Untitled (Film Noir #1431), 2011 © Bill Armstrong/Courtesy of ClampArt, NYC

With his fourth exhibit with the gallery, Bill Armstrong presents “Film Noir.” The opening reception for “Film Noir” will be Thursday, February 21, 2013, 6–8pm at ClampArt in New York City, the exhibit will be on view until April 6th.

“Film Noir” is new work from the artist’s “Infinity” series, a vast ongoing project that he has been developing for more than 15 years. “Film Noir” revisits the themes of the classic black-and-white films of the 1940s and ’50s, but with the lush, saturated colors for which Armstrong is now well known. Solitary figures contemplating the unknown reference the ethical and philosophical dilemmas laid bare in those stories. Armstrong’s dark, mysterious images remain unresolved, however, hinting at the increased uncertainties of the contemporary viewpoint.

—Courtesy of ClampArt, New York City

© Rachel Papo / Courtesy of ClampArt. Roan With Kilda and April, 2011

Rachel Papo‘s project about a group of families in the Catskills who are homeschooling their children was recently selected as one of Photolucida’s 2012 Critical Mass Top 50. Papo writes about the work: “As the criticism of the U.S. education system grows among parents, so does the appeal of homeschooling. Together with today’s increasingly fast-paced, connected culture, this choice seems an almost natural one for many families. Though still a controversial and heated topic, the number of homeschooled children in America is growing rapidly. For the past year and a half I have been photographing a small number of families living in the Catskills who practice homeschooling. Having recently moved to the area with my husband and baby daughter, I decided to explore this topic in depth and challenge my own pre-judgements on the issue. Rather than documenting the parents and their unique methods, I choose to focus on the children, their objects and environment, in an attempt to capture their spirit and the meaning of growing up outside the conventional four classroom walls.”

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© Joshua Lutz. courtesy Clampart. Above: Pretty Boy Floyd.

Because of basement flooding during Hurricane Sandy, ClampArt in New York City may be weeks without electrical power. But gallery owner Brian Clamp expects to open Joshua Lutz‘s new show, “Hesitating Beauty,” as scheduled on November 29.

Blending family archives, interviews, and letters with his own photographic images, Lutz spins a seamless and strangely factual (yet unflinchingly fabricated) experience of a life and family consumed by mental illness. Rather than showing us what it looks like, “Hesitating Beauty” plays with conceptions of reality to show what it feels like to grapple with a family member’s retreat from lucidity. The work breaks down the structure of the photograph as “truth” and challenges the traditional function of the medium in building narrative.

“Holding on so tightly to what I believed was sanity and being consumed by fear of depression and schizophrenia prevented me from being fully present to my mother’s reality,” the photographer writes. “The past few years, as she slipped away from the aggressive paranoia and depression of my youth to an almost calming sense of delusion, made it much easier for me to rid the anger that veiled my life and to attempt to find a place of empathy and compassion as I managed her care. In making this work and simultaneously falling deeper into her psychosis, I tried to imagine a time when the past, present and future collided; a place where the weight of memory is heavier than reality.”

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© Brian Finke.

Brian Finke turns his attention to New York City building sites for his third monograph, Construction. The release coincides with a gallery exhibition at ClampArt, opening tomorrow night, September 6, and on view until October 12, 2012. As with his previous series (which focused on such subjects as flight attendants and high school cheerleaders and football players), the new work examines a group of people—this time construction workers—who are often represented in broad and stereotypical terms. Consistent with earlier projects, Finke zeroes in on postures, expressions and gestures representing the individuals who comprise the group. While revealing diversity in uniformity, Finke also details the establishment of individual identities in the image of the larger group or industry.  Finke says, “I have always been attracted to photographing within groups, immersing myself in the scene, almost becoming one of the members.” And by submerging himself in a given stratum, Finke is able to shoot largely unnoticed. The result is a personalized view of the construction industry that seamlessly blends the heroic with the mundane. But in contrast with his earlier photographs, the images from Construction incorporate much more of the surrounding environments. Finke shoots the workers in relation to the machines they operate, and then contrasts the scale of these seemingly small men, women and machines to the mammoth structures they erect.

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Study with Homemade Smoke Bomb, 2010 © Caleb Charland/Courtesy of ClampArt and Mazzeo Projects, New York City

Maine-based artist Caleb Charland will present two photographs from his “Fathom and Fray” series, in the Summer group exhibit “Into the Woods” at ClampArt. In addition to Charland, the show features photographic works by Corey Arnold, Anna Beeke, Larry Clark, Lisa Dilillo, Adam Ekberg, Nan Goldin, Gregory Halpern, Collin LaFleche, Sebastian Lemm, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Ahndraya Parlato, Chad States, Amy Stein, and Robert Voit. “Into the Woods” will be on view June 28–August 17 at ClampArt in New York City, the opening reception is Thursday, June 28, 6–8pm.

The woods commonly serve as metaphor for many things—including that which is mysterious, perhaps frightening, or simply unfamiliar. The forest marks the edge of mankind’s domain, and for centuries poets, composers, painters, and artists of all media have been inspired by what at first may seem outwardly calm and tranquil, but firmly delineates what should be the boundary of man’s authority.

—Text courtesy of ClampArt, New York City