Viva La Revolución

Highlights from AIPAD PHOTO SHOW 2007

Belinda Lopez writes….

The AIPAD PHOTO SHOW 2007 (Association of International Photography Art Dealers) was this past weekend at the Park Avenue Armory.

Here are some highlights from the show:

Bill Henson

Bill Henson’s work has an ethereal quality where people and places are juxtaposed between loneliness and desire. Henson states “moments of transition and metamorphosis are important in everyone’s lives.”

Desiree Dolron

Dolron’s work has a painterly quality and aura, thanks to her control of light and subtle digital manipulations, which hardly look like photographs at all. She specializes on examining the tradition of the portrait genre with a hint of mystery.

Brandon Herman

Herman’s photographs are heavily influenced by film, he says ”When I take pictures they become my reality and the photographs become important mementos, proof that for a few hours at a time I got together with my friends and made my fantasies come true.”

Luis González Palma

González Palma declares that he tries "to portray the soul of people" in his photographs. There is a timeless quality to his work, it is classically formal and echoes Victorian portraiture.

Abelardo Morell

Morell's work remind us that photography is more about how we see than the tools we use to create it. He is one of those artists who burst onto the scene with a series of images made with a camera obscura -a lensless camera most often associated with Renaissance artists.

Design Your Life

Lauren Currier writes:

Design Life Now, the exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, showcases work from 87 emerging designers producing both in the States and abroad.  The displays come from categories as diverse and far reaching as fashion, industrial design, animation, new software technology, installation, and artificial intelligence.

At first glance, I had a hard time finding the linear path between Kidrobot and light installations or book covers and Ipods.  But, as I moved though the space, one thing became clear.  The common denominator here is creativity—a life of making ordinary things extraordinary. 

PSYOP exemplifies this life.  You've probably seen the commercials.  The multimedia design firm created the animated fantasy world for a Coke dispensing vending machine and the dreamy landscape for Bombay Sapphire.  Design and advertising have always had a symbiotic relationship.  But, PSYOP marries these worlds in extraordinary ways, making you see whole new dimensions in a product. 

If you’re anything like me, you pay special attention to the look and shape of things.  A visually stunning film.  A thermal glass coffee mug.  An energy efficient home.  For those of you nodding your heads in agreement this exhibit is your kind of playground.

Highlights From the Armory Show

So much art passes in a blur that if you find something different or memorable,
you are prepared to praise it as the next big thing.

American Night by Paul Graham

The photograph explores the experience of emerging from a darkened room
into bright sunlight, and expresses the feeling of near-invisibility in Middle
America.

Disappear by Doug Aitken

A nine letter light box featuring blurry photographs of airplanes parked in the
barren desert.

Obvious Moment of Happiness by Lisa Ruyter

These paintings are snapshots taken on a holiday blown up into a large-scale
painting giving an alien and unnatural quality to the landscape.

Social Mirror by Mierle Laderman Ukeles

The mirror on the side of a garbage truck enables people to experience their
reflected image, stressing each person's role in producing garbage.

STARVING ARTISTS

Susie Mottram writes:

Perhaps the artists that showed their work at the ARMORY SHOW aren’t exactly starving, in fact, they are probably eating a little extra foie gras this week…and so they should. I’m not about to jump on the “$130,000 for that?!?!” or “My 2 year old nephew could do that”, because guess what, someone did pay $130,000 for THAT and your 2 year old nephew DIDN’T do that.

Are there fair artists who have been called out for pandering their work to the demands of the contemporary art market? Of course. Ultimately, what is relevant is that they have figured out a way to become creative professionals, to generate income as artists but most importantly, they are participating and defining our VISUAL CULTURE.

Why should an ad agency care about an art fair? As I understand it, each of us here at the pond has an obligation to understand the ‘WHY?’ and ‘WHAT?’ that surrounds our visual culture. This understanding is what gives campaigns weight and subsequently gives a brand legitimacy in its ability to connect beyond some didactic blurb about a product with haphazard design. I’m certainly not proclaiming that attending the Armory Show was my solution to creating this said understanding, it is however, a piece of the puzzle.

Check out some of the work for youself here