The exhibition delves into the mysteries and emotions buried beneath the surface of a photograph
After midnight, when the streets are empty and the houses dark, even the softest of rustles can seem unbearably intense. That is the feeling conveyed by the beautiful exhibition of photography at Luhring Augustine gallery, on view until June 8. It encompasses the work of seven artists, who span generations, genders, and ethnicities, each in their own way reticent and inscrutable, some stirringly so. Unlike many recent shows, in Tiptoeing Through the Kitchen, no intellectual scaffolding demands dismantling, and it leaves the omnipresence of digital technology out of discussion. Instead, it focuses on intimate personal revelations, but only in bits and pieces—the sort of wounded, whispered half-words that simmer with tension.
The young Brooklyn-based photographer Shaun Pierson emerges as the star of the group. His most potent portraits involve men old enough to be his grandfather. In this show, a work features one of them kneeling down and turning the camera back on Pierson, who reclines nude on a draped table. Propped up on his right elbow, he echoes a bushy-browed, mustachioed Olympia. A few test shots line the wall behind him, each pointing to a different part of his body. The work, like Manet’s 1863 masterpiece, straddles a divide between explicit eroticism and a kind of raunchy sexlessness. The result is striking if uneasy.
Left: Shaun Pierson, Untitled (Model), 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York. Right: Sheida Soleimani, Remorse, 2023. Courtesy of the artist, Edel Assanti, London, and Luhring Augustine, New York.
Equally weird, but more kitschy, is the work of the Iranian-American artist Sheida Soleimani. Her abundant use of toy-like sceneries and props gives her tableaux a comically deadpan drama. A tremendous portrait shows two elders whose faces are obscured by paper cutouts, one playing the role of patient, the other her doctor. Then there is a zany shot of three baby birds trampling one another for a single berry fed from a tweezer, followed by a picture of a raven lying stiffly on its back, a walnut in its beak. A possible paradox unfolds about old age as a second childhood, but also the infantilizing nature of elderly care.
Much of the work grapples with photography’s possibilities for ambiguity and obfuscation. To that end, there is no escaping the names Wolfgang Tillmans, Adrienne Salinger, and Collier Schorr, whose influences loom large in this show. They popularized, if not pioneered, a resistance to narrative, evading our attempts to make sense where there is none. Less obviously, but just as radically, they rejected and subverted obvious beauty. To most eyes their work has turned prettier over time, as with the bulk of left-field ideas that are now part of mainstream aesthetics. Their images give the appearance of rawness, but they impart very little personally and emotionally, often teetering on the edge of disclosure and yet, in the end, withholding. Tiptoeing sees a continuation of that style, but not without plenty of the idiosyncrasies necessary to make such desolation sing.
Kevin Landers, a veteran photographer in New York City, captures moments that are so apparently banal they become invisible to most of us. Here are loosened cobwebs, crochet blankets hanging out to dry on a clothesline, shopping carts filled with blow molds of animals and saints. We’re never sure what we’re looking at because the photos are, on the one hand, stirring in their quietness; on the other, they feel strange, distant, and out of context. That sense of displacement, physical and psychological, also drives a group of collages by the Mexican artist Gonzalo Reyes Rodriguez. For the show he cuts out rectangles from the middle of his own seemingly random snapshots and then fills in the gaps with photographs he purchased from a bookshop in Mexico City, creating a portal to the world of another man. Somewhere in between a kind of wistful longing arises.
Left: Sophia Chai, ㅗ(0927-01), 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York. Right: Brittany Nelson, Face on Mars, 2024. Courtesy of the artist, PATRON, Chicago, and Luhring Augustine, New York.
The exhibition also looks at photography that involves some degree of abstraction. Take, for example, the work of Sophia Chai, a Rochester-based artist who was born in South Korea but immigrated to New York City at the age of 14. What appear to us as no more than thin wobbly stripes are actually closeups of letters from the Korean alphabet that she has painted on the walls and floor of her studio. In that process, the characters drift in and out of meaning. Part remembered, part forgotten, they are beautiful.
Memory also inflects the great work of William Eric Brown, who was born in Argentina and lives in New York City. A series of intersecting lines in graphite, like a murmur, run through pictures of calving icebergs and glaciers that the artist’s father took in Antarctica while serving in the U.S. Navy in the 1950s. Similarly, Brittany Nelson turns found or archival images into something more brooding and more of a mystery. Like much else in the show, the appeal of her grainy, black-and-white prints lies in their obscurity. We see a mask, dry, dusty lands, lights that pulse and flutter like the fins of a goldfish. And we hear silences sizzle and lead their refrains down dead ends.
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — Ansel Adams is being stamped into history.
On Wednesday, the US Postal Service honored the photographer and his work by turning them into postage. A special First day of Issue ceremony was held, during which 16 forever stamps were unveiled. The stamps feature some of Ansel Adams’ most iconic and striking photographs.
They show some of the most well-known vistas around Yosemite, from Half Dome to the Merced River.
“People come from all over the world to see the park and people ask me all the time, ‘Oh where did Ansel Adams take that photo?” said Scott Gediman, a park ranger and spokesperson for Yosemite National Park.
The beauty of Yosemite draws in thousands of people every year.
From its towering trees, roaring waterfalls, and soaring granite walls. Of course, you try to capture the breathtaking beauty on camera.
But few can capture it like Ansel Adams did.
His photographs captured the park’s stunning sights like few others have. Now, people can send a small piece of that beauty across the nation.
“We hope these new stamps will inspire a renewed appreciation of Ansel Adams and his art,” said Daniel Tangherlini, a member of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors.
Ansel’s ties to Central California go beyond the images he took. He also planted roots in the area.
His grandson, Matthew Adams, grew up in Fresno and still has family there.
He is proud of his grandfather’s legacy.
“Ansel’s legacy is incredible and we don’t want to do anything to diminish that,” said Matthew. “Ansel fought very hard for the environment and for decency and human rights.”
Matthew said not only did his grandfather love photography, but he also loved collecting stamps, which makes Wednesday’s ceremony a fitting tribute.
Gediman hopes that when people look at these stamps, they see and feel Ansel’s impact on America.
“I feel that we have a responsibility to not only care for this planet but to instill that stewardship within young people,” said Gediman.
It’s a legacy forever remembered. Stamped in people’s memories.
The postal service has printed 20 million stamps featuring the art of Ansel Adams. If you want your own set, you can buy them online, or at your local post office.
For news updates, follow Ana Torrea on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Copyright © 2024 KFSN-TV. All Rights Reserved.
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Hundreds of high school students rushed to their seats to see National Geographic photographer Cristina Mittermeier at the Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara.
Tristan Santillan, a senior at Dos Pueblos High School, couldn’t wait to see her.
“Cristina Mittermeier is here and we get to watch her … doing a speech about the work she’s done the past few years. Her work is amazing,” said Santillan.
Mittermeier’s mission to safeguard the world’s oceans through her photography has inspired Santillan.
“These animals are getting caught in nets and everything I feel it’s important now to speak up on it,” said Santillan.
“Cristina uses photography and ocean photography in particular to raise awareness of ecology … of the ocean … of nature,” said associate director Meghan Bush of the UCSB Arts & Lectures.
The UCSB Arts and Lectures hopes students will learn how photography can spread knowledge about the environment.
“I think it’s super inspiring I think it’s cool to see these different animals and everywhere she’s been around the world,” said Santillan.
“It Gives them appreciate for why the ocean is important … why ecology is important … and why the beautiful Santa Barbara that they live in … is so important to them,” said Bush.
In the words of Mittermeier, she wants, “people to recognize that the ocean isn’t just a victim of climate change – it is our solution.”
“I feel like Santa Barbara is amazing but some spots are a little dirty .. so I’m glad she said that as well so hopefully we can have a cleaner environment for our future,” said Santillan.
Mittermeier founded the International League of Conservation Photographers to drive conservation efforts through storytelling.
The photographer co-founded nonprofit SeaLegacy focused on the intersection of art, science and conservation to revive the ocean.
A local photographer is using his passion to show off Timmins in its most beautiful light.
Mitch Bolduc, who moved to Timmins in his 20s, has always loved the outdoors. Now retired, he is combining his passion for nature and his hobby in photography to spread positivity about the city.
“It’s been a dream of mine for a long time and when I got my leg amputated about four years ago, I decided to buy myself a Canon camera and different lenses and started taking pictures,” Bolduc says.
“It ended up being too bulky for me to carry around so I got myself a good phone and started taking pictures on that. I started getting comments on Facebook and that encouraged me, so it’s become a part of my passion, promoting Timmins in a positive way,” he says.
“I’m just a single person. It’s basically me and my cell phone taking pictures and posting them. I’m very basic, it’s nonchalant, but I enjoy it. I get no money out of this. I love the positive comments I get and that’s my gratification. My pictures are always free. I’m not doing it to get rich.”
Bolduc’s photography mostly consists of the outdoors, as well as local landmarks and landscapes. He says his pictures have sometimes turned people’s attention to places they never knew about or have never visited before, including a series of photos he took in the Hersey Lake Conservation Area last summer.
“A lot of people have lived in Timmins for 30 to 40 years or all their lives and they’ve never experienced that atmosphere of being out on the trails,” he says.
Another goal of Bolduc’s photography is to promote Timmins. He names Guy Lamarche, former manager of tourism and events with the City of Timmins, as an inspiration for his role in bolstering the city’s tourism economy with events like the Great Canadian Kayak Challenge and Festival and the Summer Concert Series.
“He’s an idol of mine. He really promoted Timmins and got lots of stuff going on here,” he says.
Bolduc has been encouraged by the response to his photos, particularly from people who may no longer live in Timmins but who really enjoy seeing pictures of the local landmarks they recognize. However, not all the feedback has been positive.
“I found that on the Facebook pages there was so much negativity, but I think there is so much beauty still to be found here in Timmins,” Bolduc says.
“I get some really good feedback but I get some negative feedback sometimes too. There’s always trolls online trying to put you down, asking what’s beautiful about Timmins. I could go around to all the back alleys and do a whole documentary on the bad stuff, but I choose to look at the positive side and I think we’re losing that. A lot of people are losing that, so I’m trying to give hope and keep things positive. Timmins is still a beautiful, beautiful city and there’s still lots of potential here,” he says.
“I think it’s up to the individual to choose whether you want to be negative or positive. I think that’s a personal thing. If you want to be negative you can be negative and if you want to be positive you can be positive, because there’s lots of beauty. Blueberries are going to come out soon, lots of beautiful flowers will be blooming, and I’ll be taking pictures of them.”
The positive responses to his photos are what keep him sharing them online.
“Those little comments are my payback. People wonder why I keep doing it, but I keep doing it. It’s almost like an addiction to me.”
This article is also available as a weekly newsletter, “Life Stories,” where we remember those who made an outsize impact in the Jewish world — or just left their community a better or more interesting place. Subscribe here to get “Life Stories” in your inbox every Tuesday.
Photographer David Kramer, who served as Bob Dylan’s unofficial staff photographer during a pivotal year in the singer’s evolution from folkie to rock star, died April 29 in Melville, New York. He was 91.
Kramer had unprecedented access to Dylan for a year that included the release of the 1965 album “Bringing It All Back Home,” Dylan’s first to (controversially) incorporate electric instruments. Kramer shot the enigmatic cover photo for the album, as well as thousands of intimate, unposed images of the singer at work and play.
Born in Brooklyn, Kramer apprenticed under legendary photographers Diane Arbus and Philippe Halsman. “Everything about us was the same,” Kramer told the Forward in 2023 about his relationship with Dylan. “Jewish, parents, what your father did for a living, everything. We were like cousins. Working with Dylan was like working with me. That’s why we got along; we were crazy.”
Author Lesley Hazelton’s last book was “Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto.” (Penguin Random House)
Born to an observant Jewish family and educated at a Catholic school, Lesley Hazleton was 20 when she left Britain in 1966 for Jerusalem.
There she earned her master’s degree in psychology from the Hebrew University and worked as a journalist for the Jerusalem Post and Time magazine. She wrote a classic book about feminism in Israel — “Israeli Women: The Reality Behind the Myths,” published in 1977 — before moving to New York in 1979.
“I sold the house when I left Israel, exhausted by the constant high level of tension and drama there,” she wrote in 1986. “After too many wars — and the ecstatic high of one peace — I hungered for normality. Yet I don’t seem to be very good at normality. I wander through it, thinking of Jerusalem.”
At least two more careers were ahead of her: She began driving race cars and writing an automotive column (“Confessions of a Fast Woman,” a memoir, came out in 1992), and she wrote books about faith and spirituality, including biographies of the Virgin Mary, the biblical Jezebel and the prophet Muhammed. She also penned a memoir, “Agnostic.”
Hazleton once described herself as “a Jew who once seriously considered becoming a rabbi, a former convent schoolgirl who daydreamed about being a nun, [and] an agnostic with a deep sense of religious mystery though no affinity for organized religion.”
She died on April 29 at her home, a houseboat in Seattle. She was 78.
Sam Rubin reported on the entertainment industry for over thirty years. (KTLA)
In a city of fragile egos and petty rivalries, it seemed everybody loved Sam Rubin, the longtime entertainment journalist for KTLA in Los Angeles known for his celebrity interviews and red-carpet stakeouts. Everybody, that is, except Mel Gibson: In 2006, Gibson grew irritated when Rubin asked the actor about his antisemitic rant during his arrest that year on suspicion of drunk driving. Gibson lashed out at the Jewish reporter, saying, “I gather you have a dog in this fight? Do you have a dog in this fight? Or are you impartial?”
Rubin died May 10 in Los Angeles at age 64. Accolades poured in for the San Diego native. “He made you feel special every single time, and I am not the only person who felt that warmth,” said actor Henry Winkler. “When you were being interviewed by him, there was nobody after you, there was nobody before you at that desk. It was you in that seat, and that was all that mattered.”
Poet David Shapiro, seen here in 1986, was also a violin prodigy and art historian.(Bill Foley/Getty Images)
Before he became known as a leading poet of the famed New York School, David Shapiro was already notorious for an iconic photo of the 1960s. During the landmark 1968 student uprising at Columbia University, Shapiro was the one wearing sunglasses and puffing on a cigar, sitting behind the desk in the student-occupied office of the university’s president, Grayson Kirk.
In the 1970s, Shapiro returned to Columbia to teach English and comparative literature, having already written (at 18) the first of some 20 volumes of poetry and literary and art criticism.
Born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, Shapiro was the grandson of renowned cantor Berele Chagy. “There are parts of me that have come out of the sanctity of Jewish liturgy,” Shapiro told Tablet in 2017. “This is strange because most of my generation was extremely, extremely secular. In my work, you see this other force, a field of force.”
Shapiro died May 4 in the Bronx. He was 77.
Ivan Wolkind was COO and CFO of Jewish Federation Los Angeles, where he worked for 13 years. (Courtesy Magen Am)
Ivan Wolkind, who was recently tapped as the new CEO of the Holocaust Museum Houston, died suddenly in Los Angeles. He was 56.
A native of England, Wolkind spent 13 years at the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, serving as chief operating and chief financial officer. Since 2023, he had been CEO of Magen Am, a Jewish nonprofit providing armed security services to institutions on the West Coast. He was also a reserve police officer in the LAPD, an avid skier, a practitioner of yoga and a Johnny Cash fan.
In a statement announcing his new position at the museum, Wolkind said he was looking forward to fulfilling its “vision of a society that transforms ignorance into respect for human life, that teaches the lessons of the Holocaust and reaffirms an individual’s responsibility for the collective actions of society.”
He is survived by his wife, Leah Lesch, and their three adult children.
Business: Sheena Magnesen Photography
Address: Naperville
Phone/website: 630-235-2257, www.sheenamagnesenphotography.com
Owner: Sheena Magnesen, 37, of Naperville
Years in business: 14
What does your business do? “I am a natural light, lifestyle, family photographer. I don’t use a flash. I go off whatever the sun is, whatever natural light we have. Lifestyle, I do more of the candid in-between moments in families,” Magnesen said. “I’m not the ‘smile, say cheese, one, two, three person.’ I absolutely hate it.”
What’s your background? “I don’t have a studio. I used to before COVID-19, a studio in my house. COVID-19 happened. We all pivoted in a different way. For me, I liked how things turned out when I was going to my clients’ homes instead of having them come to me. Moms were more relaxed. The children were more relaxed. Dads weren’t complaining. They weren’t checking their phones to make a meeting. … I like it much better. I feel more relaxed too.”
Why did you start this business? “I took photography in (Lyons Township) high school, back when we had a darkroom. I had my uncle’s old Nikon camera. … All through college, I still took pictures for everybody. Carthage College in Kenosha. After graduating, I worked in graphic design. Sometimes, our projects led us to taking photos for clients. … I got married, talked to my husband (and said), ‘I think I can do this on the side.’ … I had baby number one, got pregnant with baby number two. After that, I decided to make this an actual job. … My children are 10 and 12 now.”
What was it like starting out? “I quickly learned I did not like doing weddings. Brides are awful. Their mothers are even worse. Then you have the drunks. The wedding party. … It was not for me. … It’s a very long day and I had two little ones (at home). Why am I doing this when I can be doing things I like during the week?“
How long is a photo session? “Usually an hour. On location or in your home.”
What do you charge? “I’m in the middle. I charge a $250 session fee. You pick your date. … I let my families see their images before they purchase anything. I offer three different collections. Each comes with a certain number of digital images and a different amount of print credit. … It ranges from $500 to $1,000.”
What do you like best about your job? “I have my own schedule. I like relating to the moms. I can do that easily being in this so long and being a mom myself. I become friends with a lot of them, which is kind of cool.”
Do you have a favorite season? “I like photographing in the summer. Spring is too green, like lime green. … Fall is overrated. You don’t need to wait until fall to get the beautiful golden sunset hour.”
How about winter? “In Chicago? I’ve done snow sessions are they’re magical. … But kids don’t want to be out. You’re going to have red noses, red cheeks, watery eyes. Summer’s great.”
What about competition? “It is so oversaturated it’s disgusting. And they’re all like, ‘I’ll do your pictures, $50 an hour, and give you everything.’ Let’s see what those pictures look like.”
How do you set yourself apart? “I think (nearly) 15 years is a lot. A lot of people don’t realize that if you shoot photos of a baby, you need to be very careful. I have expertise with it. … I’ve had some clients who’ve been with me seven, eight years. I have a newsletter I send out. That’s where I get most of my bookings.”
How did the pandemic impact your business? “Those were the best two years I had because everybody was home, nobody was traveling and they were realizing how important family is.”
Is this area good for business? “(Near) South Naperville, we have Plainfield and Romeoville. There are so many beautiful locations outdoors. I like downtown Plainfield, Hinsdale, Downers Grove.”
Any future plans? “I’d like to keep it going as long as I can. Things are picking up as the weather is getting nicer.”
When is your slow time? “From Thanksgiving to January. Unless there’s a newborn or you have family coming in, I usually take (those months) off.”
What’s your advice for someone starting a business? “Make sure you do it the legal way. Go to the bank and get your tax ID. Start an account. Get some good accounting software to keep track of everything. Ask questions (of other business owners).”
Steve Metsch is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun. If you know of a business you’d like to see to profiled in Down to Business, contact him at metschmsfl@yahoo.com.
