Category archives: Photographer

  • It was the industrial revolution that first attempted to record sound “as a medium for preservation," activating the phenomena of noise as an integral source when documenting history. Thomas Edison received notoriety for the phonograph in 1877, but it was really Edouard-Lèon Scott de Martinsville who invented the phonautograph in 1857, the first recording device. The device was specifically created to study frequency found in sounds, an intention much different from the phonograph invented by Edison which was to play and “reproduce the recorded sound… originally recorded onto a tinfoil”.  As per historical reference ( author unknown ), “The phonograph revolutionized the art of music. Performances were recorded and people could listen to them at their leisure.  It also made music and communication more public. The invention signaled the birth of a new form of entertainment and an entirely new field of business that fed the demand for the new invention, the music industry”- hence both inventions put an end to the masses' naiveté to the sense of hearing, and introduced the start of audio’s sensational future possibilities. When we fast forward through the history of music and sound, we could say that the underground rave music scene (which famously erupted somewhere in between Chicago and the UK during the late 80’s), had a lot of thanking to give the founding fathers of sound, more so Edison’s phonograph. It was the phonograph that gathered groups of people before a speake[...]
  • Art for Progress (AFP) is pleased to announce a group exhibition of new works by artists from New York City, Los Angeles, Spain and Israel. The show entitled “Déjà vu” will run from October 30th to November 12th, 2014 at NOoSPHERE Arts in New York City, and the opening reception will take place on October 30th from 6 to 10 PM. The exhibition will include a variety of mediums, from painting to sculpture, which tackle the theme of déjà vu. The term can be described as “a feeling of having already experienced the present situation” or “a tedious familiarity.”It first appeared in a 1928 text entitled a Text for Psychology. Since then, the topic of déjà vu has been addressed from the big screen to Sci-Fi novels. It is a concept and sensation that has captivated audiences for generations and in this exhibit AFP hopes to push the boundaries of this. For this show, the concept of déjà vu has been explored from several vantage points, from ideas of storytelling to an affective feeling. This exhibition is seeking to both comment on this topic and try to rethink the way in which it has been socioculturally situated. Déjà vu has come to occupy a very specific place within popular culture and this exhibition aims to build on that while also carving out new meaning for it. Fourteen artists will be featured in the show: Rocco Alberico, Ted Barr, Bill Claps, Lance Dehne, Tony DiBella, Essam, gilf!, Diane LaRaja, Lichiban, Sona Mirzaei, Carol Nussbaum, Juan Manuel Pajares, Jeanne Wilkinson[...]
  • I recently saw “Ernest Cole Photographer” which is on display through December 6 at the Gray Art Gallery at New York University. This is the first solo exhibition of Cole's work in the US which was organized by the Gothenburg’s Hasselblad Foundation. The exhibition features 120 photograph which stem from his time working as a photojournalist in South Africa in the late 1950 and 60s. Cole was born in 1940 in the township of Eersterust, Pretoria. Several years later his family was forced to relocate to Mamelodi as a result of the Group Areas Act of 1950. Growing up in a very politically charged time in South Africa greatly affected how Cole would come to view the world. Cole began taking photographs at a young age which would turn into a life long passion for him. In 1958, Cole began working as a dark room assistant at DRUM Magazine, a publication geared towards black lifestyle located in Johannesburg. Working under the supervision of fellow photographer and artist Jürgen Schadeberg, Cole started to become politically active. During this time he met various artists, musicians and political leaders who were also fighting in the anti-apartheid movement. With Schandeberg's help, Cole enrolled in a correspondence course with the New York Institute of Photography. Cole would go onto to document the political situation in South Africa while working as a photojournalist for various newspapers. These photographs would become the basis of his 1967 book House of Bondage which w[...]
  • Michael Lorenzini is a photographer, curator and writer based in New York City. He is a former book editor at Aperture and he is the author of New York Rises (Aperture, 2007), winner of the New York Society Library's annual New York Book Award. Reoccurring themes in his photography have been youth culture, environmental portraiture, and artificial or human-altered landscapes. His photographs have been shown at Sotheby's, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, PS1, and the National Arts Club.
  • I continually hunt out the strange intersections of the man-made and natural worlds. This started in zoos and natural history museums, but has slowly expanded to a broader vision. As my photographic style became clearer, I found that I could take the project further. My current project has been photographing changes in my wife's native Bulgaria since their entry into the EU.