Assignment #3

Sotheby's Contemporary Art Auction

Today I attended the Sotheby's Contemporary Art Auction just 5 blocks down the street from my apartment. I passed Sotheby's last night on my way home and remembered that there was going to be an auction today. I arrived at the auction as they were auctioning off Lot 8 which was a circular painting on canvas by Lee Bontecou that went for $170, 500. I was blown away, a painting the size of a medium size pizza gets auctioned off in less than 10 minutes for $170,500.

The Sotheby's building is 10 stories high. I went to the 7th floor for the auction and worked my way down to the main floor. Each floor represented a different style of art (Americana, jewelry, more Contemporary art , etc.) that will be auctioned off within weeks. On October 1, there is an exhibit of photography ranging from Atget, Robert Frank, Eadward Weston, Ansel Adams, and other contemporary artist. The work will be auctioned off October 6th. Earlier this year, an original Ansel Adams print auctioned for $722,500 breaking the previous record for $$609,600.

Assignment #2

Light Travels in a Straight Line, the Angle of Incident Equals the Reflection and the Inverse Square Law.

Gallery Openings in Chelsea

I attended a few gallery openings last night in Chelsea prior to the tornado rushing through Brooklyn. I was under the impression that only a few of the galleries would have openings but I soon found out that was not correct. The highlight of the night was Laura Letinsky's new work titled After All that was on exhibit at Yancey Richardson Gallery. The show consisted of a mixture of primarily Chromogenic and 3 Inkjet prints made on Hahnemuhle paper. The work is darker and slightly more graphic. I asked her in a talk hosted by the BFA Photo program at SVA what is was that has inspired her to work with a darker palette and she responded saying that her latest child caused her to stay home and work later than earlier work. I was very impressed with the Hahnemuhle prints, very soft and the whites in her pictures were spot on.

On the 3rd floor of the same building Letinsky's work was in, the nigh time photographs of Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao were on exhibit in the Julie Saul Gallery. I must say the prints were too large for the amount of space in the gallery so I was not able to enjoy them as much as I wanted too considering the amount of people who had showed up.

As the night went on, I stumbled into one of my favorite gallery in the area, Bruce Silverstein. The show titled Beyond Color: Color in American Photography, 1950-1970
showed work from artists such as Harry Callahan, Garry Winogrand and many other. The 9 Callahan photographs were in 5 separate sizes along a wall dedicated to only his work of signs and mannequins in storefronts.

In the Marianne Boesky Gallery gallery, bronze tree branches were on exhibit from the artist Jay Heikes. His delicate bronze branches looked as if they were going to snap but discovered that was not going to happen after the 3rd or 4th person who tripped over the piece laying in the floor.

1st Assignment

2ft

4ft

8ft

16ft

Gray Card Scale

White card, Gray card and Black card Assignment

~ TeSt TRiAL ~

First Week of School

I am currently a Photography and Video Related Media major at School of Visual Arts. I just completed my first week of Orientation. At first I felt like I was a freshman in undergraduate school after I was asked if I was going to attend the pajama party on Monday night. I must say I have never attended a pajama party but if I were a freshman, I could see how that might be fun. I have learned that even as a Graduate student, it is not easy walking into a program as intimidating as SVA.

I am honored that I am attending this school and I continue to pinch myself to make sure this is not a dream. I attended as many guest artist lectures this week as I did my entire term at E.T.S.U. I must say we had some amazing artists visit E.T.S.U. such as Tod Papageorge, Abelardo Morell, Laura Latinsky, Andrea Modica and a few others.

This week at school I attended talks from Sylvia Plachy, Shelly Silver, Brian Palmer, Maureen Drennan, Allison Kaufman, and Alison Brady. I did’t necessarily like all of these artists work but I did take something from each of their talks and will apply it to my work and habits.

I have been getting grief (all in good humor) over the Master Critique professor I have this semester. Carlier P. Schorr is quite the popular instructor to have for critique. I guess I got so luck because I was like the 3rd or 4th student to sign up for classes. I figured the good classes would go quick so that is why I chose to jump on that ASAP.