClampArt is well curatored show called… “Kids behaving badly”

Clampart

Larry Clark at Clampart

Von Lintel Gallery (555 West 25th street, NYC) has the work of Japanese photographer Izima Kaoru. “In this work, Kaoru asks famous Japanese models and actresses to describe fantasies of their own deaths and then stages them for the camera. …
human figure in a landscape juxtaposed against the shock value of death is even more pronounced in this latest endeavor.”

This solo coincides with the publication of Izima Kaoru: Landscapes with a Corpse, a 192-page monograph published by Hatje Kantz.

Izima Kaoru at Von Lintel

Aperture has a very strong and moving show by Jonathan Torgovnik that you must see and read more about.
“Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape” From the press release.

During the 1994 genocide, hundreds of thousands of Rwandan women were subjected to massive sexual violence by members of the infamous Hutu militia groups, known as the Interhamwe. Among the most isolated survivors are women who have borne children as a result of those rapes. Due to the stigma of rape and “having a child of the militia,” the women’s communities and few surviving relatives have largely shunned them. Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape brings together Jonathan Torgovnik’s remarkable portraits of these women and children, and their harrowing first-hand testimonies.

Jonathan Torgovnik Aperture

Jonathan Torgovnik at Aperture

Prolific blogger Ed Winkleman has a show at Winkleman Gallery (637 West 27th Street, NYC) by Jennifer Dalton called “The Reappraisal.”

From the press release:
In “The Reappraisal,” everything in the house Dalton shares with her husband and four-year-old son is for sale, provided would-be collectors are willing to pay the price arrived at through her family’s level of attachment to a particular object. Every household item—from graduate student paintings to the cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink to the planter in the back yard—has been photographed and appraised by both her and, again, Christie’s auction house.

Jennifer Dalton The Reappraisal at Winkleman Gallery

Cheim & Read (547 West 25th Street, NYC) has a wonderful exhibition of new paintings by Louise Fishman.

Louise Fishman at Cheim Read

At Derek Eller Gallery (615 West 57th, NYC) is a show where Alyson Shotz investigates issues of perception and space with highly sophisticated sculptures. This is a interesting show where I spent some time just enjoying.

Alyson Ahotz - Phase-shift at Derek Eller

Alyson Shotz - Phase-shift at Derek Eller

Alyson Shotz - Phase-shift at Derek Eller

STUX Gallery (530 West 25th, NYC) has the show “Phantom Landscapes,” by Israeli-based multimedia artist Penny Hes Yassour. The space is is transfored by this rubber-like sculpture.

Penny Hes Yassour Stux

Winston Wächter Fine Art ( ,NYC) has the recent paintings by Angelina Nasso entitled “Miwis.” Great work in a great space.

From the press release:

Angelina Nasso’s oil on paper works are inspired by nature using gem-like circular forms that reference pixilated images and draw upon the theory of subatomic particles in space. She views space as a container of vibrational forces. Nasso describes, “I grew up in the bush in Australia where the nights were very dark. There were no streetlights and hardly any cars went by. In the darkness of a moonless night I would watch space. In this blackness I saw circular forms dancing and vibrating.”

Angelina Nasso miwis Winston Wachter

Angelina Nasso miwis Winston Wachter

…Most Fridays I’ll try to post links to a variety o thangs…

Art:

• Michael Fried: Why Photography Matters

Physics:

• Entanglement and our presumption of “Locality”, Einsteinian errors?

Design:

• Idea for Portland’s Trimet & other Public Transportation?
• Inventions that experts say wouldn’t work
• The Art Car I own at Bavarian Autoworks website

Chalcosoma Romalea 2008 copyright Andrea Wolff All rights Reserved

She writes:

Like a well-meaning researcher, I started out exploring the wonders of nature, then I learned to repair nature, then I began to perfect nature. It was a slippery slope that led me to begin recreating nature. Yeats said, “A terrible beauty is born.” My terrible beauties were not born, but fabricated to be photographed.

She gets actual insects from scientific supply houses creates these new “sculptures” and then shoots them with a 4×5 field camera and sepia-tones the prints in the style of the 19th century, when scientists were debating Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Darwin’s Birthday is February 12.  It will be the Darwin’s 200th Birthday on February 12, 2009; it will also be the 150th Anniversary of the publication of his famous book, On The Origin of Species.

See more images from Andrea’s website at:
http://www.andreawolff.com/portfolio/unnatural-selection.html

Artist statement at:
http://www.andreawolff.com/portfolio/statement-unnatural-selection.html

There were 60 artists who each had a piece of work up for the past
month in the hallway at Milepost 5.

Pink Elephant Milepost 5 hallway

After wine, talk, and the refresh that the keg the exchange started. Alicia Rose, the MC for the event called up each artist to pick numbers to see what work they would take home.

Alicia Rose with mic

Since I managed to drive through the snow storm on the first delivery day I was early in the drawing. I was happy to get Bean Gildorf’s work. Below is a diptych of Bean with ert art. It’s now hanging at our house. I really love it. THANKS!

Bean Gilsdorf Untitled

Also nice to meet her husband Dan Gilsdorf as well. Beyond their personal work they have done some great collaborations as well. I enjoyed the Portland Modern Window Project as well as one at The Affair in the Gallery 500 room.

Here’s TJ with the work he took home.

TJ Norris

David Corbett drew the number for my Bonne Terre. I remember enjoying David’s work in Portland Modern a couple of years ago. Very interesting work.

I also got a chance to catch up with Sally Finch and Calvin Ross Carl who both had shows in December. I have some images from that 1st Thursday here.

Liz Obert mentioned she has an upcoming show at Pushdot this summer. Keep a lookout for that show.  Richard Schemmerer says he has a photo of me at some 1st Thursday show, I’ll have to find it sometime.

Here are a variety of images from the show…

…never look down.

Shot from FotoFest2008 Hotel - copyright Brad Carlile

The theme for FotoFest 2010 is “contemporary work about the United States” and will be curated by invited curators (so you can’t submit to that one). However ,there are many galleries (non-profit, commercial, artist run), corporate spaces, retail spaces and restaurant that also show art and you can apply to them by a juried selection process.  But you most do work quickly so it is delivered by February 9th.

Normal sort of requirements for a mail-in submission process. You’ll need to submit 10 images on CD, CV, exhibition requirements, and space preferences. Then the FotoFest staff will have a jury process to narrow the field and present the work to the participating spaces who will make their own decision from this culled list.

They are looking for “coherent bodies of work” that have a clear idea or concept behind them. My advice is to edit tightly (and make it much better than the snapshot in this posting above). All types of photographic processes are accepted.

Submissions must be recieved in the office by: Monday, February 9, 2009
FOTOFEST2010 is scheduled for March 12 – April 25, 2010

In a previous posting I talked about the Portfolio review that happen during FotoFest:
http://www.bradcarlile.com/blog/misc/houston-fotofest-portfolio-reviews-2010-announced/

For all submission details see:
http://www.fotofest.org/ff2010_submissions.htm

Portion of E8

A year ago, I posted a link to Murray Gell-Mann’s TED talk called, Beauty and truth in physics. In this talk Gell-Mann talked a lot about about symmetry.

Basically “things” with some form of symmetry have characteristics that don’t change under certain transformations (read “change”). Beautiful. Symmetry goes way beyond most people’s view of symmetry as just mirror images about a line. Amazing symmetries also exist in magnificently complex structures. Mathematicians have described a structure called E8 that is the largest possible structure with unique symmetries.

E8 is a theoretical structure in 248 dimensions. More properly it is an object known as the exceptional Lie group E₈.

Enter theorist Garrett Lisi. Very basically, he looks at the relationship between the known “elementary” 226 particles on to a representation on the 248 points of the E8. You can play with the particles and the E8 online at:
http://deferentialgeometry.org/epe/

Elementary Particle Explorer Garrett Lisi

You can hear his presentation at the TED talks at:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/garrett_lisi_on_his_theory_of_everything.html

Or course there are detractors:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=garrett-lisi-e8-theory

The show Art Focus on KBOO (90.7fm in Portland) hosted by Eva Lake, will have a Terry Toedtemeier tribute December 18th (Thurs) from 10:30 to 11am. Guests on the show include his widow, Prudence Roberts, Jane Beebe of  PDX Contemporary Art (925 NW Flanders, Portland OR), and John Laursen (co-author of Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge, 1867 – 1957).

Memorial

There will be a memorial for photographer & museum curator and photographer Terry Toedtemeier at the Portland Art Museum on January 4th (Sun) at 3 p.m. The public is welcome to join Terry’s family, friends, and colleagues in celebrating his life.

Terry’s exhibition “Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge, 1867 – 1957” will continue to be on view at the museum until January 11th.

In my previous posting I listed several other links to his work and life.  Here is one more link from his friend Craig Hickman who posted images of Terry from about 1965-1972: http://red-green-blue.com/portfolios/Terry/

Thanks again Terry!

Terry Toedtemeier

Very sad day. I just heard that Terry Toedtemeier, Portland Art Museum’s curator of photography, has passed away. He was a great man, warm person, sharp intellect, and a fine curator. Very sad indeed.

Terry just published the book “Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge, 1867-1957” (134 photographs) associated with show at the Portland Art Museum that he curated. In fact, last night he was speaking about the show “Wild Beauty” in Hood River, Oregon. He passed away after this talk.

Terry was also a wonderful photographer. I enjoyed seeing Terry’s shows PDX Contemporary and it always delightful to talk with him about art and photography. Terry’s shows at PDX Contemporary included, “Hawaii to the Owyhee: A Bird’s Eye View” (March ‘07) and “Places, Pieces, and Hidden Histories” (Jan ‘05).

Terry co-founded Portland’s Blue Sky Photography Gallery and taught art and art history at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland for 17 years.  Here is an article on Terry Toedtemeier’s contribution to Portland Art Photography: http://www.theartcounselor.com/dsnider/wordpress/?p=42

Oregon Public Broadcasting’s (OPB) show “Think Out Loud” has posted a podcast of their interview with Terry and co-author John Laursen about the book and the show : http://stream1.opb.org/media/tol/episodes/2008/1003.mp3.

Portland Art Museum wrote this about the show, “Terry Toedtemeier, the Museum’s Curator of Photography, has long been passionate about photographs of the Columbia River Gorge. In October 2008, the Museum will highlight 90 years of photography of this historic transportation corridor, including important works by famed photographer Carleton Watkins. Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge 1867 – 1957 will feature approximately 200 images chronicling the changing character of the Gorge from the early settlers to the introduction of hydroelectric dams.”

The first time I had a long conversation with Terry was at Photolucida 2005. He was a portfolio reviewer. I was shy about my new work and I almost didn’t sign up to talk to him, I’ve very glad I did. When I showed him my work, he offered wonderful advice, great insights, and strong encouragement. In 2008 at the “Keep Portland Weird Art” Show in Portland City Hall, Terry really enjoyed one of my images “Day Amalgam 8” and considered taking it to the Portland Art Museum’s photography acquisition committee.

Terry when asked How would I describe a Northwest school of photography?, he said “There is none. There’s just an intense love of making photographs.”

I will miss him.

My thoughts go out to his family and friends.