Photograph magazine is the bible for the industry.
So nice to see "Harlem Perspectives" at Faction Art Projects listed with one of my images. Exhibition closes May 13th!
Artist Talk :: Faction Art Projects, NYC
Save the date!
I’m giving an Artist Talk this coming Sunday 2PM at Faction Art Projects.
A second talk follows mine, by the always fascinating and provocative Renee Cox.
Free and open to the public.
Opening Night "Harlem Perspectives" at Faction Art Projects, NYC
A great night in Harlem: extraordinary art, stimulating conversations, and four works from my series The Street Becomes on view as part of "Harlem Perspectives" at Faction Art Projects.
Sneak Preview!
My secret agent, Hye-Ryoung Min, delivered this sneak preview of my upcoming exhibition at Faction Art Projects! Four images from my series The Street Becomes are featured in "Harlem Perspectives. Opening tomorrow night, April 19th!
Opening Night at the Museum of Modern Art, Guatemala
On April 5th, our three-person exhibition "Máscaras, Rumores y Otros Vuelos" opened to great fanfare at the Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno in Guatemala City. The days leading up to it had been intense with a flurry of media requests, including two live appearances on National TV morning shows and additional taped segments for the evening news hour, as well as a live radio interview on Radio Infinita's "Con Criterio" program and feature articles on all of the country's dailies.
Before the public arrived at the museum, Mario, Igal and I took a moment to reflect upon and enjoy just how beautifully installed the work was and how much this exhibition meant to our family. Than night we had over seven hundred people visit the exhibition. It truly was a milestone in our shared tradition of artistic practice.
And now for something completely different!
And now for something completely different:
Yes that’s me, channeling a Renaissance era Jewish ancestor. The portrait comes as part of Brooklyn McTavish’s photographic project The Sum of the Sum of Us exploring the complex matrix of genetics and cultural diversity.
Also on a Jewish note: my interview with a the blog Jewish&, - which coincidentally is interested in the diversity of Jewish experience - published yesterday, just in time for Passover!
What a week of Yiddishkeit it has been!
Exhibition opening: Museum of Modern Art, Guatemala
Every family has traditions that define it. In the case of my own, we love books, long walks and photographic machines. When I was ten, my father Mario gave me my first camera and very thoroughly initiated me in the art and practice of photography. My younger brother Igal was next.
It is with deep emotion and great excitement that Mario, Igal and myself are now set to take over the Contemporary Art wing of the Museum of Modern Art in Guatemala with a three-person show, which opens on April 5th. The exhibition is titled "Máscaras, Rumores y Otros Vuelos" (Masks, Rumors and Other Flights).
///
Todas las familias cuentan con tradiciones propias que las definen. En nuestro caso, amamos buenas lecturas, largas caminatas y máquinas fotográficas. A la edad de diez años, Mario mi padre, me entregó mi primera cámara y con gran esmero me inició en el arte y práctica de la fotografía. Luego siguió mi hermano menor Igal.
Es con gran emoción que Mario, Igal y yo nos preparamos para inaugurar una muestra conjunta en el Museo de Arte Moderno en Guatemala. La misma se titula "Máscaras, Rumores y Otros Vuelos" e inaugura el 5 de abril. Esperamos nos puedan acompañar esa noche.
Back from FotoFest
FotoFest was great and Houston was fun. I wish I could linger for a couple more days. My work is in the Permanent Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and yet I've never visited its galleries! Hopefully next time -
New Acquisitions
My series “El Sistema” documents the work of Sistema de Orquestas de Guatemala, whose mission is to establish a network of free symphonic youth orchestras throughout that country. Last year, these four photographs were on view at La Fototeca de Guatemala as part of the exhibition “Lente Convergente”. I am very pleased to announce that they have now been acquired for their Permanent Collection.
Getting it together for FotoFest 2018. It's been a few years since I last attended and I'm thrilled to share my current body of work "The Street Becomes" with some of the world's leading curators. Twenty four images from the series will be shown next month at the Museum of Modern Art in Guatemala, and with that kind of momentum, I'm hoping great things will happen in Houston as well.
Packing bags for Texas next week!
Getting it together
How I felt
How I felt on my first day shooting with a Leica M10. Life is beautiful -
How I felt on my first day shooting with a Leica M10? Like this bro -
Like this bro
The absent minded
When exactly did I become an absent-minded professor? Not sure any more... but just standing next to this other daydreamer made me feel less alone in my labyrinth.
This enigmatic image has always been my favorite William Wegman photograph. I knew that it was taken in the early days of his career, back in the 1970s. And I knew that it was part of a larger body of works he undertook, which somehow managed to both lampoon and embody the principles of conceptual art.
Yesterday, Bill told the story himself: how he was coming from his painting studio to a party in LA; that when he went to pick up a slice of cotto salami he saw the little circles he had drawn on his hand earlier that day; the little circles perfectly matched and dissolved with those in the rounds of cotto salami; how he left the party with some salami in his pocket and went straight back to the studio and made this photograph. His first photograph and my all-time fave.
Thank you Nancy Burson and New York Film Academy for setting up the talk. It was truly wonderful and it helped clear up a mystery or two along the way.
Wegman tells a story
Upcoming exhibition: Museum of Modern Art, Guatemala
In April 2018, the Museum of Modern Art in Guatemala will host the exhibition "Máscaras, rumores y otros vuelos" (Masks, Rumors and Other Flights), which brings together recent works by myself, my younger brother Igal and our father Mario. In the past decade, the three of us have collaborated on joint books and exhibitions, including Re-trato de familia and Tarzán López.
The exhibition will feature works from my series "The Street Becomes"; Igal is represented by works from "El Color Prohibido" (The Forbidden Color); and Mario by a series of color abstractions inspired by Guatemalan flora and fauna.
Stay tuned for updates in the coming months!
New Acquisitions
It gives me great pleasure to announce that El Museo del Barrio has acquired four images from my series, The Street Becomes for its Permanent Collection. The series had its debut exhibition at El Museo in 2017 as part of "nasty women / bad hombres" and the first Uptown Triennial organized by Columbia University.
I have a long history of collaborating with El Museo and enjoying their richly stimulatiing programs and community. I am truly honored to be a part of their Collection.
Museum as Canvas (Part II)
Thirty years ago I visited New York for the first time. I was nineteen and felt the city was my future. I came for ten days with a hundred bucks in my pocket, a brick of Tri-X film and wanderlust in the blood.
It was a memorable trip and among many firsts was a visit to the Met Museum, where David Hockney had a beautiful retrospective.
Two years later, I packed a bag and moved to New York.
This week I returned to the Met to see the new Hockney exhibition. And I made this photograph of a sweet old couple, lost together in the experience of art.
Time flies. Carpe diem!
Museum as Canvas
Another blustery day in New York.
My students and I sought refuge and inspiration at the Metropolitan Museum. But before heading out, we spent some time studying and discussing the works of Elliott Erwitt, Matthew Pillsbury and Mitchell Hartman.
This is one of my favorite moments from our visit, at the Michelangelo exhibition, which by the way, is breathtaking -
First impressions of 2018
Washington Heights, first impressions of 2018:
Quick hustling neighbors with bottles of wine under the arm, scampering to nearby apartments.
Open-doors at Rabbi Samson’s Yeshiva. On the curb, bundled up orthodox kids discuss the Talmud, their words condensing in the frigid air like thought bubbles.
Hungry families lining up for brunch at the diner on 181st, the only one open today. A hand-lettered sign offers Greek yogurt with a choice of granola or fresh fruit.
A half-read paperback, still sitting in the pocket of my jacket, an American Airlines boarding pass marking the page.
An improvised cozy of hard-packed snow propping up an empty beer bottle on the hood of a red Honda Accord.
A coarse mural depicting a row of buildings on the side of a blind alley.
I admire the equanimity of dogs; they care nothing for New Year’s resolutions.
The Takeaway
A life in photography brings with it as many hardships as blessings. I imagine the takeaway changes from one photographer to the next. For myself, photography has the power to unsee the ordinary and make it new. And by photography I don’t mean the images per se, I mean the whole crazy set up of venturing into unknown lands and embarking on new journeys; waking up in strange beds in far away places; inhabiting other people’s lives and rising to meet a new day in a city or landscape you’ve dreamt about for months - or years - previous to your arrival there.
These are but the smallest of footnotes in the story of my life and yet each of them had its particular charm and their memory still abides: biting into warm, slightly sweet, sesame encrusted bread on the still-dark streets of the Old City in Jerusalem; day-old tortillas, black beans and queso blanco washed down with coffee made by the lion-tamer’s wife when I traveled with the circus in Guatemala; a glass of cognac in lieu of breakfast on Boulevard Saint-Germain; a scalding hot pot of tea and an enormous Irish breakfast pulling into a small town in County Clare after a three hour, rainy-morning bike ride on an empty stomach; stopping to pluck apples from a tree with my father on our way up Volcán de Agua, Nikon cameras dangling from our shoulders; Korean breakfast as big as lunch or dinner and my first taste of kimchi chigae in Seoul; despairing of finding a coffee-shop in Madrid and finally settling for a bar with long legs of jamón ibérico displayed by the window and serving churros and hot chocolate to a handful of early-birds like myself; having Jianbing and beer before exploring the Temple of Heaven in Beijing; hanging onto a steaming cup of coffee during the coldest car ride and coldest winter in Maine; watching the waves explode over the Malecón in Havana and being drenched by their spray; sweet bread and thick muddy coffee in a ‘cafe de chinos’ after a white night in Mexico City; walking the back roads of Santa Cruz de Balanyá with a humble farmer, his cow and her calf and being offered a glass of warm, frothy milk when we arrived at our destination.
The list goes on and on, each the recollection of a new morning with a camera in hand. And on this day of gratitude I remember fondly the kindness of strangers, the many places and cultures which have broadened my horizons and taught me something about life and about myself and most of all about the beauty of our planet, which words can never encompass, and which we so often take for granted.