(please note: the photographers in our group shows will hopefully be less white and less male than this group of vintage fellas)
We know by now that there are an excessive amount of opportunities for getting eyes on your photography, but we're still not convinced there are enough. So, this May, we're launching a new series of group shows that will live exclusively on Instagram. But don't worry, we have no plans to halt our regular programming.
Tito, 2015. © Angie Smith
Boise Idaho is home to a unique population of refugees from The Democratic Population of Congo, Iraq, Syria, Burma, Afghanistan, Somalia and Bhutan, and many other regions around the world. Since the 1970's, it's been a haven for many immigrant groups, largely because of its low cost of living, and also its high quality of life, and in 2015, Idaho was named one of the most welcoming states for accepting refugees in the entire United States. Many of these refugees barely escaped their home countries, and have gradually rebuilt their lives, contributing significantly to local and national economies despite a previous legacy of trauma and hardship. For more than a year, after receiving a grant from the City of Boise, Los Angeles based (but with deep Idahoan roots) editorial and commercial photographer Angie Smith has been photographing these communities to help tell their story and illuminate the broader refugee experience in the United States. We spoke with Smith to learn more about the project, which she's titled Stronger Shines The Light Inside, and her just-launched Kickstarter campaign which will raise funds to expand it.
© Ilona Szwarc
Los Angeles-based photographer Ilona Szwarc's recent book trilogy I am a Woman and I Feast on Memory; I am a Woman and I Play the Horror of My Flesh, and I am a Woman and I Cast No Shadow is a series of unsettling photographs using beauty tutorials as a metaphor for cultural assimilation. As a child, the Warsaw-native frequently visited the United States and wondered what it would be like to grow up as an American. When she moved to NYC as a young adult, she began using photography to help her understand this through two photographic series on the culture of American Girl dolls, and Rodeo Girls. While each project captured facets of American identity with a uniquely poetic, and consciously feminist lens, their representations only partially answered her youthful fascinations, they were made, as she acknowledges, by an outsider looking in. So, from 2014-2015, while working towards her MFA at Yale university, Szwarc turned her gaze inward and began making strange, theatrical photographs of her doppelgängers.
© Tommy Kha
Through A Real Imitation, photographer Tommy Kha, a native Memphian of Chinese descent, uses performance, self portraiture and Memphis iconography to understand his experience and the nuances of feeling different. Obsessed with photography's tendency to reveal and conceal, and a nod to Diane Arbus' description of photography as a "purveyor of secrets," Kha pushes its function with quiet and sometimes humorous images that depict and exaggerate his alienation. Upon the release of his recent monograph published by Aint Bad, Kha spoke with friend Justine Kurland to dive deeper into his process and the psychology behind it.
La Familia de Felipe V. Jean Ranc (1674–1735)
Folks, it was bound to happen: a Humble Arts Foundation group show devoted exclusively to Kanye West. With the release of The Life of Pablo and YEEZY Season 3, we believe the timing apropos (and too ironic to avoid). How the F do you curate a photography exhibition about one of today's most notorious pop culture icons without any images of the rapper himself?
