*Los Héroes del Brill*o © Federico Estol

Shine Heroes, a three-year project in which photographer Federico Estol worked with Bolivian shoe-shiners, frames resilience to social and economic discrimination as a foundation for solidarity.

Federico Estol’s Los Héroes del Brillo, or “Shine Heroes” encapsulates the artist’s three-year collaboration with Bolivian shoe shiners living in La Paz and El Alto. The multigenerational urban tribe, as Estol describes them, scratches out a living while facing rampant social and economic discrimination. Ski masks, worn to protect their identities from family, friends, and strangers, mark them simultaneously as Other and as members of a marginalized economic class that typifies hustle.

Working with a local NGO that supports shoe shiners through newspaper sales, Estol organized a participatory workshop for shiners to visualize their stories. Drawing on the visual language of comic books and graphic novels, shoe-shiners portrayed themselves as heroes, not outcasts, whose work is both honorable and valuable.

Shine Heroes was recognized as an outstanding series and presented as the Critical Mass 2021 Exhibition at Portland’s Blue Sky Gallery earlier this year. Humble is pleased to highlight Estol as one of our ten standouts from the 2021 Critical Mass Top 50 finalists. See the others as we write about them HERE.

(PS - registration for Critical Mass 2022 opened July 7th! Click here for details on how to submit)

Federico Estol in conversation with Roula Seikaly

PostedJuly 4, 2022

AuthorRoula Seikaly

Categoriesinterviews, Artists, Art News

Tagsphotolucida top 50, photolucida critical mass, Federico Estol, staged photography, documentary photography, collaborative photography, photographer interviews, photolucida2021HAFtop10

The photographer’s 12-year long project visualizes aging bodies, intimacy, and hard-fought self-acceptance.

The story of Narcissus warns us against gazing too long at ourselves. The Greek mythical character, who eschewed real-time romantic attachments after falling in love with his own reflection, models existential detachment that undermines a full and happy life. If real and alive today, what would he say about our obsession with social media and all that it reports back to us?

Time As We Know It, Marna Clarke’s long form documentary project, doesn’t stray into navel or other self-sabotaging gazing. Instead, it marks the passage of time as it registers on our bodies. Self- and combined portraits of Clarke and her partner Igor convey the comfortable intimacy of a long term relationship that blossomed later in life. Gray hair and wrinkles and all the living that produced them are, in her compositions, treasured gifts, and provide balance to pervasive media messaging about youth and beauty.

Humble is pleased to highlight Clarke as one of our ten standouts from the 2021 Critical Mass Top 50 finalists. Be sure to check out a virtual exhibition of Time As We Know It at SF Camerawork before it closes on May 24th.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with Marna Clarke

PostedMay 5, 2022

AuthorRoula Seikaly

Categoriesinterviews, Artists, Art News

TagsMarna Clarke, photolucida top 50, photolucida critical mass, aging and photography, photolucida2021HAFtop10

The artist’s new exhibition Synchronicities, Traditions, and Remembrance at The Prelude Pointe Gallery in Marietta, Georgia attempts to materialize the memory of her father’s death.

When De' De’ Ajavon was just six years old, she lost her father. His passing left a gaping, unrecoverable hole that she's only recently been able to process. Using cyanotypes for their rich, murky blues, Ajavon digs through the emotional and physical reminders that continue to haunt her to this day. “Grief is a life-long, ever-evolving experience,” she writes, “and, because I was so young when he passed, I’ve had to spend my whole adult life trying to heal myself.”

Ajavon's images depict literal and metaphorical haziness, serendipity, and a perpetual void – she describes her work as a response to decades of “deep contemplation regarding time’s ability to distort our memories and how we perceive them.” It's a means to support her perpetual grieving process, act as tangible evidence of loss, and, she writes, “as a subconscious lead to the things we might have already known deep down inside.”
The exhibition is currently on view in Marietta, Georgia at The Prelude Pointe Gallery space through March 2, 2022.

I spoke with Ajavon to wade through it.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with De’ De’ Ajavon

PostedFebruary 4, 2022

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists, Art News, Exhibitions, Galleries, interviews

TagsDe' De' Ajavon, new photography, alt-process photography, photography and memory, photography and healing, art as therapy

Austin, Texas -based photographer Chantal Lesley’s latest project En Medio de la Nostalgia presents a fractured story and asks the question: “What defines a person’s identity when many cultures are involved?”

Chantal Lesley uses self-portraits, staged images, and manipulated family photographs to look at the many layers of family and cultural history. “Is there one that dominates above the rest,” she asks, “or can they all live within someone harmoniously?”

In the project's title photograph "In the Midst of My Nostalgia," for example, Lesley casts herself as the figure in Andrew Wyeth's famous painting "Christina's World," which depicts his polio-stricken neighbor on a Maine landscape - struggling with dignity despite her condition. Where Wyeth's intention was to "do justice to her extraordinary conquest for life," Lesley inserts her own struggle for hope. In place of Wyeth's dreamy field and romantic Maine barn, she casts herself looking at a border wall.

This is just one of many images that create a piecemeal narrative to reflect this in-between state. Each image ultimately ponders the evaporation of ethnic roots can create an isolating and confused sense of self.

I spoke with the artist to learn more about how her process attempts to make sense of this journey.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Chantal Lesley

PostedJanuary 28, 2022

AuthorJon Feinstein

Categoriesinterviews, Artists, Art News, Portfolio

TagsChantal Lesley, photography and nostalgia, Andrew Wyeth, photography and cultural history, staged photography, photographic tableaux, photographers using Polaroid, photography and identity, art historical references in photography, contemporary photography

We speak with photographer, curator, publisher and now NFT leader Kris Graves about how his new platform Quantum Art is helping artists make a living.

While many naysayers (including Wikipedia!) are convinced that the NFT market is a form of “the emperor’s new clothes,” for many artists, it’s creating new revenue streams that were previously unheard of.

At the forefront of NFT photo sales is Quantum Art, a platform led by Kris Graves, Jonas Lamis, and founder Justin Aversano (with curatorial leadership from Humble’s Roula Seikaly) who are on a mission to put money in the hands of artists who have too often seen their work used for "exposure" rather than money in their pockets.

All of Quantum's “Season 1 and 2” artist drops have sold out in twenty minutes or less, earning the artists five-figure incomes (or more!) that are deposited immediately to their virtual wallets.

I spoke with Kris Graves over Zoom to learn more about Quantum Art, the mystery behind NFTs, and how to harness this new product to help artists everywhere.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Kris Graves

PostedJanuary 20, 2022

AuthorJon Feinstein

Categoriesinterviews, Artists, Art News

TagsNFTs, NFT, art and commerce, Quantum Art, Kris Graves, art photography, how to make a living as an artist, how to make a living as a photographer

Heroic Photographs of Bolivian Shoe Shiners in La Paz and El Alto

Aging and Acceptance in Marna’s Clarke’s Time As We Know It

The photographer’s 12-year long project visualizes aging bodies, intimacy, and hard-fought self-acceptance.

De’De' Ajavon’s Cyanotypes Ponder The Hazy Reminder of Loss and Grief

A Photographer Contemplates Her Family's Cross-Cultural History "In The Midst of Nostalgia"

WTF, NFT? How The Business Model People Love to Hate is Putting More Money in Photographers Pockets Than Ever Imagined