Art Openings 5/5-5/6: Center for Fine Art Photography, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, Newspace Center for Photography

24-61a
from the series Damaged Goods

An image from my series Damaged Goods has been chosen for inclusion in the new exhibition Center Forward, which opens tomorrow at the Center for Fine Art Photography in Ft. Collins, CO (just north of Denver). The group show is an informal survey, of sorts, of the continually changing photographic medium. Go here to see a preview of the artists and images presented.

Center Forward
opening Friday 6 May
Center for Fine Art Photography
400 N. College Ave., Fort Collins, CO

Another exhibition opening this weekend, if you're in/near San Francisco, is A New American Picture, images from a book of the same title by Doug Rickard, showing at Stephen Wirtz Gallery. Also a body of work that relates to the evolving practice of photography, Rickard (of the photography site American Suburb X) employs Google Street View software to create images of the often unseen mean streets of economically ravaged urban neighborhoods in cities like Detroit, New Orleans, and elsewhere.

#78.840713, Durham, NC. 2009
from the book A New American Picture
© Doug Rickard

Much attention and heated discussion has been paid lately to photographic artists using the Street View technology to create works, and at this point I'm not interested in rehashing the arguments or the vitriol. I wrote a post about the topic a few months ago after the World Press award won by Michael Wolf, and for now I'm gonna leave it at that.
But regardless of your feelings on the issue, I'm pretty sure this exhibition will be much worth your time to see. Makes me wish I were in SF to check it out though I get the feeling this important and timely body of work might do some more traveling.

A New American Picture
photographs by Doug Rickard
opening Thursday 5 May
5:30-7:30pm
Stephen Wirtz Gallery
49 Geary St., 3rd floor, San Francisco

Also on the West Coast, the Newspace Center for Photography in Portland opens a new exhibition tomorrow nite called Fringe Economies. The show features photographs by Sarina Finkelstein, whose series The New 49ers chronicles the re-emergence of gold prospectors in California, and Maureen Drennan, whose project Meet Me in the Green Glen documents the life of a marijuana farmer in California.

from the series The New 49ers
© Sarina Finkelstein

Adam, 2008
from the series Meet Me in the Green Glen
© Maureen Drennan

Fringe Economies
photographs by Sarina Finkelstein and Maureen Drennan
opening Friday 6 May
6-9pm
Newspace Center for Photography
1632 SE 10th Ave., Portland