Category: Art Sidebar

SYLVIA PLACHY’S UNGUIDED TOUR at the Museum of Contemporary Photography Over the years I’ve gotten used to flipping open the first page of the Village Voice to find one of Sylvia Plachy’s weekly images. Intriguing, moving, surreal, lyrical, intense, they always capture a monumental moment with such matter-of-fact poignancy that the image can’t be overlooked. […]

PARIS–NEW YORK: PHOTOGRAPHS BY EUGENE ATGET AND BERENICE ABBOTT at the Kelmscott Gallery I suppose everyone has a catalog of memorable scenes: the way a childhood home looked on coming home from school, or the site of a memorable kiss, or a favorite view on the walk to work. You bring such scenes to mind […]

LIZ CHILSEN at Columbia College’s Hokin Center Gallery Of course no two high schools are alike, but it can be shocking to discover how extreme the differences can be. In her exhibit “Class Pictures: Photographs From Two American High Schools,” which continues through November 30 at Columbia College’s Hokin Center Gallery, Liz Chilsen has placed […]

ALFRED EISENSTAEDT at Circle Gallery Alfred Eisenstaedt, still working at 92, uses the bare minimum of equipment. Advances in technology since his first professional assignment, in 1929, haven’t lured him away from what’s most important to a good photographer: the eye to see and the ability to react quickly. Perhaps Eisenstaedt’s methodology contributes to his […]

ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE: THE PERFECT MOMENT Museum of Contemporary Art Robert Mapplethorpe first made his mark in the art world in the early 70s with brutally honest photographs of a sexual underground few Americans had seen or even heard of. His depictions of the gay, sadomasochistic demimonde explicitly explored the dynamic of pleasure and pain–and power. […]

ILLUMINATIONS: A BESTIARY Rosamond Wolff Purcell at the Field Museum of Natural History FORMALDEHYDE, ETC. Rosamond Wolff Purcell, Gwen Akin and Allan Ludwig, and Jane Calvin at Catherine Edelman Gallery Dead animals are pretty neat. In each of her two current exhibitions, one at the Field Museum and the other at the Catherine Edelman Gallery, […]

WAR & WEDDINGS: PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEVEN GROSS at the Public Library Cultural Center NO EASY ROSES: A LOOK AT THE LIVES OF CITY TEENAGERS Olive Pierce at the Field Museum Most people don’t spend much time looking at art photography, the kind displayed in galleries or glossy coffee-table books. What we look at more are […]

DESERT CANTOS Richard Misrach at the Art Institute GATES OF EDEN: AMERICANS AND THE LAND Peter Hales at the Public Library Cultural Center Richard Misrach prides himself on not photographing the classic landmarks of the American west. Death Valley and the Grand Canyon, he says, are nice, but not representative. And they are not represented […]

LANDSCAPES FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE WORLD, PHOTOGRAPHS 1972-1987 Frank Gohlke ANCIENT STONES, NEW ENGLAND LANDSCAPES, AND RECENT WORK FROM FRANCE Paul Caponigro PIONEERING MATTAWA Joseph Bartscherer at the Museum of Contemporary Photography Civilization, scholars tell us, began when mankind turned from hunting and gathering to agriculture; a study of man’s relations with the landscape […]

ANNE FISHBEIN at Printworks TOM ROMA at J. Rosenthal Fine Arts Two photographers from Yale — Tom Roma is a teacher there, and Anne Fishbein, a recent MFA graduate — are showing across the street from each other this month, and together their shows reconfirm certain verities about the medium in which they are working. […]