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American artist Lucinda Devlin rose to fame in the 1990s with a series of soberly observed photographs of execution rooms in US correctional facilities titled “The Omega Suites.” The images caused a sensation at the Venice Biennale in 2001. One of the motifs had already attracted attention in 1992 when it was featured in a controversial advertising campaign for an Italian fashion label. “The Omega Suites” is one of nine photographic series, along with a video, on view in Frames of Reference, the first large-scale survey to be devoted to Lucinda Devlin in Europe.

During the past thirty years, there has emerged throughout America a new kind of urban vision that blends residential/suburban development with large-scale commercial centers. Rolling farmland and country estates that used to surround towns and cities have given way to vast housing developments that feature nearly identical, hastily built mini-mansions with enormous garages and fancy yards. These are the new bedroom communities for middle-class Americans who commute to urban America where the jobs are.

In 1976 the American artist Mike Smith traded in his his Leica for a Linhof Press 23 camera, and moved away from spontaneous street photography to more intimate portraits. He would go on to produce a detailed record of the inhabitants of Boston’s streets in an inclusive, non-judgmental, and yet direct approach. Smith worked with a large camera that got peoples attention and held it long enough for him to complete the related tasks to operate it successfully. “The driving force, above of all, was my whole-hearted embrace of photography as a way of life. As a Vietnam veteran (where I first discovered the medium) at the age of twenty, for the first time, I believed I had a future to pursue.”

On the Basis of Art: 150 Years of Women at Yale showcases and celebrates the remarkable achievements of an impressive roster of women artists who have graduated from Yale University. Presented on the occasion of two major milestones—the 50th anniversary of coeducation at Yale College and the 150th anniversary of the first women students at the University, who came to study at the Yale School of the Fine Arts when it opened in 1869—the exhibition features works drawn entirely from the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery that span a variety of media, such as paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, photography, and video.

Lake Pictures, by Lucinda Devlin, is a wonderful new book that celebrates the variations on a theme of Lake Huron, one of the American Great Lakes. At one level, every picture is the same. A square image, the horizon set in the middle, water below, sky above. But after that, the collection ranges through weather and light to create a type of photo-poem that asks us to hold each image, each memory, in our head as the new variation is revealed.

Lake Pictures is a series of color photographs of Lake Huron, one of the Great Lakes with borders on the state of Michigan and Canada. The pictures--made from the same vantage point during different seasons, times of day or night, and weather conditions--explore the changing character and nature of the lake. There is an interplay of day and season, wind, sun and moonlight upon the reflections and water's surface and the variously colored glows of the atmosphere above.  Precisely bisecting Devlin's square images, the thin line of the horizon suggests the immensity of the space between these two elements, pulling the viewer into the center of the photographs where they converge.

Curator of photography Eric Paddock shared this photo series from artist Gus Powell. Known for his street photography in New York, Powell is observing the new (or not so new) ways city dwellers interact with the city and each other during this time of social distancing.

People are changing their behavior fast to contend with the new coronavirus threat. Those who must still take transit, for example, wonder if avoiding surfaces on trains and buses will help them stay healthy. A survey of about 11,000 people in 11 countries conducted in early February by Britain's Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc, which makes cleaning products under its Lysol brand, found that 44% are avoiding crowds and 29% are staying off public transit. Campaigns from public-health agencies seem to be resonating: 54% said they're washing their hands more often, and 32% are trying not to touch their eys, nose, and mouth. Whether any of the lessons on cleanliness will lead to lasting behavioral changes is perhaps a question for later. (view Gus Powell's photographs from this story here)

“Is this still a red and blue world? I see it as dark as night. Not that it is obscure; rather, it’s opaque.” Eudora Welty, On Writing, 1949. 

Warning Shots by Mike Smith is not an easy book of pleasing pictures from the quaint, rural South. This is not a book filled with hope of a brighter future, at least not at first glance. It is dark as night.

It’s in this darkness of shadow that we see the first person emerge after a dozen photographs into the book. It’s Smith’s shadow cast onto the first few steps of a home whose lawn is decorated by black lawn-jockeys.

Lucinda Devlin (LD): When I was young, I was interested in interior space, and I used to make a lot of mock-ups and models. I used clay, and I made rooms. I'm not sure why, but I had a real interest in that. When I went to college, I thought I would get a degree in interior design. The school I went to did not have an interior design program, so I became an English major with an art minor. It wasn't until the end of my four years of college that I ended up taking a three-dimensional design course. We were expected to do a project that dealt with time, and I chose to use a camera, and really, that was the beginning of my interest in photography.

Jen Davis is included in the current show, "Photography and Memory," at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, through fall 2019.  Many of the pictures displayed in this installation highlight significant monuments, memorials, and landscapes. Some focus on the senses, especially touch and sound. And others connect recollection and imagination. Documentary works jostle alongside wildly experimental ones, and historical images hang next to contemporary counterparts. Viewing these selections offers us a moment to reflect on the nature of memory and its importance to photographers and artists throughout history.

Nina Korhonen has just had a new book published. The photographs in Happy/Brooklyn 1988-93 are from Korhonen’s first photography project. During her time as a photography student in Stockholm she traveled to Brooklyn to visit her grandmother Anna and to tell the story of Finntown, a part of Brooklyn that in those days was inhabited by Finnish immigrants. On the weekends she visited Coney Island, photographing people swimming, adolescents roaming the beach and families on picnic.  “Life and taking photographs were pleasurable, simple and unpretentious. This book is a tribute to all the people I met, and to that which was, which never will be again. Remember.”

Published by Tira Books, Sweden, 2019; soft cover, 128 pages, 19 x 26 cm, Duplex print, English text, $40. 

Gus Powell @dirtywhitebucks, author of The Lonely Ones, introduces a new book and a new book trailer!  FAMILY CAR TROUBLE published by @TBWBooks.  The Limited Pre-Order Edition with automotive details is AVAILABLE NOW.  Link found @FamilyCarTrouble @dirtywhitebucks or Visit www.FamilyCarTrouble.com for all the details and to secure a copy.

With Family Car Trouble, Gus Powell plays with the form of the novel, both as material object and as narrative vehicle for expressing interior life. The work records and reckons with the arrival of children, the departure of a father, and the maintenance of a difficult 1992 Volvo 940 station wagon--a new classic of the Automotive Bereavement Parenting genre.  It’s not for everyone, but it might be for you!

The exhibition “Anna Amerikan mummu” featuring works by Swedish photographer Nina Korhonen will be on view from January 17-February 24 at the Latvian Museum of Photography, Riga. 

According to Korhonen, the show is a story and tribute to her beloved grandmother, Anna. The photographs, made in New York and Lake Worth, Florida between 1993-1999, depict everyday life--sensual, warm, and with much humor. The exhibition is a tribute to an elderly woman who sought a different life and found it. The journey to America had been her grandmother’s dream since she was eight years old and promised to follow her aunt to the great “Wonderland”. Anna was 40 years old, and it was a difficult time in Finland, impossible to find a job. Her husband Kalle had travelled as the chief engineer to all the great ports of the world, now he thought that it was his turn to stay at home. In spring of 1959, Anna realized her life’s dream and alone, with a couple of hundred dollars and no special skills in the English language, she took the airplane to New York. She lived in Brooklyn and worked as a cook in a wealthy family in upper Manhattan. Anna flew to Tampere, Finland every summer and Kalle flew to her in New York every winter. When Kalle died in 1985, Anna gave Nina his camera. A few years later, when she found old colour photographs from their trips, she decided to keep portraying Anna in her own way. She visited Anna regularly for two or three weeks at a time and photographed her in her home and favourite places. Anna called Nina her “back-scrubber,” and Nina listened Anna’s stories and learned about her “Amerikan mummu”. Anna spent 40 years in America. She died from cancer at 83 years old. For the last six years, she had the beloved sunlight all year round. She travelled between her three homes – spring and autumn in New York, summer in Finland and winter in Florida. It was exactly as she had dreamt it would be.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov 8, 2018--Citi Community Development has commissioned famed photographer Gus Powell to create Bring Them Homes: Photographs of Resilience, a 30-image exhibition that shines a light on the perseverance and dynamic stories of veterans that were once homeless or at risk of homelessness. The exhibition, curated by the Citi Fine Art Department, will be open to the public and on display at Citi’s Long Island City Offices, 1 Court Square, from November 8 th through January 30, 2019.

Luova.fi Gallery, Helsinki, Finland 12.10. - 20.12.2018

Nina Korhonen (b. 1961) is known for her strong and respectable images. One of Nina’s most well known photography books, ‘Amerikan Mummu’ won Sweden’s best photography book award in 2004. Nina’s extensive works have attracted audiences to 41 exhibitions around the world. The first exhibition was in the 1989 Raders Art Museum in Denmark and afterwards galleries in, Stockholm, New York, Copenhagen, St. Petersburg, Paris, Istanbul as well as many other cities have become familiar with Nina’s work. Nina’s latest book, Monkey to Monkey, appeared in Spring of 2018. The photos were made as part of Nina’s travels through China over a period of 12 years and the exhibition is dedicated to Nina’s beloved grandfather Kalle Väisänen. “Monkey to Monkey is a fascinating peek through Nina Korhonen’s camera lens documenting the daily lives of Chinese people. The pictures combine the 12-year cycle of Chinese astrology, during which time Korhonen photographed in both China’s major cities and rural areas.”
 

LAND__SCOPE. Photographic works from Roni Horn to Thomas Ruff in the DZ BANK Art Collection, Nov. 30, 2018 – March 31, 2019
This exhibition explores the phenomenon of landscape in contemporary photography. It starts from the notions expressed by Romanticism through its idyllic portrayal of nature, and examines the changes that have occurred in natural and agricultural landscapes and the impacts of urbanization and industrialization on nature. The show will feature around 120 works of art authored by Claudia Angelmaier, Ursula Böhmer, Mona Breede, Lucinda Devlin, William Eggleston, Jochen Gerz, Beate Gütschow, Raphael Hefti, Dan Holdsworth, Carsten Höller, Roni Horn, Axel Hütte, Magdalena Jetelová, Sven Johne, Peter Keetman, Robert Longo, Richard Mosse, Inge Rambow, Heinrich Riebesehl, Thomas Ruff, Adrian Sauer, Stephen Shore, Maria Sewcz, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Anna Vogel.

The Humane Society of New York has awarded its 2018 Humane Medal to Martin Usborne for his outstanding service on behalf of animals. Usborne's deep concern for the abandoned and ravaged hunting dogs of Spain, the Galgos, has resulted in his extraordinary book, Where Huntings Dogs Rest (Kehrer Verlag, 2015). His portraits give his subjects the nobility and stature they deserve, while subtly exposing their cruel and inhuman treatment.

These dog pictures were taken on a Sunday at the dog beach in Fort DeSoto Park in St. Petersburg, Florida. The series is entitled Dog Beach and is part of Tony Mendoza: Cats and Dogs, an exhibition presented by Ohio-based photographer and writer of Cuban descent Tony Mendoza. Carmen, his wife, a Spanish teacher, was attending a one-week Advance Placement Workshop in St. Petersburg. He tagged along, with their dog Bob, a long-haired dachshund who became something of a canine “muse” to the photographer.

The 38th edition of The Photography Show will be held April 5-8, 2018, at Pier 94, NYC. More than 100 of the world’s leading fine art photography galleries will present a range of museum-quality work including contemporary, modern, and 19th century photographs, photo-based art, video, and new media. The Show will open with a vernissage on April 4, 2018.

Lee Marks Fine Art, Booth #510, will present A Flower Show, with photographs by Andrew Borowiec, Wendy Burton, Mariana Cook, Jen Davis, Lucinda Devlin, Nina Korhonen, Tony Mendoza, Gus Powell, Mike Smith, and Martin Usborne.  

GRAM’s exhibition Tony Mendoza: Cats and Dogs, presents photographs by this Ohio-based photographer and writer of Cuban descent. Among the eighteen-works included are black and white images from his 1985 project, Ernie: A Photographer’s Memoir, which features a photogenic feline Mendoza encountered upon moving to a new apartment, as well as color images from the series Dog Beach, and Bob, named for a dachshund who became something of a canine “muse” to the photographer. Mendoza’s images combine an animal-lovers’ focus on a subjects’ behavior and personality with a photographer’s attention to composition, light, and movement.

Trenton, N.J. – Mercer County Community College’s (MCCC's) James Kerney Campus Gallery (JKCG) announces the opening of “Eleven Years,” an exhibit by internationally recognized photographer Jen Davis that explores body image, identity and relationships. This highly personal, yet universally-themed, show runs from Thursday, Jan. 25 through Thursday, Feb. 22.

Since the publication of my first monograph, Eleven Years, I found that most of what I wanted to say in this self-portrait series had been said, and I was interested in taking a break from the intensity of looking at my own body. A physical transformation became the underlying theme of this series, which is what lead me away from myself. I began to make photographs of both female and male body builders whose identities are defined through the physical form of their bodies.

Nina Korhonen's renowned series and book of photographs about her grandmother, Anna American Mummu, will be on exhibition in Korhonen's native town (Tampere, Finland) where Anna began her journey to America.  The exhibition will be at the Tampere Art Museum, September 9-October 29, 2017 and is part of the Backlight Festival and Finland's 100-year celebration.

Lucinda Devlin's current exhibition at the Eastman Museum, Rochester, is on view until 31 December 2017.  Read a review by Rebecca Rafferty at the Rochester City Newspaper here.

Selections from three series by photographer Lucinda Devlin are featured in this exhibition at the George Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York: Pleasure Ground (1977-90), Corporal Arenas (1982-98). and The Omega Suites ((1991-97). Best known for The Omega Suites--precisely composed images of execution chambers in the United States--Devlin has devoted her career to exploring the relationship between our bodies and the spaces that they inhabit. She has concentrated in particular on interiors associated with pleasure or pain, creating photographs that draw attention to the power relationships embedded in a room's architecture and decor. At the same time, her photographs function as poignant meditations on the familiar yet extraordinary spaces in which our bodies pass time.  The exhibition will be on view from June 24-December 31, 2017.

In conversation with Curator-in-Charge at the George Eastman Museum, Lisa Hostetler, Devlin will discuss her work on view in Sightlines, Friday, June 23 @ 6pm, Dryden Theatre.

On May 30th Ivorypress (Madrid) will present Lifeline, the first solo exhibition in Spain of photographer Mariana Cook, which will also be included in PHotoEspana's Festival Off. The exhibition features forty photographs selected from hundreds of images that Cook made between 1999 and 2015 as part of her "Close at Hand" series, for which she made one photograph every day of objects, forms and light abstractions that moved her. In conjunction with this exhibition, Ivorypress has published Lifeline, a volume containing all the works presented in the exhibition, with an introduction by the world-renowned poet Jorie Graham.  The exhibition will be open to the public until 15 July 2017.

Fifteen portraits by Mariana Cook will be featured at Wolfson College, Oxford University, England. Cook's Wolfson portraits include past and current college presidents Isaiah Berlin and Hermione Lee, the scientist Marcus Lu Sautoy, the pianist Alfred Brendel, the classicist Mary Beard, and the former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, among others. The exhibition will be on view May 27 through December 31, 2017.

In an extended interview in Urbanautica, when asked about his influences, Borowiec replied: "Most of all, however, I've been influenced by the great French photographer Eugene Atget. Seeing the four exhibitions of his work that John Szarkowski organized at MOMA in the 1980s was a turning point for me. I think you can learn everything you need to know about photography just from looking at Atget. Taken as a whole, his pictures are like a great, epic Nineteenth Century novel--by turns beautiful, lyrical, informative, philosophical, comical, visually surprising, and always informed by Atget's intelligence and understanding of his subject's meaning in its full breadth and complexity."

With an expanded program of exhibitions and events, The Photography Show will be held March 30 – April 2, 2017, in its new location at Pier 94. More than 115 galleries from around the world will offer contemporary, modern, and 19th century photographs as well as photo-based art, video, and new media. Presented by AIPAD (the Association of International Photography Art Dealers), the 37th edition of the Show will commence with a Vernissage on  Wednesday, March 29. One of the world’s most highly-anticipated annual art fairs, the Show is the longest-running and foremost exhibition dedicated to the photographic medium. 

Lucinda Devlin's photographs, in her retrospective exhibition at the Weatherspoon Art Musem, Greensboro, NC, serve as social commentaries on timely and socially relevant issues such as personal rights, the death penalty, and agribusiness. An internationally recognized American photographer who now lives in Greensboro, Devlin began her career in the 1970s during the genesis of color photography in America. At the time, she took up not only color photography, but also the artistic approach that she continues to this day, one that emphasizes an objective or neutral point of view. Devlin also discovered her preferred subject matter: psychologically charged spaces absent of any human figures yet nonetheless signaling contemporary public and private life. Her earliest series, Pleasure Ground, featured droll images of thematic hotel rooms. Subsequent series (Habitats, Subterranea, Corporal Arenas, Field Culture, and Lake Pictures) have continued to probe the meaning of place at such sites as zoos and amusement parks, tanning salons and health spas, hospitals and funeral homes, agricultural facilities and open fields, and lastly, Lake Huron's shoreline. Her most provocative and best known series, The Omega Suites (so named after the final letter of the Greek alphabet), proffered emotive images of sterile execution chambers and the apparatuses associated with them. 

New works by Mike Smith, photography professor in the Department of Art & Design at Eastern Tennessee State University. Retiring this year, 2017, Mike has been teaching and mentoring students since 1981. Parting Shots is on view January 3-March 20, 2017 at the Reece Museum, ETSU. A reception will be held on Thursday, January 26 from 5 to 7 p.m.