Lindsay Metivier finds soul in fleeting moments.

For the past few years, North Carolina-by-way-of-Boston-based Metivier has gathered her often random-seeming photos into an archive of quiet musings. On the surface, they might appear unrelated, but there’s a strange specificity to her chaotic eye.

Cheap drinks in clear plastic cups beside a chlorine-green swimming pool. An obtuse circular imprint in a concrete slab. A blue paper card that reads “crisis” – found, or intentionally placed on a patch of grass (it’s unclear, and that’s fine.) A barrage of sometimes fresh, sometimes moldy sun-soaked oranges and orange peels obsessively collected and sent to the artist from friends near and far. These pictures gather details from daily life and celebrate the charge below their arbitrary surface.

Following her thesis exhibition earlier this year, I reached out to learn what brings her work together.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Lindsay Metivier

PostedDecember 18, 2018

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists, Portfolio

TagsLindsay Metivier, New Color Photography, color photography, art photography, contemporary photography

In her latest series Swallow The Tail, photographer Elizabeth Hibbard addresses how pain and uncertainty manifest between various states of being: physical and psychological, intimacy and isolation, consumption and expulsion, desire and revulsion.

Hibbard’s photographs are dark and swathed in inelegant natural light that captures and accentuates her state of unease, often peering through windows, doors and other structures in the home environment. They’re staged, and on one level bring to mind the 90s to early 2000s narrative photography of Gregory Crewdson, Anna Gaskell and Charlie White, but with more anxiety and less theatre.

They look at how the construction of female identity may go deeper than external cultural and social forces, cycling into internal family dynamics. In one picture, shot at a voyeuristic angle through a bedroom doorway, Hibbard’s mother lays in bed, sewing hypnotically. It feels like a cryptic riff on a Norman Rockwell painting – a concerned look into a casual, repetitive, everyday routine. In another, Hibbard leans into her mother's arms while her mother peels a sheet of dead skin from her back. The pictures are loaded with these states of embrace, mimicry, consolation and confusion.

I spoke with Hibbard about her work, influence, and how Yale – where she’s currently working on her MFA fits into it all.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Elizabeth Hibbard

PostedDecember 6, 2018

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists, Portfolio

TagsElizabeth Hibbard, New Photography, Narrative Photography, Crewdson, Yale MFA, Yale Photographers, interviews with photographers

From Ben Alper and Joy Drury Cox’s claustrophobic photos of tourist caves to Ka-Man Tse’s photos capturing LGBTQ communities in Hong Kong, these photobooks are worth your time (and – hint-hint – money!)

As we declared last year, just like our open calls aren’t “photo contests,” this is not a “Best Photobooks" list. It’s not a competition, and with just a few editors running the Humble show, feels disingenuous and unrealistic to declare it as such. Instead, this is simply a collection of photobooks that made an impact on us in 2018.

As editors and curators with a broad spectrum of tastes, we responded to critical socio-political discussions, adventurous technical or conceptual potential, new takes on photo historical icons, or just damn beautiful image collections. As you move through this list, we encourage you to dig deeper into these photographers’ work and show your support for their careers and practice by buying a few, preferably directly from the publishers or photographers themselves. Without further ado…

PostedNovember 20, 2018

AuthorEditors

CategoriesArtists, Portfolio, Publications

In Honor of Syrian Refugees © Azin Seraj — *In Honor of Syrian Refugees* © Azin Seraj

Azin Seraj is an Iranian-Canadian artist currently based in northern California. Her research-based practice – driven by video, photography, and lush installations that combine visual and sonic elements – addresses socio-political concerns through a transnational lens.

In mid-2018, I collaborated with San Francisco-based curator and educator Dr. Kathy Zarur to include Seraj’s project Concurrency in the our exhibition Betweenscapes. Zarur and I spoke with Seraj about her work and social practice methodologies that help support communities and activist networks as they strive for concrete change.

Roula Seikaly and Dr. Kathy Zarur in conversation with Azin Seraj

PostedOctober 25, 2018

AuthorRoula Seikaly

CategoriesArtists, Galleries, Exhibitions, Portfolio

TagsJamala al-Baidhani Madeeha Al Musawi Asma Jahangir Farkhunda Malikzada Naji al Jerf Ahed Tamimi Kermanshah Earthquake Palestinian Resistance Syrian Civil War Syrian Refugees, Jamala al-Baidhani, Madeeha Al Musawi, Asma Jahangir, Farkhunda Malikzada, Naji al Jerf, Ahed Tamimi, Kermanshah Earthquake, Palestinian Resistance, Syrian Civil War, Roula Seikaly

© Lauren Silberman. From the series The Opposite of Salt — © Lauren Silberman. From the series *The Opposite of Salt*

Lauren Silberman has been photographing communities and subcultures in New York City, its outer boroughs, and across the United States for nearly two decades. While technically “documentary,” her work is full of narrative and metaphor, and often is more enigmatic than the straightforward reportage one might expect. I recently had the opportunity to dig into her work when selecting her as a finalist for the juried exhibition American Splendour at New York City’s Iloni Art Gallery this past summer.

Her latest series, The Opposite of Salt is Water, which opens this Friday at Calico Brooklyn in Brooklyn, NY pushes this further, with a new sense of magical ambiguity. Photographing in Amboy, an unincorporated community in San Bernardino County, in California's Mojave Desert, Silberman uses images from the region to represent symbols of ideology and mythology associated with the evolution of the American dream.

In advance of her new exhibition, I emailed Silberman to learn more about her work.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Lauren Silberman

PostedSeptember 27, 2018

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists, Exhibitions, Portfolio

TagsLauren Silberman, Black Label Bicycle Club, documentary photography, New York City Photographers, afterparty photography, interviews with photographers

Lindsay Metivier: Archiving the Ordinary

Elizabeth Hibbard Photographs the Spaces Between Physical and Psychological Anxiety

Humble Booklist: 32 Photobooks That Dropped Our Jaws in 2018

Legal Tenders: Artist Azin Seraj Looks at the Imagery and Iconography of Bank Notes with A Critical Lens

Lauren Silberman Photographs Afterparties, Punk Rock Bike Clubs and the Mystery of the American Dream