Announcing SIGNS, a group photography exhibition curated by Mathew Pokoik, as part of the Mt. Tremper Arts Festival. Featuring:

-Walker Evans - Tim Davis, Shannon Ebner, Lisa Kereszi, John Lehr, Christian Patterson, Mathew Pokoik, Zoe Strauss, Brian Ulrich - and Stephen Shore.

July 19 - August 31, 2008

Opening reception and party, July 19 at 8:00, will include a modern dance installation by Jill Sigman/Thinkdance, and the klezmer/punk band Golem at 10:00.

Tickets for the opening are $20. More details about the summer festival will be posted soon, along with information about a series of related photography lectures.

Berlin, Germany, 2007. ©Mathew Pokoik

I’m currently mid-way through a three week photo trip in India, working on the Global City. I’ve gone from owl sightings in the Catskill Mountains to the strange biodiversity of Delhi, India. The following is a list of animals seen freely wandering within the city limits of Delhi: Cow, Goat, Chicken, Camel, Monkey, Elephant, Dog, Cat, Rat, Donkey, Horse, Sheep, Wild Boar, and an assortment of unknown birds from parrots, herons, vultures and hawks.

©Mathew Pokoik

Yesterday I had a lucky sighting of a Barred Owl sitting in a birch tree over-looking the pond and garden. It allowed me to get within 10 ft to record it for posterity (I moved very slowly). The owl sat in this tree for most of the day, flying off some time around dusk. This is the second Barred owl I’ve seen recently. The other one was much larger, it was sitting in another Birch tree, this time in the upper field. I walked under it and didn’t see it till I walked onwards - turned around and looked at the view behind me - so well did it blend in with the bark of the tree in this snowy white landscape. It was hunting in the middle of the day. It was quite amazing to watch. Every 30 seconds or so its head would swivel around 180 degrees, with no lower body movement at all. Then instantly it would again swivel right-side-front, scanning the field for mice in a 360 degree angle of sight.

©The Sartorialist

The Sartorialist, a popular fashion blogger / photographer has a superb show up now at Danziger Projects. To my eye the work touches upon traditional vernacular uses of photography - potentially because of the function these images serve. His story is an interesting one, entering the field of photography through what is now a massively popular fashion blog, he began taking photographs as a descriptive tool to investigate street fashion. In his own words to “simply share photos of people that I saw on the streets of New York that I thought looked great. When I worked in the fashion industry, I always felt that there was a disconnect between what I was selling in the showroom and what I was seeing real people (really cool people) wearing in real life.”

©The Sartorialist

©The Sartorialist

What really perks my interest in this work is that it indirectly points towards a central aspect of photographic vision. The capacity for photographs to describe, describe, and describe. That is the reason for taking and posting these pictures, to look closely at what people are wearing, to describe it clearly. Yet the best photographs go beyond mere description (which is the key point here), and I believe if you study the work of other photographers who have used photography primarily as a descriptive tool, one will see the same pattern. The transformation from the descriptive to the mysterious, from a document to a poem.

©The Sartorialist

©The Sartorialist

Two image makers in particular come to mind when I consider these images. The first is Michael Disfarmer (1884-1959) a professional portrait photographer from Heber Springs Arkansas who took remarkably poignant, simple, and descriptive photographs of those who came to sit for the camera in his portrait studio.

Michael Disfarmer

Michael Disfarmer

Michael Disfarmer

The second image-maker would be the remarkable, amazing, and one of my all time favorites…August Sander (who it would be questionable to apply the label vernacular to, although he certainly utilized the transparency of photographs). Just in case you are not familiar with him, the Getty Museum describes his work as follows:

“Man of the Twentieth Century” was Sander’s monumental, lifelong photographic project to document the people of his native Westerwald, near Cologne. Stating that “[w]e know that people are formed by the light and air, by their inherited traits, and their actions. We can tell from appearance the work someone does or does not do; we can read in his face whether he is happy or troubled,” Sander photographed subjects from all walks of life and created a typological catalogue of more than six hundred photographs of the German people.

In creating this tremendous and ambitious typological catalogue, Sander utilized the descriptive ability of the medium. With a consciousness and directness that allowed for the most subtle facts of a person to rise to the surface through the mediums descriptive possibilities ,while additionally exploring the use of typologies in photography. Could we look at The Sartorialist’s photographs as a similiar typology? Maybe not as ambitious as Sander’s complete portrait of a culture, but rather a portrait of those really well dressed denizens of our streets?

August Sander

August Sander

August Sander

August Sander

James Danziger has an interesting description of the process of putting together this show that is worth a read if your curiosity has been perked here. On a last note, I was curious to see if photographs made for the web would hold up in person, and they do. They are well printed, and even better in real life, shadow detail that is lost while viewing on the web, shows up clear and strong in the printed image. Check out the blog, check out the show, and consider the ways the blogosphere has entered our daily lives.

UPDATE: The New York Times has a review today on this show, comparing The Sartorialist to Sander.  I’m happy to say it was published here first!

With the new year upon us, and a host of year’s best lists all around, I thought I’d add to the cacophony with my own best books of 2007. It’s really a list of the books I’ve read this year that are my favorites, almost none of them were written or published in ‘07.

Do you have any favorites for ‘07? Please let me know, I’m always looking for something new and interesting.

To another year of reading ahead of us, Happy New Year!

Fiction

Margaret Atwood - The Penelopiad

Jorge Luis Borges - A Universal History of Iniquity

Jorge Luis Borges - Dreamtigers

Italo Calvino - The Nonexistent Knight and The Cloven Viscount

Italo Calvino - Invisible Cities

Miguel De Cervantes - Don Quixote, translated by Edith Grossman

J.M. Coetzee - Waiting For The Barbarians

Cormac McCarthy - No County For Old Men

Orhan Pamuk - My Name Is Red

Orhan Pamuk - Snow

J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows

Salman Rusdie - Shalimar The Clown

John Steinbeck - East of Eden

Non-Fiction

Reza Aslan - No god but God - The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam

Jean Baudrillard - The Consumer Society

John Dewey - Art as Experience

Thomas L. Friedman - The World is Flat

Craig Harbison - The Mirror of the Artist, Northern Renaissance Art in its Historical Context

Photography and Art Books

Mitch Epstein - Recreation

Paul Graham - American Night

Paul Graham - Empty Heaven

Andreas Gursky - (from the Istanbul Museum of Art)

Marco Livingstone - Pop Art, A Continuing History

Tod Papageorge - Passing Through Eden

James Meyer, editor - Minimalism, Themes and Movements

Martin Parr - Small World

Martin Parr and Gerry Badger - The Photobook: A History volume I and II

Taryn Simon - An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar

Lincoln Center Institute (LCI) now has on-line the Windows on the Work, with an interview, based on my photographic work Streetwork. Since 2001, this and another portfolio of my photographs, have been touring school’s around the greater NY Metropolitan area. They’re the center of study in an Aesthetic Education unit taught by an LCI Teaching Artist. It has been fantastic to have now thousands of students ranging from pre-K to post-grad study my work in this setting. Now they have available, The Windows on the Work, a collection of related articles, study aid, and contextual information resource for students and teachers studying these portfolio’s. Sadly, much of the information is password protected, only for teachers and students working with LCI.

What you can see is this interview with me by friend / artist / and fellow LCI teaching artist, Tenesh Weber. I’m quite happy with the way it turned out, I hope you enjoy it. To check out the Windows on the Work go to LCI’s website, click on Repertory Resources, in the left hand column, Then click Visual Arts: Street Work, in the center column and surf away. Sorry that is takes a bit of work to find, LCI’s quirky yet chalk-full of interesting-info website doesn’t allow for easy bookmarking. Below is one of the photos from the Streetwork portfolio. If you would like to see both portfolio’s (minus one forever lost image) click here, and type “lci”.

NYC, Canal St. 1999, ©Mathew Pokoik

Livia, Frederick Sommer ©Frederick and Frances Sommer Foundation

With the Holiday’s upon us, which includes lots of cooking and meals with Family and Friends, I thought I’d share a favorite passage from the late and great Frederick Sommer. I’ll be posting more about Fred soon, along with some notes from our conversations. I find this passage to perfectly encompass the experience, discipline, challenges, and joy of photography.

We’re not so damned inspired every day! If we rely on what we meet, some inspiration will arise. As an example, if I go into a grocery store, no matter how beautifully stocked or lush it is in terms of display of fruit and edibles of all kinds, if I am smart I will take home what is best that day. Even if planning a banquet (something I seldom do, believe me), I plan from all the things I find there; I do this every time I go into a grocery store. I buy the best of what there is that day. If the beef looks good, I’m not going to buy lamb. I buy the best of the beef; if the best of the beef is expensive, I buy less of it. I buy carefully, so you can be sure I get a lot for my money. The store may have what you think you want that day. You are looking for pears. There may be pears, but those pears may not be at their best. Confusion is not enriching if you try to unravel it. It is unraveled confusion if you impose upon yourself what is available and come back with bad meat and bad fruit. Take what is really there, and gradually build from it. You build your meal, your banquet; it’s always a banquet when a few things are beautifully related.

From A Talk Given at the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 1970.

With two big storms in a week we now have a foot and a half snow base on the ground. For the first time in a few years we might be in for a real Catskill Mountain winter. Here are two photos from the garden the day after the nor’easter.

©Mathew Pokoik

©Mathew Pokoik

This excellent and crowded exhibition is made up entirely of the MET’s impressive collection of Dutch School paintings (roughly 1600-1800). While the title might make one think the focus of the show falls on Rembrandt, its really a show about collecting and the impact of wealthy collectors on the art market and museum culture - and why not? Many reviews have responded negatively to this curatorial focus, yet in many ways this investigation of the root of the MET’s collection and early history shed light on todays environment of overheated art collection fueled by new global wealth. Overwhelmingly contemporary art work that enters museum collections and major exhibitions are being chosen by a new breed of collector rather than curators or other individuals in the not-profit sector. Is it then surprising that so much of the new art that is seen engages first in spectacle and only second in any type of visual/aesthetic investigation (Damian Hirst or Matthew Barney for example)? What this exhibition makes clear is that this is an old story in many ways. In fact, I’d say The Age of Rembrandt touches upon this point on three distinct meta-levels.

Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait, 1660
The Met, Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913

First - Rembrandt himself was a smart business man who new how to “work it”, like many contemporary artist he painted for a group of new money wealth in the trading mecca of 17th century Amsterdam. Himself a beneificary of this prosperity, he lived beyond his means, like many examples of new wealth - spending vast amounts of money on all sorts of luxury goods (he was also a prolific collector of exotica, some of which can be seen at his former house in Amsterdam). He eventually lost everything to his creditors as his work went out of fashion and he died poor and virtually alone.

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Noble Slav, 1632
The Met, Bequest of William K. Vanderbilt, 1920

Second - This show is an exhibition about the wealthy American collectors of the 19th century. The paintings are arranged in the galleries in “the approximate order of their acquisition”. Thus documenting the inner workings of how a museum obtains a collection - shall we say the reality of collection acquisitions - In doing so, it documents the effort of the new American wealth to establish cultural legitimacy. The post-reformation Dutch painters seemed to have been of particular interest to these new collectors, possibly because within the Dutch Republic can be found the origins for early American values and religious practices.

Upon entering the first room of the exhibition we are presented with a stunning wall of Rembrandt portraits - all with the names of the collectors who donated it - in large grey / white letters floating above the ornate picture frames. From left to right in the room:

Altman - Friedsam - Vanderbilt - Neilson - Huntington - Marquand - Harkness

Considering that one can view these paintings at any other time at the MET, minus the thick crowds, how were the curators to arrange these painting? It would be inaccurate to use them to say this is a acurate representation of the Dutch School because the selection is really a reflection of these particular collectors interests rather than the actual historical age of Dutch painting.

Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, ca. 1662
The Met, Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1889

Third - What do these curatorial choices and investigation in 19th century American art collecting teach us about our own commodity based over-blown atmosphere in the Visual Arts, where we are saturated with New Wealth within a now Global Art Culture?

On a last note - This show also makes clear for me - it is not Rembrandt who holds the undisputed heavy weight championship of the Dutch School, but rather Vermeer. With his quite understated and relatively small canvases of interior private moments and spatial / light studies.

Summer ‘08

We are thrilled to announce our first Mt Tremper Arts Summer Festival. For seven weeks from July 19 through the Labor Day weekend, we will be hosting weekly performances, a photography exhibition, artist residencies, artist talks, and classes. The following is a tentative performance schedule subject to change:

July 19: Grand opening benefit party.

Featuring the opening reception for the photography exhibition SIGNS, followed by the fantastic klezmer/punk band Golem.

July 26: TBD

Aug. 2: Jonah Bokaer

Aug. 9: TBD

Aug 16: Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre

Aug. 23: Hilary Easton + Company

Aug 30 and 31: Mt Tremper Arts Labor Day Weekend Festival, detail TBD

Mt Tremper Arts Studio from the garden. ©Mathew Pokoik

Winter and Spring ‘08

We are currently in process of obtaining all our permits from county and state agencies to officially open our doors as a Performing Arts Center. We expect to receive the go ahead by January. It has been a lengthy and complex process, with permits to convert to a commercial space needed by the Town of Shandaken Planning Board, Ulster County Planning Board, Ulster County Department of Health, Ulster County Highway Department, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, New York City Department of Environmental Protection, and the Army Corps of Engineers (wow, that’s a long list!). In the spring we will be doing construction to bring the property up to code, including fire and handicap accessibility for the studio building, septic system expansion, and road / parking improvements to the landscape.

We also will soon have fiscal sponsorship by a 501(c) corporation so that we may begin accepting tax deductible contributions and grants to help pay for the above work and our upcoming summer festival.

Hillary Easton, A Letter to Pratella (an excerpt from Noise + Speed)