Virginia Wilcox's new book Arboreal, published by Deadbeat Club shows a sinewed relationship between Los Angeles trees and the sprawling landscape they inhabit.

Spidery branches look over and onto highways, pointing and wrapping like withered fingers. Their power is in the space around them, their conversation with the land, the occasional person sitting for a portrait, or the built human presence for which they continue to make space.

“These images present a survey of trees inhabiting a mangled urban landscape that looks something like wilderness,” writes Wilcox. The work does more than simply note urban development's impact on nature - it portrays a melancholic meditation on coexistence. A mirror leans against a palm tree reflecting bramble and sky behind it; a stand of baron trunks mimics a distant downtown skyline; a pathway stretches to reveal an anonymous figure on a park bench who almost disappears in their knotty camouflage.

As a collection of images, Arboreal is a quest for coexistence in an increasingly hostile world, and Wilcox’s soft, wistful way of seeing creates entry points from many angles.

I spoke with Wilcox to learn more about the book and her life within it.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Virginia Wilcox

PostedMay 12, 2021

AuthorJon Feinstein

Categoriesinterviews, Artists, Photobooks, Publications

TagsVirginia Wilcox, Arboreal book, tree photography, Photo series about Los Angeles, 2021 photobooks, Deadbeat Club publisher, large format photography, contemporary black and white photography

© Kija Lucas. Objects to Remember You By: An Index of Sentiment, vitrine #7, Archival Pigment Print 32x74", 2014-2020

The Museum of Sentimental Taxonomy, a roving photography exhibition Kija Lucas, showcases the emotional power of objects – those we cherish and those we carry that house memory and meaning.

When my wife and I prepared to move from San Francisco to Berkeley nearly three years ago, I paused to think about one of the items that sits on my desk: a small, painted wooden bird sculpture that fits comfortably in the palm of my hand. This orange, black, and turquoise token has been with me for 35 years. I vividly recall the face of the young woman who offered it as a parting gift at the end of her eighth-grade birthday party. Ann’s genuine smile suggested that I - a mouthy, atheist social outcast with unpopular opinions about Utah’s dominant religion - was welcome in a cool girl’s house.

Why do we hold onto objects that are emotionally potent, but carry no monetary value?

Whether the associated memories are happy or sad, why do we accept the material burden that the items pose?

These are two of the underlying questions that shape photographer Kija Lucas’s project The Museum of Sentimental Taxonomy (MoST), Lucas’s crowd-sourced project visually coalesces sentimental objects brought in by participants. Looking at the large composite prints, it’s alluring to speculate about the objects and the strangers who possess them. Lucas resists that pull, thinking instead about wider contexts, particularly archiving as a remnant of settler-colonialism.

I spoke with Lucas about the project, which is on view at California Institute of Integral Studies through May 16th, its origin, and how it eludes familiar institutional archival practices and the resulting production of knowledge.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with Kija Lucas

PostedMay 5, 2021

AuthorRoula Seikaly

CategoriesExhibitions, Artists

TagsThe Museum of Sentimental Taxonomy, Roula Seikaly, Kija Lucas, New Photography, photography and the archive, conceptual photography, California Institute of Integral Studies

Artist and curator Zachary Francois speaks with photographers from “Something's Missing,” an exhibition and photobook curated to reframe the expectations of Black artists today.

When I first conceived “Something’s Missing,” my immediate response was that I needed to approach the exhibition as tastefully and respectfully as humanly possible. It wasn’t just a show of Black photographers’ lovely and intense work, it was also a moment to break the mold of what it means to be a Black artist today, and to have one’s work cared for by a curator who shares the same canon. We are often lumped together in our practices simply by our shared identity, our individuality removed. “Something’s Missing” became the vessel to replace the myth of universal cultural experience with something more nuanced.

I want people to critically engage with these artists without preconceived ideas of what a Black artist is and should look like. I see these ideas as a function of white supremacy and hold no power to constructively engage with Black artists. I hope galleries and institutions take note of how critical it is that curators of color lead, look over, and facilitate shows that come from shared cultural identities because it causes the artists to be heard and seen sincerely.

Zachary Francois in conversation with Juanese Davis, Benjamin Willis, and Kelli Mckinney
(editors’ note: the conversation was conducted after the exhibition at The Bakery Atlanta closed, but you can purchase a catalog by DM’ing Zachary Francois thru Instagram.

PostedApril 25, 2021

AuthorZachary Francois

CategoriesExhibitions, Artists, interviews

TagsZachary Francois, Something's MIssing, Juanese Davis, Benjamin Willis, Kelli Mckinney, Black renaissance, contemporary Black artists, new photography, contemporary photography, emerging photographers, Soft Lightning Studio

A Time of Youth editor Lisa McCarty highlights the importance of preserving an artist's intention through the example of the extensive and meticulous archive of photographer William Gedney.

William Gedney was a New York street photographer who earned four major art grants including a Guggenheim and Fullbright Fellowship in the late 60s. The first of these allowed him to travel to San Francisco, settling in Haight-Ashbury right before the Summer of Love. His photographs are contemplatively personal, focusing on the intimacy between people at the time.

Through his lifetime, Gedney created many book maquettes but never received a publishing contract. One of these maquettes was developed solely from the photographs taken during his time in San Francisco. After dying of AIDS in 1989, the maquette entitled, A Time of Youth, was left to the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University, who recently published the book with the artist's intent in mind.

A Time of Youth sequences eighty-seven of over two thousand photographs Gedney took in Haight-Ashbury between October 1966 and January 1967. These photographs document the complex lives of youth at the center of 1960s counterculture. Gedney lived among them in their communal homes, photographing the intimacy of their everyday life. It’s an alternative snapshot of the San Francisco counterculture, going deeper than the surface-level, care-free depictions of 1960s flower children. Handwritten descriptions and ephemera complement Gedney’s photographs giving deeper context to his experience and work.

Artist, professor, and archivist Lisa McCarty edited and the book, reanimating Gedney's work with deep respect and homage to his original sequence and creative decisions.

Duke Archive of Documentary Arts curatorial assistant Cassandra Klos speaks with McCarty on her experience and process working through Gedney's historical archive.

PostedApril 14, 2021

AuthorCassandra Klos

CategoriesArtists, Art News, Publications, Photobooks, writing on photography

TagsWilliam Gedney, photo history, history of photography, Lisa McCarty, Photography and the Summer of Love, A Time of Youth Photobook, A Time of Youth

In his new series Cosmotypes, Granville Carroll uses a cameraless photographic process as a metaphor for "reclaiming power from nothingness."

As humans often do, Granville Carroll frequently ponders the origins of the universe. “I imagine the power needed,” he writes, “to make something out of nothing.”

Carroll makes collodion plates on surfaces including glass, metal, and acrylic to mirror the creation of the cosmos. These "Cosmotypes" – dark, abstract, and prone to technical chance – reflect the mystery of what lies above and beyond and what might have come before it. For Carroll, these cameraless images are not just creation story meditations, but ruminations on control, oppositional forces, and his own cultural, spiritual, and personal journey. “I set my gaze,” writes Carroll, “on the expanse of space, marveling at the vibratory dance of light and darkness.”

A longtime fan of Carroll’s work, I caught wind of Cosmotypes in December 2020 when he shared an early image from the series on Instagram and had to learn more. A few months later, we connected to discuss its present and historic implications and the flourishing expanse of cosmological photography.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Granville Carroll

PostedApril 8, 2021

AuthorJon Feinstein

Categoriesinterviews, Artists, Portfolio

TagsGranville Carroll, cosmological photography, cameraless photography, alternative process photography, alt-process photography, Afrofuturism, African cosmology, new photography, silver eye silver list, contemporary photography, photographic practice

The Scraggly Poetic Life of Los Angeles Trees

This Photography Project Ponders The Sentimental Power of Personal Objects

Challenging the Preconception of What it Means to Be a Black Artist

The Reanimation of William Gedney, Over Fifty Years After the Summer of Love

Cosmological Photography as a Symbol of Power, Balance, and Origin Stories