Douglas Stockdale: curator 10 x 10 American Photobooks
10 x 10 American Photobooks, selection by Douglas Stockdale
Over the weekend, the second phase of the 10 x 10 American Photobooks reading room project was provided at the PGH Photo Fair held at the UnSmoke Systems Artspace (Braddock, PA). This is a continuation of a photobook project that was started in 2012 on Facebook, for which 10 curators chose 10 photobooks created by Japanese photographers. For 2013, the 10 x 10 emphasis was placed on American photographers, but limited to books that were published since 1985. There are two groups of curators, those who selected photobooks in which the photobook would be available as a physical object, to be held, read, and time spent at a venue called the reading room. The second group of curators, one of which I was fortunate to be a member of, made their selection of 10 photobooks and provided links on their web site. I had posted my selection of 10 photobooks on my blog The Photobook. which includes links to the reviews of almost all of the books I selected.
The reading room photobooks are now being packed for the final installation at the Tokyo Institute of Photography (Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan), which will take place September 11 thru October 6yh (2013).
Cheers!
Douglas Stockdale
Pop-up PhotoBook Exhibit at Irvine Fine Art Center
copyright the various photographers
Concurrent with the October Photographers Exchange meeting at the Irvine Fine Art Center, I will be providing a pop-up PhotoBook exhibit. From my collection are the vast majority of the photobooks that are currently showing in my exhibition at FotoGrafia Festival Internazionale in Rome Italy. The exhibition broadly explores the theme of “work”. I will provide a short introduction to my selection for this exhibition and briefly discuss a few of the photobooks.
Although this is not an official PhotoBook Club event per se, it is an exploratory meet-up to determine an interest in a PhotoBook Club group in Southern California. The issue in the past for similar meet-ups to this has been that Southern California is a very large and spread-out region, that a meet-up in Orange County may not be suitable for those in Santa Monica, the SF valley, SG Valley or San Diego. Thus the main reason that this is an exploratory meet-up!
This pop-up exhibition will not have the same polished appearance as my exhibition in Rome, as one component will be missing. For the Rome exhibition, I asked the participating photographers to re-photograph their book’s interior and we then hung these photographs around the book display. Nevertheless, these re-photographs are available here. Additionally, I will bring a few other photobooks from my collection that also investigate the theme of “work”.
The photobooks exhibiting at Fotografia that are planned for this exhibition include: Pierre Bessard’s Behind China’s Growth, Julie Blackmon - Domestic Vacations, Michal Chelbin’s The Black Eye, Chris Coekin’s The Altogether, Clayton Cotterell’s Unarmed, Marco Delogu’s The Thirty Assassins, Charlotte Duma’s Al Lavoro!, Andy Freeberg’s Guardians, Thijs Heslenfeld’s Men at Work, Sarah Hobbs’s Small Problems in Living, Henry Horenstein’sSHOW, Rob Hornstra’s Sochi Singers, Pieter Hugo’s Permanent Error, Ron Jude’s Lick Creek Line, Chris Killip’s Seacoal, Gina LeVay’s Sandhogs, Rania Matar’s A Girl in her Room, Kendall Messick’s The Projectionist, Darin Mickey’s Stuff I Gotta Remember Not to Forget, Cristina de Middel (Puch)’s The Afronauts, Bertil Nilsson’s Undisclosed, Andreas Oetker-Kast’s manpower, Louie Palu’s Cage Call, Lina Pallotta’s Piedras Negras, Christian Patterson’s Redheaded Peckerwood, Nina Poppe’s ama, Florian von Roekel’s How Terry Likes His Coffee, Ken Schles’s Oculus, Martin Schoeller’s Female Bodybuilders, David Schulz’s Lone Wolf, Melissa Shook’s My Suffok Downs
The PhotoBook will be available for inspection and reading.
Exhibition venue: Irvine Fine Art Center, 14321 Yale Ave, Irvine, CA 92604
Date and duration: Thursday, October 18th, 2012 from 6:30 pm to 9:0 pm
I look forward to seeing you there.
Best regards, Doug Stockdale
tPE member Jim McKinniss selected as B&W magazine 2011 Portfolio Contest winner
Horse #7 copyright by Jim McKinniss
Horse #6 copyright by Jim McKinniss
Dream Horse #1 copyright by Jim McKinniss
Horse Impression #1 copyright by Jim McKinniss
Horse Impression #2 copyright by Jim McKinniss
Lincoln Horse #1 copyright by Jim McKinniss
Yes, I writing about myself. So I’ll keep this brief.
My entry into the B&W magazine 2011 Portfolio Contest was selected for 1 of the 24 Spotlight Awards. Almost 350 portfolios were entered in the contest that year .
So if the award was for the 2011 Portfolio Contest, why is my work just now appearing a year plus 7 months later? Well, the answer to that is because the magazine splits the Spotlight Awards articles and interviews over 4 issues and because B&W does not produce an issue every month. Also, one issue each year is devoted to the Excellence and Merit award winners.
Needless to say I’m very delighted to have had my work recognized by B&W Magazine.
Jim McKinniss
A tribute to: Lauren E. Simonutti (1968-2012)
These photos are copyrighted by Lauren Simonutti.
These photos are copyrighted by Lauren Simonutti.
These photos are copyrighted by Lauren Simonutti.
Some time ago I became aware of Lauren Simonutti’s photographs from a feature about her in Shots Magazine. http://www.shotsmag.com/ I learned of her death in the current issue (No 116) of the magazine.
tPE Member Byong-Ho Kim selected as Merit Award Winner for the 2012 B&W Magazine Portfolio Contest
Botanic Energy 4 copyright by Byong-Ho Kim
Botanic Dance 12 copyright by Byong-Ho Kim
Botanic Energy 3 copyright by Byong-Ho Kim
Byong-Ho Kim, also known to The Photo Exchange members as Brad, has been honored by B&W Magazine with a Merit Award in the 2012 Portfolio Contest for his beautiful botanical abstractions. Brad’s wide ranging photographic interests are expressed through his portfolio of landscapes, people, botanicals, water and dancing photographs.
Issue 92 of B&W Magazine which contains the Excellence and Merit award winners for the 2012 Portfolio Contest will go on sale May 29, 2012. The Spotlight portfolio winners will appear in several future issues throughout 2012 and 2013.
You can view Brad’s work on his website http://byonghokim.com/
By Jim McKinniss
Douglas Stockdale – MARCO contemporary photogrpahy collection
Photographs copyright Douglas Stockdale 2012
I am now able, as well as extremely happy, to share some wonderful news. Over the past month I have been in discussions with Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma (MACRO), the largest contemporary art museums in Rome Italy, regarding the acquisition of three Limited Edition photographs from my photobook project Ciociaria. This week I received the really great news that the acquisition has been completed. The three photographs that they acquired are provided in this post. The photographs will become part of the museums permanent collection of contemporary photography.
What I am finding out is that with many museum acquisitions, the process can become very complicated. In this case there was a need to balance what the museum wanted in the number and size of the photographs with their acquisition budget, which initially did not add up very well. Thus a small group of collectors were brought into the process who provided underwriting (financial gifts as new museum patrons) assistance with the museum’s acquisition. And thus the program successfully came together.
This is the first museum acquisition as well as the first inclusion into a permanent photography collection. To now be a part of the MACRO’s contemporary photography collection is an honor, as the MACRO is becoming a very well-known contemporary art museum in Italy as well as in Europe.
Best regards, Doug
The Sunday Conversation: Beth Gates Warren
Beth Gates Warren. This photo is copyrighted.
The following article appeared in the Entertainment section of The Los Angeles Times on December 4, 2011. The article was written by Irene Lacher. This article is copyrighted by the appropriate parties.
The author of ‘Artful Lives: Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather and the Bohemians of Los Angeles’ discusses the artist, his muse and his early years in L.A.
Beth Gates Warren, a former director of Sotheby’s photographs department, exhumes details about Edward Weston‘s lost years in Los Angeles from 1906 to 1923 and his relationship with a highly influential model, muse, photographer and lover in her new book, “Artful Lives: Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather and the Bohemians of Los Angeles” (J. Paul Getty Museum).
Why was so little known about Edward Weston’s early years in Los Angeles?
He basically wanted it that way. He destroyed virtually all of his autobiographical writing prior to 1923 when he departed L.A. for Mexico. And most historians took their cue from him and began writing about his career as though he really began working in Mexico. And that was not the case at all. He actually spent a decade here in Los Angeles building his early career.
What piqued your interest in this?
I had read his daybook, which is what unpublished journals were called, and I learned that they had been heavily edited and that he’d destroyed a portion of them. And I became curious about why he had done that. And I also learned that a woman named Margrethe Mather had been his model in many of his early photographs, and yet he barely mentioned her in his journal. And I just found that strange. There was only one important mention of her in his journal and that was that she was the most important person in his life. And yet he made no effort to explain what he meant by that. And so that statement in combination with the fact that she appeared in so many of his photographs and the fact that he had destroyed so much of his own writing made me curious. I wanted to know why.
Who was Margrethe Mather?
She came to Los Angeles around the same time he did. She later told a friend of hers that she’d been a child prostitute and that she had to leave Salt Lake City because there were people who’d found out about her activities. In later years, she was a prostitute, but I doubt that’s why she left Salt Lake City. A friend of hers tried to find out more about her early life and couldn’t, but that was because Margrethe Mather wasn’t her real name, and I was able to track down several of her distant relatives and they told me her name was actually Emma Caroline Youngren.
When she came to Los Angeles, she became a member of the Los Angeles Camera Club and an amateur photographer. And she had an inherent talent for design and composition, so she very quickly became known because she showed some of her photographs in photographic salons, which were the only way photographers could get their work seen because photography wasn’t exhibited in museums in those days.
And so she met Edward Weston in 1913 through a friend and they very quickly became involved romantically, although Weston was already married and had two children. And she worked with him for an entire decade until he left for Mexico in 1923.
I had the sense from your book that you were at times more impressed with Mather because she was more focused on advancing her artistry and he his career.
Yes, that’s true. She was not a self-promoter. She did not need the kind of attention that Weston seemed to need, and of course he was trying to support a family and needed to build his reputation. She was on her own, but she was also less interested in fame and more interested in the art itself. And I think she was responsible for changing Weston’s attitude, because when she walked into his studio in what is now Glendale — it was an area called Tropico then — he was a very conventional photographer. And once he became more involved with Mather, he began to become an artist.
Did she influence his work more specifically?
I think her eye was in some ways more critical than his. She introduced him to the concept of arranging sitters in less conventional poses, and she encouraged him to utilize composition and line and texture to create a mood — in short, to think like an artist rather than a commercial photographer. And she was an excellent printer herself. And she influenced the way he looked at the world. She brought people from the literary world onto Weston’s horizons, and she was also a friend of Charlie Chaplin‘s. She introduced him to dancers and actors.
Can you talk a little more about their circle of artists and bohemians?
There was a fairly large group of creative people who lived in Los Angeles in the teens and ’20s for a variety of reasons, and one of the key reasons was the movie industry, which attracted writers and designers and photographers. They came to California because they could actually make a living here. So the people who came here were after fame and fortune, and some of them succeeded, like Charlie Chaplin; others were not so lucky, like Florence Deshon, who was a reasonably well-known stage actress and model in New York. Samuel Goldwyn brought her out to become one of the premier actresses at Goldwyn Studio, but she did not persevere and she couldn’t make a living. She was involved with Charlie Chaplin for a while. But as soon as that relationship ended, publicity about her career also ended. And she wound up going back to New York City and committing suicide.
But some of the people who traveled to Los Angeles weren’t involved in the entertainment business. They were coming out here for political reasons. Emma Goldman came out to California on a regular basis. So did Max Eastman, who was the editor of two socialist publications.
Rudolph Valentino lived for a short time right across the street from Margrethe Mather. Boris Karloff lived up the block. There was an amazing array of talent descending on Los Angeles because of all the opportunities here. In a way, the area around Bunker Hill and Silver Lake and Echo Park was the Montparnasse of Los Angeles.
For a year Weston and Mather were equal partners in a photography studio. Why did their relationship end?
Their relationship came to an end because [actress] Tina Modotti walked into his life. Tina was then married — quote unquote, she wasn’t really — to Roubaix ["Robo"] de l’Abrie Richey. In spite of that, Weston never let a marriage license come between him and a romance. So he started a relationship with her. Robo went to Mexico and died there from smallpox. So now all of a sudden Tina wasn’t married or attached to anyone, and Weston thought Mexico was so appealing. Glendale he thought was dull and boring, and Mexico offered lots of artistic opportunity. So he thought that would be a good way to escape from Glendale and family responsibilities, and he and Tina went to Mexico in 1923.
By Jim McKinniss
Jane Evelyn Atwood – Photographer
Photo copyright by Jane Evelyn Atwood
Photo copyright by Jane Evelyn Atwood
Photo copyright by Jane Evelyn Atwood
Photo copyright by Jane Evelyn Atwood
Jane Evelyn Atwood defines herself more as a photographer of projects rather than a photojournalist. Her photographic projects can take several years in order to go deep into the topic. Her photography study of women in prison took nearly 10 years. Atwood had access to more than 40 prisons, including the toughest prisons in Eastern and Western Europe and in the United States and also death row. Other themes include prostitutes in Paris (“Rue des Lombards”, her first project), blind children, Darfur, and Haiti. She also did a four-year study of landmine victims in Cambodia, Angola, Kosovo, Mozambique and Afghanistan. In addition, Atwood participated in neo-media projects organized by the French photography institution.
Atwood is the author of nine books, including “Haiti” (Actes Sud, Arles, France 2008), “Exterieur Nuit” (Centre National de Photo, France 1998) and “Too Much Time – Women in Prison” (Phaidon, 2000).
Atwood has received several awards, including the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, the Grand Prix Paris Match for Photojournalism, the Oskar Barnack Award and the Alfred Eisenstadt Award. In 2011, Atwood was featured with a major retrospective of her work “Photographs 1976-2010″ at the Maison Europeenne de la Photographie in Paris.
Follow this link to read a 2010 interview of Atwood in ParisVoice. http://www.parisvoice.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=528&Itemid=33
By Jim McKinniss
Book making class – at the Muck
This Winter the Muckenthaler Cultural Center (a.k.a. The Muck, Fullerton, CA) introduces a unique and creative new Book-Arts Program for adults and high school students. From intricate diaries to wacky journals, students will learn the detailed art of handcrafting books. Taught by Betsy Holster, the class will be offered for two Winter Sessions and two Spring sessions, each session lasting for six weeks with one meeting per week on Thursday night from 6 to 9 p.m. The program will also host a special workshop to coincide with the Spring gallery opening of the Muck’s Combat Paper Exhibit, honoring war veterans through the transformation of their uniforms into paper. This special workshop will be held June 4-11, followed by the Combat Paper Exhibit which opens on June 21.
A unique and creative class for adults!
$180.00 per adult, $144 for members
Winter Sessions: January 2 – February 10
February 13 – March 23
Spring Sessions: March 26 – May 11
May 14 – June 22
Thursday 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
With years of experience in teaching, Ms. Holster is a highly respected instructor in art and craft; she specializes in Book Making using a wide variety of techniques such as creating materials, printmaking, and collage. She is currently an Associate Professor at Cal State Fullerton where she teaches Book-Arts and Papermaking as well as Materials and Methods classes.
Douglas Stockdale – Ciociaria book launch at Fotografia
Ciociaria copyright 2011 Douglas Stockale & Edizioni Punctum
The European book launch of Ciociaria, my hardcover book that investigates a region of Italy, with a subtext of being a Stranger in a slightly Familar Land, will occur at Fotografia Festivale Internaztionale di Roma September 23rd in Rome. The last update from Rome was that the book was on-press at the printers, but should be bound and ready early next week.
I am looking forward to see the book in print. All of the Edizioni Punctum books are beautiful objects and so my expectations are pretty high.
I am very honored that Ciociaria is also been featured on Lenscratch (Aline Smithson), Buffet (Andrew Phelps) and Photograph+Art+Design (Harvey Benge). Check it out!
Best regards, Doug
leave a comment