With exuberant portraits, digital manipulations, nude bodies and conceptual image-objects, The Ravestijn Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands, will present works by Eva Stenram (b. 1976, Sweden), Michael Bailey-Gates (b. 1993, USA), Theis Wendt (b. 1981, Denmark) and Inez & Vindoodh (b. 1963 / 1961, the Netherlands).
Installation view of The Ravestijn Gallery's booth at AIPAD's The Photography Show 2023.
For Eva Stenram, collections of found photographs from the 1960s offer foundations to her own poetic, and similarly elusive, works. Re-examined, removed from their contexts, digitally manipulated, or overwritten in an elusive language of cryptic markings, these images derive new meaning from a host of proposed associations. For her Drape series, Stenram transformed a series of soft pornographic images from vintage pinup magazines – extruding lengths of fabric to swallow up the unknown models, and probing at the viewer’s desire to see what has now been concealed from view.
Drape (Colour II), 2012 © Eva Stenram / courtesy The Ravestijn Gallery
Obscura Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, will devote a solo booth to the work of the late Kurt Markus who passed away in 2022 at the age of 75. Markus had a storied and long career spanning fashion and celebrities, landscape photography, and photographs of cowboys and ranch-hands that evoke the Old West. The recipient of many of American photography’s highest honors, including several Clio Awards and Life magazine’s Alfred Eisenstaedt Award, Markus has also directed music videos and documentaries, written screenplays, and shot advertising campaigns for diverse clients around the world. Markus was working with Christy Turlington on their book, Christy, when he passed right before concluding it.
A rare print by Henri-Cartier Bresson of his most recognizable picture, Rue Mouffetard, Paris 1954, which he gifted to his contemporary, Slim Aarons, will be on view at Michael Hoppen Gallery. The print is for sale for the first time in its history. Cartier-Bresson’s iconic image of the young boy carrying two bottles of wine down the street in Paris is arguably one of the most recognizable photographs of the 20th century. Ironically, Cartier-Bresson made very few prints of this work at the time. The story goes that when Cartier-Bresson was mapping out his book, “Les Européeans,” he met with photographer Slim Aarons in London where they shared an apartment on Clarges Street in Mayfair. Aarons advised Cartier-Bresson that any good book of photographs should start with a wonderful opener, have lots of goodies in the middle, and a fantastic closer. Slim chose Rue Mouffetard to close the book. Underscoring the rarity of the print, Michael Hoppen has researched it with the assistance of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation in Paris and can confirm that surprisingly the Foundation does not have a vintage print of this seminal image in its collection.
Assembly, Houston, TX, will showcase recent work by Los Angeles-based artist Rodrigo Valenzuela from his Weapons series, 2022, the artist’s ongoing investigation into issues of labor, the history of unionization, and the consequences of automation. Art historian, curator, and writer Paula Kupfer has noted, “Through a patina of nostalgic fantasy, Valenzuela’s Weapons offer views of imaginative performances that might take place on a job site once workers depart. Knives, screws, rope, and chains—the tools of many trades—appear reconfigured as sinister phoenixes, ramshackle sculptures, and animistic creatures of dreams.” To make these monumental works, Valenzuela assembles the found-object sculptures and the tableaux, makes and develops photographs, and then screen-prints the images onto canvases that have already been collaged with repurposed time cards and smeared with black ink.
Hans P. Kraus Jr. Inc., New York, NY, will offer a selection of 19th century photographs including work by Talbot, Calvert Jones, Gustave Le Gray, Édouard Baldus, Felix Teynard, Frederick Evans and others. Calvert Jones posed his beloved Pomeranian for this formal portrait. It is part of a small number of recently discovered Calvert Jones daguerreotypes. Only a single daguerreotype confirmed to be by Jones was recorded until last year, when this group appeared. “Calvert Jones (1802-1877) is recognized as one of the most talented and sophisticated of the early photographers. As a competent draughtsman schooled in the rules of perspective and form and as a skilled daguerreotypist, Jones conveyed a vitality to the new medium of photography and an unusually high degree of artistic sensitivity,” writes photography professor and author Larry J. Schaaf.
The first public showing of a powerful series by Arne Svenson on domestic violence will be on view at Robert Klein Gallery, Boston, MA. The Future Passed, an ongoing series begun in 2019, examines incidents of children who were killed by guns, be it accident, suicide or murder. Firearms are now the leading cause of death for children in the U.S. Svenson calls attention to the issue from an unusual vantage point, depicting the houses where the tragedies took place with images made weeks or years before. “My project aims to stir empathy and concern: by seeing where a preventable death will happen, the viewer may be galvanized to circumvent similar occurrences in the place(s) next door,” Svenson writes. A book entitled The Future Passed will be published by Blast Books later this year.
Queer portraiture from the early 20th century through the present day will be on view at CLAMP, New York, NY. Artists will include Mariette Pathy Allen, David Armstrong, Amos Badertscher, Peter Berlin, James Bidgood Jess T. Dugan, Nan Goldin, George Platt Lynes, Meryl Meisler, Mark Morrisroe, PaJaMa (Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French), Lissa Rivera, Curtice Taylor, Arthur Tress, and David Wojnarowicz.
