Mountain Lakes, NJ, 1977. © Arno Rafael Minkkinen. Courtesy of the artist and Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York. — Mountain Lakes, NJ, 1977. **© Arno Rafael Minkkinen. Courtesy of the artist and Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York.**

Edwynn Houk Gallery’s Arno Rafael Minkkinen: Fifty Years ambitiously uses fifteen individual black-and-white photographs to encompass the entirety of the photographer’s five-decade-long career. Minkkinen’s photographs have been carefully chosen to display how he pushes the limits of the form and subject matter--not only in the use of setting and figure but also in the variation of tone and emotional response, all without including a human face. Landscape photography skeptics and agnostics may well be convinced and converted.

PostedFebruary 13, 2020

AuthorDeborah Krieger

TagsArno Rafael Minkkinen, Deborah Krieger, black and white photography, Edwynn Houk Gallery, surreal photography, body and landscape, humble arts foundation

Shortly after Anna Grevenitis’ daughter Luigia was born, she was diagnosed with trisomy 21 - Down Syndrome. For many parents, such news challenges the hopes they harbor that their child will live a “normal” life. By her mother’s account, the now-15-year-old Luigia is a thriving teenager. As her parent and primary companion, Grevenitis knows this better than anyone in her daughter’s life.

Through their ongoing series Regard, Grevenitis invites us to observe choreographed, routinized domestic acts - bathing, grooming, preparing for bedtime - as they unfold between mother and daughter, a loving caregiver and her charge. Our welcome is conditional, though, and requires us to consider who we are looking at, and why. I spoke with Anna and Luigia about this project, and its potency as a visual exploration of spectatorship, collaboration, vulnerability.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with Anna and Luigia Grevenitis

PostedJanuary 30, 2020

AuthorRoula Seikaly

CategoriesArtists, Portfolio

Tagsphotography and down syndrome, self portraiture, self portrait photographers, documentary photography, concerned photography, photography and empathy, contemporary black and white photography

Love On The Bus. Chicago, IL 1967. © John Simmons

John Simmons has been photographing the daily experiences of African Americans in (predominantly) Chicago and the American South since the 1960s. His latest exhibition, No Crystal Stair, currently on view at The Museum of African American Art in Los Angeles, focuses on his work from the 60s and 70s. Intimate portraits volley against photos that capture the period's charged racial segregation. Iconic images of pivotal civil rights activists like Angela Davis sit beside candid photos of everyday life: a young girl eating an ice cream cone, two lovers on a bus, a woman playing tambourine in church.

Simmons notes a heartfelt nod to Roy Decarava’s classic The Sweet Flypaper of Life and the poetry of Langston Hughes, reflecting the era’s many moments as often turbulent, often beautiful visual poetry. We recently connected to discuss his exhibition and work as a photographer and Emmy Award-winning cinematographer.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with John Simmons

PostedJanuary 23, 2020

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesExhibitions, Artists

TagsJohn Simmons, Black and White Photography, Roy DeCarava, Langston Hughes, No Crystal Stair

© Tania Franco Klein Contained (Self-portrait), from Our Life in the Shadows, 2016 63 x 42 inch Archival Pigment Print. Courtesy of ROSE Gallery.

For Edgar Allan Poe, there was nothing as “poetical” as the death of a beautiful woman. For the past eighty years, Los Angeles’ creative minds have taken this musing from the Baltimore-based poet and splashed it into the popular imagination through noir and detective films. The beautiful dead woman—or, depending on the example, the beautiful sad woman who is not yet dead—is a hallmark of the (often misogynist) genre and a staple in Proceed to the Route, Tania Franco Klein’s solo exhibition at Rose Gallery through February 15, 2020, at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, California.

Exhibition Review by Deborah Krieger

PostedJanuary 14, 2020

AuthorDeborah Krieger

CategoriesExhibitions, Artists, Portfolio

TagsTania Franco Klein, female tropes, Female Gaze, Deborah Krieger, Rose Gallery

Humble editors recommend standouts in 2019 (online) photography writing

How often do you read – beyond a quick skim – the text accompanying a gut-heavy photo essay someone you respect shared on some social network? One that happened to algorithmically line up to your endless scroll? What was the last piece of writing on photography that truly made you stop, think, and maybe twitch for more than a few seconds or the “five minute read?” What writing sat with you for more than a glance?

As photography writers and quotationally proclaimed “critics,” we try to read as much as we can to keep us both pulsed and pleasantly distracted. But it’s more than that. Great photo writing, whether it’s an honest Q+A or a thoughtfully researched essay or even an inspired exhibition review, can help us wade deeper, can help clarify, and in many cases, can change how we see what we see.

The following list barely nicks the skin of all the inspiring photography writing in 2019, but we hope will help move, distract, change your view of the world. In some cases, they may even help you navigate your own process of shooting, editing, curating, or making a living from making pictures.

Arno Rafael Minkkinen’s 50 Year Career Photographing the Body Surreal

A Mother and Daughter Use Photography to Challenge the Stigmas of Down Syndrome

John Simmons' "No Crystal Stair" Pays Homage to Langston Hughes and Roy DeCarava

Channeling Cindy Sherman, Tania Franco Klein Reclaims the Trope of the “Beautiful Tragic Woman”

Reading (Still) Isn’t Dead. 22 Essays, Interviews, and Other Online Photography Writing You Should Have Read in 2019