“Emily Landau,” 1981  © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Courtesy of The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie

(more…)

All Images © Glen Luchford / Dashwood Books

Damaged Negatives,  the new book by fashion photographer Glen Luchford, makes something beautiful out of what sounds like a disaster for any photographer: Several of Luchford’s negatives, including images of Kate Moss and other models, were damaged by water.

“I put the images in storage for two weeks, which turned into two months. The entire storage unit flooded and the owner didn’t tell anyone, so by the time I arrived, the images were just mostly gone or in a state of high deterioration.” But Luchford, who has shot for Italian Vogue, The Face, Prada, Saint Laurent among other clients, was intrigued by the way water subverted his images.  Beautiful faces are obscured by oxidation; couture clothing appears burned. Luchford has said in interviews that he isn’t sure why he treated the negatives so carelessly in the first place, but once they were transformed, he wanted to exhume record them.

Damaged Negatives is published by Dashwood Books, the independent bookstore and publisher, in a limited edition of 1,000 copies.

“A Perfect Mum #4,” 2012  All Images © Miles Aldridge. Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery.

“Miles Aldridge: I Only Want You to Love Me,” a retrospective of the internationally renowned British artist’s cinematic fashion-based work opens May 8th (through June 8, 2013) at Steven Kasher Gallery in New York City. The 20 large-scale color photographs in the exhibition present a satirical, darkly humorous view of women, fashion, and commodification today. Aldridge creates an entirely believable world just slightly beyond our own: hyper-sexualized, hyper-materialistic, and full of dread. Think Stepford Wives on acid.

This exhibition launches Aldridge’s two new books: “Miles Aldridge: I Only Want You to Love Me” (Rizzoli, 2013, introduction by Glenn O’Brien), and “Other Pictures” (Editions 7L/Steidl, 2013). Join Aldridge for a book signing at the opening reception on May 8th, from 6-8pm at the Steven Kasher Gallery. (more…)

“Refinement and Elegance.”  All Images © Caleb Cole.

What is it like in someone else’s shoes? Caleb Cole’s series, “Other People’s Clothes,” brings us a step closer. This collection of non-traditional self-portraits are a product of Cole’s exploration, wondering what someone else’s life is like. Each photograph in the series is a constructed scene that begins with an outfit or piece of clothing (either bought, found, or borrowed), then a person Cole imagined to fill those clothes, and then a location is chosen. In a statement on Cole’s website he says, “they are portraits of people I have never met but with whom I feel familiar, as well as documents of the process wherein I try on the transitional moments of others’ lives in order to better understand my own.”

The book, “Other People’s Clothes” is available through Cole’s website in a limited edition of 250. As a winner of the Hearst 8×10 Photography Biennial, Cole’s images are currently on view in the atrium at the Hearst Tower through August 31st. (more…)

“Young Men of the Second Ward, El Paso’s Classic “Barrio” near the Mexican Border,” 06/1972. © Danny Lyon

After an awakening in the US during the late 1960s, the Nixon administration set up the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970 to clean up the nation’s air and water. The following year, the EPA began hiring freelance photographers to document the state of the environment and efforts to improve it. The project, called Documerica, was inspired by the Farm Security Administration’s photography program, for which Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and others were hired to photograph the FSA’s efforts to help poor farmers during the Great Depression.

More than 100 photographers contributed to Documerica, capturing life in America, with particular attention to social and environmental concerns: coal mining, agriculture, urban renewal, smog from factories and automobiles, waste, and other topics. The Corcoran Gallery exhibited a selection of the images in 1978, and afterwards, the project was mostly forgotten. Now, for the 35th anniversary of the project, the National Archives has “rediscovered” its trove of about 25,000 Documerica images, and mounted an exhibition and published a book called “Searching for the Seventies: The DOCUMERICA Photography Project.” Together the book and exhibition provide a time-capsule look back on 70s society and culture that seems surreal in some ways. The exhibition, at the Lawrence F. O’Brien Gallery of the National Archives Building in Washington, DC, is free and open to the public, and runs through September 8, 2013. Nearly 16,000 Documerica images are also searchable online by topic, photographer, or location. (more…)