THE ANGEL OF DEATH is walking toward you with deliberation, and you can't even see her face, just the shimmering dress.
Photographer Aimee Helen Koch has taken the fairly alarming step of photographing Parisian runway models mid-stride and then painting over every inch of skin, flesh and background with matte black. You're left with just the clothing, afloat in a sea of shadow.
Some of the pictures entice: The clothing is quite fine, after all, in Paris' fall Fashion Week, the subject of "Undressed," at McLean Project for the Arts. But it takes only a confrontational picture like "Shirt #1," a starkly posed jacket in ebullient contrast, collar flared aggressively, grain pumped to the max, even a bit of motion blur to remind you that there is more afoot here than adulation. Koch is taking aim at the way runways are, well, run.
Continue Reading "What Lies Beneath: 'Undressed' at McLean Project" »
MORTALITY AND MARRIAGE are viewed through a canvas dimly in the latest exhibition from Canadian husband-and-wife collaborative team, Nicholas and Sheila Pye. "Vanitas" is a collection of haunting cinematic and photographic expositions on the complexity of the artists' own relationship in the face of human frailty and impermanence.
» Curators Office, 1515 14th St. NW; Thu.-Sat., Nov. 13-15, noon-6 p.m., free; 202-387-1008. (U St.-Cardozo)
Written by Express' Nathan Martin
CALL IT A CELEBRATION OF LOCAL TALENT, an educational opportunity or just a photography free-for-all. Whatever it is for the 100,000 expected visitors, the inaugural Fotoweek DC — which opens Saturday — is a massive organization by some 50 participating museums, galleries and independent spaces around the city.
Offering exhibitions, lectures and competitions, the festival will run the gamut of photographic styles, with a slight bent toward the contemporary. One making the rounds might peruse a 1980s Brooklyn street scene by photojournalist Eugene Richards at the Navy Memorial, or figurine reenactments of Iraq war scenes by David Levinthal (think GI Joe portraits with an edge) at Conner Contemporary. Or take in the survey "Role Models: Feminine Identity in Contemporary American Photography" at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, featuring artists such as Cindy Sherman, Mary Ellen Mark and Nikki S. Lee. Even the lobby of 1050 K St. is showcasing selections from the estate of architectural photographer Ezra Stoller.
Photophiles can also brush up on their lingo with panels such as "Photography as Global Language: The World Through an Iranian Lens" with artist William Christenberry at the Phillips Collection on Sunday, and "Underexposed: Self-Publishing Your Photo Book" at Honfleur Gallery on Nov. 22, in collaboration with P Street's Transformer Gallery.
IMAGINE — YOU'RE TREKKING through the wilderness, munching on granola, when an awe-inspiring view stops you in your tracks. It's sunset and the sky is a deep purple, the pines reach proudly to the coming stars, and the river laps at the bottom of the swirled red facade of a cliff. Luckily, you've come equipped with a camera to capture such pristine moments as these. You position the viewfinder around the scene as best you can, careful to accent the composition and the shadows and the intense coloring. You click the shutter, and look at the screen to see how accurate your depiction is.
Unfortunately, it's one you can't even send to Mom, because your finger's blocked out half of it. Just admit it: you're no Ansel Adams. But if you want to eventually master the art of landscape photography, maybe a good place to start is by watching PBS' documentary about him. Learn about his life and work when the film is shown at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on Wednesday, then embark on your photographic future. And don't forget to take the lens cap off.
» Smithsonian American Art Museum, 8th and F streets, NW; Wed., Nov. 12, 5:30 p.m., free; 202-633-1000. (Gallery Place)
Written by Kelsey Parrish/Express
Photo courtesy the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust
RED OR BLUE, take a few minutes with the Smithsonian to remember another defining moment in American history.
Showing at the S. Dillon Ripley Center, "Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement" opens Saturday and includes nearly 200 unforgettable images that helped change our nation's history.
» S. Dillon Ripley Center, 1100 Jefferson Drive SW; opens Sat., Nov 8, through March 9, free; 202-633-1000. (Smithsonian)
Written by Express' Nathan Martin
Photo courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum
FEATURING PHOTOGRAPHY from the past 30 years, "Role Models: Feminine Identity in Contemporary American Photography" at the National Museum of Women in the Arts focuses on the struggles young women face when trying to form an identity and the transforming role women are playing in photography, moving from in front of the camera to behind it.
» National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Ave. NW; opens. Fri., through Jan. 25; 202-783-5000. (Metro Center)
Written by Express contributor Nathan Martin
Photo courtesy the J. Paul Getty Museum
A LOT HAS BEEN said about Sept. 11, 2001, and with good reason. But Leo Rubinfien might be the only person to say something about it by photographing strangers — people likely uninvolved in the disasters of that day, pictured un-posed on the street in various countries. The result was a cornucopia of anxious and uncertain people, whether clearly recently traumatized or not. Rubinfien's book of this street photography, "Wounded Cities," has been adapted into a show at the Corcoran.
» EXPRESS: What got you started?
» RUBINFIEN: Well, my wife and I got an apartment in lower Manhattan around September 5th, 2001. We were there. It was traumatic. Afterwards, people asked, "Did you photograph the events?" I didn't.
» EXPRESS: Why not?
» RUBINFIEN:The physical damage didn't begin to tell what had happened; the true effect was the mental wound. That's something hard for photographs to [address]; they can't describe what's inside someone's mind — they can only describe a face.
And yet, this seemed to be the important thing to try to do. I started photographing in cities that [were victims of terror] around the world. Although in America we like to believe that September 11 was unprecedented, it was only so in its scale; [terrorism] has been going on for a very long time.
Continue Reading "On the Spot: Leo Rubinfien's "Wounded Cities"" »
IT REALLY IS easy to make workaday stuff disturbing — just take away the light. After all, humans have been fearing the dark for thousands of years.
Into this creepy milieu leaps Frank Hallam Day, a D.C.-based photographer whose latest show opens at Addison/Ripley Gallery runs through Oct. 11.
His latest work features night shots of a Florida historic site and Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade floats as you've never seen them before — creepy, but also darkly hilarious. (Take the Kermit photo: Day says it looks like he's going into cardiac arrest.) Who knew? Even ginormous cartoon characters can't take back the night.
» EXPRESS: What's your intent with this ser-ies? Are you aiming for humor?
» HALLAM: There's some humor, [but] there are a lot of different things going on here. One is dislocating the familiar. I'm taking something that's supposed to be warm and familiar and comforting, and putting it into a completely new context in which it appears threatening, alienating and disturbing.
There's also a comment on the hollowness of commercially generated cultural symbols and content. These aren't folklore or creations from our heritage. They're just made in some studio. I show them as gargantuan, overblown, odd, threatening creatures. And then there's also ambiguity about space. You can't tell where they are; they're just there.
IT LOOKS LIKE she's just taken a round of buckshot to the abdomen. Bent at the waist, limbs flailing, hanks of red hair hiding her face — she's flying backward through the air! A mirror rests askew on the floor behind her, and the backdrop only heightens the ghastliness of her fingers clutching at the air.
But a second take reveals the model's pose as playful. No violence can be seen, save for how one imagines her landing in a few heartbeats.
It was English photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten who crafted this contradiction. For her "In Between," she put five gymnastic teenagers into understated mid-air fantasies.
Continue Reading "A Flock of Females: Julia Fullerton-Batten" »
THE WORLD HAS moved on. China is now "the host of the Olympics," and you'd be hard pressed to find a reminder of the enormous earthquake that struck the country this spring.
Well, maybe not too hard pressed.
After all, you can take Metro to Chinatown and walk to the Martin Luther King Jr. library, where a small display of photographs from the disaster can be seen. Now that total media control is not an option anywhere and citizen journalism runs rampant even in the most restrictive countries, China decided to allow photographs of the damage cause by the quake and the relief efforts.
» Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G St. NW; through Aug. 28; 202-737-7230. (Gallery Place-Chinatown)
Photo by Liu Haifeng
Addison Road