Archives For Thomas

Mar 9

Exhibition: Kiki Smith at Pace Gallery NYC

Maybe one of the most beautiful and moving art exhibitions I have seen in years… Kiki Smith’s exhibition titled Wonder is indeed just that. Mixing sculpture, tapestry & paintings on handmade glass this installation is really a grand summation of her work and breathtakingly beautiful. Just go…

Kiki Smith
Wonder
Feb 28, 2014 – Mar 29, 2014 @ Pace New York

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New York – Pace Gallery is pleased to present Kiki Smith: Wonder, a major exhibition that presents the artist’s investigation of the natural and spiritual worlds through works made of aluminum, bronze, fine silver, textile, stained and hand-blown antique glass, and paint. On view at 510 West 25th Street from February 28 through March 29, 2014, Kiki Smith: Wonder is the artist’s first major New York gallery show in four years and marks the 20th anniversary of the artist’s first solo exhibition at the Pace Gallery.

In a series of works from 2011 to 2014, Smith again explores the rich terrain of expressions of human and animal forms as well as celestial bodies and nature. Decay, rebirth, and eternal cycles of the seasons, nature, and eclipses recur throughout Kiki Smith: Wonder in works that illustrate Smith’s ability to move fluidly between materials with vastly different characteristics and properties.

Among the works in the exhibition are a series of sculptures, up to 13-feet across, of hoarfrost, the cyclically recurring crystallization of water vapor. Where artists for decades have rendered depictions of hoarfrost as decorations of landscape, Smith makes the ephemeral phenomenon the subject of works themselves. Fabricated from fine silver or stainless steel, the interlocking two-dimensional panels are arranged in seemingly random formations and reflect on the passage of winter to spring.

Smith’s current glassworks are seen in several major pieces that extend up to 16 feet across: Prelude, of felled trees, Raptor I and Raptor II, of birds in flight, and Rogue Stars, a series of eight stars made of opal white and antique glass. Although Smith has worked with glass for 20 years, she has refocused on the medium though recent public commissions, including her Art Production Fund installation of 2012, Kiki Smith’s Chorus, and the 16-foot East Window for the Museum at Eldridge Street / Eldridge Street Synagogue, both in New York and from 2012

via Pace Gallery

 

Exhibition: Kiki Smith at Pace Gallery NYC

Oh boy!  In the never ending race to the bottom, Getty owned iStockphoto went from $14 net sale to less than a buck per image in the world of microstock. (My thoughts on Getty can be found here). For those of you who are not in the stock biz this means for the average pro photo shoot with working models, assistants, lighting, makeup etc, the price went from taking 10 years to pay for a shoot to basically never paying for a shoot. (Meaning actually making a profit, which was of course impossible at the $14 level).

I know of no company on the planet that forces its prices downward so consistently as to economically wipe out the very people that provide them with the ability to sell their products. It’s like a snake that is so big it does not realize it is eating its own tale.

 

iStockphoto Lauches New Subscription Model, Pays Contributors as Little as 28 Cents Per Image Download.

The change has sparked a lively discussion in iStock’s forums. One user noted that he just netted over $14 for a single download, which would have netted him less than $1 if downloaded under the subscription model.

via photographybay.com: iStockphoto Lauches New Subscription Model, Pays Contributors as Little as 28 Cents Per Image Download.

 

iStockphoto Lauches New Stock Subscription Model

 

A perfect example of the power of music. This tune is now running on some car commercial which would be completely forgettable if it was not for a guy singing named Bobby Caldwell. Back in the day the record company hid the fact that this guy was WHITE and you would of never known by listening to him. With this tune he was (for a brief moment) at the top of the R&B charts – and in 1978 fooling the entire radio world.

I miss my records…

Bobby Caldwell – What You Won’t Do For Love

 

 

Music Break: What You Won’t Do For Love

If you’re wondering about still images that move… Some would say another cheap trick yet some would say a new form of communication. If a still image is worth a 1000 words then it seems animated GIF’S are the new twitter of photographs. Go here and see why….

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via  http://movingthestill.tumblr.com/

Online Exhibition: Moving the Still

 

Normally known for places without people the always interesting photographer Josef Hoflehner hits a home run with his series titled Jet Airliner. The best images are of the interactions of humans and huge menacing airliners (which seem to always come in a bit too low).

Don’t miss his series on China.

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via http://www.josefhoflehner.com/jetairliner.html

 

The Photographs of Josef Hoflehner