Three years ago, photographer Aaron Blum set out to make a series of photographs comparing portraits of Appalachians to Appalachian salamanders. Born in West Virginia, Blum was familiar with the terrain as home to one of the most diverse populations of the species, and envisioned that this might help him understand how geography and environment could influence regional identification. But he soon found this limiting, and his work evolved into his ongoing project A Guide to Folk Taxonomy something much deeper than a literal comparison.

PostedJune 26, 2015

AuthorJon Feinstein

TagsAaron Blum, Aaron Blum Photographer, Folk Taxonomy, Storytelling in Photography, Photographic Storytelling, Narrative Photography, Documentary Photography, Appalachia, Foam Talent 2015, Portrait Photography, Landscape Photography

Posts like these are tricky. Every year, a growing number of MFA photo programs across the country churn out ripe, excited graduates, ready to seek their fortune in a rapidly evolving art market. Some will use their new relationships and refined smarts to stake claim on the art world, while tastemakers and opportunists alike try to predict who’s “hot,” much like taking bids on Etsy or Shake Shack’s recent public offerings. But what excites us most about this year’s ICP-Bard MFA graduates is their commitment to a range of photographic methods. Their work is hip yet thoughtful, and is consistent while rarely exuding a particularly "ICP-Bard" aesthetic. They continue to blur rigid categories, incorporating both process-heavy and straightforward documentary traditions, sometimes in the same series. Without further ado, we've culled together a selection of six standouts from ICP/Bard’s MFA class of 2015.

PostedJune 19, 2015

AuthorJon Feinstein

TagsMFA Photography Programs, ICP-Bard, International Center for Photography, ICP, Bard College, New Photography, Joseph Desler Costa, Jessica Thalmann, Kimberly Wade, Marie Louise Omme, Beau Torres, Daniel Terna, Documentary Photography, NYC MFA Programs, New Formalism

"The Future of Photography" is a vaguely loaded gun. Curators, ourselves included, love buzzy prompts like "Let's push boundaries," "Show us something new..." and other leading terms that hope for the next big thing. While we'd grandiosely expect every open call to expose us to uncharted ideas, we're keeping this one simple: show us something "F*cked Up."

We'll leave this open to your interpretation. Whether it's a purely mind bending visual experience that leaves us seizing in our studios, or documentary work that pushes into the unknown, we want to see it. Show us photography-based work that will make us blink and twitch like never before. And maybe even lose our lunch.

PostedJune 10, 2015

AuthorEditors

CategoriesExhibitions, Open Call

TagsOpen Call, Call For Submissions, New Photography, Emerging Photography, Humble Arts Foundation

Rachel Stern's portraits and still-life photographs in highly constructed studio environments swap natural and fabricated scenarios, evoking a panic and confusion in her viewers. Her references include a range of sources, from current pop-cultural icons and drag-queen culture to classical Greco-Roman iconography, fusing high and low culture with seamless ease. Models mimic classical poses; arms, breasts, and other body parts protrude into the frame, and ritualistic symbols sit quietly upon plinths and other surfaces, prodding viewers to question their historical anchor, relationship and relevance. Her pop-up solo exhibition "A Certain Age," presented by Humble Arts Foundation opens this Friday, June 5th at 6pm at The Common in Brooklyn, NY as part Bushwick Open Studios. In advance of her show, we spent some quality internet time with Rachel to get a deeper dive into her work, and the generous individuals who have helped to shape her artistic practice.

PostedJune 2, 2015

AuthorJon Feinstein

TagsRachel Stern, Mary Ellen Mark, Henry Horenstein, Thomas Roma, Male Gaze, Female Gaze, Studio Photography, Still Life Photography, Studio Portraiture, Portraiture, Bushwick Open Studios, Jon Feinstein, Humble Arts Foundation, Male Nude

We're not entirely certain whether Richard Prince's latest appropriation exercise is as radical or groundbreaking as his earlier work, or whether it's worth all the "you mad, bro?" kerfuffle as it's recently ignited among the Facebook-commenting i-literati (we prefer Sean Fader's much smarter approach late last year), though we realize he's probably having the last $100,000 laugh. But we're somewhat certain that Instagram was a one-off opportunity, and he'll quickly move on to another medium of appropriation. So these 9 photographers who generously participated in Humble's Instagram residencies over the past two months are hopefully safe. You can catch more of their inspiring work, which ranges from Shane Lavalette's use of the application as a sketchbook for future projects, to Roxana Azar and Anastasia Samoylova's experimentation with in-phone manipulation tools, by clicking thru their photos in this post.

PostedMay 26, 2015

AuthorJon Feinstein

Tagsinstagram, humble arts foundation, Richard Prince, Shane Lavalette, Michael Gaillard, Roxana Azar, Chirag Wakaskar, Ben McNutt, Cait Oppermann, Patrick Gookin, Barr Faber, Anastasia Samoylova

Aaron Blum's Brooding Appalachian Mythologies

6 Promising MFA Photography Grads from ICP-Bard's class of 2015

Open Call. Group Show 46: F*cked Up

Rachel Stern Talks Queer Art, Men-as-Muses, and Mary Ellen Mark

9 Photographers Richard Prince Has Not Yet Appropriated From Instagram