On View> Jan Staller: Heavy Duty Landscapes
Pilings, Flushing, Queens. (Jan Staller)
Jan Staller: Heavy Duty Landscapes
ISE Cultural Foundation
555 Broadway
Through March 2
Jan Staller: Heavy Duty Landscapes, an exhibition curated by Marc Freidus, at the ISE Cultural Foundation, features sixteen large format photographs selected from series completed by Staller during the past seven years. Roadsides, recycling plants, and construction sites like the one featured in Pilings, Flushing, Queens (above) are the types of overlooked landscapes Staller addresses in his work. Through his lens we see the unexpected beauty of harsh, chaotic industrial sites and objects softened by their natural surroundings, as in Tank Car In Snow, Port Reading, New Jersey (below).
Tank Car in Snow, Port Reading, New Jersey. (Jan Staller)
Pictorial> Models Capture the Surreal and Absurd
Tennis half-pipe. (Courtesy Frank Kunert)
German photographer Frank Kunert is out to challenge your sense of perception and expectation with his meticulously crafted and hilariously absurd miniature scenes. His series “Photographs of Small Worlds” presents glimpses into mundane vignettes gone awry, where doors don’t meet balconies, diving boards lead to giant toilets, or an office is eerily underwater. Each model takes weeks—and sometimes months—to build, and Kunert is a perfectionist who won’t stop until every detail is just right. The end result is well worth the wait.
On View> Detroit Disassembled, Photographs by Andrew Moore
Facade, Michigan Central Station, 2009. (Andrew Moore)
Detroit Disassembled:
Photographs by Andrew Moore
Queens Museum of Art
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Queens, NY
Through January15
The Queens Museum of Art (QMA) presents the powerful photography of Andrew Moore from his three-month visit to Detroit from 2008 to 2009. Moore’s photographs are a tragic yet beautiful glimpse into the decline of a city that was once the twentieth century industrial heart of America. Michigan Central Station (above) stands empty, the organ screen at the United Artists Theater is crumbling, and bright green moss covers the floor of the former Ford Motor Company Headquarters. “Moore’s exquisitely realized visions of architecture overtaken by vegetation remind contemporary viewers that our own familiar culture is subject to the forces of entropy and the eternal strength of nature,” says a statement from QMA.
On View> Unnatural Spaces: The Photography of Richard Barnes
"Revel Casino Construction" from Atlantic City. (Courtesy OSK Studio)
UNNATURAL SPACES:
PHOTOGRAPHY OF RICHARD BARNES
The Julius Shulman Institute at Woodbury
7500 N Glenoaks Blvd.
Burbank, CA
Through October 22
In Unnatural Spaces, co-curators Emily Bills and Eve Schillo present the featured work of photographer Richard Barnes at the Julius Shulman Institute at the Woodbury University School of Architecture. Showcasing highlighted works from his Unabomber (1999) and Animal Logic (2009) series, the exhibit suggests that architecture is both a willing participant in, and also an unknowing target of, presentation. The show encompasses commissioned works of Barnes ranging globally from Los Angeles to Kazakhstan, and new work such as “Revel Casino Construction,” from Atlantic City (above). Barnes is a Rome Prize recipient for photography and was featured in the 2006 Whitney Biennial for his work documenting the cabin of Ted Kaczyinski. The venue, the Julius Shulman Institute, was established as a cultural destination dedicated to the promotion of photography and understanding the built environment.
On View> PIIOTOS_WTC: 22 Brazilian Photographers Capture the World Trade Center on Film
Dive with a WTC View, 1990 by Tuca Reines.
PIIOTOS_WTC
1500 Gallery
511 W 25th St. #607
Through September 17
In honor of the tenth anniversary of September 11th, 1500 Gallery in West Chelsea will present PIIOTOS_WTC, an exhibition of photographs of the Twin Towers taken by 22 of Brazil’s most notable photographers. The images, which all have the World Trade Center site as their subject, span the last three decades of the 20th century. Selected photographers include Victor Andrade, Ali Karakas, and Roberto Linsker, among others. The selection is diverse, with works ranging from distant portrait landscapes of the towers from the Hudson River, to bold aerial views, black and white night shots, glowing, hazy sunsets, andclose-up structural shots, like the work of Tuca Reines, above. Gallery 1500—the only gallery in the world to focus specifically on Brazilian photography—brings together these poetic works, capturing the power, strength, and beauty of the city as it is no longer.
On View> Brian Ulrich: Copia-Retail, Thrift, & Dark Stores
(Courtesy Brian Ulrich)
Brian Ulrich: Copia—Retail,
Thrift, and Dark Stores, 2001–11
Cleveland Museum of Art
11150 East Boulevard
Through January 16, 2012
Using only a hand-held camera, photographer Brian Ulrich captured the fluctuating economic climate’s impact on American consumerism in the last decade. Brian Ulrich: Copia – Retail, Thrift and Dark Stores, 2001–11 at the Cleveland Museum of Art features 50 color photographs, portraying anonymous commercial excess in three distinct venues. Whether engrossed by the saccharine colors and limitless temptation of big box stores or by the discarded whimsies of thrift shops, the photographed subjects are caught in a vicious cycle of spending. The final phase highlights the absent consumer, focusing on the prevalence of ghost stores and dark shopping malls as a result of the 2008 financial crisis, such as J.C. Penney, Dixie Square Mall (above).
Quick Clicks> Pantone Glass, Epic Photo, Seattle Brownfields, Bike Comb
A stained glass door with Pantone color swatches (via Gizmodo)
Playhouse. While the 300 year old Italian home of architect Armin Blasblicher features rustic, vernacular elements like stacked logs, Blasblichler updated the house with whimsical, playful elements. He incorporated doors on ceilings, doors within doors, and a contemporary interpretation of stained glass inspired by Pantone color swatches, as pictured above. More at Gizmodo.
Super-giant photo. The Culver Center of the Arts in Riverside, California is exhibiting the world’s largest photograph, created by the world’s largest camera. Lost at E Minor said the camera was fashioned from a converted airplane hangar with a 6mm opening in one its walls. At eleven stories long and three stories high, the resulting landscape photograph needed a 35 minute exposure.
Blooming brownfields. Seattle is cleaning up its brownfields in South Lake Union. The district, once home to factories, paper mills, and other industries, fell into decline as businesses moved out. For decades, the sites lay abandoned, tainted with toxic chemicals. The city has issued large-scale cleanups that include removing contaminated soil and building materials. The area is in various phases of redevelopment, with new offices, residences, and shops opening, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Un-knotting bikes. Knowhow Shop created a playful tongue-in-cheek bike rack for Roanoke, Virginia in the shape of a large comb, keeping bikes upright and tangle-free. Resting on its side, it is made from mangaris wood and supported by black steel bars that are supposed to resemble hair, posted Gizmodo.
DUMBO Gets “Treehouse”
If you’re in DUMBO this week and catch a glimpse of a shirtless man hanging off a tree, don’t freak out. VAMOS Architects has curated an installation of photographer Robert Holden’s series The Treehouse, as part of New York Photography Week. The large-scale photographs depict semi-nude members of a rainforest commune, set against industrial buildings, rooftops, and scaffolding in DUMBO.
Beguiling Horizons from Bruno Cals
Prada (Courtesy Bruno Cals and 1500 Gallery)
The almost abstract series of prints by Brazilian photographer Bruno Cals could show race tracks, prisons, railroads, or meadows. But what Cals has captured through his lens are in fact some of the world’s most seductive new buildings. In an exhibition on view through July 31 at 1500, a new gallery in New York with a focus on Brazilian photography, what resembles swells of water in Prada turns out to be the facade of Herzog & de Meuron’s Prada store in Aoyama, Tokyo. Read More
Zooming In on New New York
Scenes from New New York. (Courtesy the Architectural League) CLICK TO LAUNCH SLIDESHOW
Yesterday, we told you the story of how the 100 strong New New York Photography Corps snapped some 4,500 photos of the city in stasis for a new show being put on by the Architectural League, The City We Imagined/The City We Made: New New York 2001–2010. Here now are a bakers dozen of the best. To view a slideshow click here or the photo above.
Disappearing Detroit
Walden Street, Detroit by photographer Andrew Moore. An exhibition of his Detroit work will be on display at the Akron Art Museum in June.
The plight of Detroit is a subject of endless fascination for architects and planners and has been irresistible to photographers. Still, the scale of the city’s problems retains the ability to shock. According to the Detroit Free Press, the city is moving to bulldoze between 2500 to 3000 abandoned homes this year—a fraction of the more than 10,000 homes considered dangerous and slated for demolition. Given the fact that it costs approximately $10,000 to demolish a house, the 2500 figure is all the finacially strapped city can afford to take down. Read More
Baan Among the Best
Baan doing what he does best. (Courtesy Iwan.com)
First there was Ezra Stoller, then Julius Shulman. Now comes Iwan Baan, who is furiously “remaking the genre” of architectural photography, as Charles Renfro put it to Fred Bernstein in Sunday’s Times. Baan, while only 34, has an exploding, explosive list of clients. As Bernstein explains, “Mr. Baan’s work, while still showing architecture in flattering lights and from carefully chosen angles, does away with the old feeling of chilly perfection. In its place he offers untidiness, of the kind that comes from real people moving though buildings and real cities massing around them.” It is for this reason, among many others, that Baan was selected as one of a dozen photographers in our annual Best Of issue, now online. Not surprisingly, his work turns up throughout, bringing to life everything from the High Line’s lighting to 41 Cooper Square’s facade. Do think of calling on him—as well as the hundreds of other contractors, fabricators, and suppliers in Best Of—next time you need a smart hand or steady eye on one of your projects.
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