We Four Florida Native boys finally finally made our pilgrimage to one of America’s great holdovers of the golden age of tourism, Weekie Wachie Springs on the West Coast of Central Florida. A natural spring that has been molded to host a completely for real mermaid show and surface level water park. Get there before it’s gone.

(from Psych Securites LLC)

OPENING RECEPTION: Wednesday, August 13, 2008

RSVP REQUIRED: rsvp@bondstreetgallery.com
PRESS PREVIEW: 4 – 6 pm | PUBLIC RECEPTION: 6 – 9 pm
ON VIEW: Wednesday, August 13 – Saturday, September 6, 2008

PRESS INQUIRIES: kate@bondstreetgallery.com

BOND STREET GALLERY
297 Bond Street | Brooklyn, NY 11231 (Carroll Gardens)
718.858.2297 | DIRECTIONS: F/G to Carroll St. or R to Union St.

GALLERY HOURS: Tuesday – Saturday | 11 am – 6 pm

BOND STREET GALLERY is pleased to announce Young Curators, New Ideas, a group exhibition organized by amani olu and curated by Alana Celii & Grant Willing (Fjord Photo), Michael Bühler-Rose, Jon Feinstein (Humble Arts Foundation), Laurel Ptak (I Heart Photograph), Amy Stein (amysteinphoto.blogspot.com), and Lumi Tan (Why + Wherefore).

The exhibition examines different trends and perspectives in contemporary art photography through the bias of six new and seasoned curators. Each curator (or curatorial group), using roughly ten feet of space, aims to engage viewers in a discussion on where he or she believes art photography is today.

Völuspá, curated by Grant Willing and Alana Celii, focuses on the themes of magic, otherworldliness, secrets and nostalgia. The exhibiting photographers were curated from the Fjord collective, and include Mikaylah Bowman, Gerald Edwards III, Bryan Lear, Miranda Lehman, Seth Lower, Mark McKnight, Erin Jane Nelson, and Jesper Ulvelius. The images from these eight artists represent the ideas of a multi-verse, which is a self-contained, separate reality. All of the photographs point to a place or moment that feels familiar, but objectively is known to rarely exist. These spurious emotions allow the viewers to address a personal memory or follow one’s spiritual quest; yet when presented with the facts that directly make up the photographs, they feel like something that cannot be experienced.

Artist Michael Bühler-Rose presents Opposing Photographers by Charles Benton. Benton’s work examines the nature of portraiture by returning fine art photography to its roots in conceptual art practice. Benton enables the viewer to be placed within the middle of a photographic “volley” to experience not just the gaze of the photographer towards his or her subject, but also to reflect that gaze back and enable the viewer to experience both subject and object simultaneously. Through this lo-tech presentation Benton reassess the slide presentation/photographic document’s traditional function of “pointing to…” and enables the viewer to experience being pointed at.

In Jon Feinstein’s exhibition, Light and Color, he explores notions of science, mysticism, astronomy and the unreal using photographs from Hannah Whitaker, Talia Chetrit, Noel Rodo-Vankuelen, and Ann Woo. Much of the work utilizes stripped down elements such as prisms, rainbows, and seemingly banal sunsets to investigate common themes in art history and larger conceptual issues surrounding the process of image making.

Laurel Ptak’s exhibition takes the show in a different direction by commissioning 26 photographers, designers, and new media artists to embrace the animated GIF. Appropriately titled Graphics Interchange Format, the show explores how a lo-fi digital image technology invented in 1987 fares in contemporary context. Ptak gave artists only 3 days to complete the commission and encouraged the use of photographic materials. A few of the artists had never made an animated GIF before, while others were notorious for it. “Some use the form epically,” says Ptak, “like a novelist or film director; others are self-reflective about the limits of technology and representation; many challenge photography’s usual atemporal disposition; and then some just make me giggle.” The results are 67 artist-made animated GIFs shown on 44-inch flat screen in an infinite loop. Each are sold in an unlimited edition for $20, accompanied by a personalized note from the artist.

Graphics Interchange Format features works by Victor Boullet, Tyler Coburn, Petra Cortright, C. Coy, Daniel Everett, Thobias Fäldt & Per Englund, Martin Fengel, Jason Fulford, Nicholas Grider, Pierre Hourquet, Konst & Teknik, Eke Kriek, Emily Larned, Matt MacFarland, Katja Mater, Kelci McIntosh, Ilia Ovechkin, Robert Overweg, M. River, Noel Rodo-Vankeulen, Asha Schechter, Trevor Shimizu, Jo-ey Tang, Anne De Vries, Karly Wildenhaus and Damon Zucconi.

In her exhibition, photographer and critic, Amy Stein, selects five photographers working in the tradition of Cindy Sherman, Ralph Eugene Meatyard and Gregory Crewdson. Featuring Alison Brady, Olga Cafiero, Alix Smith, Alex Prager, and Ofer Wolberger, these photographers employ directorial image making strategies to explore identity and representation of the self. Whether they are directing loved ones, friends or relative strangers, these five photographers bring us lush, evocative cinematic moments that transport the viewer into a space that is alternately unsettling yet strangely familiar.

Writer and curator, Lumi Tan, presents three photographs from Brian Bress. In these photographs, Bress conflates the space around us, leaving the viewer disorientated and distracted by a certain distorted familiarity. His use of ordinary objects in seemingly chance combinations and chaotic arrangements are uncanny, asking to be decoded but simultaneously resisting interpretation. By engaging the viewer in absurd performative exploration, he points out how easily we are lost in our own cultural detritus.

For additional information or visuals, please contact Kate Greenberg at kate@bondstreetgallery.com.

Last Weekend I was in Washington D.C. photographing for a multitude of reasons, and I noticed something, probably because of the stark contrast from its larger environment. Like many global tourist destinations, D.C.’s monuments are punctuated by the vendors of various wares that commemorate your visit, or even more generally, the sense of patriotism that this pilgrimage entails. No doubt these same vendors dot the streets of New York, but they integrate, blend into the landscape and varigated street views and eyelines, much more that the against the austere marble backdrops of the National Mall. Interestingly, these mobile booths are in my quick tour of the Mall, staffed by recent immigrants, or at least by those not overly well versed in the English language, trying to barter deals for “Freedom isn’t Free” t-shirts, and Osama bin Laden Most Wanted posters. I begin to wonder about the urban flows of these groups, who owns the trucks, controls this product, and how to do these people become employed, and thrust so close to the proverbial national heart so quickly, to most likely be completely invisible to Washington Playpeople, as they make their daily political grinds.

In Front of the Department of the Interior

In Front of the National Archives

Human Migratory Patterns

The Center for Urban Pedagogy investigates these connections between the movement of people and goods, the fundamental fulcrum points of transportation and how these flows feed into each other. 

Saskia Sassen coined the term “global city” which essentially “is a city deemed to be an important node point in the global economic system. The concept comes from geography and urban studies and rests on the idea that globalisation can be understood as largely created, facilitated and enacted in strategic geographic locales according to a hierarchy of importance to the operation of the global system of finance and trade. The most complex of these entities is the “global city,” whereby the linkages binding a city have a direct and tangible effect on global affairs through socio-economic means. The terminology of “global city”, as opposed to megacity, is thought to have been first coined by Saskia Sassen in reference to London, New York and Tokyo in her 1991 work The Global City” 

Kyong Park possession-less lifestyle has fostered a new mode of global nomadism, often reacting strongly to the speed of hyper flat transportation and technology’s destruction of human scale time relationships Kyong has taken to moving whole condemned houses with him across the world.

Are these groups fragments of the global populations that inhabit massive tent cities in China, following the production of the goods that inevitably find their way to the front door of my house, or are they non-linear inhabitants of a multitude of global cities, moving from place to place plugging in to the available labor at specific points?

Some Serious Tent cities:
Guantánamo Bay Caribbean Relief Site
Pass Christian, Mississippi
Tent City Urbanism

Sidenote
According to Urban Dictionary, “blag” means , “To gain, usually entrance to a restricted area or club, or some material good, through confidence trickery or cheekiness.” Or “To make up as you go along”

Who knew?

Double Dutch, finally the ball rolls on getting the implosion pictures going, made the first trip to Jonesboro, Arkansas to catch the Arkansas State University TWIN TOWERS dorm buildings be imploded. Gnarly late night solo flight/drive with some good parking lot sleep PLUS the shattering of my ground glass in the 4×5 thanks to American Airlines lovely new baggage policy where they charge you for all checked bags, PLUS guarantee to break some of your stuff too. Sleep deprivation breeds etheral experience, and I was floatin on a hot, juicy, Southern Cloud for 36 hours of mayhem.

Super Rodney Staton Piercey, got one of the wildest degrees that I have known to exist. I hope he runs my Flight Simulator to Hell Piece before they totally kick his access out of that Aeronautical University by the Sea. But seriously so happy for Staton and D Wright and all the other tossers who have made it their life’s mission to graduate from school this year.

Not to mention the system that Bob Knigh Photography uses to ensure zero possible piracy of their academic event photography (unless you enjoy pixelation), a quick exerpt from HIS site:

Bob Knight began taking pictures in 1975, while he was a sophomore at Florida State University. His initial clients were mostly sororities and fraternities, and he soon expanded into other college campuses and high school markets.

Bob built his reputation one picture at a time, always striving to produce the best photograph at an affordable price. He recognized that a good photographer sells photographs, but a great photographer captures memories.

Now, three decades later, Bob Knight Photo is one of the leading commencement and special event photography companies. We take over 450,000 photographs each year in the state university and secondary school systems across the nation.

In 1995, our corporate headquarters moved into expanded offices that feature a dedicated customer service center, a research and development department and a photography equipment and training center. Coupled with our Los Angeles office that services both Northern and Southern California, Bob Knight Photo sets the standard for commencement and special event photography.

In 2003, Bob Knight Photo became the exclusive provider of GradTrak™, our unique image management system specifically designed for large commencement ceremonies. It is a sequence of over 100 integral steps of a digital workflow process, taking and tracking images through all stages. Having Bob Knight Photo and GradTrak™ at your ceremony provides you with the fastest, most accurate, and most convenient service in the world.

I wonder if the NSA has access to the database of recent relatively idealistic college graduates, and to what ends could this highly organized photographic database of mostly undocumented non-offenders could be used?

It certainly seems in the proper engineer’s hands you could extract a huge amount of visual social network information, supporting the text based demographic and network analysis that definitely goes on daily.