Asako Narahashi at Rose Gallery in Bergamot Station
ROSEGALLERY is pleased to present an exhibition of photographs by Asako Narahashi. This presentation unites three bodies of her work: her most recent works of a somber and partially-gutted Dubai, her hauntingly beautiful water shots along Japan’s coastline, and her earliest black and white street photography, which is being shown in the west for the first time.
The exhibition is titled “Coming Closer and Getting Further Away”.
Dates of the show are 14 Novemer 2009 – 30 January 2010
The artist will join us for a reception and book signing Saturday 23 January 2010, 6 to 8 pm
Asako Narahashi began experimenting with photography as a member of Daido Moriyama’s group Photo session in the mid-1980s, photographing street scenes of her native Japan. She established the private gallery 03FOTOS to display her work in 1990 and then published her first book, NU-E, in 1997, followed by FUNICULI FUNICULA in 2003. These early photographs reflect her roots as a member of Moriyama’s photography group, yet they hint at the unique sense of distance and the unnerving acknowledgment of human frailty that her later work expands upon. Haziness and shadows spill over these images like liquid, and the rare human subject is partially obscured, blurred, or tiny and insignificant in the distance.
In 2007, Nazraeli Press published Asako Narahashi’s half awake and half asleep in the water, a series of photographs of the Japanese coastline. In this series, she inverts the composition of the traditional, harmonious coastal shot by capturing the images from offshore, while partially submerged in the water. Suspended between enchantment and unease, this jarring perspective suggests that we are either clinging to the back of a sea creature or drowning, struggling for one final, desperate glimpse of land. All indications of civilization are minute and inconsequential in the distance, hopelessly far away and dangerously close to being engulfed by water. With a murky palette of blues, grays, and browns, Narahashi intensifies the disquieting uncertainty conveyed by this fragile balance between the remote signs of earth and the inescapable waves looming in the foreground.
Narahashi’s photographs of Dubai similarly convey a foreboding sense of ambiguity. Again, we are confronted with a chilling acknowledgment of man’s inability to create permanence when faced with the vast and powerful forces of the natural world. In her disorienting images of construction sites, it is difficult to discern whether the buildings are being demolished or built, but it is clear that their brief life span is inconsequential to the vast expanse of arid soil beneath them, which – like the ocean – existed long before us and will continue to exist long after we are gone.
Narahashi’s work is currently being exhibited as part of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Photography Now: China, Korea, Japan. She was also included in the 2008 exhibition at the International Center for Photography in New York, Heavy Light: Recent Photography and Video from Japan. Her work is held in such permanent collections as the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She was the 2008 recipient of the Higashikawa Photography “Domestic Photographer” Award.
Asako Narahashi Coming Closer and Getting Further Away will be on view from 14 Novemer 2009 through 30 January 2010. ROSEGALLERY is located in the Bergamot Station Arts Center at 2525 Michigan Avenue, Gallery G-5, Santa Monica, CA 90404. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10am to 6pm.
For more information, please contact us at 310.264.8440 or
By Jim McKinniss
Jim Mckinniss Merit award in B&W magazine
Photograph copyright of Jim Mckinniss 2009
The 2010 B&W Single Image contest issue is now on the magazine racks of most news-stands, and Jim Mckinnis, member of the Photographers Exchange and a contributor to this blog, had one photograph selected for a Merit award and recognition in the Animal category.
By Douglas Stockdale
Janos Lanyi in December LensWork
Photographs copyright of Janos Lanyi
Janos Lanyi will be represented along with 14 other photographers in the December issue of LensWork, issue number 85, in the 2009 Year End Gallery. LensWork magazine is noted for its high technical & printing standards as well as the breadth & aesthetic excellence of the black & white photography that it publishes.
posted by Douglas Stockdale
Vogel’s Book Available on CD
My hand-made book, Creativity/The Seeker’s Journey was released in 2007. Since its release the special edition hand-made book has sold more than one hundred copies!
The book’s eleven chapters will take the reader through the stages of creativity and inspiration. Included in the book are more than 150 quotes which provide inspiration for the reader and support for the text I have written. In addition to the Forward by James R. Hugunin, my long time art dealer and friend, Susan Spiritus has written the Afterword.
With the current pricing of the hand-made book at $225, I have made the decision to make the book available on CD for $20, plus tax and shipping. Exchange members can avoid shipping by picking up your copy at the next meeting and I’ll cover the tax too! The CD will make a great gift for the coming holiday season.
To purchase my e-book, Creativity / The Seeker’s Journey on CD Contact me by email vogelart@cox.net
For more info about the book go to www.lavogel.com/book
Blurb meet-up LA
Blurb is having it’s first (and long time in coming) meet-up, a free event in LA on Thursday, September 10, 2009 from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM (PT).
From their announcement:
We’ve been around for far too long to have never hosted a meet-up in LA. Well, that’s all changing. We love LA, and we want to party with you.
Join us at World Cafe on Main Street in Santa Monica on Thursday, September 10 from 6-9pm. Come kick it with some LA-based photographers, BlurbNation designers, and special VIP guests. We’ll even have a few of this year’s Photography.Book.Now honorees in the house (you don’t know who they are yet because it’s still a secret).
We’ll have food and drinks, plenty of Blurb books to check out, some giveaways and schwag, and some real live Blurb people to field your questions and check out your books.
This could be our best meet-up yet – hope you can make it!
by Douglas Stockdale
The PhotoBook named Top 10 photo blog
The Irish magazine Source Photographic Review this month has named The PhotoBook as one of the top 10 must read photographic blogs. This blog has been written by me, Douglas Stockdale, a member of the Photo Exchange.
I have been providing book reviews for the last ten months, covering a broad spectrum of photobooks that are focused on projects, series, monographs or fine art photographer biographies. Wow, a nice honor & recognition of the effort that I have placed on writing insightful and informative photobook reviews.
Jerry Burchfield – Understory
I just published my second Jerry Burchfield photobook review for his Understory: Florida Lumen Prints, which was published this year (2009) by Laguna Wilderness Press, a publishing company that Jerry co-founded. Jerry is a professor of photography and the director of the photographic gallery at Cypress College in Cypress, CA.
The main subject of this book is a mural size Lumen print that Jerry was commissioned to create in Florida and includes many of the Lumen prints that were studies for creating the mural.
Best regards, Doug Stockdale
Jerry Burchfield book review
Photograph coyright of Jerry Burchfield, 2004
Just a quick note that I just published a photobook review of Jerry Burchfield’s Primal Images: 100 Lumen prints of Amazonia Flora, on The PhotoBook. I will soon post my photobook review of his most recently published (March, 2009) book Understory.
An interesting book in which the photographic prints he made in South America were created with a photographic process that is as old as photography itself. For those who attended the Photographers Exchange meeting in June, you had a chance to see Ted’s prints that were created in a similar manner.
Jerry Burchfield is a professor of photography as well as the Photography Gallery Director at Cypress College, which is located in Cypress, California.
by Doug Stockdale
Douglas Stockdale – Insomnia: Hotel Noir
Insomnia: Hotel Noir copyright 2009 by Douglas Stockdale
I just published my latest photobook project Insomnia: Hotel Noir with Blurb and the large (11 x 13″) hardcover ImageWrap with Blurb’s premium pager is now available. nice.
More details about this photographic project that I started in 2006 can be found on the blog that I created, at www.insomniahotelnoir.wordpress.com, and is available here.
Best regards, Doug Stockdale
The PhotoBook on Facebook
Last September, I stated a new blog, called The PhotoBook, dedicated to reviewing photographic books that are about photographic projects, series, monographs and bodies of work. Recently I have been getting some strong recommendationas from Andy Adams of Flak Photo to start a fan based page on Facebook. So today I took the plunge, and I now have a Facebook page about The PhotoBook which is here.
So like Larry Vogel said about his new blog last week, check it out and if you like it, become a fan.
Best regards, Doug Stockdale
FYI, yesterday I published my 47th review on The PhotoBook,which was Graciela Iturbide’s book El Bano De Frida Kahlo.
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