Photography Quarterly #91

This publication is made possible in part with generous support from individuals, CPW members, subscribers, PQ advertisers, & with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

Stateof Ire Arts

PHOTOGRAPHY Quarterly staff

Editors. Kate Menconeri & Ariel Shanberg

Ad Manager, Larry Lewis

Editorial Assistant, Liz Glynn

Editorial Intern, Channyn Culligan

Composition, Sarah Taft & Marci Todd, Catskill Mountain Foundation, Hunter, NY.

PHOTOGRAPHY Quarterly is published by the Center for Photography at Woodstock in cooperation with the Catskill Mountain Foundation.

The Center for Photography at Woodstock is a not-profit 50 I (c) (3) arts and education organization dedicated to contemporay photography and related media. Founded in 1977 CPW engages photographers and their audiences through programs in education, exhibition, residency, publication, fellowship, and services for artists.

The Catskill Mountain Foundation was established in 1997 as a notfor-profit foundation to focus on arts, education, and sustainable living.

CMF operates a multi-theater cinema, performing arts center, a bookstore, art gallery,the Sugar Maples Center for Arts and Education,elder hostel programs, a Natural Agriculture community farm and a farm market. It publishes the CatskillMountain RegionGuide,which focuses heavily on the arts in the region.

PHOTOGRAPHY Quarterly is printed by Ruder Finn Printing, Long Island Ciy, NY and distributed by Ubiquity Distributors, Brooklyn, NY.

PHOTOGRAPHY Quarterly #91, Vol. 22, No. 2 ISSN 0890 4639.

Copyright ©2005. Center for Photography at Woodstock, 59 Tinker Street,Woodstock, NY 12498.

Text & Images ©2005 Joann Brennan, Tim Butler, Dana Fritz, Todd Deutsch, Dornith Doherity, Deborah Edmeades,Paul Cary Goldberg, Liz Glynn, Cynthia Greig, Laura Johansen, Derek Johnston, Paul Kopeikin, Evie Lovett, David Maisel,Kate Menconeri, Diane Meyer, Lori Nix, Simon Norfolk, Saul Robbins.Ariel Shanberg,TomThackery, & Ryan Zoghlin.

All photographs and texts reproduced in PHOTOGRAPHY Quarterly are copyrighted by the artists and writers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,without written permission from the Center for Photography.The opinions and ideas expressed in this publication do not represent official positions of the Center for Photography at Woodstock or the Catskill Mountain Foundation.

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CPW STAFF

Executive Director,Ariel Shanberg

Program Director, Kate Menconeri

Operations Manager, Larry Lewis

Program Associate, Liz Glynn Arts Administration Intern, Channyn Culligan

DIRECTOR EMERITUS

Colleen Kenyon

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Daniel Cooney, SusanFerris,WM. Hunt, Arie Kopelman, David Maloney, Kitty McCullough, Yossi Milo, Emma Missouri, Dion Ogust, Robert Peacock, Kathleen Ruiz, Ariel Shanberg,Alan Siegel, Gerald Slota, Bob Wagner

ADVISORY BOARD

Philip Cavanaugh,Brian Clamp.Julie Galant, Howard Greenberg -Founder, Sue Hartshorn, Doug James,David Karp, Ellen Levy,Peter MacGill, Sarah Hasted Mann, Elliott Meisel.JeffreyMilstein, Sarah Morthland.Ann Morse, Gloria Nimetz, SandraPhillips,Lile Raymond,Ernestine Ruben,Neil Trager, Rick Wester

MANAGING EDEN kate menconeri & ariel shanberg

4-15

NOTED BOOKS editors 23-24

Dear Reader,

We are pleased to launch a new partnership beginning with this issue of PHOTOGRAPHY Quarterly between the Center for Photography at Woodstock and the Catskill Mountain Foundation in which we will be jointly publishing the Quarterly.

As we work together, the Catskill Mountain Foundation will bring their rich experience in design, publication printing, and love of photography to the Quarterly and help enhance this unique publication, as the Center for Photography at Woodstock brings forth new concepts, bold ideas, and emerging voices in contemporary photography and related media.

Pq #91 presents the anticipated results of our most recent call for entries, and an article which presents contemporary photographers whose work reveals the complexities of man's impact on nature.

Bringing his passion for contemporary photography to the pages of Pq, Paul Kopeikin, director of the Paul Kopeikin Gallery, has selected six exciting photographers from across the country as part of our annual national call for entries. The vibrant new talents featured revisit familiar territory and break new ground, revealing photography now!

Originally presented as an exhibition at CPW in Fall 2003 and at the University of North Texas in Denton in Winter 2004, Managing E.den culls together work by some of the most important new image makers working today who explore our relationship to the natural environment, take stock of contemporary interpretations of what natural is, and survey the record thus far of our stewardship of this proverbial Eden.

As with every Pq you'll also find the In Light feature and the Noted Books column featuring two book reviews in this issue.

Our thanks to all of the artists and contributors for their help and inspiration in assembling this issue and for revealing the diverse paths one can travel in the realm of photography.

It's back to work for us as we prepare the next issue (which will focus on women photographers who investigate the 21st century woman). In the meantime enjoy #91 and let us know what you think!

-Ariel & Kate, Editors

managing eOen

kate menconeri & ariel shanberg

The beauty of the world we live in has long inspired photographers. Many have sought to bring that majesty to our attention in hopes that we would manage and care for our environment with the respect that it deserves. Take, for example, the outstanding conservational achievements of photographer Robert Glenn Ketchum, and those of Ansel Adams, who, aside from being one of the most well known photographers of the century, served on the board of directors at the Sierra Club for over 35 years. In I 872, the photographs of William Henry Jackson and Carlton Eugene Watkins propelled President Ulysses S. Grant and the United States Congress to protect the two million acres of land we know today as Yellowstone National Park. The breathtaking work of photographers has long raised enough awareness about place to help protect and preserve many nat-

ural treasures. The contemporary artists featured in Managing Eden share similar concerns but unlike those who choose to show us the beauty, they show us our impact within the natural world at a time when our own actions have brought upon global warming, pollution of air, water, land, and soil, animal extinction, and over-development that threatens the very resources that make life on earth sustainable. Ranging from commercial and societal action to personal connections, these image-makers shed light and understanding on the complexity of our relationships, interventions, and connections within our environment.

The title of the show was inspired by Joann Brennan's (Denver, CO) project Managing Eden. Brennan investigates the many sides of habitat management, scientific

experimentation, conservation research, and the debate between intervention and wildness. She challenges generalized assumptions ... "is the hunter a villain? is the biologist a saint?" and poses questions many are afraid to ask -the answers themselves are often still unresolved and fall precariously between lines of science and morality. Rather than attempting to simplify the issues, she embraces their complexity and opens new doorways to a deeper understanding of just how involved we already are and how much is at stake.

Like Joann Brennan, other artists look at how we attempt to impose our own order, control and understanding over nature. Derek Johnston's (Basalt, CO) project, Landscape Specimens, an installation of 28 bottled pristine landscapes, plays with ideas of how we attempt to preserve nature through containment and

commodification. He explores our fragmented relationship to our environment and asks us to consider the constructed nature of many of our national parks with their sweeping vistas and the bottled nature of what we expect as the "American Landscape". His work addresses his own impulses as a photographer of landscape and searches for something beyond what is promoted as the perfect place for a hike, mountain bike ride, or camping trip. Dana Fritz (Lincoln, NE) writes of her inspiration for Garden Views:The Culture of Nature: In both Eastern and Western traditions the practice of gardening reveals simultaneously our distance from and longing for "the natural". Fritz's work, while focusing on meticulously cared for and preserved gardens, opens a broader dialogue about both creative engagements with nature, as well as our desire to impose order on the natural world as it exists within our personal and public spaces.

©Derek Johnston, LandscapeSpecimens(AspenGrove),2003, gelatin silver prints, water, and glass bottles, dimensions variable

Without great effort, television and film has enabled viewers to venture and explore far off and distant places. Yet without personal experience and direct interaction, the histories and identities of these locations have been limited to the nature and scope of the narrative provided. Diane Meyer's (Brooklyn, NY)' humorous images of visitors at the Lone Pine region of the Alabama Hills in California where over 70% of all Westerns were filmed reveal our tendency to write our own histories, fictional or otherwise, upon the land, and the media's powerful prevalence in redefining our own desires and expectations of our surroundings. Rather than living with and in our environment, Meyer's photographs suggest that we have reduced our engagement with nature to being characters on a set. In contrast to Johnston, Fritz, and Meyer who examine how we impose order on the natural

world, Lori Nix's (Brooklyn, NY) work reminds us of the awe-inspiring power the natural world holds. Inherent in her toy filled constructions of natural disasters is the ironic idea that we can wage control over natural elements -when of course, we have no such power. Nix's images reveal that it is humans who are subject to the whims, order, and patterns of nature.

Addressing societal and industrial involvement in the environment, David Maisel, Tim Butler, Cynthia Greig, and Simon Norfolk examine the resulting footprints following the exploration or alterations of Earth's natural resources. In David Maisel's (Sausalito, CA) work, we are shown what was "left behind" through his aerial Black Maps, which depict bacterial blooms in Owens Lake, California. This lake was drained to supply water to the inhabitants

©Dana Fritz, FloodedExhibitionHall, LongwoodGardens,200 I, gelatin silver print, I OxIO"

©Diane Meyer, Under The Western Skies,200 I, C-print, 20x24"

of Los Angeles in the first quarter of the 20th century. Maisel's images offer us both a literal and psychological portrait of the landscape as ravaged and scarred yet, strangely seductive. They offer a glimpse of the world as created through our own actions. In the multi-media work of Tim Butler (Scranton, PA), those who once benefited from such activities as mineral mining are asked to consider the repercussions and its detrimental effects on their own community. From immediate tactile interaction with natural and found elements such as coal, acid drainage samples, iron, and soil itself, to candid interviews with community residents, Butler searches for a sense of environmental stewardship among the American mainstream. Using the archetypical fruit of Eden -the apple - Cynthia Greig (Bloomfield, Ml) weighs the impact of genetic mutation -both natural or manufactured -and now that we've

actually gone so far as to alter the genetic structure of our food crop, will we know the difference? She asks the viewer to consider how genetic engineering is changing the face of the natural world and the food we consume, as well as its impact upon the future of the human species.

No "man-made" industry has left a greater imprint on the earth than the industry of War. British landscape photographer, Simon Norfolk (London, England),2 whose work since 1994 focuses on depicting sites of conflict, war, and genocide, traveled throughout Afghanistan and Iraq from 2001-2003 to record the irreversible damage military conflicts have had on our world. Describing the 24 years of continuous conflict in Afghanistan, Norfolk writes "the ruins have a bizarre layering; different moments of destruction lying like sedimentary strata on top of each other."

©Lori Nix, Ice Storm,1999, C-Print, 20x24"

©David Maisel,Owens Lake,California,#9821-11, 2002, 29x29". CourtesyVonUntel Gallery,NYC

©Tim Butler, Belowthe Breaker,Ashley,PA,2002, C-print, 30x40"

Using a cherrywood and brass 4x5 field camera, Norfolk creates complex meditative images, which at once evoke grandeur and irreversible loss. Their timelessness, enhanced by their compositional liking to classical paintings by Nicholas Poussin and others, prompts viewers to consider the effects of war now and throughout the history of civilization.

Both Deborah Edmeades and Dornith Doherty approach the natural world from a more personal sense of balance and interconnection. In her video piece, Deborah Edmeades (Brooklyn, NY) offers a meditation on the relationship between humans and nature.As she sits with-

The result is an opportunity to contemplate and consider our own balance and impact on the world in which we live. Navigating the border between nature and artifice, Dornith Doherty (Southlake, TX) merges art and science to investigate the cycles, rhythms, and transitory nature of life, and our own interwoven connections and temporal existence. She writes: Rather than approach these man.aged natural spaces from a documentary perspective, these constructed photographs employ a personal, expressive stance to explore the anxiety inherent in contemporary culture as we confront new scientific possibilities manipulating our environment.

in a wooded area, Edmeades creates sounds, which merge The concerns presented in Managing Eden ask us to conwith that of her surroundings. Her gestures of contain-sider our own agency and relationships. If we were to ment within the frame seem to embody all that we hear. think on Greig's apples as a metaphor, have we taken the

©Simon Norfolk, Date Grove,Haifa Street, Northern Baghdad,2003, DigitalC-print, 40x50". Courtesy BonniBenrubiGallery,NYC

bite that will expel us from the proverbial Garden of Eden? In our questionable "mastery" of our environment, have our actions set us on a path whose course will result in our own demise -either through the depletion of Eden's treasures or the transformation of it into an inhospitable environment? And what are our moral obligations? The artists in Eden inform us that the issues we face are complex, crucial, and yield great consequences to our future.As both knowledge and technology spiral forward, it is clear that we still do not fully understand nor prioritize the scope and importance of the interdependence of life. How then can we preserve this Eden? Managing Eden artist, Derek Johnston writes: for me the real value and beauty of the natural world is not an achievable physical place; it is about forming a relationship with nature in which one can feel, understand, and participate in the earth's cycles. The artists in Eden, while showing us real and sometimes

Opposite page: ©Deborah Edmeades,Video Still from Objects f, 2003

disturbing views, affirm the importance of the issues at hand and the ability of art to be used as a catalyst, communicating, informing, dialoguing, and changing the way we think about and interact within the world we live.

'Diane Meyer's work was first included in the Managing Eden exhibition at the University of North Texas art gallery.

2Simon Norfolk's work was included for publication of this article.

Curated by Kate Menconeri and Ariel Shanberg. Managing Eden originated at the Center for Photography at Woodstock where it was presented from August 16 - October I 2, 2003 and at the University of North Texas Art Gallery in Denton, TX from January 26 - February 28, 2004.

The exhibition was made possible in part with funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Service and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

©Dornith Doherty. Wipe Out. 1999. Chromogenic print, 40x30"

SELECTIONSBY PAULKOPEIKIN

Paul Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles CA

Each year, we invite a leader in the f,e/d to select exciting new voices in the world of photography. In his selection of six photographers for PHOTOGRAPHY Quarterly's annual call for entries,Juror Paul Kopeikin found images that evoked feelings of discovery, the familiar seen anew, cosmic mysteries, and he even got a bit hungry! -editors

Ryan Zoghlin's air show pictures gave me the feeling of Steiglitz's equivalents updated. In first encountering Laura Johansen's images, I initially thought that the object was the real art and the photographs were documentation of that work. The iconic image of a TV dinner is probably better' known than the dinner itself. I started to appreciate it in two dimensions. The series of work is wonderful, but nothing beats the TV dinner yet. I like looking at beautiful things that I have no idea what it is I'm looking at. Todd Deutsch's photographs convey the chaotic nature of family life and yet show, as Jon Stewart, the host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show puts it, "a moment of Zen". The pictures remind me of how we must all learn to find quiet where we can. Paul Cary Goldberg's images allow one's imagination to run wild. For me, the two images I've selected here conjure two sides of the same universe. I have always appreciated images which evoke the classic nude figure. Tom Thackery's subtle use of color gave this often visited subject a contemporary feel. Though I've seen similar pictures before, Evie Lovett's images allow a proximity that made me feel like I was seeing it all for the first time. That only comes from an insider, someone disappearing behind the lens. I also liked the simplicity of the presentation, in stark contrast to the subject matter, but somehow perfect for it.

-Paul Kopeikin, 2004

RYAN ZOGHLIN (Chicago, IL)

Airshow

Machines have always interested me -the mechanics of an old watch or chain on a bicycle. What they do seems simple, yet complex at the same time. They have beauty in their movements, as well as design.

This is the same sense that has attracted me to the airshow. The planes are so complex in terms of what is necessary mechanically to fly, though graphically what they do to entertain the spectators is simpleloops, spirals ...

My interest in creating the series was to focus on the graphic elements, to capture the temporary sculptural structure of the lines, the markings that draw so many to the event.

©Ryan Zoghlin, Airshow#4, 200 I, gelatin silver print, 6x5"

©Ryan Zoghlin, Airshow#2, 200 I, gelatin silver prim, 6x5"

LAURA JOHANSEN (NewYork, NY)

Sugar Coated America series

Truth. It's about truth being obfuscated, suppressed, or misrepresented. It's about how the original, pure, idea is transformed by the people who are attracted to it. Those who want to control the thoughts and actions of others seek the most powerful imagery to associate with. Love, God, Family are churned into hate, murder, and oppression.

I believe that we are living in an increasingly dangerous time for truth. Seven global media companies, and the corporations that advertise through them, control almost all print, broadcast, cable, and film output. All that is visible is a sugar coated veneer, a rough outline of the original form. The swarm of people trying to leverage an idea for their own agenda mutate it by degrees. Just as one cancerous cell can slowly metastasize through a body, destroying both its host and itself in the process.

TODD DEUTSCH {Minneapolis, MN)

Family has been the primary subject of my photographs since I became a father in 1997. The most recent work is a chaotic collection of daily photographs that I began to make on the day our third son was born.

The pictures record the uncertainty that emerges when another child comes home and upsets an already fragile

balance. Daily dramas become telling indicators of larger adjustments: a kettle is on the verge of boiling over, the boys outgrow their clothes, and everyone tries to find room at the kitchen table. Set in the common centers of domestic activity-the living room, backyard, kitchen, and bedroom-the images collectively reveal the underlying restlessness, anxiety, and pleasure that permeate our lives.

©Todd Deutsch, Day 341 -August 14, 2004, Dinner,2004, inkjet print, 8xl2"

TOM THACKERY (San Jose, CA)

These photographs are the result of my desire to explore the human form. The curves and lines formed by the position of the model combined with the light and its shadows create an unusual depth and texture that I find fascinating. These images were created using a somewhat unusual method. I shoot the model in a dark studio with a digital camera. Holding the shutter open, I paint the model with light from a penlight or laser pointer.

The results are unusual and often surprising. The motion of the photographer and the model, intentional or otherwise make each exposure unique. The model's skin can look like molten metal or be barely outlined.The direction and shape of the light source is mysterious, raising more questions than giving answers. The shape of the figure and the shape of the light interact to produce shapes uncommon to either.

PAUL CARY GOLDBERG (Rockport, MA)

These two photographs are part of my Gloucester Marine Railways Series, taken at the oldest continuously operating ship building yard in the United States. The site has become an unintended repository for incredible, nearly

inconceivable beauty -of colors, objects, shapes, textures, and patterns -created by the sea and its inexorable and indefatigable reclaiming of the detritus left by human endeavors.

EVIE LOVETT (Putney, VT)

Backstage is the basement, a narrow room threaded with water pipes and plastic tubing running from the soda dispenser in the bar above. There's a pop and hiss each time a soda is poured upstairs. They come in, the men and one woman, from their jobs at Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, the local pediatrician's office, C&S Wholesale Grocers. They come laden with bags and suitcases; they sit in front of the grainy mirrors. The metamorphosis begins, chests are shaved, breasts pushed up, waistlines synched, pantyhose rolled on in layers, hips inserted, rough skin smoothed with foundation, eyelashes, lips, wigs put on. This is the making of the drag queen, the private moments

and shared intimacies before the public entrances of Miss Candi Schtick, Mama, Miss Kitty Rawhide, Miss Mercedes Roulet, Miss Sophia, Miss Cloe. It is the calm before the raunch, sequins and flamboyance of the drag show.

There is noise in the basement, but for me, looking through the lens, thinking in black and white, all is silent. What pulls me in is this intense focus, the "off' before the "on", the private before the public.

Anything seems possible in these moments-liberation, transformation, even perfect beauty.

All books listed in Noted Books are available at CPW's library, which is open to the public, Mon-Fri IO to 6pm and Sat-Sun 12-Spm.

A Festival of Lights -Photographs of India at Night, photographs by Giraud Foster, essay by Clark Worswick, Man and Lion Press,Baltimore, MD; 2004, hard cover, black & white photographs.

Along the Divide -Photographs of the Dan Ryan Expressway, photographs by Jay Wolke, conclusion by Dominic A. Pacyga,The Center for American Places,Santa Fe, NM; 2004, hard cover, color photographs.

Born on a Monday -A Photo Documentary of the Village ofWoe in Ghana, photographs by Carrie Brown, essays by Besa Amenuvor and Ellen Segbefia,Miadogo Books; 2004, soft cover, color photographs.

Bollywood Dreams -An Exploration of the Motion Picture Industry and Its Culture in India, photographs by Jonathan Torgovnik, introduction by Nasreen Munni Kabir, Phaidon Press,London, UK; 2003, hard cover, color photographs. Donated by the Artist

Boris Carmi -Photographs from Israel, photographs by Boris Carmi, edited by Alexandra Nacke with texts by Yoram Kaniuk, Alexandra Node, and Joachim Schlor, Prestel, Munich, Germany; 2004, hard cover, black & white photographs.

Food Chain -Encounters between Mates, Predators, and Prey, photographs by Catherine Chalmers,essayby Gordon Grice, edited and with an interview by Michael L Sand.Aperture, NYC; 2000, hard cover,color photographs.

I Wanna Take Me a Picture -Teaching Photography and Writing to Children, Wendy Ewald, coauthored by Alexandra Lightfoot, Beacon Press, Boston, MA; 200 I, hard cover, black & white photographs.

The Gender Frontier, photographs by Mariette PachyAllen, texts by Dr. Milton Diamond, Jamison Green, Riki Wilch ins, and Grady T. Turner, Kekrer Verlag Heidelberg, Germany; 2003, hard cover, black & white and color photographs. Donated by the Artist

More Trouble, photographs by Bettina Rheims, Schirmer/Mosel, Verona; 2004, hard cover, black & white and color photographs.

Platinum & Palladium Printing 2"" Edition, by Dick Arentz, Focal Press, Amscerdam,TheNetherlands;2005,soft cover,black&white and color photographs.

The Beatles in Hamburg, photographs and texts by Jurgen Vollmer, Schirmer/Mosel, Munich, Germany; 2004, hard cover, black & white photographs.

Transitions and Exits, photographs by Ari Marcopoulos, interview by Louise Neri, powerHouse Books, NYC; 2000, hard cover, color photographs.

The following books have been generously donated by Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. of New York

Argentine Mate, Santiago Melazzini, Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., NYC; 200 I, soft cover, black & white photographs.

The Artificial of the Real, photographs by Anton Josef Trcka, Edward Weston, Helmut Newton, edited by Carl Haenlein, texts by Carsten Ahrens, Monika Faber, Rudolf Kicken, and Michael Stoeber, Kestner Gesellschafc, Zurich; 1998,hard cover, black & white and color photographs.

At the Edge of the Decipherable: Recent Photographs by Uta Barth, photographs by Uta Barth, introduction by Elizabeth A.T. Smith, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; soft cover, color photographs.

Bus Odyssey,Tom Wood, edited by Sylvia Bohmer, Hatje Canez,OstfildernRuit, Germany; 200 I , hard cover, black & white and color photographs.

Defining Eye:Women Photographers of the 20th Century, selections

noted books

from the Helen Kornblum Collection, introduction by Martha A. Sandweiss, The Saint Louis Art Museum, Sc.Louis, MO; 1997,soft cover, black & white and color photographs.

East I 00th Street, photographs by Bruce Davidson, St Ann's Press, Los Angeles, CA; 2003, hard cover, black & white photographs.

Evidence, photographs selected by Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel, introduction by Sandra S. Phillips, afterword by Robert F. Forth, Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., NYC; 2003, hard cover, black & white photographs.

Family Business,photographs by Mitch Epstein,Steidl, Gottingen, Germany; 2003, hard cover, color photographs.

Getting Closer -A Dancer's Perspective, photographs by Rosalie O'Connor, foreword by Julio Bacca,University Press of Florida, Gainesville, FL; 2004, hard cover, black & white photographs.

Havana, photographs by Robert Polidori, edited by Elizabeth Culbert, with an essay by Eduardo Luis Rodriquez, Steidl, Gottingen, Germany; 2003, hard cover, color photographs.

Here is New York -A Democracy of Photographs, conceived and organized by Alice Rose George, Gilles Peress, Michael Shulan,and Charles Traub, Scala,Zurich; 2002, hard cover, black & white and color photographs.

Moving in Time -Images of Life in a Democratic South Africa, edited by George Hallett, introduction by Mandia Langa,KMM Review Publishing, Sandeen,South Africa; 2004, hard cover, black & white and color photography.

Neil Leifer: Portraits, photographs by Neil Leifer, introduction by Tom Brokaw, St.Ann's Press,Los Angeles, CA; 2003, hard cover, color photographs.

The Peleliu Project, photographs by James Fee, Seraphin Gallery, Philadelphia,PA; 2002, soft cover, black & white and color photographs.

Portraits in Africa, photographs by Hector Acebes, texts by Isolde Brielmaier and Ed Marquand, Marquand Books, Seattle,WA; 2004, hard cover, black & white photographs.

Speaking with Hands, photographs from the Buhl Collection, essays by Jennifer Blessing,Kirsten A. Hoving, and Ralph Rugoff, Guggenheim Museum, NYC; 2004 hard cover, black & white and color photographs.

Story Lines, photographs by Robert Frank, forward by Vincente Todoli, Steidl, London, UK; 2004, soft cover, black & white photographs.

Sugimoto Portraits, photographs by Hiroshi Sugimoto arranged by Tracey Bashkoff and Nancy Spector, texts by Nancy Spector, Carol Armstrong, Norman Bryson, and Thomas Kellein, with an interview by Nancy Spector, Guggenheim Museum, NYC; 2000, hard cover, black & white photographs.

Thomas Ruff - Photography 1979 to Present, photographs by Thomas Ruff, edited by Matthias Winzen, essays by Per Boym, Ute Eskildsen,Valeria Liebermann, and MatthiasWinzen, Distributed Art Publishers,Inc., NYC; 2002, black & white and color photographs.

Winogrand -Figments from the Real World, photographs by Gary Winogrand, edited by John Szarkowski,The Museum of Modern Art, NYC; 1988,hard cover, black & white photographs.

Wolfgang Tillmans Portraits, photographs by Wolfgang Tillmans, Distributed Art Publishers,Inc., NYC; 2002, hard cover, color photographs.

exhibition catalogues

Blue, photographs by Kenro lzu, introduction from Praising of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki, Meridian Printing, East Greenwich, CT; 2004, soft cover. Donated by the Howard GreenbergGallery.

edited by Channyn Culligan

reVJew books

Meetings, photographs and text by Paul Shambroom, with an excerpt from Alexis DeTocqueville's Democracy in America, Chris Boot Ltd., London; 2004, hard cover, color photographs.

Between 1999 and 2003, Paul Shambroom traversed the country to document town meetings with an emphasis on small-town America. Meetings presents photographs and the complete minutes of forty such gatherings from Urbana, Missouri to Berkeley, California.

Contemporary photographic explorations of power structures have focused on the icons of globalization, yet Shambroom's work endeavors to describe democracy at the level of the greatest participation: the town meeting. An excerpt from Alexis DeTocqueville's Democracy in America recalls the language of the founding fathers and reminds us that local government is a forum where the concerns of everyday life enter into our political system.

While the projects of picturing America has strong antecedents in the work of Walker Evans and Robert Frank, Shambroom breathes new life into the project of documenting a democracy.

The Lake Project, photographs and text by David Maisel with forward by Robert A. Sobieszek, Nazraeli Press,Arizona; 2004, hard cover,color photographs.

This is a cumbersome book. Measuring 14 ½ x 14 '12", it is large and square and though ·it doesn't come close to requiring its own presentation stand, it does consume considerable space when laid open for viewing. However, given the weight of the territory explored, it is aptly appropriate that The Lake Project not begin as a "comfortable read."

It is a challenge for many contemporary photographers dealing with issues of social, environmental, or personal importance to maintain the weight of their works' impact in book format. Just as one makes decisions regarding print size and presentation format for exhibition, similar concerns rise when preparing their work for publication. (In Maisel's case, the prints are very large at 40x40" creating an unnerving spatial experience). In his first monograph, designed by the artist himself and beautifully printed by Nazraeli Press, this goal has been achieved superbly.

The panoramic, Photoshop-enhanced images draw on the stately conventions of European court portraiture and historic American painting. The meetings' participants' postures range from assertive to disinterested, and Shambroom artfully captures these nuances such that each participant becomes a distinct actor. Meeting minutes contained in the latter pages detail discussions of trash removal, volunteer fire fighters, and other matters of local importance.

At first glance one might be tempted to read the images as ironic; the cramped tables and expressions of boredom hardly seem to evidence democracy in action. Closer examination of the images and included text reveals Shambroom's patient observation of the daily dramas that define our political process and allow citizen's concerns to be heard. Shambroom's careful documentation invites the reader to reconsider the role of the local in the political process.

Ultimately, Meetings offers a rare window into the slow-moving behemoth of American democracy.Among the half-full Styrofoam cups, car keys, and laminate nameplates, a single microphone from WSBS in Lennox, Massachusetts is the only suggestion of media attention outside of the photographs themselves. Paul Shambroom has created an important book that reminds us that democracy begins around a table.

-Liz Glynn

Begun in 200 I, The Lake Project offers a complexity of engagement in which seduction, repulsion, and ultimately quiet contemplation are often sited experiences of those who view them. One can imagine that were Maisel to explore the topography of disease, wounds, and burns on the human body, similar evocations of the beautiful within the horrific would be revealed.

Echoes of the California painter Richard Diebenkorn and the photographer, Emmett Gowin (Maisel's former mentor) permeate, yet the plates in this book seem to release a fatalistic scream within the vacuum of the upper atmosphere that differs from the formalistic concerns of Diebenkorn and the hope found in Gowin's images. Amidst clouds of carcinogens including arsenic and cadmium, and bacterial blooms which dominate this dried out lake bed that once served the foundling city of Los Angeles as its primary source of drinking water ( 1913-1926), Maisel's vision is one of "damage done".

Exploring what Robert Sobieszek refers to in the book's engaging forward as "the architecture of the dismantled" the photographs in The Lake Project reveal more about us as a society, as caretakers who have been provided with a bountiful but ultimately limited resource. That the photographs in The Lake Project are compositionally devoid of horizons, foregrounds, midgrounds, and backgrounds serves as a reminder that this limited patch is all that we have been entrusted with.

- Ariel Shanberg

in light saul robbins

THIS LIFE SO FAR

This work is an ongoing series made in and around the home of family, friends, and acquaintances. I am intrigued by the implied language and meaning of intimate gestures, the tension between action and response, and the richness of expression contained in the simplest interactions. Daily life is full of these moments, beautifully nuanced, gracefully executed. Looking closely allows access to the inherent richness of other people's environements, heightening this intimacy, and affording a perspective that until now only imagination could provide.

SAUL ROBBINS received his MFA from Hunter College in NYC. His work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions including shows at the Camera Club of New York, the Makor Center for Jewish Life, and Yaffee Ruden, all in NYC.Additionally his work has appeared in group shows at the Barrett Art Center in Poughkeepsie, NY, Photo Metro Gallery in San Francisco, CA and the UMC Gallery in Boulder, CO among others. Robbins's work has been published in Wired Magazine, Photo Metro, and the Berlin Tagesspiegel.He currently lives, works, and teaches in New York City.

In Light artists are selected from the Center's Slide Registry -a slide archive of contemporary photography, mixed media, and digital imagery. le provides a bridge between artists, curators, collectors, educators, and the Center, making contemporary work easy to access -by appointmentWednesday co Sunday,noon co 5pm.

©Saul Robbins, Ready,2004, C-print, 20x20"