Jan 3, 2011
BEDTIME FOR BONZO
Curated by Matthew Porter (Parsons BFA Photography Faculty)
December 11, 2010 – January 29, 2011
M+B is pleased to announce an exhibition of photography curated by the artist Matthew Porter. Titled BEDTIME FOR BONZO, the exhibition will be on view from December 11, 2010 to January 29, 2011.
Participating artists include Walead Beshty, Gil Blank, Matthew Brandt, Andrew Bush, Eduardo Consuegra, Moyra Davey, Arthur Ou, Matthew Spiegelman, James Welling, Hannah Whitaker and Mark Wyse.
Like a river that returns every year to its floodplain, our politics and entertainment can be expected to return to the preceding decades for material. In particular, much of the recent rhetoric from the mid-term elections echoed the eight years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Viewing Jimmy Carter’s famous 1979 “Malaise Speech” as a herald of the 80s, this show presents a selection of images that, when stripped of their original contexts, serve as both index and icon for a decade best defined by a sententious leader. They can also be seen, in the decade before the Internet, as a late-century analog swansong. This is the Eisenhower era in color, with a technological upgrade. The confection-coated green and silky whites of the suburbs look saccharine next to rust-belt towns in decay—evidence of the simultaneous achievement and dismantling of the American dream.
Bedtime for Bonzo is a 1951 film starring Ronald Reagan as a moralizing pedagogue intent on meliorating a chimpanzee’s understanding of right and wrong. If the images on the walls feel equally didactic, remember that this is a show about the 80s, when subtlety was traded for over-dramatic hyperbole.
Matthew Porter (b. 1975, State College, Pennsylvania) received his B.F.A. from Bard College and an MFA from the Bard-ICP for Advanced Photographic Studies. His work has recently been exhibited in New York, Miami, Paris and Dallas and featured in the New York Times Magazine, Modern Painters, VMan and Exit. Porter is the recipient of Photo District News’ 30 “New and Emerging Photographs” in 2004 and was most recently chosen as one of five artists included in the inaugural “New Perspectives 2010” exhibition at the International Center of Photography (New York City). Matthew Porter is represented by M+B and lives and works in Brooklyn.
M+B
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THE CITY PROPER
Curated by photographer James Welling
November 20, 2010 – Jan 15, 2011
Margo Leavin Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of photography curated by the artist James Welling. Titled The City Proper , the exhibition will be on view 20 November through 15 January.
Artists to be exhibited:
John Baldessari, Cindy Bernard, Zoe Crosher, Shannon Ebner, Christina Fernandez, Frank Gohlke, Anthony Hernandez, Peter Holzhauer, Brandon Lattu, William Leavitt, Lisa Ohlweiler, Catherine Opie, Arthur Ou, Allen Ruppersberg, Asha Schechter & Jacob Stewart-Halevy, Ger van Elk, Mark Wyse, Amir Zaki
The legacy of New Topographics, the 1975 landmark exhibition at the International Museum of Photography, Rochester, NY—of which Gohlke was a part—echoes throughout The City Proper , as photographers train their lens on Southern California’s urban landscape. Predominately focused on images of Los Angeles, these artists underscore the nebulous boundaries of the modern megalopolis and invite new readings of the city that the majority of them call home. These contemporary images re-inscribe the myth of the American West and its historical depiction in romanticized landscape photography with hauntingly empty streets, banal settings, and occasional wry humor.
James Welling (b. 1951, Hartford, CT) received his B.F.A. and an M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts. Since 1995, he has been the area head of photography in the Department of Art at UCLA. His influential work has been selected for group exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Solo exhibitions have been held at: the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (2002); Sprengel Museum Hannover (1999); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (1998); Kunstmuseum Luzern (1998); and a major
retrospective was organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, and traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Baltimore Museum of Art (2000). Welling’s most recent exhibition of new work, Glass House, was held at Regen Projects, Los Angeles earlier this year and his series Light Sources (1992-2005) has just been published in a monograph by SteidlMACK.
Margo Leavin Gallery is located at 812 North Robertson Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.
www.margoleavingallery.com
AFTER COLOR
Curated by Amani Olu
December 09, 2010 – January 28, 2011
The SCAD exhibitions department presents the acclaimed group exhibition “After Color,” guest curated by Amani Olu. “After Color” showcases the photo-based works of nine contemporary artists who help redefine the potential of black-and-white photography while ushering in new formal, technical and conceptual developments in photographic discourse. Olu is co-founder and executive director of Humble Arts Foundation in New York City.
Artists: Michael Bühler-Rose, Talia Chetrit, Matthew Gamber, Stephen Gill, Adrien Missika, Noel Rodo-Vankeulen, Pushpamala N, Arthur Ou, and Michael Vahrenwald.
SCAD Galleries, Hall Street Gallery | 212 W. Hall St., Savannah, Ga.
http://www.scad.edu/exhibitions/
