Scott Conarroe in PDN's 30

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Former Light Work Artist-in-Residence Scott Conarroe is featured as one of PDN’s 30 for 2010. This yearly list highlights a select group of the best up-and-coming photographic artists as determined by a prestigious panel of industry taste makers.

Check out PDN’s online gallery plus a short interview with Conarroe about making his work, traveling non-stop, and being represented by Stephen Bulger Gallery.

The interview, written up by Debra Klomp Ching, features a shout out to Light Work: When asked his greatest challenge, Conarroe responds, ““I managed to get an MFA without bothering to spend any time on the computer. I did a residency at Light Work/Community Darkrooms and they made me competent in the digital lab.”

For more information about the Light Work residency program, please click here. We are continuously looking at applications throughout the year.

Still time for JGS Photo and Video Contest

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Joy of Giving Something, Inc. (JGS) is accepting submissions to their quarterly, juried photography and video contest through March 31. Separate categories exist for artists and students. The contest was established to encourage photographers and videographers to share their unique artistic perspective. It is part of the Forward Thinking Museum, which is committed to providing access to engaging works of art for a wide audience and to fostering the creation of new art that is informed by the “forward thinking” mind.

The jurors for the artist level photography awards are: Willis E. Hartshorn (International Center of Photography), Karen Sinsheimer (Santa Barbara Museum of Art), and Kai McBride (Columbia University and Queens College). The full list of jurors or the list of previous winners is available online. JGS recently awarded its Annual $15,000 Artist Award to Marion Poussier, winner of the fourth quarter award in 2009.

Image: Marion Poussier, untitled, 2004, from the series One Summer

Another satisfied artist

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We received this note from an artist who recently made the transition to digital printing here at Light Work/Community Darkrooms. This is exactly the place to make that change and have it be fun. Read on to hear about Michelle’s experience in her own words.

“. . . I hope to be back in Syracuse next weekend or early the following week. I haven’t felt this excited in a long time! I basically came up to Syracuse with a vague notion of wanting to make a tightly edited portfolio of ten to twelve 16 x 20 prints. The images are from a project I’ve been working on for the past ten years—a mix of medium and large format film.

I have never seen a photograph printed larger than 8 x 10. I think I just wanted to see what these images looked like big. I do have a darkroom at home that I could have used, but I often find it difficult to stay focused when I am at home with so many distractions. . . .

Last Monday, I spent close to ten hours printing in the artist’s [black-and-white] darkroom. I have been printing for thirty years. I couldn’t even begin to calculate how many hours of my life I’ve spent in the dark, hovering over trays of chemicals. By the end of the day I was exhausted and frustrated. I couldn’t face the thought of spending another minute printing in the darkroom. By late Monday evening, I had made up my mind: my [traditional black-and-white] printing days were over.

I’ll admit, the Imacon scanner was intimidating. The process of creating a proper scan and then prepping the file for printing in Photoshop felt overwhelming. On Wednesday, I learned that most of the scans I had done the previous day weren’t very good. I had clipped both the shadows and the highlights. I felt like crying and calling my mother to come pick me up, which wouldn’t have been practical as she lives in Florida. [Digital Lab Manager] John Mannion just smiled and said, “It would be easy to give up right about now. Go back in there and get a proper histogram.”

Wax on, wax off, Grasshopper. I dialed up James, one of the Light Work mentors. It took him all of ten minutes to materialize. I’ve waited much longer for pizza delivery. He held my hand through two or three scans. Everyone helped with Photoshop suggestions. [Customer Service Manager] Vern Burnett even got me to re-think one of my images, which changed the way I ultimately cropped it. By Friday, I felt like I was finally getting the hang of it: producing scans that preserved all of the detail in the highlights and shadows, at least where the detail was relevant. I was making nice files in Photoshop using adjustment layers.

The highlight of the week was attending Rachel Herman‘s opening reception [for Imp of Love]. I connected with her and her work immediately. We spoke at length. DC has no shortage of photographers, but most of the photographers I know essentially wear one hat: the wedding photographers shoot weddings for the sake of booking more weddings; the newspaper and wire photographers shoot for their respective employers; the commercial photographers are working for ad agencies and corporate clients. I know very few photographers whose work-for-hire is used as a means to an end. I often feel like I’m working in isolation.

This past week was transformative. It literally changed my life. I’ve learned a new set of skills and an entirely new way of working. Light Work for me is like an oasis!

Sincerely,
Michelle

Local reaction to Soldiers by Suzanne Opton

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Over the weekend, a local Fox affiliate in Washington D.C. ran this video piece with an accompanying story about Suzanne Opton’s Soldier series. As with its other installations, the work is causing various reactions, all of them welcome by the artist.

Soldier Billboard Project in Washington, D.C.

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Images from Suzanne Opton’s series Soldier will appear on billboards in six Metrorail stations throughout Washington D.C. from March 9 to April 4, 2010.

The Soldier Billboard Project features portraits of American soldiers between tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Click here to read about various reactions to the series, which has been on a two-year tour to cities including Denver, Houston, Atlanta, and Miami, among others.

The series has generated considerable controversy in some venues, including CBS Outdoor’s decision to pull Opton’s billboards in Minneapolis-St. Paul during the Republican National Convention there in 2008.

Light Work has enjoyed working with Opton since 2005 when she was an Artist-in-Residence here in Syracuse. Light Work held the exhibition Soldier in 2006. As part of the exhibition, images from the series appeared on five billboards throughout Syracuse, which extended the work into the community where it could be seen by the general public. Contact Sheet 136 celebrates the series and the exhibition.

Opton continues to work with Light Work/Community Darkrooms by realizing prints with Digital Lab Manager John Mannion and his assistant Carrie Mondore up through today.

Three works from Solider are in the Light Work Collection, which you can view and read about here. A black-and-white image from this series, Soldier Conklin: 272 days in Iraq, 2006, is also available in the Light Work store; your purchase goes directly back into our programming that supports emerging and under-recognized artists.

Images: Above, left: Soldier Birkholz, 353 Days in Iraq, 205 Days in Afghanistan. Right: Billboards in Syracuse initiated by Light Work in conjunction with the exhibition Soldier, 2006.

Renée Mussai of Autograph ABP to lecture at Light Work

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Renée Mussai, archive project manager for Autograph ABP in London, will give a lecture at Light Work tomorrow night, March 2, at 6:30pm. Mussai will discuss developing a collection that represents artists of diverse backgrounds for Autograph ABP, as well as the right to representation.

Within the framework of the Archive and Research Centre for Culturally Diverse Photography at Autograph ABP, this talk will present the organization’s twenty-year history in context and critically explore issues around diversity, cultural identity, and representation in photographic practice in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As an online digital image bank and research resource, the Archive highlights a missing chapter in the cultural history of photography: Launching in 2011, its dedicated public program of education, outreach, and participatory photography projects will transform the collection into a continuously growing, living archive.

Mussai has been involved with Autograph ABP since 2001, where she currently oversees the establishment of the Archive and Research Centre for Culturally Diverse Photography. In addition to curating the archive collection, recent curatorial projects include solo exhibitions of Rotimi Fani-Kayode’s work; Ever Young: James Barnor, Street and Studio Photography from Ghana and the UK; as well as a forthcoming retrospective at Autograph ABP in the fall of 2010. Twice recipient of the Sofie and Emanuel Fohn Fellowship, she is based in London where she regularly lectures on photographic history and cultural identity.

Autograph ABP is an international photographic arts organization that addresses issues of cultural identity and human rights. It develops, exhibits, and publishes the work of photographers from culturally diverse backgrounds and advocates for their inclusion in all areas of exhibition, publishing, education, and commerce in the visual arts.

Light Work and Autograph ABP co-sponsor a residency every year here in Syracuse. Past Autograph ABP Artists-in-Residence have included Eileen Perrier, Admas Habteslasie, and Rik Pinkcombe.

Image, right: James Barnor, Eva, London 1960s. © James Barnor/Courtesy Autograph ABP

Renée Mussai Lecture and Reception—Autograph ABP: The Missing Chapter
March 2, 2010 at 6:30pm
Light Work

Light Work Board Member Brings "Breach of Peace" to Syracuse

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Eric Etheridge and Glen Lewis

Eric Etheridge and Glen Lewis

Light Work board member Glen Lewis was instrumental in bringing to Syracuse Eric Etheridge’s “Breach of Peace,” an exhibit based on his book of the same name.

Published in 2008, Breach of Peace juxtaposes mug shots of the 1961 Freedom Riders with contemporary images and excerpts of interviews. The Freedom Riders were American men and women, black and white, who traveled by bus to the South to protest the segregation of buses and bus stations that was then illegal but still being enforced.

“Breach of Peace” is at ArtRage Gallery until February 27.

Doug DuBois in BlackFlash

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The Winter 2010 issue of BlackFlash magazine, entitled Family Matters, features an image by Doug DuBois on its cover. Inside, DuBois and Richard Hines talk about mixing art with family. Their conversation is also online here.

Doug DuBois has photographed his family for over twenty-five years, following the seasons of happy and sorrowful moments. His book …all the days and nights, which was published by aperture in 2009, features this and sixty-one other images in the series. photo-eye cited ...all the days and nights as one of the best books of 2009.

Light Work offers signed copies of . . . all the days and nights in our online store for $45. For $15 more, you can get a signed . . . all the days and nights plus a year’s subscription to the award-winning Contact Sheet (five issues, including The Light Work Annual). Also available is a signed, limited edition print by DuBois for $275.

Your purchases go directly into supporting our programming for emerging and under-recognized artists.

Image: Spencer with His Violin, Ithaca, NY, 2008.

SPE Conference in Philadelphia

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Priya Kambli

During the first weekend in March over a thousand photography enthusiasts will gather in Philadelphia for the 47th SPE National Conference, “Facing Diversity: Leveling the Playing Field in the Photographic Arts.” Co-chaired by Miriam Romais from En Foco and Hannah Frieser from Light Work, the conference brings together a significant line-up of almost eighty presenters to take a look at the state of art photography.

In the context of the conference, diversity is defined very broadly to include issues of race, culture, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual preference, and more. Over the years artists have responded to these themes in multiple ways, but they have also been showcased in galleries and publications differently depending on their own background. This conference celebrates diversity with a focus on artists, while also examining the current climate in the arts with numerous lectures and panel discussions.

Keynote Speaker Kip Fulbeck will kick off the conference with a high-energy talk about mixed race and identity. Featured Speakers Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie and Veronica Passalacqua will examine international indigenous photography. Featured Speaker Dawoud Bey reaches beyond diversity and to a future of inclusivity. Honored Educator Deborah Willis will chair a panel discussion on beauty and desire (with panelists Wafaa Bilal, Coco Fusco, Phyllis Galembo, David Graham, Hank Willis Thomas, and Carla Williams), while also being celebrated for her considerable contributions to the field and the organization.

In addition to the main speakers, the general presentations provide a mixture of imagemaker sessions, lectures and panel discussions. Renée Mussai will examine “The Missing Chapter” in cultural history and the rich photographic archive that Autograph ABP in London is building in response. Don Gregorio Antón reverses the idea of the playing field to bring attention to those whom we teach rather than what we teach. Elizabeth Ferrer will create an overview of Latino photographic history. Priya Kambli (image above) will share her work on split cultural identity caused by migration. Douglas McCulloh and Kurt Weston will talk about blind photographers. Jane Noel with co-presenters Cybèle Clark-Mendes and Sonserée Verdise Gibson will explore self-portraits that negotiate stereotype. Susan E. Evans will take a closer look at skin color. The list continues, and the best advice is to carefully study the presentation descriptions. As always this annual four-day conference is accompanied by a tradeshow, technical seminars, portfolio reviews, gallery tours, and lots of camaraderie.

Society for Photographic Education, National Conference, March 4-7, 2010 at the Marriott Hotel Downtown, Philadelphia, PA, www.spenational.org

Light Work at SPE: We will be represented at the conference with multiple staff members and many artists we have worked with in the past. If you have been planning to show us your portfolio, we may be able to schedule a review. Please send us an email at info@lightwork.org

Lola Flash opens at Gordon Parks Gallery

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The exhibition Flash in Retrospect, featuring work by 2008 Light Work Artist-in-Residence Lola Flash, opened on February 13 at Gordon Parks Gallery on the John Cardinal O’Connor campus of The College of New Rochelle. The exhibition will run through May 2, 2010.

Flash’s work addresses boundaries and the physical and ideological areas that exist concerning those boundaries. Begun in 2002, [sur]passing examines how skin color impacts black identity both in real life and in front of the camera. With the portraits in epicene, Flash depicts a mosaic of subjects who have challenged societal confines, including those of race, class, and gender. Photographed in various cities in the United States and abroad, her series quartet looks at the interstitial places that comprise these cities and define the lives of their inhabitants.

Flash was born in the United States and is of African and Native American heritage. She spent ten years in London, where she regularly exhibited her work and also attained her MA. A classic Flash photograph, Stay Afloat, Use a Rubber, is part of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum collection. She is now based in New York.

Read more about Flash and her work at her website. Flash has two photographs in the Light Work Collection, which you can view by clicking here. Her work was also featured in Contact Sheet 152, which you can preview and purchase here.

Images: Above, left, Amanda, Cape Town, South Africa, from the series [sur]passing. Right, the artist with her work at the exhibition opening on February 13, 2010.

Seeing Haiti: Laura Heyman and the Ghetto Biennale 2009

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Several months ago Laura Heyman, a professor in the Transmedia Department at Syracuse University, asked us if we could help support a project she had planned for the Ghetto Biennale in Haiti. We have a small endowment fund to support mid-career artists and decided that this would be a worthwhile project to support, and we offered her our assistance.

André Eugene, Jean Hérard Céleur, Rònald Bazile, Pierre Isnel Destimare, Leah Gordon, and Myron Beasley organized the Ghetto Biennale in Haiti’s capitol Port-au-Prince to ask the question, “What happens when first world art rubs up against third world art?” Heyman joined an international group of artists who started with this basic question, and the Biennale took place November through December of 2009.

For her project Heyman was interested in exploring formal portraiture that followed the example of artists like Mike Disfarmer, James Van Der Zee and Seydou Keita, who used the commercial and utilitarian aspects of their practice to portray their subjects with a consideration and respect that was both clear-eyed and beautiful.

Aware of the many cultural complexities of representation she had many questions, candidly stating, “I was highly conscious of everything that stood in the way of a real exchange between a subject from the first world and a subject from the third world—race, class, opportunity and lack of opportunity, agency, the ability to move freely through the world; all of the things that make communication difficult, as they are always present, but rarely discussed. […] What I found when I arrived in Haiti was that I was working within a community of fellow artists and their families and neighbors.”

Less than a month after Heyman returned from Haiti, the devastating earthquake struck causing unimaginable destruction and loss of life. Heyman is planning to return to Haiti within the next several months to offer her small part to the relief effort and to extend her project that has now become part record and part memorial.

This Fall Light Work will exhibit work from her project in our main gallery and publish the work in an issue of Contact Sheet. A selection of Heyman’s black-and-white portraits can now be viewed on Light Work’s website along with Heyman’s artist statement and a list of organizations that need donations for the ongoing relief and recovery efforts.

Image: Laura Heyman, Margaret Denis, 2009

36th Annual Light Work Grants

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For the 36th year running, Light Work has announced a call for entries for its Light Work Grants in Photography. These grants support photographers, critics, and photo-historians in Central New York, and in order to be eligible, applicants must live in about a 50 mile radius surrounding Syracuse. The residency requirements are listed in the grant application, which you can read about and download here. The deadline for applying is March 31, 2010.

While the Light Work Grants celebrate our local community of artists, there are no geographic limits for our Artists-in-Residence program. There is a rolling deadline for the AIR program; we are continuously looking at new applications as they arrive throughout the year.

Image: Lucinda Devlin, Pocono Place, Marshall’s Creek, PA. Devlin won the Light Work Grant in 1978. Click here for a list of all the winners starting in 1975.