Emily Gilmore- Laurent Chehere "Flying Houses"

Laurent Chehere

Muriel Guépin Gallery83 Orchard St, NYC

Laurent Chehere is a French photographer and was born in Paris in 1972. Chehere's work is comparable to surrealist styles since he uses real-life subjects within a fictional context. His process involves photographing buildings and reconstructing them in Photoshop. His work is intended to uncover the aesthetic value and forgotten stories of the depicted buildings. The prints exhibited by the Muriel Guépin Gallery in New York City showcased five new flying houses of the iconic collection.

Laurent Chehere, Rouge, 2014Size A: 35.4" x 35.4" Size B: 47.2" x 47.2" 

Scene from "Howl's Moving Castle"  

His exhibition "Flying Houses" reflects his interest in the suburban, urban, and rural living spaces. Specifically, "Flying Houses" is inspired by poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Paris and by movies such as "Howl's Moving Castle" and "The Red Balloon". His prints consist of buildings separated from their environmental location and suspended in air. 

Laurent Chehere, Rue Deperue/Missing Street

Sources:
http://www.murielguepingallery.com/exhibitions/two-persons-show#1
http://www.laurentchehere.com/laurentchehere.com

Florals for Spring? Groundbreaking.

(in the spirit of us being in NYC at the beginning of NYFW ... My use of The Devil Wears Prada, gifs are acceptable)

This is what I thought when I saw the work in the Mark Miller Gallery by artist, Amy Goodwin. Her series of paintings is called, See Through Flowers. I was always taught that flowers was one of the staples of Artist's Cliches. From Vangogh, to Weston...

... to the teen girl armed with a point and shoot photographing the semi-attractive person who is an aspiring rapper/part time model from your high school in a questionable field of flowers in the spring. 

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THANKFULLY, that's the majority of the criticism that I have for Amy Goodwin. She managed to take flowers and florals and (at least for me) make them groundbreaking. She uses florals, and censors the faces of girls. The paintings aren't in focus, aiding in the anonymity of the women. Some, even act as a veil to cover the face. 

I'm torn between why they are hidden. I'm torn between seeing it as "veiling" a woman, hiding her from view OR as a play on anonymity, and using flowers to portray innocence, while they are really up to no good ... OR a play on the word flower, and how many women are referred to as delicate flowers. I still am stuck on the cliches though, and it's hard to get past.

I plan on making two series inspired by this. One a parody, another, more serious. 

Monica D. Salazar
Trip 2
Mueriel Guepin Gallery
83 Orchard St.
I really enjoyed my second trip to New York. The amount of photography met my expectations.  One of the works that inspired me the most was "Flying Houses" by Laurent Chéhère. His photography is very surreal and mysterious. I really enjoy the way he manipulates and changes the settings of the pictures. The illusion of the flying building shows his interest for architecture and the beauty of structures. He alters the pictures to create this isolated building in the middle of nowhere. I feel the process of removing the original settings of the buildings is a lot of work. His work on these pieces is meticulous.
  

Monica D. Salazar
Trip 1
Luhring Augustine Art Gallery
531 W 24th St
Traveling in New York was a little bit overwhelming but it was a new experience for me to see so much photography art. One of the works I found inspiring was "Las Meninas Reborn in the Night" (Self Portrait as Famous Paintings) by Yasuma Morimura.
The Artist-photographer digitally changed the concept of a well know artist, Diego Rivera, and his painting "Las Meninas" which was one of my favorite paintings when I studied Art History. Morimura added her self portrait in each of the characters of the painting and also created a variety of settings of the same painting. I appreciate the way she altered this famous painting in a subtle manner.

For my work I have decided to created my own setting by placing objects and arranging them. The relationship between the gallery piece that inspired me and the work I created is not very evident.  I focused more on texture and composition as well as the darks and whites of a photo. I used the technique of a darkroom with a 35 mm camera. I really enjoy working in the dark room and feel that I can expand my ideas through this process for my following projects. 

Tyler Boyle - Trip 2

The work that I like the most from the galleries is the Provence exhibition. The work reminds me of Bresson's photos without the decisive moment. The overall tone of these images is solemn and quiet and allows the viewer to place themselves or places others within the frame. Or maybe I'm just boring and like dark quiet pictures.

For the same reasons I like some of the images in the "The nearest exit may be behind you" exhibition, although I think these photos do the same thing in a different way. 

The conceptual idea behind the elevator image interest me the most from this gallery. Taking a place or destination and makings it a button push away.

I also appreciate some of the images from the Wolf Moon series because they are vastly different from typical gallery photographs. 

I chose to create pieces that took aspects from the Wolf Moon and Ram Galleries with their use of bright colors and line work.

Ian Shelton - John Houck (How to Destroy a Photograph)

Ok, so the title may be a bit misleading. In seeing this new set of galleries, one of the exhibitions that really caught my eye was John Houck, not necessarily photography, but interesting. The patterns printed on his works spoke to the digital processes.  The designs were subtle and often misleading as the creases of the pages they were printed on became a part of the design, and the design became a part of the crease, and so on.  This play between manual processes and digital processes to create a clean and beautiful aesthetic design despite the lack of cleanliness in folding paper intrigues me.

             

But how does this type of work translate to photography?  One of my other interests lies in trying to destroy a photograph in whatever way that I can to create a distorted reality.  Typically my work is illustration, in which I try to design a fantasy; or space and things that don't exist.  But photography is so honest, that it is hard to try to capture things that aren't truth.  However, through digital editing, and manual altercations, it can be achieved.  And while digital editing is an option I wouldn't mind, ti is the attempt at creating a manual scene that intrigues me.

I plan to use this project to take a portrait and filter it, but not digitally, manually. Using acetate and crumpled tissue, as well as paint and patterns to replicate something close to what we see in John Houck's work, only, with a subject lying behind it.

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After taking some time out to choose the different ways in which I could capture the image as described above, the most important conclusion I came to is that the lighting in my apartment is irreparable shit.  However, I still think that I got some solid images out of it.

One of the things that I noticed is that it is hard to notice the folds and creases that cover the subject in the images, this interested me because although they were just as much a part of the image, the camera fought not to focus on them and, instead, the subject.  In most scenarios, this would be a positive thing, but lo and behold, as soon as you need it to behave differently, it will fight back.  My images were a result of the following experiments, in order.

Standard - Crumpled Acetate - Acetate with Water - Acetate with Watercolour

I still would be interested in further experiments such as folding the photo and scanning it in again with the creases, which would probably better mimic John Houck, among other things, however, for a start, I was pretty happy with the results, particularly because my interest lies more in seeing subjects through glass, and now that I know how I can add intrigue and destruction to the images, I have ideas for how to pursue my own interests.

Kelly Mullin - Bradley Theodore

Visiting the Lower East Side was definitely an adventure. Not only getting there but also while we were visiting the galleries. The area was just full of art. Not only in the galleries but all over the streets. Most of the galleries we visited didn't really catch my attention but some at the very end did start grabbing me. I guess I'm more of a traditional photographer so a lot of really hybrid/abstract photography doesn't really do anything for me. The galleries at the end in Soho did interest me though. The photographer who took pictures of many famous people is up my ally. 

The artist that grabbed my attention the most and what I plan on basing my work upon is Bradley Theodore. He is a street artist that focuses on fashion, street art, music, and technology. His murals can be found around New York City but he has also painted in Japan. He has created album artwork for the Wu Tang Clan. He has also created art for Def Jam, Universal Records, and Sony. He makes paintings and murals depicting Anna Wintour and skulls while playfully exploring company logos and popular culture.

The work I'm planning on creating will be based around the photos shown above. I want to take portraits of people looking classy and mounting them on to wooden planks to make them sturdy. Afterwards I want to paint the skull patterns over the face/skin. I want to keep the street art/pop art look while creating these hybrid photos. I'm hoping to get inspired by the idea but use my own medium to create a new look. Street art has always been an interest of mine so being able to incorporate it in to my art will be very exciting.

Tyler Boyle - Photographer's Playbook

One of my favorite exhibitions that we saw on the first trip was the Photographer's Playbook. Even though not all of the photos in the exhibition were great I really liked the idea of seeing how the photographers handled the assignments they were given. It's usually difficult to work from an assignment personally, but I think it presents itself as a good challenge to flex your problem solving skills. I also enjoyed how goofy some of the items on the assignment list were, "Shirley Temple would wake up every day, do one push up, then sing the pledge of allegiance in the mirror, then the writer challenged the reader to find something that gives them an edge every day. The one work I found interesting was a piece where the photographer followed a local personality around for a day and created a hand made zine accompanied with a video. (I'll have to upload the pictures later).

This lead me to follow the same idea of following someone around for a day. However, this photographer's assignment was handled somewhat seriously, but I wanted to take this challenge somewhat less seriously and put my own spin on it. Which is why I chose to 'follow' a cloud around for a day in the life.

Ian Shelton - Ted Victoria (An Experience & Some Glass)

  One of the things that I consider to be most important of what I took away from our first Gallery Journ was the fact that, no matter what quality a photo is, poor or excellent, it is very possible that some gallery somewhere holds an interest in showing it.  One of the few experiences I had on this trip that I truly got excited about was seeing the lightboxes of Ted Victoria.  These pieces took simple objects, such as more light, and even living creatures and placed them inside of a light projection.  The image projected is displayed on the wall and, for the work with the sea monkeys,constantly changing dependent on the location of the creatures, or, for the projector with the light bulbs, replicating one light source with another.  These ideas interested me in their eloquence and simplicity, but also because the object, the image, and the process were all displayed as one and were a part of the piece.

 





Of course, upon further discussion of the piece in class, I realized that these are just as pretentious as any of the other pieces, as they are, for some reason, available for purchase, as if they are desirable objects to have in your den.  This jaded attitude carried over to some of the other galleries, where it became apparent that several gallery owners had about as much opinion based on the works they were selling as the frames containing them did.  However, both this disillusionment and Ted Victoria's successful work led me to draw the conclusion, that maybe a photo doesn't need to be completely elegant and clean and crisp to produce results.  In this way, combined with my own interest in taking photographs through glass, led me to the following images.

Kelly Mullin - Gallery Inspiration (Lester Rapaport)

After traveling to all the galleries I found it all to be very interesting but for me nothing at all great. The work flowed really well and was quite interesting but nothing really sparked my interest. Most of the work was too basic or to common for what I like. There were a few pieces I really enjoyed but in total most of it didn't keep my attention. There were even a few galleries when I thought “just why?”. I love seeing new artist and new ideas so it was definitely worth visiting and seeing to gain experience but this trip nothing did it for me. Next time I’m hoping more will pop out at me. It seemed that there were a lot of pieces priced so high for what they looked like. Some completely deserved the pricing but many were worth thousands of dollars and seemed to only be copying what they see right in front of them. I just want to see more use of thought and idea instead of getting something slammed in my face.

The only artist that seemed to influence my work wasn't even really a photographer, he was a painter. Lester Rapaport had a few photographs but his paintings intrigued me more. They were pretty simple but it’s the simple I enjoy. The paintings considered of mainly just paint dripping on canvas with multi-colored paints. Some canvases had a few circles added in but many contained just paint drippings. They were pretty big sized canvases which help take you into the paintings. The colors all flowed together too, which also helped draw your eye in and make the room brighter/happier.

  

Within my work I tried the idea of dripping but not in the exact same way. I created side profile portraits with the medium cyanotype and used the dripping to add another affect to the pieces. I used the drippings to erase the faces of the characters in the cyanotypes to add a sense of mystery. I believe the idea worked and like what came out of it so I intend to continue with the same idea but in different ways. Maybe change up how the drippings play within the images. Experimenting is always fun to do so most likely something interesting will come out of furthering the idea. 

Hannah Pigeon: Olivia Locher Review

Olivia Locher graduated with a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2013. She was born in 1990. She was raised in Johnstown, PA. She is currently showing at the Steven Kasher Gallery in a show called Pheromone Hotbox.

The show features five female photographers dealing with the subject of nude women. 

She has created self-published books that are editions ranging from 25-100 that she sells on her website. She has shown at many galleries in New York including Aperture Foundation, Kasher Potamkin, and the pop up gallery Photoville. She has had one exhibition in Milan, and a few around Pennsylvania. The photos that she showed in Pheromone Hotbox were around 30x24”.

I think that what makes Olivia a successful artist is the way her works feature a lot of bright colors and silly subject matters. Her work gives off the impression that her models are having fun. At the same time she makes commentary on social matters. For example, the following piece is titled How to Apply Lipstick. While making fun of makeup tutorials or standards of how women should dress is by no means new subject matter, Olivia adds her own spin to it. She takes it to the extreme to point at how ridiculous those standards are. 

Her pieces are inspirational because they are attractive, well thought out, and they have meaning that engages people on a social level. 

Lucy VanEllis | Why Claire Why

Wow wow wow. I still can’t get over how awful the Claire Oliver Gallery was. I 100%, no doubt hated everything that was inside of that gallery. I want to respond to the work I saw in my own work and I still don’t know if I want to match the horrible quality and stupid ideas… or if I want to recreate what should have been hanging on those pure white walls. I’m still trying to figure out if the artist Matthew Sleeth, was satisfied while looking at his work hanging on that wall… because who could be?

I personally have worked with a grid form before, and when I was in 12^th grade and found it very rewarding to connect the pieces and essentially, complete a puzzle.  Obviously, I am biased against my own work but my 17 year old self was more creative than what was in front of my eyes at the Claire Oliver gallery. How? Why? I just do not know. 

   

After looking at a piece of work I would like to have a small understanding as to at least why the artists did what they did.  I do not believe that everything has to have a deeper meaning, I believe some photos should exists purely for the aesthetics and beauty.  But these... my God.  I stared at these grids on the walls for much longer than they deserved, and I got absolutely nothing from them. 

 So here we have umbrellas. And not just regular umbrellas but broken, tattered umbrellas.  They're all shot looking down, they're all ugly colors and they all look abandoned. 

Here we have the Chrysler building from different points of view seen throughout the city.  From this image I learned that the Chrysler building is not only big but you can use it as a landmark. Oh, and the building is pointy,  very pointy. 

Now we have the most exciting piece.  House plants, THEY ARE HOUSE PLANTS... in houses.  From this I learned that a lot of different people have a lot of different house plants, and they are mostly all green.

I've never hated an artist this much and I am glad to know that this is the kind of work that is being displayed in center of the art world. 

Claire, I will not be returning.