Barbara Jo Revelle

Leafing through the German edition of the Catalog Raisonné "Cindy Sherman: The Early Works" at the bookstore here in Zürich the other day, I came across the pages where Sherman as a student at Buffalo State College and my former grad school teacher, Barbara Jo Revelle, crossed paths, which concludes with this sentence: "Sherman calls Revelle as 'my influential college professor in photography.'" And I can only agree, Revelle had been a most excellent professor, always very generous with her time and insights and subsequently one of the most influential professors I have had - and I am confident that the same is true for many of the thousands of students she has had during her teaching career. Last year, Barbara Jo Revelle retired from teaching and will probably spent most of her time now on her equally prolific career as a (quite radical) artist, working mostly in photography, video and performance. She will be missed as a teacher, but we look forward to seeing her work gaining some appreciation!

Lecture at the University of Zürich

On Friday, January 28th, I gave a 90-minute lecture on the "Photography Market" to students in the Executive Master program in Art Market Studies at the University of Zürich. It certainly was a new subject for me in regards to teaching, but I had been invited here to speak in my function as Gallery Director rather than artist. So, I embraced the challenge and ended up really enjoying the presentation and subsequent Q&A session.

2011 was a year of new beginnings ...

More "Heimat", now in Switzerland. I look forward to updating and completing "Critical Distance", amongst other and new projects.

People who may have been to this blog in recent months, may have wondered about the relative inactivity here. That's because aside from our new family addition, Olivia Claire (b. 7/5/11 in New York), I have started a great new job as the Zürich director of the Galerie Edwynn Houk and re-located the entire family for that reason to Switzerland in August. Therefore, most of my time was spent becoming familiar to a daughter and her schedule, a new job and home. I haven't stopped photographing, and I even started new projects, but there had been less time devoted to processing the work and trying to have it seen. I hope this will change in 2012. There is plenty on the burners. So, please keep checking this blog and my website (By the way: I am looking for someone to change and update my website. If you know someone who can do it on a reasonable budget, please drop me a line.). Thank you.

Happy Holidays!

Lecture and Panel Discussion

Today, I held a lecture on Contemporary Photography ("The Impact of Digital Technologies on Photography") at a charity "Fotoseminar" benefitting the Johanna Heumann Foundation at the House Metropol of the Bank Clariden Leu, Zurich. Nanny Baltzer of the University Zurich presented before me a "Stroll through the History of Photography". Afterwards, I participated in a panel discussion on photography that eventually circled back to my presentation of digital technologies and photography, and became quite heated over the argument whether "digital photography" and its practice can be called photography and art at all. I was rather surprised that technology rather than image content are still taken as the determining factor for the inclusion in the "sacred world" of Art and/or Art Photography. That seems to be the old but updated discussion about photography as art ... Interesting, indeed.

For it's urgency: "Work" (2005)

An older piece of mine, called "Work" (from the 2005 series "Heim|Fern|Weh"). No less timely today I think ...

Reset!

In December 2010, my work Good Homes from my series Critical Distance - a perpetual absence of home was included in the small group exhibition Reset! organized by the Curatorial Studio in the Art & Design Department at Grand Valley State University (Grand Rapids, Michigan). You'll find it documented here.

Please scroll down for more information on Critical Distance as well as a selection of the triptychs, diptychs and single images included in this series.

"Exquisite Corpse Drawing Project" at Gasser Grunert

Exquisite Corpse #25
Daniel Blochwitz
Will Cotton
Michael Bevilacqua

Exquisite Corpse Drawing Project
Leading Artists Recreate Surrealist Parlor Game
To Benefit Armitage Gone Dance

More than 200 internationally recognized artists are participating in a major series of collaborative drawings known as the Armitage Gone Dance Exquisite Corpse Project. They will be brought together at Gasser Grunert for three weeks only.

As with the 1920’s surrealist parlor game “cadavre exquise,” each drawing is constructed in a sequential combination by three or four artists; one for the head and shoulders, one or two for the torso, and one for the legs and feet. Composed on one sheet of paper that is passed from one artist to the next, the process celebrates the themes of chance encounters, surprise and radical juxtaposition. Artists were unaware of who was participating in each composition and could not view the image or work provided by previous artist. Works were created over the past year at a number of drawing parties or were shipped from one artist to the next. The works are a universal size of 30 x 16 inches.

Among the artists participating are: Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, Donald Baechler, John Baldessari, Ross Bleckner, Louise Bourgeois, Cecily Brown, Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Chuck Close, Will Cotton, Eric Fischl, Robert Gober, Alex Katz, Karen Kilimnik, Jeff Koons, Richard Meier, Malcolm Morley, Tom Otterness, Tony Oursler, Chloe Piene, Enoc Perez, Richard Phillips, David Salle, Dana Schutz, Andres Serrano, Joel Shapiro, Rosemarie Trockel, William Wegman, Robert Wilson and Terry Winters. David Salle serves as curator and the project is managed by Tanja Grunert.

The “performative” aspect of art-making is celebrated as the Exquisite Corpse demonstrates how drawing and dance share an unpredictable nature and spontaneity. Proceeds will benefit Armitage Gone Dance, an internationally acclaimed contemporary dance company under the direction of renowned choreographer Karole Armitage. For three decades as a choreographer and director, Armitage has actively pushed the boundaries of classicism to create a contemporary idiom blending new dance, music and art. The Exquisite Corpse project is a way for a wide range of artists to express their support for Armitage’s work and also a way for her to acknowledge artists who have played a large role in her career.

First Look: Critical Distance

As promised, I've uploaded a selection of my almost complete, gallery-formated work called Critical Distance in the past few days. You can see it in the posts below. Edited into diptychs, triptychs and single photographs, I envision to show the final series in a montage sequence (see installation sketch), a blend of here and there and nowhere. The photograph above, Zur Heimat, is the directive and iconic 'cover' image for Critical Distance - a perpetual absence of home.

Selected Diptychs

These diptychs are comprised of photographs taken in Germany and edited in a way that attempts to address my complicated and critical position regarding Heimat in the series Critical Distance - a perpetual absence of home. (Click images to enlarge.)

Bleiben (2010), digital c-print, 37 x 81.5 cm, edition of five (+2 AP)

Zuhause (2010), digital c-print, 37 x 81.5 cm, edition of five (+2 AP)

Zurücklassen (2009), digital c-print, 37 x 81.5 cm, edition of five (+2 AP)

Anlegen (2007), digital c-print, 37 x 81.5 cm, edition of five (+2 AP)

Erkunden (2008), digital c-print, 37 x 81.5 cm, edition of five (+2 AP)

Im selben Boot (2008), digital c-print, 37 x 81.5 cm, edition of 5 (+2 AP)

Entstellt (2009), digital c-print, 37 x 81.5 cm, edition of five (+2 AP)

Nicht plakatieren! (2010), digital c-print, 37 x 81.5 cm, ed. of 5 (+2 AP)

Fluchtwege (2007), digital c-print, 37 x 81.5 cm, edition of five (+2 AP)

Alltag (2007), digital c-print, 37 x 81.5 cm, edition of five (+2 AP)

Zumutung (2010), digital c-print, 37 x 81.5 cm, edition of five (+2 AP)

Unbekannt (2010), digital c-print, 37 x 81.5 cm, edition of five (+2 AP)