Mark Klett speaking with guests at the Land Re-Form opening - Etherton Gallery, Tucson, Arizona 1/18/20

Etherton Gallery - Opening of Land Re-Form - Tucson, Arizona

March 3, 2020

While I was at the Legacies of Light Symposium in Tucson, the Etherton Gallery coordinated to have the opening of their current exhibition Land Re-Form on Saturday night after the symposium events were done. Land Re-Form features the work of Michael Berman, Frank Gohlke, and Mark Klett.

The best way to enjoy seeing the work in this exhibition on line is to follow the link above, Etherton’s website has so much outstanding content on their artists and their exhibitions.

Owner Terry Etherton has fantastic vision and has built a perfect gallery space in downtown Tucson. His roster of artists rivals the best galleries on either coast, and its also impressive that his gallery is now almost 40 years old.

I have long been familiar with the work of all three of these featured photographers, and Mark Klett was already at Arizona State University when I studied there so we know one another. All three produce beautiful prints and the design of the exhibition is a perfect pairing of their work.

I have long enjoyed Frank Gohlke’s work, his prints are so beautiful. I was glad I was able to spend time with him at the opening talking about his printing. Seeing great prints always motivates me to produce work, nothing like spending time seeing a perfect print. There is no one more gracious than Frank, I was lucky to be able to chat with him at the symposium too.

William Karl Valentine and Frank Gohlke - Etherton Gallery Opening - Tucson, Arizona 1/18/20

I also picked up two of Frank’s books at the opening, “Mount St. Helens” and “Landscape as Longing: Queens, New York” which he collaborated with Joel Sternfeld and Suketu Mehta.

Other work was also on display in the smaller rooms within the gallery. Just a fantastic variety of iconic images by masters and newer cutting edge work. If you are ever near Tucson, the Etherton Gallery is a must see.

PHOTO LA 2020

March 3, 2020

Even though 2020 has been a hectic year, I was still able to make it out to PHOTO LA this year. I definitely saw some great photographs there, and even better still I found lots of images to photograph myself. I have been writing volumes for this blog the last few days so I will keep this post simple, and for the most part let my photographs do the talking with the exception of one image.

William Karl Valentine with Mel Etherton by Danny Lyon print - Photo LA 2020 - Santa Monica CA 2-2-20

I met Mel in Tucson in January when I was out for the Legacies of LIGHT symposium in Tucson. Her Husband, Terry, founded Etherton Gallery and I am featuring the gallery in another post here in my blog. To be specific I actually met Mel in Mary Virginia Swanson’s kitchen at a party after the symposium Sunday afternoon as someone was photographing her hair (true story, cool party). Anyways, at PHOTO LA I see Mel at the Etherton Gallery booth and I start a conversation with her, eventually asking her which print is her favorite. Without hesitation she pointed to this Danny Lyon print behind us in the photo , a photograph which is one of my favorites. After we talked about how great Danny’s work is she explained her connection to this particular image. She said they were at a Paris Photo LA event in 2014 when Brad Pitt came by their gallery space which was featuring Danny Lyon. She said Terry was busy with a client or off somewhere conducting business so she talked to Brad and basically sold him the print. The sale of the print made several news outlets and she got to tease Terry about it after that she was the one who closed the deal with Brad Pitt. Epic story, so happy she shared that with me.

So as for the rest of the PHOTO LA 2020 Experience I am just going to post a gallery and let the reader plow through some images.

Memorial for Kobe and GiGi Bryant at LA Live - Los Angeles, California 2/1/20

The loss of Kobe Bryant

March 3, 2020

The day Kobe Bryant died it was overcast here in Newport Beach, and I wasn’t surprised to find out later weather was the most likely reason he and eight others were killed that Sunday.

I first learned of the helicopter crash from a text my son sent from the East Coast. He saw the news on TMZ and initially could not confirm it on other news sites. I was initially skeptical but then it was soon confirmed.

Kobe’s family lives in the Newport Coast part of the city which is about five miles away but people still ran in to him all around town. I saw him one night late at the my CVS after he had played at Staples, and know they frequented shops all over town. His family was a part of the town and lots of people know them.

The atmosphere in Newport Beach, Los Angeles, and Southern California after the helicopter crash was something I had never seen before here. In the Newport area so many people had some connection to one of the nine killed. In a smaller community the shock is understandable. But the atmosphere which gripped all Southern California, and most of the world, was incredible. Kobe was obviously larger than life, vibrant, and successful at everything. For him to be gone, and at that point in his life, shocked the world. I think it brought everyone’s own mortality in to view which is never fun.

With this event I knew I was present at an important moment in history and I wanted to find an appropriate way to photograph it. I had no interest to intrude on grieving family members, or capture images from private services, but I wanted to try and document the impact on the community, the atmosphere I was feeling.

What I decided to do was photograph the pop-up memorial at LA Live across the street from Staples Center. It was the most obvious subject and I was going up there to Kings games anyway so I had good access to the area.

These photographs are from LA Live. It was incredible to move through such an eclectic and diverse crowd where everyone was so reverent in unison. No one shoved or pushed, no one argued, it was quiet with the exception of the occasional “Kobe” chant, and everyone was basically one. Guaranteed there were folks in the crowd who normally would not be cordial with one another who stood side by side without an issue.

With a loss like this there are lots of lessons, I was thankful to have the opportunity to document it because I think these images can speak to that, but obviously I wish there wouldn’t have been a memorial to photograph.

William Karl Valentine with Scott B. Davis at the Center for Creative Photography’s Legacies of LIGHT

Scott B. Davis at Legacies of LIGHT - Center for Creative Photography

February 9, 2020

At the Center for Creative Photography’s Legacies of LIGHT I also had a chance to catch up with Scott B. Davis , someone I always enjoy talking with. Scott is an amazing photographer and founder of Medium Photo which is a non-profit organization centered around educational workshops and annual photo festival in San Diego. I have attended several of the festivals and they are fantastic, they include lecture series and portfolio reviews. Scott’s passion for photography is so strong, I appreciate all his leadership with Medium, and especially the images he captures as a photographer.

Scott currently has a platinum print in an exhibition at the Getty which was recently featured in the LA Times Entertainment and Arts section, The platinum print exhibition runs through May 31st and also includes prints by photographers such as Tina Modotti and Alfred Stieglitz. Also at the Getty until March 31st is “Unseen” featuring works from the Getty’s permanent collection which have never been exhibited at the Getty before. This exhibition celebrated the 35th anniversary of the Getty’s photography collection.

Arizona State University MFA candidate Julia C. Martin and William Karl Valentine at the LIGHT symposium

Julia C. Martin & Alex Turner - Two MFA Candidates you should get to know

February 9, 2020

One of the best experiences I had with attending the Legacies of Light Symposium was getting to know two MFA candidates who I am confident will have impactful photography carriers.

I’ll start with Julia C Martin who is studying at Arizona State University. We had a couple long talks during the weekend and I was very impressed. She already has solid insight in to world of fine art photography and I could definitely see her doing big things in a curatorial role one day. She has positioned herself perfectly for something like that already having worked for the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops and Aperture. She has also interned with Mary Virginia Swanson and has a good relationship with her. But Julia is also a photographer and makes some pretty powerful images. Julia’s work right now deals with the themes of death, mortality, and femininity. She primarily photographs using film and oftentimes prints her images using alternative processes to captured the feelings she is dealing with. She could impact the photography world in a number of different ways. I learned a lot from talking with her, Julia’s insight has value and she communicates her ideas so well.

I only had a chance to speak briefly with Alex Turner but I think that was mostly because so many other people were trying to speak with him. Alex is studying at the University of Arizona and was just awarded one of the 2020 Society for Photographic Education’s Student Awards for Innovations in Imaging. He will also be presenting his Blind River project at SPE Houston this spring. From what I have seen of his work he is a strong image maker who is starting to make an impact.

Dr. Rebecca Senf - Chief Curator at the Center for Creative Photography and the Norton Family Curator of Photography and photographer William Karl Valentine

Qualities of LIGHT Exhibition - Center for Creative Photography OPENING

January 15, 2020

On December 13th I drove out to Tucson for the opening of The Qualities of LIGHT Exhibition at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona.

In my previous blog post I spoke about having a print selected to be included in this exhibition and I wrote about the history of that image. I also spoke about the concept for the exhibition which is to show the importance of The LIGHT Gallery and its impact on the development of Photography as an accepted art form. The CCP exhibition does a fantastic job capturing the spirit of the LIGHT Gallery and documenting LIGHT’s history. One thing LIGHT was famous for was showcasing work from emerging photographers. My print was included in this exhibition as an emerging photographer. My print, along with 120 other prints from other emerging photographers, is on display in one of four large flat files in the middle of the gallery. The concept is that people who view the exhibition can explore the drawers and make their own discoveries. There is also an interactive area where visitors can map their own association with the LIGHT Gallery or others who were influenced by LIGHT. There are also a number of historic artifacts from LIGHT to help recreate the gallery atmosphere.

Below is my print and the accompanying artist statement information. This is a digital print from a negative scan which is archivally mounted.

CCP Director Anne Breckenridge Barrett and CCP Chief Curator Dr. Rebecca Senf speak at the Members opening of the exhibition. I also got meet CCP Curatorial Assistant Adam Monohon and CCP Archivist Emily Una Weirich. Everyone I met was fantastic and I am looking forward seeing them again at this weekend’s sold out LIGHT symposium.

In my previous post I mentioned how this was the first time one of my prints has been in an exhibition with a WInogrand print, and how special that was for me. Below is the Winogrand print, a classic image from Women are Beautiful.

Garry Winogrand print form his Women are Beautiful series - 1968 New York

Pasadena PD Officers Naum Ware & Darin Craddolph conducting a search warrant related to rock cocaine sales. March 1987 (PPD-177 #23)

Qualities of LIGHT Exhibition - Center for Creative Photography

January 14, 2020

I am proud to announce that a print of the above image has been included in the Center for Creative Photography’s Qualities of LIGHT Exhibition which opened December 13th and runs through the end of May 2020.

This image is from my Pasadena Police Department Series which is one of my most important bodies of work. I began the series while studying at Arizona State University and exhibited the work at the Northlight Gallery just before I graduated. The ASU faculty arranged for Van Deren Coke, at the time the Director of The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Photography Department, to meet with me privately in the gallery to review my work. He compared my images to Larry Clark’s work which will always be one of the highlights of my career as a photographer. Photographing the Pasadena PD eventually led me to chose to a career in law enforcement which allowed me to continue photographing more than most other professions would have. The Pasadena PD series has also had increased interest in recent years and I should be producing a book of this work in the near future.

As for my image above, as stated in the title it was from a search warrant related to rock cocaine sales. For me, I saw the damage first hand that the rock cocaine era in Southern California did in the 1980’s. Pasadena’s Northwest area was ravaged with drive by shootings, property crimes by “baseheads”, and gang activity. So many good people lived in that part of town and they basically had to stay inside at night for their own protection. I knew people I went to grade school with who were killed during this time, like Danny Harris who was shot in a drive by shooting while selling rock cocaine. Then I also saw the harm done to small children like the boy in this photograph, Officers like Naum and Darin cared about the community and worked hard to make it safer by taking people involved in crime off the street. An approach that worked in many ways then which we have abandoned today because of political concerns. Could the approach in the 1980’s have been better? Yes with hindsight things can usually be done better but the over all approach to fighting crime prior to 2000 was better for society than it is being portrayed today. Naum made over 1,000 hand to hand undercover “buys” of narcotics during his career, most all in dangerous situations. Darin, recently retired after a 30 year career. Both these officers cared and put their own safety on the line to protect others. Some people today may wrongly interpret this image as oppression by the means of law enforcement, I know the truth behind it because I was there.

To be included in this exhibition has helped me achieve several long time career goals. I wanted to have my work exhibited at the Center for Creative Photography, arguably the most important photography archive in the world, and eventually have some of my prints added to their permanent collection. Being included in the Qualities of LIGHT exhibition accomplished both goals, with hopefully more to come at the CCP in the years ahead. One other interesting thing I discovered at the opening, for me at least, is this is the first time one of my prints has been in an exhibition with a Garry Winogrand print. (Winogrand is my favorite photographer - I traveled to New York in 1988 to see John Szarkowski’s retrospective of Winogrand at MoMA, to San Francisco to see his entire Women are Beautiful series exhibited at Pier 24 in 2017, and again to San Francisco in 2014 to see the SFMoMA retrospective of Winogrand’s work.)

The Qualities of LIGHT Exhibition documents the history of the LIGHT gallery which existed in New York City between 1971 and 1987. This was a critical time in the development of the medium of photography being accepted as art and LIGHT was one of the first galleries to concentrate solely on exhibiting photography. This exhibition examines LIGHT’s impact on the medium which continues on to this day. One important aspect of the LIGHT gallery was it showcased emerging artists and had work from multiple photographers readily available for view by patrons in flat files. My print was selected, along with other emerging artists’s prints, to document that important part of LIGHT.

For more information about the exhibition please follow this link: The Qualities of LIGHT: The Story of a Pioneering New York City Photogaphy Gallery.

To learn more about the history of the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona please click here.

Howard Greenberg Collection - Museum of Fine Arts Boston

January 14, 2020

The Viewpoints exhibition , photographs from the Howard Greenberg Collection at the MFA in Boston was one of the most impressive exhibitions I have seen, I am unfortunately getting to posting this later than I had hoped, I saw the exhibition shortly before it closed last December.

The Howard Greenberg gallery has long been one of my favorite stops when I am able to get to New York. His gallery’s focus on documentary photography, and selection of what work to show, is fantastic. The gallery space is awesome, the staff is so personable & knowledgeable, and their exhibition designs are always so well crafted.

The aspect of the MFA exhibition I loved the most was it gave the viewer insight in to Howard’s vision. It explained his approach to the medium, and what interested him. The collection includes many of Howard’s favorite prints and the stories behind why the images are important to him. In some cases it tells how he came to obtain the prints. There are so many amazing one of a kind prints in this collection, it is such a good exhibition for documenting the history of the medium and the presentation of the collection by the MFA staff is perfect. It is as good an exhibition design as I have seen. I think the best way to approach sharing this with you here is to start posting my photos of the exhibition in groups and just make comments about them.

While drafting this post, one interesting thing I learned about the MFA collection was it began in 1924 when Alfred Stieglitz donated 27 of his photographs to the Museum. The collection now includes approximately 15,000 photographs

The short video accompanying the exhibition was perfect. I loved hearing Howard explain the importance of the different items in the exhibition then being able to go look at them on the walls. The MFA also included quotes with the titles next to the prints which was good too, but seeing the video then going to see the prints he talked about was the best way to experience things. I have looked for this video on line and have not been able to find a link to it. These three still his opinion on the importance of making prints not just capturing images.

The above images show how the exhibition prints were grouped under themes.

Gloria Swanson, 1924 , by Edward Steichen (1879-1973)

Steichen’s print of Gloria Swanson is one of the most beautiful prints I have ever seen. It is also one of Howard’s favorite prints as he describes in the video. in person it is truly amazing.

Above - examples of personal prints photographers made

The exhibition had images I was not familiar with before like the Winogrand and Frank prints above. I really found the Frank print interesting. His “Americans” series was so important in the history of the medium, to see an image he took when he was on his way here to do the project is incredible. I envision him “sharpening the saw” some knowing about the journey he was about to embark on.

The concept for displaying iconic images with their press notes and publishing stamps visible was brilliant. I loved being able to see both sides of these prints, the small wall cut out and the dual glass frame was perfect.

The Henri Cartier-Bresson print below was pretty incredible too. I was familiar with the image, and to see what is the very first print of the image is so special. Enjoyed the story of how Howard confirmed this was Henri’s first print and the path it took to get in to Howard’s collection.

More amazing Steichen prints below. Where Instagram and other social media platforms, like this blog, are fantastic to share information to broad audiences quickly there is also a downside in that many photographers today do not fully understand the medium, especially what a fine print really is. I have written about it before, to truly understand what a good print is you have to view good prints. In person, slowly, and by examining every detail. Unfortunately this can not be accomplished in 2 to 3 second digital views.

After the Steichen print of Gloria Swanson , the two prints below were probably my favorite prints in the exhibition. W. Eugene Smith’s printing skills were amazing, I remember seeing his working prints of the Jazz Loft Project on display at MoPA in San Diego and I was in awe of how beautiful his working prints were. The display in that exhibition was also perfect. I am so glad his archive is also at the Center of Creative Photography where it will properly cared for and shared.

The Diane Arbus print was good to see. I remember seeing her own enlargements years ago and they were not clean. So much dust on the negatives that it was distracting, and no where close to the images which professional printers produced. To see this smaller print which you know she made was another special experience.

Although I have long been familiar with this famous Lewis Hine image and how important it was for bringing about change, I think this is the first time I have seen this print in person. Powerful experience to view it.

Below is a selection of other prints in the exhibition which stood out to me.

I am very thankful that Howard Greenberg donated this collection to the MFA. First so I could see the prints exhibited in this format, which again was an outstanding presentation, but more importantly to assure that such an amazing part of the history of the medium will be preserved together in an institution like the MFA.

I found the following articles on the exhibition which may also be of interest:

Howard Greenberg Gallery Statement

Wall Street Journal

The Guardian

Garry Winogrand - PBS American Masters

April 22, 2019

I got lucky and saw Fraenkel Gallery’s Instagram post about the PBS American Masters documentary on Garry Winogrand which aired last Thursday night.

Winogrand is my favorite photographer, I saw his 1988 retrospective at MoMA curated by Szarkowski, I saw SFMoMA’s 2015 retrospective, I saw the exhibition at Pier 24 gallery where they displayed prints of every image from his Women are Beautiful book on one massive wall, and I even attended Geoff Dyers's lecture last year at Getty for the release of his book on Winogrand.

I have seen several videos of interviews of Winogrand, have numerous books on his work, but I always want to learn more about him and his process. This PBS documentary is amazing. It has old interviews of Gary, lecture audio from Szarkowski speaking about Winogrand’s work, video shot by Winogrand, interviews of scholars, as well as interviews of his family and friends. Great insight in to the man. If you like Winogrand’s work, documentary photography, or just great images, you will enjoy this film.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/garry-winogrand-all-things-are-photographable-full-film/11339/

Also, as a documentary photographer who photographs on the street, I particularly loved these following three quotes from the film about Street Photography :

“If we applied standard definitions of propriety and niceness to photographers working in the street we’d be left without a lot of the great pictures in the history of photography.”

Jeffrey Fraenkel – Gallerist

“I find it kind of intriguing because we allow the State to photograph us so relentlessly and yet people don’t seem as bothered by that as they do by someone who is clearly an artist.”

Michael Ernest Sweet – Photographer

“It’s an artistic process, you live within this process. So the questions of surveillance, political correctness, all of that stuff, it’s just totally irrelevant. Now perhaps that makes the few of us who even understand what I’m talking about right now are dinosaurs or insensitive ghouls or whatever…but who cares about that?”

Tod Papageorge – Photographer

2018 Triple Crown Winner “Justify” , with Mike Smith up, wins the 2018 Santa Anita Derby

Old Reviews of my Santa Anita book ....

November 15, 2018

In 1991 I published my first book, Santa Anita. I stumbled on to photographing at the racetrack while searching for a place to photograph here in California with images like I found on the streets of New York and Chicago. You can find Street Photography in California, even Los Angeles now, but it is different because California is so spread out and everyone drives everywhere. The track has it all, people from all walks of life, right there in one place, and easy to move about them photographing, just like being in New York. I continue to photograph at Santa Anita, probably more as a personal retreat than actually working on a new project but that is fine, the process is what matters when photographing. Plus I have been able to photograph two Triple Crown winning horses the last few years by continuing to go out. Anyways in case you are wondering why I am writing a post about a project from 27 years ago today, its because I just was doing a Google Search on myself and came across a couple old reviews of the book which I don’t think I have shared before. Pretty accurate in my mind so I wanted to put do a post on them and thought it best to provide an introduction why I was.

The Reviews

Laura Rose of Equine Images Magazine wrote: "In his book Santa Anita, photographer William Karl Valentine captures the pulse of this California racetrack with his camera, The images, chosen from four years' worth of photographs, include everything your eye may pick up during a day at the track - from a classic stretch drive to a refreshing horse bath, from a grandstand littered with people and paper to a lost child in the safe grip of a track security officer." "But the photographs of the people of the track tell just as much of the story, and Valentine has captured them not as snapshot figures, but as friends...it's evident that not only does Valentine know the track, it knows him."

Mark Ratzky of the Daily Racing Form wrote: ""Santa Anita" is a must-see for any fan of this racetrack. The book contains 80 black and white pictures of just about every aspect of an afternoon at the foot of the beautiful San Gabriels, and really manages to capture a day at the races."

Geoff Dyer - The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand

July 28, 2018

William Karl Valentine’s review of Geoff Dyer’s book “The Street Photography of Garry Winogrand” and his March 23, 2018 lecture at the Getty celebrating the books release.

Vision

June 28, 2018

Photographer William Karl Valentine examines the influences of how he developed his photographic vision or photographer’s eye.

Boston Museum of Fine Arts - (Un) Expected Families

June 5, 2018

Review of the Boston Museum of Fine Art’s Unexpected Families exhibitions

Jason Lee & Aline Smithson at Arcana: Books on the Arts

May 27, 2018

Actor and Photographer Jason Lee at Arcana for the release of his book A PLAIN VIEW

The Process ...

May 26, 2018

My thoughts about the process of seeing and photographing.

New York Galleries - October 2017

November 18, 2017

I was in New York last month to show my work and to photograph. I also took some time to hit a few galleries in Chelsea, here is what I found:

Laurence Miller Gallery 521 West 26th Street, Fifth Floor, NYC

I loved the vintage work they had up (new exhibitions up now), some amazing images I had never seen before from the masters. W. Eugene Smith's image from the 1941 World Series at Yankee Stadium really got my attention. I have photographed a lot of baseball so I am always interested in how other photographers, especially a master, choose to document the sport. I also thought it was interesting this image was taken just before the start of WWII. Robert Frank's prints were another favorite. I am very familiar with the work but the style of printing for these prints was interesting, gave me more insight of him as a photographer. I also appreciated the photographic technique and craftsmanship of Erica Deeman’s prints. Her work has received a lot of attention recently. The gallery staff knows the medium well, I enjoyed talking with them.

Robert Mann Gallery 525 West 26th Street, NYC

What a cool space and I loved Julie Blackmon’s photographs. Her large prints are amazing, best way to experience her images, they allow you to see all the details. I especially like her new work, "Trapped" & "Holiday", and I really appreciate her humor. I also picked up a copy of Julie's book, great addition to the library. Gallery staff at Mann has energy and you can tell they love what they do. Can't wait to visit again.

https://www.instagram.com/julie_blackmon/

http://www.julieblackmon.com/

Robert Mann Gallery

Holiday - Julie Blackmon

Trapped - Julie Blackmon

Friedman Benda Gallery 525 West 26th Street, 1st Floor, NYC

I went to the opening of Misha Kahn's Midden Heap by accident while looking for Kasher Gallery's opening and am thankful I did. Friedman Benda describes Kahn's exhibition this way:

By allowing the illogical and the irreverent to take over his creative process, Kahn transforms a white-walled gallery space into a delightfully inventive alternate reality. “Each piece is part of a landscape I imagine as the earth gets swallowed by the sea,” he says. “No single object has any specific meaning. It’s all part of a feeling.”

I have no idea what it was but it was so cool, and describing it as a "feeling" is accurate, especially during the action of a New York opening. This exhibition runs through December 16, 2017, if you're in NYC it is worth experiencing.

Steven Kasher Gallery 525 West 26th Street, 2nd Floor, NYC

I enjoyed Jill Freedman’s work. The prints were obviously vintage based on their condition and the craftsmanship; I always like opportunities to see vintage prints because I can learn so much more about the photographer. Debi Cornwall's work definitely had merit too.

Benrubi Gallery

521 West 26th Street, 2nd Floor, NYC

I thought Matthew Pillsbury’s images were very interesting, unique, and well crafted. Definitely best to view prints because the images really work at that scale. I don't know if this will make sense, but for me, when I looked at these images for a few moments, their layers showed themselves and a deeper meaning came through. I see how it would be possible to move through the gallery quickly and think you saw these images but you really wouldn't have.

Strand Books 828 Broadway, NYC

Okay not a Gallery, and in a different part of the city, but this book store is amazing and worth talking about. I picked up a copy of Meryl Meisler’s book ‘A Tale of Two Cities: Disco Era Bushwick’. It's not the tightest edit or greatest printing of a book I have ever seen but I just liked a lot of her images, found it to be an interesting documentation of the New York during that era. Could have filled my suitcase with everything I found on their racks.

Pier 24 Gallery

November 14, 2017

William Karl Valentine's review, and images, of Pier 24 Gallery's exhibition "The Grain of the Present"

MoPA - Sebastiao Salgado exhibition

September 29, 2017

The Sebastião Salgado "Genesis" exhibition at MoPA in San Diego is wrapping up this weekend, luckily I was able to get to see it earlier this month. I am a huge fan of MoPA, and a member. Its a great space, always worth the trek south, and this was another solid exhibition.

I had seen silver prints from Sebastião Salgado's Workers series before and was impressed. I am pretty sure this is the first time I have seen prints from the Genesis series. All the prints at MoPA were digital prints either from original digital files or scanned negatives. The massive scale is impressive and appropriate for the subject matter. The quality of most of the prints were very good. I think MoPA did an outstanding job getting so much work up without it feeling crowded.

The The International Center of Photography was the first venue in the United States to host this exhibition in 2014 which was curated by Lélia Wanick Salgado. The ICP described the exhibition this way: "Genesis is the third long-term series on global issues by world-renowned photographer Sebastião Salgado (born Brazil, 1944), following Workers(1993) and Migrations (2000). The result of an eight-year worldwide survey, the exhibition draws together more than 200 spectacular black and white photographs of wildlife, landscapes, seascapes, and indigenous peoples—raising public awareness about the pressing issues of environment and climate change." A powerful body of work, relevant to today, and well worth the view.

Artmoi used my billboard on their feature about the 2016 Billboard Creative in Los Angeles

The Billboard Creative 2016 - Los Angeles

September 29, 2017

In December 2016 I had an image included in a very unique exhibition here in Los Angeles, The Billboard Creative. The exhibition takes unsold billboard spaces and features one artist, and one of their works, on each billboard for a month in December. My billboard was on Wilshire Boulevard and Dunsmuir Avenue just east of LACMA.

I am always happy to have my work seen, but I especially happy that Mona Kuhn included this image in the group of 45 selected artworks for the 2016 Billboard Creative. I love the concept of putting artwork on billboards in a place like Los Angeles which is such a car centered society. I also felt this was the perfect image for the venue and I get excited to think of the thousands of people who had a chance to see one of my most important photographs.

I also love the fact this image was displayed over a Thai Massage parlor!

HAFNY.org also used my image as the lead image to their feature on the project.

http://www.thebillboardcreative.com/gallery-1/#2016-show2

http://hafny.org/blog/2016/12/the-billboard-creative-turns-los-angeles-empty-ad-space-into-public-art

2017 Los Angeles Exhibitions - Bowers & Autry

September 29, 2017

This past year the Autry Museum in Los Angeles and the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana both had exhibitions of some amazing photographs by the masters. Bowers had its final exhibition in a series on Edward Weston's work and the Autry highlighted Group f/64 and Richard Misrach's photographs from the Bank of America collection. I believe it so important to see prints by the masters of our craft for a photographer to really have the understanding of what a good print looks like. I remember early in my career getting to see, and hold, a Weston pepper print and learning so much from that experience. Another important exhibition I saw was SFMOMA commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ansel Adams where they exhibited 100 of his prints curated by John Szarkowski. What I enjoyed most in that exhibition was seeing prints of the same image that were printed at different times in Ansel's career. It really highlighted how he honed his craft as a master printer.

My only criticism of these two exhibitions was the lighting in the galleries at both venues. At the Autry it was too dim and you couldn't see print detail. I especially remember two split toned images by Misrach which looked they were beautiful but there wasn't enough light on them to show the green and purple tones. The lighting at Bowers was inconsistent, one image would be lit perfectly then the next would have fall off that prevented the viewer from seeing the full beauty of the image.

As a side note, here are some favorite works I saw at the Autry on my last visit (I am Maynard Dixon) :

Billy Schenck

James Doolin

Maynard Dixon

Frederic Remington