Lishui Photo - Alejandro Cartagena

Alejandro Cartagena's name is everywhere these days. Just announced yesterday, he is on the list for PhotoLucida's Critical Mass top 50. Today he was slated as a book finalist from CM50. An International Discovery at FotoFest in Houston , Alejandro has been highlighted on Joerg Colberg's blog, Conscientious, PDN online, Lenscratch, a participant in Review Santa Fe, and the list goes on and on. He is also joining Taj Forer in Lishui China to showcase his work on Suburbia. I am excited to see how is work is viewed there. What will be the response to the social and economic similarities of expansion and population growth, how it affects their surroundings, and how fundamentally changed the environment becomes....

Here is Taj Forer's statement about Alejandro -

Alejandro Cartagena's 'Suburbia Mexicana' is both aesthetically beautiful and politically, socially and environmentally poignant. The work is timely, deeply personal yet globally relevant. Cartagena's engagement of the real challenges the viewer to contemplate the timeless theme of how we dwell as a society (or collection thereof) with the natural environment. The fast-paced development examined by Cartagena through his photographs is not unlike many blossoming urban and suburban development projects currently found throughout China. The cultural challenges facing communities affected by such government-sponsored development initiatives is uncannily similar throughout the world. By focusing on his hometown of Monterrey, Mexico, Cartagena turns his lens on the complex and nuanced global phenomenon most commonly referred to as "progress." His vivid, straightforward, large-scale color photographs afford the viewer a moment to pause, experience and reflect upon the complicated and far-reaching implications of development. From issues of resource management to changing cultural values, Cartagena's photographs delve into the newness and unknown realities of Mexico's suburban expansion.

Lishui Photo - Cyrus Karimipour

I have been following Cyrus's work for a couple of years, after first seeing it in Critical Mass, then having the opportunity to meet him at Review Santa Fe. His work is somewhat dark, ominous and hard to read. Which is why I am a fan. My mother the mystery writer says there is trouble lurking around each corner. His figures are shapeshifters, shadows in a landscape. I like work I can come back to over and over and find something new, attach a new story to.

Cyrus received his invitation to showcase his work in Lishui, and I for one am looking forward to seeing it, as well as seeing the reaction to it.

More on Cyrus's series, Invented Memory

This series explores how meaning is assumed and altered through fragmentation

and reassembly.

History informs the present and future; however, new experiences continuously

alter our recollection and interpretation of past events. This body of work mimics

the continuous breakdown and reassembly that occurs as we navigate our daily

experience, in order to illustrate the liquid nature of memory.

Anytime an event or experience is recalled, it is reassembled from fragments

dispersed throughout the brain, and differs slightly from every other time it was

summoned. As our lives progress, not only is our perception of the future

altered, but also that of the past. This seems to cast doubt on the veracity of

what we believe and how we view others and ourselves. If past experience relies

upon, and consequently conforms to what has yet to occur, then there is little that

can be known about who we really are, what we want, and where we are headed.

35mm photographic film and comparably sized inkjet transparencies are

dissected and used to construct small installations. These images are

photographed digitally and printed as archival pigment prints.

The scenes that emerge from this process encourage the seamless and

spontaneous migration between the real and the imaginary, the authentic

and the artificial, the explicit and implicit.

Jon Edwards

I saw Jon's work in Los Angeles at ReviewLA two years ago, and loved it. Have been watching his growth and success ever since. The richness of his work both in content and in process is beautiful. Images of Maine, and its people (I say it as if it were a different country) Jon captures the strength, life and emotional connection of this way of life. Having been to Maine many times and seen this rugged beauty, I am drawn in to these images, remembering how simple and how stunning it is.

Jon's Statement -

After Practicing civil rights and environmental law for over twenty years, I have spent the last six years photographing inhabitants of islands off the coast of Maine. These individuals live simply, and demonstrate dignity and tenacity when, by choice or lack of opportunity, they are forced to survive under the harsh economics or isolation of island living, or an increasingly difficult way of life. They reside in a remote or isolated beauty and remain a direct connection with the natural environment. Their lifestyles demonstrate how far our society has come from the once organic, symbiotic relationships between human and natural conditions. My photographs are meant to be a celebration of people and places where the human spirit still connects with the natural world. It is my hope that, like my legal work, they will contribute in some small way to social justice and human progress.

Critical Mass + Photolucida

It's that time again!

Don't miss out on an opportunity to show your work to some of the best and most influential people in photography and art. Critical Mass is a great way to put your work front and center to dealers, collectors, fellow photographers and dare we say movers and shakers?
How can you not participate? You don't even have to travel to be part of this event.

Angela Bacon Kidwell, one of our newest artists at the gallery participated last year and made the top 50. See how easy that was? If you have a body of work that you think should be seen by some of the worlds best, put it out there. I'll look forward to reviewing it when it comes through.

I mean seriously - here is the list -

Andy Adams, Editor/Publisher, Flak Photo
Jeanne Adams, Ansel Adams Galleries
Laura Addison, New Mexico Museum of Art
Kate Alpers, Art Historian, University of Arizona
Paul Amador, Amador Gallery, NYC
Kathy Aron Dowell, Kathy Dowell Art + Service
Daniel Augschoell, Ahorn Magazine
Susan Baraz, Co-Chair, Lucie Awards
Jayne H. Baum, JHB Gallery, NYC
Jen Bekman, Jen Bekman Gallery, NYC
Nathalie Belayche, Food for your Eyes, Paris
Linda Benedict-Jones, Carnegie Museum
Harvey Benge, Curator / Photographer
Chris Bennett, Newspace Center for Photography
Ellen Boerner, Independent Curator
Howard Bossen, Kresge Art Museum
Ellen Boughn, Stock Agency Strategist
David Bram, Fraction Magazine
Leslie K. Brown, Curator, PRC, Boston
Elizabeth Brown, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle
Paul Buckley, Penguin Group, USA
Susan Burnstine, Black and White Photography Magazine
Alessandra Capodacqua, Studio Marangoni Foundation
Clinton Cargill, NYTimes Magazine
Jean Caslin, Caslin Gregory & Associates
Jim Casper, LensCulture
Darren Ching, Klompching Gallery/Photo District News Magazine
Brian Paul Clamp, ClampArt Gallery, NYC
Joerg Colberg, Conscientious
Alison Collins, Iris Gallery of Fine Art, Boston
Linda Connor, Photographer/Educator
Daniel Cooney, Daniel Cooney Fine Art, NYC
Sean Corcoran, Museum of the City of New York
Tony Decaneas, Panopticon Gallery, Boston
Rodrigo Corral, Rodrigo Corral Design
Lucy Davies, photography critic, Daily Telegraph
Luca Desienna, Gomma Online
Alexa Dilworth, Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University
Crista Dix, wall space Gallery, Seattle
Catherine Edelman, Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago
Natasha Egan, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago
Jon Feinstein, Humble Arts Foundation
Jim Fitts, Photographic Resource Center
Melanie Flood, Melanie Flood Projects
Roy Flukinger, Harry Ransom Center
Harris Fogel, Mednick Galleries, University of the Arts, Philadelphia
Taj Forer: Daylight Magazine
Hannah Frieser, Light Work
Andy Freeberg, Photographer / Previous CM Book Award Winner
Jason Fulford, Photographer / J & L Books
Aprile Gallant, Curator, Smith College Museum of Art
Helen K. Garber, Photographer / Consultant
Diana Gaston, Associate Curator, Fidelity Investments
Judi & Bernard Gerson, Galerie BMG
Christian Gerstheimer, El Paso Museum of Art
Anna Gianesini, FotoGrafia Festival Internazional, Rome
Hamidah Glasgow, Executive Director, The Center for Fine Art Photography
Fabian Goncalves Borrega, Art Museum of the Americas, Washington D.C.
Olivia Lahs-Gonzales, Sheldon Art Galleries, St. Louis
David Haberstich, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Bruce Haley, photographer, Features Editor, ARTWORKS Magazine
Lisa Hatchadoorian, Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, WY
Gary Hesse, Independent Curator / Consultant
Tom Hinson, The Cleveland Museum of Art
Cherie Hiser, Photolucida Board
Lisa Hostetler, Milwaukee Art Museum
Jason Houston, Orion Magazine
Lisa Hunter, writer, The Intrepid Art Collector
Konstantinos Ioannidis, Art Historian, Athens
Karen Irvine, Museum of Contemporary Photography
Michael Itkoff, Daylight Magazine
Cory Jacobs, Independent Editor / Curator
Ann Jastrab, Rayko Photo Center, San Francisco
Jen Jenkins, rep, Giant Artists
Brooks Jensen, Lenswork Publishing
Tom Jimison, Curator, Baldwin Photographic Gallery
Whitney Johnson, The New Yorker Magazine
Jessica Johnston, Assistant Curator, George Eastman House
Maya Jones White Sturgeon Art Gallery, Vancouver, WA
Russell Joslin, SHOTS Magazine
Ron Jude, Co-Founder, A-Jump Books
Mindaugas Kavaliasuskas, Kaunas Photo / F Galerija, Lithuania
Arlette Kayafas, Gallery Kayafas, Boston
Eric J. Keller, Soulcatcher Studio, Santa Fe
Anne Kelly, photo-eye Gallery, Santa Fe
Gerardo Montiel Klint, Photographer / Educator, Mexico City
Debra Klomp Ching, Klompching Gallery, NYC
Lisbeth Neergaard Kohloff, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Golden, CO
Paul Kopeiken, Paul Kopeiken Gallery, Los Angeles
Thomas W. Kuhn, Educator / Critic, Dusseldorf
Marten Lange, Photographer / Publisher, Farewell Books
Zuzana Lapitkova, Central European House of Photography, Bratislava
Shane Lavalete, Photographer / Publisher, Lay Flat
Sam Lee, Sam Lee Gallery, Los Angeles
Jain Lemos, Photography & Publishing Consultant
Andy Levin, 1000 Eyes Magazine
Russell Levin, Levin Gallery, Monterey
Maren Levinson, rep, Red Eye Agency
Stu Levy, Portland Art Museum Photo Council, Photolucida Board
Stephanie Lewis, Educator
Jim Leisy, Portland Art Museum Photo Council, Photolucida Board
Kevin Longino, Watermark Fine Art Photographs & Books, Houston
Karsten Lund, Independent Curator
Celina Lunsford, Fotografie Forum International, Franfurt
Mary Ann Lynch, Not for Profit Photography
Allen Maertz, Blue Sky Gallery exhibition committee, Portland
Lee Marks, Lee Marks Fine Art, Shelbyville, IN
Nadja Masri, GEO Magazine
Michael Mazzeo, Michael Mazzeo Gallery, NYC
Mary McClean, Knopf Art Department, Random House
Melanie McWhorter, Books Division manager, photo-eye Books
Raymond Meeks, Photographer
Kate Menconeri, Independent Curator
William Messer, Independent Curator
Jennifer Miller, Independent Photo Editor
Kevin Miller, Southeast Museum of Photography
Evan Mirapaul, collector
Robert Morton, Editor / Book Packager
Laura Moya, Director, Photolucida
Claire Annette Mussard, Curator / Consultant, Switzerland
Ruben Natal-San Miguel, collector
Julianne Newton, Visual Communication Quarterly
Brady Nichols Sloane, Independent Curator
Deborah Paine, Mayor's Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, Seattle
Joaquim Paiva, Collector
Paul Paletti, Paul Paletti Gallery, Louisville, KY
Ann Pallesen, Gallery Director, Photo Center Northwest, Seattle
Stephen Perloff, Photo Review
Mark Pinsukanjana, Modernbook Gallery, Palo Alto, CA
Terry Pitts, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art
Jan Potts & Elizabeth Corden, Corden Potts Gallery, San Francisco
Phillip Prodger, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
Christopher Rauschenberg, Blue Sky Gallery / Photolucida Board
Shawn Records, Photolucida Board
Mary Ann Redding, Curator, Palace of the Governors / New Mexico History Museum
Rixon Reed photo-eye Books and Prints
Richard Renaldi, photographer
Ema Ribeiro, Lab65 Gallery
Doug Rickard, Founder / Publisher, American Suburb X
Arianna Rinaldo, Freelance Photo Editor
Conor Risch, Photo District News Magazine
John Rohrbach, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX
Miriam Romais, En Foco
Laura Russell, 23 Sandy Gallery, Photolucida Board
Dana Salvo, Co-owner, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA
Tina Schelhorn, Galerie Lichtblick, Cologne
Jennifer Schlesinger, VERVE Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe
Martha Schneider, Schneider Gallery, Chicago
David Schoemer, Hassla Books
Randall Scott, Randall Scott Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Camille Seaman, Photographer / Previous CM Book Award Winner
Becky Senf, Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ
Ariel Shanberg, The Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock, NY
Elizabeth Shank, Silverstein Photography, NYC
Carla Shapiro, Educator / Photographer
P. Elaine Sharpe, Independent Curator
Mark Sink, Gallery Sink, Denver, CO
Karen Sinsheimer, Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Mike Slack, Ice Plant Books
Mark Sloan, William Halsey Gallery, College of Charleston
Susan Spiritus, Susan Spiritus Gallery, Newport Beach, CA
Amy Stein, Photographer / Previous CM Book Award Winner
Joni Sternbach, Photographer / Previous CM Book Award Winner
Jennifer Stoots, Stoots Fine Photography
Alex Supertano, Independent Curator
Lisa Sutcliffe, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Mary Virginia Swanson, Consultant and Educator, M.V. Swanson & Associates
Martha Takayama, Tepper Takayama Fine Arts, Boston
J.D. Talasek, Curator and Director of Exhibitions, The National Academy of Sciences
Barbara Tannenbaum, Chief Curator, Akron Art Museum
Paula Tognarelli, Griffin Museum for Photography, Winchester, MA
Leya Simmons Oswald, Oswald Gallery, Jackson, WY
Laura Valenti, Newspace Center for Photography / Photolucida Board
Annie van Avery, Photographic Center Northwest
Herman van den Boom, Hexgalleries, Belgium
Michael Van Horn, Curator, The Joseph Monsen Collection
Marie Via, Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester
Anna Walker Skillman, Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta
Jennifer Ward, Exhibitions Coordinator, FotoFest
Kate Ware, New Mexico Museum of Art
John Weber, The Tang Museum, Skidmore College
Carla Williams, Editor, Exposure
Rick Williams, Educator
Clint Willour, Executive Director / Curator, Galveston Arts Center
Rhonda Wilson, Seeing the Light, Rhubarb-rhubarb, Birmingham, England
Bryan Wolf, Photolucida Board
Laura Wzorek, Center, Santa Fe
Carol Yarrow, Photographer
Del Zogg, Works on Paper Study Center, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Manfred Zollner, fotoMAGAZIN

for more information - log onto the PhotoLucida website.

Graham Miller

I had seen Graham's work as I review for Critical Mass, and got the opportunity to meet him in Santa Fe. I was thrilled to see such a solid body of work, beautifully crafted, with a compelling story.

My mother the mystery writer would be pounding away on her typewriter crafting text to accompany each image. So much information, yet so much left yet unsaid. These are brilliant narratives, visual treats.

I kept thinking of how I wanted to talk about this body of work, but it can't be said any better than in Graham's own words.
From his Artist Statement -

"The inspiration for Suburban Splendour came from numerous sources. Images materialized from encounters observed while driving, walking to the shops or visiting friends, from eavesdropping and casual conversation, but more often than not the photographs were inspired by literature and cinema. Films by Paul Thomas Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, and Ray Lawrence all contributed, as did writing by Richard Ford and the lyrics of Paul Kelly. But the background soundtrack, which remained constant, was the voice of the American short story writer Raymond Carver. Carver's vision depicts ordinary blue collar people living lives of quiet desperation, people who are feeling their way in the dark with the hope that maybe next week things will get better. Reading his work, now nearly twenty years after his death, it seems to me that his writing taps into a sense of contemporary isolation that reflects the anomie, uncertainties and vulnerabilities of existing in a world changed after 9/11, and on a planet which contemplates an undecided environmental future.

Melancholy has always appeared to be just under the skin of the suburban vernacular. We are no happier now than we were fifty years ago. Life seems a process of replacing one anxiety for another; one desire for another and the elusive dream of happiness is continuously postponed. What if happiness is not a final destination that we plan to arrive at and then stay, but a fragile and fleeting emotion, an intermittent state that evaporates leaving us with a lingering backdrop of what Julia Kristeva calls "a sad voluptuousness, a despondent intoxication"?

We all experience within us what the Portuguese call saudade, or the German sehnsucht. Nick Cave in 'The Secret Life of the Love Song', describes saudade as a vague but inconsolable longing, an unnamed enigmatic yearning and an inexplicable sadness which lies at the heart of certain works of art. "The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart," he says "will never be able to write convincingly about wonder, the magic and the joy of love…so within the fabric of the Love Song, within its melody, its lyric, one must sense an acknowledgement of suffering."

The compressed cinematic frames of Suburban Splendour try to articulate something of the soft lament that Cave and Carver allude to. These characters are troubled, but not irretrievably lost; they carry a dignified endurance and a sense of bruised optimism. These people are survivors. They have a desire, as we all do, to be transported from darkness into light."

Frank Relle

Frank Relle's work haunts me.
eerily beautiful. These images of New Orleans keep me on edge, and yet are somehow serene. I think it's that push and pull that brings me in to them. I want to see what each image has captured in its frame. For me what shines through most in this work is Frank's love of his city, and the honor he pays to its beauty.
The first exposure to it was last year's Critical Mass, and then I was lucky enough to see it in person last December in New Orleans during PhotoNola, and went to my local Borders and picked up Color magazine, and was treated to the images again.



about Frank -

Frank Relle (b. 1976) is a photographer born and based in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the recipient of numerous awards including a 2007 International Photography Award and the Photo Lucida Critical Mass top 50 photographers.
His work is represented in major public and private collections, including the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. His photographs have been printed in the New Yorker, the Southern Review and the Oxford American magazines.

Relle continues to document the changing architecture of New Orleans and is working to share his images with an international audience hoping to inspire people around the world to help rebuild the city of New Orleans with the integrity she deserves.

aaron hobson

Aaron Hobson's work is mesmerizing.

I grew up with a mystery writer (my mother), which leads me down the very twisted path of my imagination that really connects with this work. The sense of darkness, foreboding and a strange sense of dry wit really compels me to look at this work over and over and over.

I first saw the work on Aline Smithson's great blog Lenscratch, and then again during my review of Critical Mass, from the great group at PhotoLucida.

Information about Cinemascapes -
Hobson's work is created by combining several sequential, vertical images, thereby offering more visual information and an obscured rendition of any moment depicted by a single image. These preserved moments straddle between the contexts of fictitious, universal and isolated autobiographical experiences. At times inspired by scenery near the artist's residence in the Adirondack mountains, the work contains narratives steeped in the everyday-from the machismo American cowboy to the disheveled Wall Street staffer. In a fashion comparable to that of feminist portraiture the figure in the image is always the artist whose signified identity morphs through changes in attire and ever-changing elusory surroundings. The nuanced details in the photographs are not forced, whether the interior of a '64 Mercury or a seemingly unconscious figure, and lack excessive or immediately shocking details. Rather, the restive energy that pervades the artist's work unexpectedly draws and subsequently arrests the viewer as the narrative unfolds exposing sensual, disturbing, and onerous undertones. The incredibly intricate and open-ended narratives are at once left to the interpretation of the viewer and restrained by details conveying the intentions of the artist; in the end, leaving the onlooker to ponder happenings within the frame incessantly.