Victoria Jenkins via Seesaw Magazine

Images from the Institute of Esoteric Research                                  

The photographs presented here are rooted in the language of rational investigation, employing quasi-scientific laboratory style conditions in to which a series of still lives, fictional archival images, are constructed. A commingling of varied sources occurs: vernacular imagery of magic tricks, home science experiments, divination practice, superstitious belief and forensic investigation. The intent is to play on the conflicts in the languages that are being appropriated: logic and absurdity, revelation and trickery, illustration and illusion, but also that which seems concurrent despite the apparent polarities: the image whose authority is asserted through a shrouding in secret language and gesture.

Jesse Reid

Ideas surrounding transformation are recurrent themes throughout my work. I am fascinated in how temporal materials, including lighting, makeup, and decoration can transform bodies, hallways and nightclub into something strange or uncanny. Through my work I create a visual image or object in disjunction with quotidian representations of my subject: nightclubs are brightly light, rather than dark and sexy; soap is wet and dirty, rather than fresh and clean; unremarkable male bodies are superficially transformed into hyper-masculine models. There is an implication of queerness that plays an important role in the reading of my work, not only as a suggestion of strangeness or difference, but also in the work's relationship to sexual orientation.

For my friends in the Los Angeles area, Jesse's show opens this weekend:

Kaycee Olsen Gallery is pleased to announce Olly olly oxen free, a solo exhibition of new work by Los Angeles-based artist Jesse Finley Reed, from February 19th - March 26th, 2011.

At 5:30pm, Saturday, February 19th, the evening will commence with a 20-minute Artist Talk with Jesse Finley Reed and Kaycee Olsen, as part of the ongoing series "In Conversation with Kaycee Olsen". The Talk will focus on the details of Reed's work, particularly the intersection of photography and queer aesthetic.

Julie Cockburn: Filling the Cracks with Ceiling Wax

Entering the world of Julie Cockburn’s images – a labyrinthine space crosshatched by ‘the archived corridors’ of the artist’s imagination – we are met by a coterie of misfits: cut-outs, collages and aggregate creatures, they are the cast in a vignette where visual seduction is saturated by a sense of the familiar made strange. Cockburn’s characters are engendered from of a heady concoction of appropriation, artistry and artifice. Central to their creation is the cache of found images – neglected photographs co-opted from car boots, studio shots of 1950s movie stars, pages torn from American high school year books – that become playthings for the artist to ‘embellish, manipulate, torture and caress’. The portraits that Cockburn selects for her maverick mark-making are united in their status as images once dazzling but now defunct. She explains the allure of these outcasts and faded icons as their potential for redemption through a re-possession and re-visioning: ‘I feel I have a right to them, that they are mine for the taking, or rescuing even’.

Tobias Kruse

Today, I came across the work os Tobias Kruse. Currently living in Berlin and having been exhibited all over the world, Kruse’s photos are hard to forget. Make sure to check out a few of his projects, the most recent portfolios (2010) are my favorites.

The Laughter and Forgetting Project

I'm excited to be part of this project, if you know anyone who has photographed in the Republic of Georgia in the past few years, please send this link on.

Mission Statement and Goals:

• To create a photoblog that documents life in Georgia from the photographers’ point of view.
• To host an annual competition among the projects submitted to the photoblog to be judged by acclaimed LAF participants. The prize will be grant money to put on group exhibits in Georgia.
• To bring together the past LAF photographers with the featured ones from post-totalitarian Georgia for a joint exhibit at the Forum 2000 Human Rights Conference in Prague.

A Conversation with John Gossage

Photographer John Gossage finds moments of grace and elegance in even the most mundane places. Join the artist and curator of photography Toby Jurovics for a conversation about The Pond and its role in the history of American landscape photography

Sarah Palmer

I really enjoy the playfulness of these images: http://sarahpalmerphotography.com/works/as-a-real-house/

Donald Weber via Tony Fouhse

Canadian fotografer Don Weber works hard and works smart.  He’s a
photojournalist who’s main areas of interest are Russia and Eastern
Europe. He’s a proponent of slow journalism…..not the kind of fellow
to drop in to some flash-point or other, spend a few hours (or days)
gathering spectacular clichés to feed a hungry public, then jet out
again.

http://tonyfoto.com/drool/2011/01/16/photojournalism/

Sue de Beer: The Ghost

Sue de Beer’s latest installation The Ghost is being presented in association with Art Production Fund at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. The work features a two-channel video projection concerning an occult hypnotist who utilizes “material recollection” to attain lost time. The Ghost is on view February 3–6.


http://artforum.com/words/#entry27498

New Crush: Katharina Grosse

The Berlin-based artist Katharina Grosse is known for her immense installations that examine how painting functions in an expanded field.

http://www.katharinagrosse.com/work.php?id=1484&cat=2010