Art Openings 1/12-1/14: Foley Gallery, threewalls Gallery, Clampart, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Bruce Silverstein Gallery

Throughout its existence, photography has often struggled to solidify its unique place in the art world (even despite the frequent practice by painters of using photography to record scenes and references for their works). Many would argue it has achieved noted success in recent years, as evidence by the explosion of photography exhibitions in major galleries and museums around the world, as well as the multi-million dollar sales of photographs at the big auction houses (think Andreas Gursky's record-breaking $4.3 million print sale, for example).
And yet this emergence is also taking place in the face of challenges from technology in the modern era, namely the democratization of the medium through digital cameras and software, which, greatly accelerated by the Internet, have spawned a wide proliferation of photography appearing all around us. One could argue that this larger cultural awareness of photography might have fueled the exorbitant sale prices at the auction houses, but regardless, the growing ubiquity of photography in contemporary art and culture has created a certain burden of proof on photographic artists -- perhaps both to distinguish their craft from the amateurs as well as to perpetuate its increased status in the art world. So its probably no surprise to see the craft of photography evolving in such a variety of spinoffs and approaches as we are seeing today -- often in ways that incorporate or react to the external forces acting upon it as mentioned above.

That being said, among the myriad of great photography exhibitions opening this week, it seems strangely appropriate to start on the group show Penetration, at Foley Gallery, featuring work by Danielle Durchslag, Joseph Heidecker, Marco Breuer, and Jowhara AlSaud.

Untitled (C-690), 2007
© Marco Breuer

All four artists employ their own personal methods of inserting the artist's creative hand directly into the surface (literally) of their photographic art -- in the process, manipulating and compromising the sacrosanct materials of photographic negatives and papers: Durchslag uses hundreds of pieces of cut paper to weave mosaic re-creations of family portraits as a meditation on ancestral history; Heidecker sews beads and threads into everyday images to form new identities for their subjects, often in a humorous way that questions how identities are shaped and managed by individuals; Breuer is widely known for his unique method of creating photographs without a camera, instead strategically scraping and scratching light-sensitive papers to produce abstract images that challenge our basic concepts about the nature of image-making; and AlSaud's faceless portraits, applied to her personal photographs by etching and drawing on the negative, are influenced by the practice in Saudi Arabia of censoring images deemed unsuitable for viewing.

Business Man (grey mask), 2009
© Joseph Heidecker

Penetration
works by Danielle Durchslag, Joseph Heidecker, Marco Breuer, Jowhara AlSaud
opening Thursday 12 January
6-8pm
Foley Gallery
548 W. 28th St., 2nd floor, NYC

Reacting in a similar way to the mountains of photographs in existence today (both on the Internet and elsewhere), artist Laura Mackin acts as curator and archivist in much of her work, featured in the solo show 120 Years opening at threewalls gallery in Chicago on Friday.

To Hagerman (B's postcards), c. 1910-1968
© Laura Mackin

Mackin collects images of the mundane and everyday, honing in on the vernacular photography that comprises the majority of our visual clutter today. However, in her artistic intervention, Mackin re-presents and re-contextualizes the mass of images in ways that create subtle portraits of both the visual clutter itself and the original authors/owners of the objects (who are otherwise basically anonymous or unknown).
This exhibition presents her works with two distinct collections: one of home movies shot from 1946-2006 by a man named Dean, and another of postcards from 1910-1968 predominantly mailed to a woman named Mrs. Ernst (as seen above).

Dean, driving (composite of movies from 1946-2006), 2010
© Laura Mackin

Mackin collages images together from these two ambiguous collections to form new pieces that present the viewer with everyday perspectives on landscape and travel, told through the experiences of these freshly rendered characters.

120 Years
works by Laura Mackin
opening Friday 13 January
6-9pm
threewalls Gallery
119 N. Peoria St., #2C, Chicago

Also opening on Friday nite is the exhibition A, photographs by Gregory Halpern, at Clampart in NYC. This is Halpern's first solo show at the gallery. Working in a photographic tradition very similar to what Walker Evans termed "lyric documentary", Halpern brings the viewer through tragically beautiful scenes in the Rust Belt.

Untitled, 2009
from the series A
© Gregory Halpern

The series, also part of a book of the same name published by J&L Books last year, focuses on places like Baltimore, Cincinnati, Omaha and Detroit -- cities with a shared history of deindustrialization and economic stagnation similar to the artist's hometown of Buffalo. Halpern quietly and patiently renders the broken faces and landscapes in these areas that have become emblematic of the modern failures in our capitalist economy.

Untitled, 2010
from the series A
© Gregory Halpern

A
photographs by Gregory Halpern
opening Friday 13 January
6-8pm
Clampart
521-531 W. 25th St., NYC

Working in a somewhat similar documentary tradition and a shared focus on the lives of many for whom the typical American dream seems far from daily reality, the acclaimed photographer Zoe Strauss has dedicated the past decade to illustrating the plight of the working-class in/around her home of Philadelphia, and beyond. This weekend, the Philadelphia Museum of Art honors those efforts with the opening of Zoe Strauss: Ten Years, a mid-career retrospective of her works.

Half House, Camden, NJ, 2008
© Zoe Strauss

The exhibition also serves as an assessment of Strauss' ten-year project to annually exhibit her photographs under a highway bridge off Interstate 95 in South Philly -- a setting that merges art and the social sphere to create a wholly unique public space much different than the traditional museum or gallery setting.
The retrospective will feature 150 prints from her work in Philly and elsewhere across the U.S., along with a slideshow of additional images AND -- in a clever ploy to extend the show outside the museum walls -- a series of Strauss' photographs installed on large billboards around the city.
Untrained as a photographer or artist, Strauss first turned to the camera in 2000 and quickly had her first book, America, published in 2008. Her photographic approach seems to match her personality perfectly: tender and harsh, all at the same time (and I mean this as a high compliment). Her images demonstrate an ability to very quickly establish an intimate rapport with her subjects, bringing the viewer a vividly clear depiction of the joys and struggles in their daily world. Strauss' thorough and passionate documentation of the blue collar experience is probably among the most extensive and complete as I've ever seen.

Vanessa, Philadelphia, 2006
© Zoe Strauss

Zoe Strauss: Ten Years
opening Saturday 14 January (running thru 22 April)
Philadelphia Museum of Art
26th St. at Benjamin Franklin Pkwy., Philadelphia

Lastly, Strauss has also contributed her name to the Silverstein Annual, opening this weekend at Bruce Silverstein gallery in NYC, by nominating photographer Katrin Winkler to the show, to join other nominees Raul de la Cruz, Calum Colvin, Ludovica Carbotta, Sebastien Girard, Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs, Ivan Mikhaylov, Nelli Palomaki, Sharon Yaari, and Katja Mater.

© Katrin Winkler

The Silverstein Annual is part of the gallery's efforts to promote emerging photographers. The gallery annually invites ten prominent curators and other art figures to nominate one artist each for the exhibition. Past nominees can be seen here, here, and here.

from the series The Great Unreal
© Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs

Silverstein Annual
opening Saturday 14 January
6-8pm
Bruce Silverstein Gallery
535 W. 24th St., NYC