It may be the first Deep Ellum Community Arts Fair, but it’s celebrating decades of the artistic ferment that has marked the neighborhood. This year is Deep Ellum’s sesquicentennial, and the new festival focuses on local visual artists and artisans.
“Most of the artists are hyper-local,” said Breonny Lee, president of the Deep Ellum Community Association. There are a handful of regional artists, she said, but 90% of those participating are from North Texas.
Breonny Lee
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Deep Ellum Community Association
She stresses this is a big difference between the new arts fair and the decades-long Deep Ellum Arts Festival that was canceled. Lee worked for many years with that festival, recruiting local artists and managing their booth sites.
The cancellation caused “an overwhelming response from the community,” she said. People told her “they wanted to do something, that they love that event, that they were going to miss that event.” But they wanted it to be “more locally driven” and “friendly to the neighborhood.”
Streets will be blocked off along Crowdus between Clover and Indiana Streets for pedestrian-friendly strolling past outdoor booths, two live-music stages and street performers. Many restaurants are creating custom menu items for the event, Lee said.
The block-long mural of Blues Alley, behind the Stack Building on Clover Street, features 16-foot-tall paintings celebrating the musical history of Deep Ellum.
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Blues Alley at The Stack Deep Ellum
Fair visitors also can get a look inside the new Deep Ellum Community Center before its grand opening in September. It’s a gift for the neighborhood’s 150th year, she said. The center will contain gallery space, plus space for studios and artists-in-residence.
Lee is a Dallas native and photographer and mixed media artist with a long-standing love of Deep Ellum. At age 13 in the 1990s, she said she visited the neighborhood for the first time for an open-artist studio event that exposed her to numerous styles of visual art.
“That’s a big part of my personal story and my impression of Deep Ellum,” she said.
Lee kept coming back.
“It felt to me like the first place that I’d ever really felt at home,” she said. “Not necessarily a place where you live, but the place where you belong.”
Jerome Weeks
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KERA News
Local artists have been a significant part of Deep Ellum since the 1920s, when the area first gained a reputation for its music and nightlife. Starting in the 1980s, artists, theater companies and entrepreneurs revitalized the neighborhood — it had become rundown, filled with empty storefronts.
It is now a state-recognized cultural district.
“The live music and the visual art and theater — these kinds of things are so critical to the DNA of Deep Ellum,” Lee said. And the neighborhood continues to change.
“These different pieces throughout the decades of individuals and groups working together to make cool stuff happen in the neighborhood is the reason that we’re talking about Deep Ellum, that people in other countries are talking about Deep Ellum.”
This arts fair, she said, is part of that revitalization.
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Deep Ellum’s 150th Kickoff
Deep Ellum Community Arts Festival is May 27-29. Free. Hours: Saturday 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Sunday and Monday 11 a.m.-8 p.m.
One of the most anticipated titles in the upcoming Xbox Game Studios lineup is the reboot of the Forza Motorsport franchise. The latest in the hugely successful and critically-acclaimed franchise, Forza Motorsport (2023) is rebuilt from the ground up for modern platforms. There hasn’t been exciting news on the game for a while, however.
On Wednesday, fans were at least treated to a little something. It seems the cover art for Forza Motorsport (2023) has been revealed (leaked?).
Looks like Forza Motorsport’s cover was just shown off in an email to Xbox Game Pass subscribers in the “coming soon” section of the newsletter. Featuring a Cadillac GTP Hypercar and a Corvette Z06! pic.twitter.com/PXBfKJ3GEJMay 24, 2023
People subscribed to the marketing emails for Xbox Game Pass may be getting an email that includes a short section titled “More day one games on the way” with both the next Forza Motorsport and Cities: Skylines 2. The email features a never-before-seen cover art, though, as the game has been using a generic screenshot of one of its tracks so far.
Racing games tend to make a big deal out of the cars they feature on the cover (Forza Horizon 5 certainly did), so it seems likely that this reveal is a little premature. Still, it’s here and it looks great, with a Cadillac R-Series.R hypercar dominating the foreground and a Chevrolet Corvette (some are speculating it’s the C8, Z06, or even the new E-Ray) in the background.
Forza Motorsport (2023) is expected to make an appearance during the upcoming Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase on June 11, 2023, so it’s very possible we’ll see the official reveal of this cover art (plus additional details) then. For now, put this down as a very plausible leak, seeing as it comes straight from the Xbox Game Pass marketing team.
Forza Motorsport (2023) doesn’t have a set release date, yet, but we know it’s still slated to arrive on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and Xbox Game Pass later this year. There’s still a lot we don’t know about the game, but it stands a good chance of joining our list of best Xbox racing games if it delivers on its ambitious promises.
National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yüyan told Insider’s Joey Hadden that one way to improve nature photos is by including something in the foreground of a shot.
“Great backgrounds, such as mountains or waterfalls, are easy to find because we’re always looking for them,” Yüyan said. “On the other hand, a good foreground subject, such as blooming wildflowers or a craggy tree, can be much harder to find in the right location.”
Yüyan recommended searching for a foreground subject and framing your shot so you can see the scenery in the distance.
“It’ll give your images depth, intimacy, and make your photos unique,” he said.
I went through some of my photos, and found one I took of the Château de Commarque in France. It has a stream and tree in the foreground and a castle in the background:
Through The Lens spotlights emerging and established photographers from around the world. The ongoing series is dedicated to offering unique insights in varying areas of photographic expertise including portrait, landscape, fine art, fashion, documentary and more.
Chiang Yu-yi, better known by her professional persona John Yuyi, embodies the spirit of the post-Internet generation, where her artistic pursuits are deeply influenced by this era. Before establishing herself as an artist and photographer, Yuyi captivated digital audiences as a fashion influencer, showcasing her distinctive style on social media. However, it was her quest for a fresh creative outlet that truly transformed her path. During her travels between Taiwan and New York in 2015, Yuyi sought a more permanent presence in the latter city, leading her to sell temporary tattoos online as a means to fund her artist visa application. Starting with her own illustrations and later incorporating photographs from her swimwear collection, Yuyi’s tattoo designs evolved into conceptual expressions, featuring symbols of the social media landscape. Her tattoos and accompanying images gained widespread acclaim, establishing her as a prominent figure in the art world.
Yuyi’s artistic exploration extends to the human body, considering it both as a canvas for expression and a subject of inquiry. Her temporary tattoos have undergone various intriguing iterations, including unconventional placements on raw meat cuts and the incorporation of dating app profiles on human skin, revealing the masks we wear to present ourselves. Magazine commissions have played a significant role in shaping her projects, with her images transferred onto everyday objects like lipsticks, cigarettes, and knives, highlighting the commodification of the human form.
“I believe everything we see shapes and influences our personalities.”
Consumer culture has remained a recurring theme in Yuyi’s career, from her early tattoo-selling venture to the array of products adorned with her imaginative artwork in her online store. Known for their accessibility and playful nature, her creations exude a vibrant ethos. Notably, her action figure, inspired by her amusing project in airplane lavatories, showcases her wit and ability to evoke amusement.”I often choose objects from everyday life that people can relate to, such as items you’d find in a dollar store or ones commonly used by average individuals. Consumerism and commercialism play a role in my work because I believe everything we see shapes and influences our personalities. Advertisements and influencers impact us, and I aim to explore those influences and their effects through my art,” said Yuyi to Hypeart
In a notable collaboration, Yuyi partnered with THE SKATEROOM to create skateboard art editions, influenced by image-based aesthetics and the technological landscapes of the digital era, reflecting the profound impact of these forces on human connections and the universal longing for belonging.
For our latest Through the Lens feature, we synced with Yuyi over a late night FaceTime chat to discuss her personal worldview, her photography practice that challenges societal norms, and her ongoing artistic journey as she explores new horizons.
At Gagosian, Marian Anderson, Marilyn Monroe, Dovima and a cast of showstoppers.
Seductive and detail-oriented, Richard Avedon could have been a successful director — and in fact, he was. From his beginnings in fashion to his development as a portraitist, his photography consisted of staged performances where he enthralled sitters with his charm.
Since his death in 2004, Avedon has hardly been forgotten. (Three of his gigantic “Murals” are currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.) Now, “Avedon 100,” an exhibition at Gagosian gallery in Chelsea marking the centenary of his birth, approaches his legacy — and his stagecraft — with a grab-bag randomness. Testifying to his appeal, an assortment of colleagues, friends, critics and celebrities — including Raf Simons, Wynton Marsalis and the photographers Rineke Dijkstra and Jeff Wall — each chose a favorite photograph for these gallery walls (220 prints in all).
In a bravura installation designed by Adjaye Associates, the pictures are organized thematically and theatrically. A wall-size mural of Allen Ginsberg with his conventional middle-class relatives faces off against one of Andy Warhol and habitués of the Factory — two luminaries of vanguard culture posing with very different families. Sometimes, only the informed will get the connection, as in juxtaposed portraits of the photographer Robert Frank and the artist June Leaf, who were husband and wife.
Subtle, too, is the placement of a group portrait from 1963 of the generals of the Daughters of the American Revolution alongside a formally dazzling portrait of Marian Anderson, who because of her race had been barred a generation earlier by the DAR from singing at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.
Avedon had a lifelong commitment to the civil rights struggle, enriched by a close friendship with James Baldwin that dated back to their high school days. (His 1945 portrait of Baldwin is the earliest photo in the exhibition.) In 1963, he was photographing for the book, “Nothing Personal,” that he co-authored with Baldwin; and along with the DAR portrait — which is artfully composed around the women’s banded sashes but a bit predictable in displaying their air of privileged condescension — he photographed civil rights workers, who, also predictably, look resolute and stalwart. A stronger jolt is delivered by a close-up of the 106-year-old William Casby, born enslaved. With his unforgettable face, as stark as a mask, Casby exudes the look of fortitude and resilience that the photographer was after.
Avedon devalued his most original body of work — the on-location scenes in the 1940s and 50s displaying Parisian dresses — and demanded to be judged as an artist solely for his portraits.
“Portraiture is performance,” he wrote, candidly describing his creative process. “The point is that you can’t get at the thing itself, the real nature of the sitter, by stripping away the surface. ” He added, “All that you can do is to manipulate that surface — gesture, costume, expression — radically and correctly.”
The challenge is to bring to the surface something that is not boringly superficial. Avedon’s photographs are rarely boring, but they are almost always superficial. You feel you are watching people perform for him. In the fashion photos, that’s delightful. Sunny Harnett in a Grès gown leaning over a roulette wheel, young men swiveling their heads as a model in the New Look of Dior crosses the Place de la Concorde, Dovima standing in evening dress between two elephants — these could be scenes in a movie. Only occasionally do they hint at something deeper, such as when Avedon included the chains on the legs of the elephants at the Cirque d’Hiver, perhaps an oblique commentary on women bound by fashion’s demands. Unfortunately, that fertile period is underrepresented; there are too many run-of-the-mill, technically polished fashion photographs from later in Avedon’s career.
The exhibition opens with multiple images of Marilyn Monroe, cavorting for his camera in 1957 and montaged in a 1994 print. Monroe is a star performer, overshadowing similar montages Avedon made of Claudia Schiffer and Cindy Crawford, who lacked their predecessor’s halogen incandescence. After putting on a show, Monroe sat exhausted in the studio, and Avedon (with her tacit consent) took a final picture, the “sad Marilyn” portrait that is one of his best known. Because of her untimely death five years later, this picture is regarded as a more authentic self-expression. But is it? Or is it merely physical fatigue?
Avedon preferred to photograph people he did not know, hoping to establish in a photographic session “an intimacy with no past and no future,” comparable to “a sexual encounter with a stranger in a darkened room,” he told an interviewer (cited in Philip Gefter’s biography, “What Becomes a Legend Most”). He wanted something exciting but shallow. And that is what he got.
The worst instance of this approach — given its own room in the exhibition — is his project of 1979-84, “In the American West,” an ill-advised attempt to rival the achievement of his friend, Diane Arbus, who died in 1971. While Arbus envied Avedon’s commercial success and the polish of his prints, Avedon wished more gnawingly for the recognition that the cultural establishment accorded her artistry. But in choosing to portray in unforgiving detail an array of Westerners living on the margins and staring at the camera — oil field workers, drifters, a rattlesnake skinner — Avedon imitated Arbus’s style but could not replicate her probing psychological intelligence.
His most profound portraits are not of picked-up strangers, but of someone he had known all his life: his father, Jacob Israel Avedon. Jacob browbeat his son as a boy. Once a quasi-filial relationship was re-established years later, it crackled with tension. The son continued to feel deprived of his father’s love and respect.
With some difficulty, Avedon persuaded Jacob to sit for him, beginning in 1969 and continuing up to the elderly man’s death from cancer in 1973. At the start of the suite of seven images here, Jacob is in a suit and tie. By the end he is in a hospital gown. What distinguishes these photographs from virtually every other one in the exhibition is that Jacob is completely resistant to the famous Avedon charm. He regards his son with suspicion, defiance, anguish, ruefulness and fear. He knows that he is being used. With misgivings, he is permitting that manipulation. He is not acting. He is engaging in a painful interaction with a son who has never been quite the one he wanted. And both men know that now it is too late.
Weighted with a disturbing gravity, these are Avedon’s greatest portraits. They get at a human truth he usually avoided.
Avedon 100
Through July 7, Gagosian, 522 West 21st Street, Chelsea, 212-741-1717; gagosian.com.
Pop artist Andy Warhol sits in front of artworks at his studio, the Factory, in New York City in 1983.
Brownie Harris / Corbis via Getty Images
In the 1980s, Andy Warhol created an illustration of the musician Prince, which drew heavily from an existing image by photographer Lynn Goldsmith.
Now, four decades later, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Pop artist infringed on Goldsmith’s copyright. Experts say that the case has complex implications for the ever-shifting boundaries of copyright infringement and fair-use law.
Seven out of the nine Supreme Court justices ruled against Warhol’s estate, which argued that the portrait in question should be considered the work of Warhol alone.
“To hold otherwise would potentially authorize a range of commercial copying of photographs, to be used for purposes that are substantially the same as those of the originals,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in the majority opinion.
The two dissenting justices, Elena Kagan and John Roberts, argue that this ruling could stifle the creativity of artists who want to riff off of copyrighted material.
Andy Warhol’s 1984 Prince series Supreme Court of the United States
“It will impede new art and music and literature,” wrote Kagan. “It will thwart the expression of new ideas and the attainment of new knowledge. It will make our world poorer.”
The saga began in 1981, when Newsweek commissioned Goldsmith to photograph Prince. In 1984, Vanity Fair hired Warhol to create an illustration of the musician for an article; the magazine also paid Goldsmith a one-time fee of $400 so that Warhol could use one of her photos as a reference point.
After Prince’s death in 2016, Condé Nast (which operates Vanity Fair) used Warhol’s art for a tribute to the musician. The company paid Warhol’s estate for the right to use the image, reasoning that this version of the work was Warhol’s.
Goldsmith, however, had only authorized Condé Nast to use the image once.
The legal battle revolves around a divisive question: After Warhol altered the image, did it belong only to him, or should Goldsmith retain some degree of control?
The court’s decision relies on how the image was used. In this case, wrote the justices, the commercial nature of the Prince portraits means that the images aren’t covered by fair-use law.
Still, the ruling stipulated that certain other Warhol pieces—such as his famous depiction of Campbell’s soup cans—should be viewed in a different light. Sotomayor wrote, “The purpose of Campbell’s logo is to advertise soup. Warhol’s canvases do not share that purpose. Rather, the Soup Cans series uses Campbell’s copyrighted work for an artistic commentary on consumerism, a purpose that is orthogonal to advertising soup.”
Michael W. Carroll, a scholar of intellectual property law at American University Washington College of Law, tells the New York Times’ Matt Stevens that this distinction is critical. “It was the licensing use, not the creative use, that was at issue,” he says.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissenting opinion, arguing that the ruling “will thwart the expression of new ideas.” Collections of the Supreme Court of the United States
Warhol built his career by transforming the photos of others. For example, his 1964 Marilyn Monroe portraits are based on a publicity photo for the film Niagara (1953); last year, one of those portraits, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, became the most expensive 20th-century American artwork ever sold. Other images from popular culture—from Coca-Cola bottles to Disney characters—also served as source material.
Reactions to the Supreme Court ruling are mixed. Noah Feldman, a scholar of law at Harvard, writes in Bloomberg that the decision helps artists but harms creativity.
“The upshot is that little-guy artists win, because they now have more rights than they had before to claim credit for works reused by others,” he writes. “But art as a whole loses, because the decision restricts how artists generate creativity by sampling and remixing existing works.”
Carroll tells the Times that the ruling leaves a lot of room for conflicting interpretations, and the legal battle has only just begun.
“Is it really just about competitive licensing use, or is it more broadly about creating derivative works?” he adds. “I think what you’ll see is lower courts reading it each way, and then eventually this issue is going to find its way back to the Supreme Court.”
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WILKES-BARRE — Samantha Ward Photography launches with a Grand Opening celebration at Diamond City Studios on Saturday, May 27 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Attendees will have a chance to win the “Ultimate Wedding Experience.”
The Grand Opening features a ribbon-cutting ceremony, delicious refreshments, and spectacular giveaways. You’ll have the chance to meet new business-owner, Samantha Ward and see examples of her work. Polish Connection, who features their kielbasa and pierogis at festivals, is catering the event’s appetizers.
Ward is a photographer who specializes in capturing unique stories, offering services like portraits, events, and weddings. May 27 will mark the official unveiling of her new brand that will provide on-site photography service.
“I think people come to us because they understand the need to keep memories preserved. We hear every photographer say they are a storyteller — I think we go beyond storytelling,” said Samantha Ward.
She provides photography services such as portraits, events, and weddings. By now providing on-site photography services of her own to NEPA, she’ll be flexible to capture clients in a local park, private property, on-location, or even at Diamond City Studios. “We come to you rather than you come to us,” said Ward.
She said that this way, each setting can be unique for each person. No two photos ever the same.
There are thirteen local vendors who signed up to support Samantha Ward’s Grand Opening. Pisano Wines will provide a gift basket to giveaway with wine and snacks, and all the rest pulled together to offer the “Wedding Great Experience” to supporters.
The Great Wedding Experience basket includes:
Jonathan Edwards of 570 Drone and Diamond City Studios also helped organize the event and was happy to support Samantha Ward Photography’s unveiling to the public! Samantha Ward said the local arts community is all close, and she made a lot of amazing connections through the NEPA Camera Club. “We are all a tight knit group. Even though we’re competition we seem to like help each other.”
Ward said it was amazing how many small businesses reached out to welcome her into the wedding venue community when she filed for her LLC in March. Now, this Grand Opening celebration will mark the official opening of her Luzerne County-based brand!
Ward said this business opening is years in the making as she’s built up her portfolio. Before this, Ward did wedding photography on a freelance basis. She’s also a mother to a nine-year-old daughter and she wanted to be sure to break any generational patterns moving forward. “When we started this journey, we were pretty young together. This is a pretty big deal for me and for my family,” said Ward. “ — This is my dream job since I was little and I can’t believe it’s actually happening for us.”
Although it’s definitely a celebration for Samantha Ward Photography, she said it’s really a party for YOU. She’s looking forward to preserving the most important stories in each of our lives and offering something special with the giveaways lined up at the event.
“Many overthink and believe they don’t have the budget for a wedding photographer, but we want to give everyone the opportunity to have a great memorable experience so that they can enjoy their big day.”
Ensure your next big moment in life is captured the way it deserves. Come out to support Samantha Ward Photography’s Grand Opening on Saturday, May 27 in Wilkes-Barre and maybe even win the Ultimate Wedding Experience!
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