Art
LuLu as Loretta (Union Square)
13.10.13 | 02:17 •
My good friend LuLu LoLo as Loretta, the Operator, a performance for Art In Odd Places, on 14th and 7th ave.
Invitation to a Beheading (Brooklyn Museum of Art)
07.10.13 | 02:10 •
Viewing Martyrdom of Saints Cosmas and Damian with their Three Brothers in the Beaux Arts Court of BMA.
Matt in His Studio
14.09.13 | 01:49 •
Photographed some of my former studiomate Matthew Northridge’s sculptures in his studio in Sunset Park.
LuLu on Union Square
16.07.13 | 23:14 •
Had a photoshoot with my good friend LuLu LoLo who is creating a performance piece for Art in Odd Places in October.
Brooklyn Museum
07.04.13 | 22:15 •
Went to First Saturdays and saw the inspiring El Anatsui show. Highly recommended. From trash to beautiful sculptural tapestries.
Christopher Walken (Bushwick)
05.11.12 | 23:02 •
The whole time I was photographing artist John Codling’s work, I had his fun sculpture of Christopher Walken laughing at me.
Louis Kahn Catalog
02.11.12 | 22:53 •
The Vitra Design Museum’s Louis Kahn catalog is out. Many of my images of Kahn’s sketches and drawings are featured. The show, Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture, is on view at the Netherlands Architecture Institute, then will travel to Germany’s Vitra Design Museum in March of 2013. And if you missed it, Kahn’s posthumous Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, was just dedicated on Roosevelt Island. Hopefully it survived the tidal surge of Sandy.
New Alex Katz Catalog
22.10.12 | 22:46 •
The Essl Museum has produced another Alex Katz catalog for his exhibition. My artwork photography is featured inside as well as on the cover.
Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden
13.10.12 | 20:46 •
Above, the museum with sculpture garden in foreground. Below are a few shots looking through Dan Graham’s For Gordon Bunshaft.
Alex Katz Catalog
12.08.12 | 19:03 •
Colby Museum of Art has produced a beautiful catalog to accompany the recently opened show, Alex Katz: Maine/New York. About half of its pages feature my photographs of Alex’s work.
Fraternity
08.08.12 | 22:12 •
Fraternity from Richard Mosse on Vimeo.
Richard Mosse, an artist who uses a photojournalistic style to create photographs and videos, made Fraternity at Yale’s Delta Kappa Epsilon in 2011. DKE’s alumnae include 5 presidents: G.W. Bush, George Bush, Sr., Gerald Ford, and Teddy Roosevelt. The video, Mosse explains, was shot in under an hour and “The men were happy to participate in the project in exchange for a keg of beer. They compete against each other to shout or scream the loudest and for the longest time. When they cannot scream any longer they must stop, and cannot begin again.”
Coca Cola Adds Life
20.06.12 | 22:39 •
A few of my favorite photographs seen through a pair of Mexican coke bottles. Above, a Garry Winogrand. Below: Bill Brandt and two by Carlo Molino.
Art and Guavas (FDR)
17.06.12 | 23:26 •
While snarled in traffic on the FDR, I saw this season from the passenger seat of our Prius. A kind of Saul Steinberg conceptual piece next to what looks like the remains of partially eaten guavas and watermelons.
War Photography by Armchair
11.06.12 | 13:49 •
It looks like a Matthew Brady image from the Civil War, but it’s acutally an entirely fictional landscape captured by Irish photographer Karl Burke. What he’s done is converted color screenshots from inside the multiplayer video game Battlefield 2 (altered by Project Reality) and converted them into tintypes. The landscapes with burning tanks and wasted corpses are reminiscent of scenes from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, only the dead in these are virtual. It’s a very interesting project, linking the history of war photography with new meta-experiences of violence. The romantic, static quality of the images removes us from the adrenaline rush and horror of real war. It underscores how war, too, has become just another aesthetic product to be consumed by both civilians and veterans alike. The original story appeared in the NYT’s Lens Blog here.
Katz Studio (SoHo)
16.05.12 | 22:25 •
Alex Katz remains as busy as ever. His new figurative work appears to be some of his best ever. I was at the artist’s studio to photograph work from his White Rose series for a show later this year at Gavin Brown.
Agave Series on Art Site
27.04.12 | 18:15 •
Louis Kahn's Drawings
27.03.12 | 23:07 •
I spent a few days photographing Louis Kahn’s drawings and paintings for a September show at the Vitra Design Museum in Germany. Kahn has always been one of my favorite architects. He was a man who did not see success until his fifties. He dreamed large and designed for the spirit rather than the petty needs of the marketplace. If you haven’t seen My Architect, rent it tonight. It is a fantastic documentary on the artist’s inspired projects and complicated love life, a very moving portrait made by his youngest child. The photos here document paintings of Egypt made in the early 50s, with a self-portrait (almost cubist) sketch from 1949, and a 1929 landscape of the Amalfi coast.
Two New Monographs with my Art Photography
17.02.12 | 23:06 •
Two art catalogues were just published featuring a lot of my artwork photography: Irving Kriesberg: Animal Narratives and Alex Katz: Naked Beauty. More about the shows and catalogues: Kriesberg, Katz (Jung + Wenig’s book design, video interview).
Downtown Brooklyn
11.02.12 | 23:03 •
Near the Transit Museum, Max and I found this mural that seemed created just in time for Valentine’s Day: All Is Fare in Love & Brooklyn.
LuLu (Union Square)
03.08.11 | 22:45 •
Yesterday in the sweltering heat, I photographed my friend LuLu LoLo as a dandy of yesteryear who offered Union Square passerbys “a tip of his hat.” This is part of LuLu’s performance for this year’s Art in Odd Places, which will take place around 14th Street, Union Square this October 1st-10th.
Union Square
03.08.11 | 22:40 •
A lot of activity on Union Square when I was walking back to the subway. A sand painter was busy on his hands and knees and a crowd gathered around to watch and take pictures and videos (mostly of themselves with the art in the background). Somebody was even making a music video.
Washer and Color Checker
05.06.11 | 21:06 •
Katz Studio
29.04.11 | 23:54 •
Photographed a new set of Alex’s paintings. Above is 3 Dancers with Don, one of Alex’s assistants prepping the cartoon drawing for shooting.
Monument to Andy (Union Square)
14.04.11 | 22:48 •
There’s a new statue of Andy Warhol right near his old studio, what is now Barnes & Noble, on 17th Street and Union Square.
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Anniversary (Village)
20.03.11 | 15:40 •
This Friday, March 25 is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the city’s worst fire which claimed the lives of 146 garment workers, primarily young immigrant women, many just teenagers. I’ve written about this before because I’ve participated in artist Ruth Sergel’s annual chalking art project, Chalk, which asks volunteers to write the names of the deceased in front of the brownstones, tenements, and other buildings where these women lived at the time of their deaths. All week long, the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition is sponsoring events commemorating the fire. An HBO movie is set to be broadcast. A parade will take place at 11am by the site of the fire on Washington and Greene, now NYU’s Brown Building. Books, lectures, union talks, and on an on. A big deal, especially at a time when unions are being mightily threatened by Republicans all across the U.S. My good friend LuLu LoLo has also been performing excerpts from her solo show, Soliloquy for a Seamstress. In her one act play, LuLu dramatizes the tragedy through the life of Sara Saracino, a young seamstress who grew up not far from LuLu’s home in East Harlem. In three scenes, she plays Sara’s mother, Sara from the time she learns of the fire breaking out to the moment she jumps, and an William Gunn Shepherd, The World reporter who broadcast news of the unfolding fire. Some photos from her performance in front of the NYU Brown Building on Saturday follow.
Katz Studio (SoHo)
18.03.11 | 21:17 •
LuLu & Dan (East Harlem)
24.02.11 | 23:09 •
We made a family visit to LuLu LoLo and Dan Evans’ townhouse on E. 116th Street, aka East Pascale Street, named in honor of LuLu’s father, Pete Pascale. Out back is Dan’s chapel, a beautiful, spiritual place full of mementos, bells, and the fresh scent of wood. Below is a detail of one of Dan’s iconic monochrome paintings celebrating the films of Raymond Chandler. You can read more about LuLu and Dan and their art museum-like house in this NYT’s piece from last August.
A Paper Motorcycle (Prospect Heights)
25.10.10 | 23:31 •
My studiomate, Matthew Northridge, an amazing sculptor, created this stunning retro motorcycle entirely out of paper products--construction paper, foamcore--and some bits of wood here and there. It’ll be appearing in a Bergdorf Goodman holiday window very soon.
And on the left side, the side away from the window display, you can see some of the hidden interior:
LMCC Open Studios (Wall Street)
20.10.10 | 18:38 •
It was a night of beards. Sadly mine was to scruffy to compare. A few of my LMCC 2007-8 fellow residents came out for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Open Studios evening, from left to right: Mike Estabrook, Clive Murphy, and John Talbird.
Alex Katz Catalogs
28.09.10 | 21:26 •
Two more catalogs featuring my art reproduction photography were published recently: Alex Katz: New Work by the Farnsworth Museum and Alex Katz, Vincent Katz Poems by the Luciana Brito Gallery in Sao Paolo. On the top left is the exhibition card for the Brito Gallery show.
Decommissioned (Governors Island)
05.09.10 | 23:59 •
Governors Island is now a primo tourist destination for the artsy international crowd. With its art installations, open spaces, cheap bike rentals, fantastic views, hammocks, great food, and free ferry, it’s a no brainer for a weekend visit, especially if you have kids. More about the arts here, here, and here.
Queens Museum Diorama (Flushing Meadows)
27.08.10 | 22:52 •
Homage to Escher (Prospect Heights)
07.05.10 | 20:58 •
Henri Cartier-Bresson Retrospective at MOMA
08.04.10 | 14:34 •
The photographer who took some of the most influential photographs of the 20th Century (and made the word Leica a household name) is having a giant posthumous retrospective at MOMA. This photo, taken in April of 1945, though less artful and more strictly photojournalistic, is one which has always resonated with me. Besides the explosive emotion, there’s a novel’s worth of content which can be extrapolated from the scene. For those of us who were schooled in the decisive moment street photography aesthetic, HCB is a god. His genius was not only in his timing, but in his distance. Asked once about what inspired him to trip the shutter when he did, he said, I’m paraphrasing, “La géometrie.” True, but like Bach who pretended that all his compositions were nothing more than mathematical variations, form is clearly married to passion throughout HCB’s work. What makes the show, which opens Sunday, a real treat is that many never before seen photos will be on view, some of which are included on the HCB, The Modern Century’s web preview.
Twins (Woodstock)
25.03.10 | 00:54 •
An image rediscovered from 5 years ago when testing out Adobe’s new Lightroom 3 beta, which is fantastic btw.
Mouse Trail Art
24.03.10 | 23:49 •
ABC No Rio Opening (L.E.S.)
21.03.10 | 22:52 •
Fellow artist, Fred Fleisher, was part of the giant 7th Biennial at ABC No Rio which opened on Friday night. Also featured were a couple of artists from my LMCC residency, Mike Estabrook and Nanna Debois Buhl.
Pierrot, Salt, Pepper
27.01.10 | 22:02 •
A bunch of salt and pepper packets came with my egg and bacon on a roll. Interestingly, they were about the size of the thumbnails on my Pierrot 2.0 promo card.
The Straitjacket
21.01.10 | 22:28 •
My friends LuLu LoLo and Dan Evans are staging a production of The Straitjacket, a fictionalized play about Emily Dickinson in the Metropolitan Playhouse’s Another Sky program on American women writers.
Alex Katz Studio (SoHo)
16.12.09 | 21:40 •
Finishing up my last shoot of the year, I discovered some scaled-down maquettes of paintings used to design an upcoming exhibition of Alex Katz’s work.
Irving Kriesberg, 1919-2009
17.11.09 | 11:06 •
Lie Detector Test (NSB)
31.10.09 | 23:38 •
Many gigabytes of my video, sound, and body data were recorded by artist Paulette Phillips in Room 17 at Atlantic Center for the Arts. Ever the cruel sadist, Paulette forced us to tell lies under threat of high-voltage electronic shock as we were strapped naked to a medieval chair. Do I lie? I lie. A really interesting art project actually, and I was glad to be data harvested.
ACA Inside and Out (NSB)
30.10.09 | 23:49 •
Composer-musicians, Terri Hron, Sergei Tcherepnin, Cecilia Lopez, and David Kant performed on the open studios night at Atlantic Center for the Arts
Mein Baaden Meinhof
18.10.09 | 23:52 •
Coincidentally, I was looking through a catalog raisonée of Gerhard Richter's work on the 32nd anniversary of the biggest events of the German Autumn on October 18, 1977. I am returning to a novel which takes some of its inspiration from the tragic, misplaced angst of the RAF.
Irving Kriesberg's Palette
06.10.09 | 22:53 •
A blurred closeup of Irving Kriesberg's oil paint palette. More about the 90-year old artist, whose work I have been documenting, in future posts.
Studio Finally Ready to Rock and Roll
23.08.09 | 22:56 •
Another Digital Manipulation Controversy
21.08.09 | 13:18 •
LuLu's Final Bow (Astor Place)
19.08.09 | 12:24 •
38 Witnessed Her Death
13.08.09 | 23:25 •
LuLu & Dan (Robert Moss Theater)
13.08.09 | 23:24 •
New Suburban Geometries Images (Santa Maria)
10.08.09 | 23:57 •
Art in Odd Places 2009 Benefit (East Village)
28.07.09 | 22:47 •
LuLu as a Newsboy on 14th Street
28.07.09 | 22:41 •
Gandhi Statue (Union Square)
28.07.09 | 22:39 •
Graffiti Art (Prospect Heights)
03.07.09 | 22:15 •
Soapbox Gallery (Prospect Heights)
07.06.09 | 00:14 •
Dennis Oppenheim Opening (LES)
04.06.09 | 23:26 •
Grafitti (LES)
04.06.09 | 23:25 •
Recent Published Work
03.06.09 | 23:44 •
New Studio
01.06.09 | 23:21 •
38 Witnessed Her Death...
24.05.09 | 22:29 •
Scintillation
21.05.09 | 21:56 •
POTUS Sculpture (Borem Hill)
27.03.09 | 23:49 •
Homage to Nadar Project
07.03.09 | 23:12 •
Suburban Geometry Series (Santa Maria)
12.02.09 | 02:33 •
"Blow Out," 2009
15.01.09 | 23:27 •
Painting in the Window
20.12.08 | 01:08 •
Speaking of Books...
19.12.08 | 23:17 •
Alex Katz in His Studio
10.10.08 | 23:44 •
LMCC Custom House Reading
18.09.08 | 23:32 •
Photos of Photos
10.09.08 | 23:51 •
Final Reading of LMCC Residency
03.09.08 | 22:13 •
Another Pierrot Test
07.08.08 | 10:42 •
Pierrot Redux
05.08.08 | 23:43 •
Buddha Project
29.07.08 | 10:50 •
Statue of Liberty and Eliason Waterfall
28.07.08 | 22:51 •
Me & Muna
22.07.08 | 10:57 •
The Americans Turns 50!
20.05.08 | 22:53 •
LMCC Open Hours
29.03.08 | 23:00 •
Montgomery Mall (Hommage to Ragubir Singh)
08.03.08 | 21:44 •
Framing—what else is street photography about? Windows within windows. Rectangles within rectangles. A grid of views. A bento box of subjects.
Raghubir Singh, who took the above picture, is my favorite Indian photographer. He made a great book of pictures called A Way into India, which featured the Ambassador, India's ubiquitous version of the VW, as object and frame for his peregrinations through his colorful homeland. Check out some of his pictures here.
Propaganda Photos: Which Came First—Chicken or Egg?
24.10.07 | 15:41 •
If you haven't been following Errol Morris' indefatigable research into which of Roger Fenton's two pictures of the Valley of the Shadow of Death came first, it is definitely worth a read (part1, part2, part3). Like a one-manned JFK assassination inquiry, Morris tries to refute Susan Sontag's claim that the photo with the canon balls on the road was staged, "a fake." This whole subject is fascinating for photographers like me who strive to document reality, but know that aesthetics often trump when the subject is mundane. Here are the two photos in question. Now, which was shot first and why?
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Bill Sullivan MTA
23.01.07 | 23:52 •