Apply for a Light Work Residency

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Starting in 1976, Light Work has built a reputation for having one of the most beneficial and productive residencies in the art world. Some very familiar names have passed through our four-week residency program, including Carrie Mae Weems, Cindy Sherman, and Andres Serrano. Our residents count among today’s most driven and talented artists.

Residents receive a $4,000 stipend, ample staff support, 24-hour access to our state-of-the-art facility, and a free apartment for the duration of the residency. We also offer a $500 printing credit in our digital lab to encourage experimentation. Yes, it’s that kind of place.

Applying for a residency is easy and straightforward. We have a rolling deadline, so please submit your application as soon as you feel you’re ready.

At right, Dean Kessmann, 2009 Light Work Artist-in-Residence.

Polaroid One-Step set for a comeback in 2010

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This may be proof that miracles really can happen. The Summit Global Group, which bought the licensing to the Polaroid brand two years ago, announced last week that it will revive manufacture of the very popular Polaroid One-Step camera. They plan to resurrect the film version of the camera, and, for those who prefer a bit of the new-fangled with their nostalgia, also to produce a digital version.

But what’s a Polaroid camera without a bit of film to shake? The folks at The Impossible Project have been brought on to produce a limited edition of Polaroid branded instant films.

Both the camera and film have a projected release date of mid-2010, much to the delight of Polaroid shooters everywhere.

Irving Penn dies

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Photographic legend Irving Penn died yesterday at the age of 92. He leaves behind a body of work that will be remembered for its elegant economy.

Whether he was photographing models wearing the newest line from Paris or artists such as Picasso and Duchamp or (more controversially) indigenous peoples, his approach was to keep the focus of attention on the subject by reducing the image to its bare essentials: subject, light, action. He applied a similar philosophy when photographing still lives, for which he is equally famous.

Click here to read an in-depth article about Penn’s art and life.

Grant winner begins installation

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Ithaca-based artist Karen Brummund is installing her latest work on the front of the Menschel Media Center, where Light Work is located, this morning. Brummund won a Light Work Grant in Photography this year for her series of time-based drawings of architecture. She first sketches the surface of the building and then digitally enlarges the sketch to actual size. The drawing is then printed in sections on small sheets of paper and attached to the front of the structure. Brummund’s work uses everyday surfaces to play with the line between real and represented.

If you’re in the area, stop by and see the installation progress throughout the day. Brummund (at right) is assisted this morning by her husband Peter Brummund and by Light Work intern Gabi Lewton-Leopold. Below is a view of the installation from inside the building.

Pending sale of Polaroid Collection images

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If you haven’t yet heard, 1,300 images from the famous Polaroid Collection, with a pre-sale value estimated at between 7 and 11 million, are slated for auction by Sotheby’s this spring. Although this story has been developing for a while now, many photographers who have work in the 16,000-piece collection remain unaware of the upcoming sale and the events that led up to it. Take a look here and here to read a couple good summaries of what’s going on and how the sale came about.

Although a Minnesota judge has approved the sale, artists who have work in the collection may have some recourse, as explained on A.D. Coleman’s blog, Photocritic International. Coleman posts helpful information for photographers who may wish to establish standing in the case.

It’s safe to assume that the artists who gave or loaned work to the collection never thought the images would be put on the auction block to potentially compete with other work in the market. Beyond those who are personally impacted by the piecemeal sale of collection, the auction poses many important questions about the ownership and intellectual property rights of artists and the responsibilities, both legal and moral, of institutions to maintain collections and notify artists when the status of the collections changes.

Community Darkrooms reopens

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Light Work/Community Darkrooms reopened September 8 new and better than ever. We renovated our digital labs, complete with super fast Epson printers, and added a fantastic lounge to our facility over the summer.

Also in Community Darkrooms, our new Tech Heads are on duty Sunday through Thursday, from 1-6pm, to help you with your image-making. The Tech Heads can get you started with scanning, working in Photoshop, and using our Epson 4880 printers. They can also help you out in the black-and-white lab. Just come in during Tech Head hours and get the answers to the questions you need help on most.

To celebrate our renovated facility and new services, we’re holding a special opening event on September 20. The event is free and open to the public and will start at 12pm with free Apple laptop cleanings by Maccentrix (first come first served), tours, portfolio reviews, and more. At 1pm, we will host a free digital color and workflow seminar by expert Clark Omholt of Spectraflow. Attendees will also be able to pick up a coupon good for 25% off an order from our digital services lab. There will be a raffle to win a free 30 x 40″ print from Community Darkrooms digital services.

Registration for Fall workshops is also open now. Visit our website to see our current offerings and to register.

Chad States, interviewed and blogged

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Nozlee Samadzadeh at The Morning News posted an insightful and in-depth interview with Chad States, who did a residency here at Light Work in June 2009. In the interview, titled “Men at Their Most Masculine,” Samadzadeh and an accompanying image gallery focus on States’s series of portraits and texts that seek the answer to the question, “Are you masculine?”

Later the same day, Jezebel ran an item on the interview and States’s work that has generated over 13,000 hits so far and a lively discussion on the definitions of masculinity and femininity in the comments section.

Read both sites for some interesting perspectives and commentary on this intriguing and beautiful series.

Intermissions gets under way

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Syracuse is the site of Intermissions, a multi-venue exhibition project featuring Barry Anderson’s colorful and enigmatic video and still work. The exhibition creates opportunities, sometimes in unexpected places, for a refreshing change of view from everyday life.

The first of Anderson’s installations, including a screening of his video Pigeon at the Everson Museum of Art and three billboards in various locations around Syracuse, are up. The exhibition is already making its presence known, with a long front-page article in today’s CNY section of The Post-Standard. Also posted online today is videographer Ellen Blalock’s interview with Barry Anderson – you can watch the in-depth discussion with the artist on Syracuse.com. Finally, open at the Menschel Gallery in SU’s Schine Student Center is Suspension, an exhibition of Anderson’s moving and eloquent aerial photographs.

Click here to see a list of all the venues for Intermissions, and keep your eyes open for Anderson’s work as you drive around town.

Carrie Mae Weems on Art:21

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Season 5 of the PBS series Art:21 opens with an episode entitled Compassion. The episode, which premieres on October 7, 2009, features interviews with artists William Kentridge, Doris Salcedo, and former Light Work Artist-in-Residence Carrie Mae Weems.

In her segment, Weems discusses the presence of compassion in her work and how the use of appropriated images can help to open a dialog between the past and present. Click here to see a preview of Compassion on the Art:21 website, which also features an interview with Weems and Dawoud Bey, himself a former Light Work Artist-in-Residence.

Three Light Work connected artists at Carrie Haddad

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Robert Flynt and Warren Neidich, former artists in residence at Light Work, and Gary Schneider, with whom Light Work published Genetic Self-Portrait, are exhibiting at Carrie Haddad Gallery July 16, 2009 through August 30, 2009. The exhibit, “Afterglow: Four Photographers & the Hand-Held Light,” also includes the work of David Lebe.

Melissa Stafford, curator, says about this exhibit:

The work of these photographers is vital and never still. Their images register something of what human life is and of what human life might be; present fully in every instant of time. The gleaming tracery evokes a gradual recognition of nose, mouth, chin, and neck coalescing into a recognizable form like “man”, or even an individual, like “Christopher”, but this body transcends those familiar, literal forms. Alfred Stieglitz, a hundred years ago, believed that personality could not be expressed by a face alone. The work in this exhibit agrees; it attempts to further sensitize photography – extending the medium to take in more and more of life’s fleeting glow.

The exhibit opens Saturday July 18 with a reception from 6 to 8 pm.

Carrie Haddad Gallery
318 Warren Street
Hudson, NY. 12534
518.828.7655

Testing 1, 2, 3 . . .

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Barry Anderson has been in town for about a week now doing tests at various sites for his upcoming exhibition Intermissions. Over fifteen separate venues all over Syracuse will show work by Anderson, a former Light Work Artist-in-Residence whose video and photo-based imagery occupies a space on the border between the commonplace and the surreal.

The first installation, the video Pigeon, will open at the Everson Museum July 25. Anderson’s video and sound piece Fragments, Spirits, Dust Bunnies, shown here in the installation process as Anderson answers interview questions, opens in the Light Work Main Gallery August 14. Click here to see the full schedule of Intermissions venues, including over 10 billboards throughout the Syracuse area.

The Light Work Annual 2009

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The Light Work Annual is one of the most anticipated issues of Contact Sheet of the year. In the Annual, we feature images by our Artists-in-Residence, as well as insightful essays about their work. We also highlight the winners of our Light Work Grants in Photography program. The Annual provides a snapshot of all the exciting, ground-breaking art, exhibitions, and events that happen at Light Work over the year.

The Light Work Annual 2009, which will ship early in July, is bursting at the seams with 96 pages. It features photographs by our 2008 Artists-in-Residence including Scott Conarroe, Kelli Connell, Lola Flash, Cristina Fraire, Admas Habteslasie, Deana Lawson, Paula Luttringer, John Clark Mayden, Christine Osinski, Oscar Palacio, Xaviera Simmons, Amy Stein, Krista Steinke, and Garie Waltzer. Contributing essayists include Dawoud Bey, Julie Bolcer, Josh Brilliant, Leslie Rose Close, Karen Irvine, David L. Jacobs, Allison N. Kemmerer, Stuart Krimko, Peter MacGill, Maria Moreno, Alison Devine Nordström, Franklin Sirmans, Alec Soth, and Spring Ulmer.

If you subscribe today, you will receive The Light Work Annual 2009 as your first issue of Contact Sheet. Click here to see the 2009 subscription program offers, with beautiful prints and books that can make your subscription to Contact Sheet even sweeter.