The Arlington Arts Center’s upcoming juried photo and video show is entitled IMAGE/PROJECT.  The AAC received entries from across the nation—from New York, to Chicago, to Los Angeles, and all points in-between. From that pool, internationally recognized artist Taryn Simon selected thirteen artists working in photography and five video artists to be featured in our galleries. The show will open on Friday, November 20, with a reception from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm. The event is free and open to the public.

List of finalists: Morgan Ashcom (Free Union, VA); Leslie Awender (Topanga, CA); Jason Burch (Jersey City, NJ); Judith Connell (Falls Church, VA); Elizabeth Crisman (Baltimore, MD); David Hartwell and Josef Jacques (San Francisco, CA); Jason Havneraas (Brooklyn, NY); Linda Hesh (Alexandria, VA); Jaime Kennedy and Kelly Urquhart (Kent, OH); Alma Leiva (Miami, FL); Karen Ludlam (Brooklyn, NY); Jeroen Nelemans (Chicago, IL); Minou Norouzi (Los Angeles, CA); Nicholas O’Brien (Chicago, IL); Adam Pape (Chicago, IL); Laurie Rubin (Chicago, IL); Michael Wallace (Cleveland, OH)

http://www.arlingtonartscenter.org/aacnetwork/finalists-imageproject-announced

Also visit www.northernvirginiahouses.com.

Taryn Simon takes the most beautiful photos, and they really makes sense when she tells the story behind them. So take a 17 minute break and feel inspired… Clik here!!

In July, photographer Taryn Simon gave a TED talk about her project The Innocents, a  touring exhibit and book of portraits focusing on people wrongly convicted of crimes, mostly through photographic misidentification. Simon’s talk is spectacular; her insight into the use of photographs in criminal investigations is startling and demonstrates a disturbing bias in the way law enforcement officials sometimes steer victims toward identifying their assailants. Simon sums the issue up nicely in the forward of The Innocents:

The criminal justice system had failed to recognize the limitations of relying on photographic images.

Simon notes that memory is malleable– it can easily be influenced (intentionally or unintentionally) by sources other than photography, especially composite sketches and lineups. Take this example Simon presents in her talk:

A woman was raped and presented with a series of photographs from which to identify her attacker. She saw some similarities in the first photo, but couldn’t quite make a positive identification. Days later, she’s presented with another photo array of all new photographs– except that one photo that she had some draw to from the earlier array is repeated in the second array, and a positive identification is made, because the photo replaced the memory, if there ever was an actual memory.”

In many of these cases profiled by Simon, the accused individual had a solid alibi confirmed by multiple witnesses– yet identification by the victim took precedence in the courtroom. In other cases, damning factors beside photographic misidentification work against the wrongfully convicted– such as in the case of Frederick Day, an African-American man who was convicted of rape by an all-white jury, despite an alibi confirmed by thirteen people. Simon’s work, sponsored by The Innocence Project, highlights significant flaws in the criminal justice system that have led many innocent men and woman to long terms of imprisonment, and sometimes even execution.

Check out some of Simon’s photographs below alongside the stories of the wrongfully convicted:

Who: Tim Durham

Where: skeet shooting, Tulsa, Oklahoma

What: 11 alibi witnesses placed Durham at a skeet-shooting competition at the time of the crime. Served 3.5 years of a 3,220 year sentence for rape and robbery

When: 2002

Who: Charles Irvin Fain

Where: the Snake River in Melba, Idaho, where he allegedly kidnapped, raped, and murdered a young girl walking to school. When it was discovered he was wrongfully convicted, authorities learned that Fain had never even been to the location before.

What: Served 18 years for murder, rape, and kidnapping

When: 2002

To learn more about Taryn Simon and her current project, An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, visit her website. All photographs © Taryn Simon.

]]> http://aussiegall.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/an-interesting-podcast-from-taryn-simon/ Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:35:18 +0000 aussiegall http://aussiegall.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/an-interesting-podcast-from-taryn-simon/

I came across a great podcast by an American photographer, Taryn Simon. She was doing a lecture for TED
“Taryn Simon exhibits her startling take on photography – to reveal worlds and people we would never see otherwise. She shares two projects: one documents otherworldly locations typically kept secret from the public, the other involves haunting portraits of men convicted for crimes they did not commit.”

She has been able to get into places that the normal person would not have access to. I am definitely considering purchasing her book just so I can see all her images.

If you have a spare 17 minutes I recommend that you watch it. very interesting.
IF THE EMBEDDED VIDEO DOESN”T WORK CLICK HERE. as TED seems to be having some glitches

Taryn Simon has been on my radar for the last four to five years, ever since she first came to my attention at the first photo-london held in 2004 where the Gagosian Gallery showed a couple of her portraits from The Innocents series. At the time I was struck by the quality of her work, conceptually and aesthetically. Now you can catch Taryn Simon on video from her July 23, 2009 lecture at TEDGlobal 2009.

© photo of Taryn Simon from interview spread in foam magazine, No. 12 Talent issue

In this talk: “Taryn Simon exhibits her startling take on photography — to reveal worlds and people we would never see otherwise. She shares two projects: one documents otherworldly locations typically kept secret from the public, the other involves haunting portraits of men convicted for crimes they did not commit. With a large-format camera and a knack for talking her way into forbidden zones, Taryn Simon photographs portions of the American infrastructure inaccessible to its inhabitants.”

Sit back, relax, get yourself a drink (whatever your tipple) and take the time to watch and listen to this lecture. It’s 17 mins long and absolutely worth the time.

Follow this link Taryn Simon photographs secret sites – the comments are worth reading also.

The photograph of Tim Durham Skeet shooting, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 2002. 11 alibi witnesses placed Durham at a skeet-shooting competition at the time of the crime. Served 3.5 years of a 3,220 year sentence for Rape and Robbery, (scroll to the end of the page to see this photo) and other portraits from the series haunted me. And, as I delved deeper I discovered, to my delight, that the entire body of work was just as  compelling.

Simon was nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2009 for her next body of work An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar and, although she stood an outside chance, I hoped she’d pick up the prize. Paul Graham was odds on to win – and did. I reviewed her book An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, which I highly recommend.

I also interviewed Simon for a feature which was published in the Danish Journal of Photography & Video KATALOG (published by the Museet for Fotokunst). Simon was engaging, astute and a pleasure to interview. If you haven’t heard of Simon, or know only a little, then I urge you to take this opportunity to watch this clip.

Esse ensaio é sobre pessoas que foram presas por crimes que não cometeram.

Taryn Simon no TED
A fotógrafa Taryn Simon, autora do livro ‘An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar‘ comenta algumas das fotografias deste seu trabalho e de um outro chamado ‘Inocence’.
O trabalho desta fotógrafa, e particularmente ‘American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar’, foca-se essencialmente no não visto, aquilo que está por trás das nossas vidas e quotidiano. É um dos livros na minha wish list da Amazon.

TMC + Kodak Film Grant
Para aqueles fotógrafos que ainda usam filme o sítio Too Much Chocolate e a Kodak estão a organizar um pequeno concurso cujo objectivo é fornecer aos dez fotógrafos vencedores a quantidade necessária de filma para começar ou terminar um projecto pessoal que terá que estar finalizado até 2010.

Cinza
Às vezes a internet tem a capacidade de nos surpreender pelos piores motivos mas ainda existem linhas de texto que nos fazem ter esperança numa internet melhor, blogues mais interessantes e inteligentes. O ‘a barriga de um arquitecto‘ teve exactamente essa capacidade de me emocionar num texto marcada e assumidademente pessoal, absolutamente tocante de honestidade e sinceridade. O Daniel tem esse condão de nos emocionar num texto inteligente e que nos desarma por completo, tão surpreendente quando belo. Senti a dor do Daniel como se fosse minha e isso é algo que não posso dizer de muitos textos que leio, não esperava que um texto lido num ecrã de computador e escrito para a rede glogal e social ainda pudesse surpreender, quanto mais agarrar no leitor assim como este o conseguiu fazer comigo. Um texto surpreendentemento belo e tocante, ao Daniel apenas posso lamentar à distância a(s) sua(s) perda(s).

Polaroid Last picture show
A partir de 9 de Outibro vai estar patente na Atlas Gallery uma exposição com fotografias em suporte Polaroid.

To mark the film’s final use-by, or expiration, date, ‘Polaroid: Exp 09.10.09’ at the Atlas Gallery in London brings together artists as diverse as the Hungarian-born fashion photographer and photojournalist André Kertész and the provocative Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki, as well as a number of contemporary British artists, including Marc Quinn, commissioned specially for the show. And of course Andy Warhol, who shot Polaroids as preparatory sketches for his paintings of subjects such as Bianca Jagger and Muhammad Ali.

Taryn Simon exhibits her startling take on photography — to reveal worlds and people we would never see otherwise. She shares two projects: one documents otherworldly locations typically kept secret from the public, the other involves haunting portraits of men convicted for crimes they did not commit.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the “Sixth Sense” wearable tech, and “Lost” producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

In the following lecture from TED, Taryn Simon exposes the audience to several sites in governmental and scientific institutions that the general public would rarely obtain clearance to visit. She then progresses into a series of stories where the demarkation between the use of photography as a documenting media and a tool for fabrication are blurred. In the past, photography was relied upon to provide evidence of fact (events, locations and objects), however, with contemporary computer technology, photography can used to manipulate our perception of the past through the fabrication of false evidence. As a result of this, our reliance on photographic evidence must reevaluated in order to minimize it’s use in, or impact on, critical decisions such as the series of trials where its misuse resulted in unjust incarcerations as emphasized in the presentation.

From TED:

Taryn Simon exhibits her startling take on photography — to reveal worlds and people we would never see otherwise. She shares two projects: one documents otherworldly locations typically kept secret from the public, the other involves haunting portraits of men convicted for crimes they did not commit.

The first time I saw Taryn Simon’s work was at a giant sweaty party in Queens, New York. Thank Jesus I remembered to jot down her name on my way out.
When I got back to Toronto, I went on Amazon and bought her The Innocents for $20. One of the best purchases I’ve ever made next to Jeff Burton’s Dreamland on sale near NYU.

From The Innocents:
An informant claimed to have heard Washington confess. He was wrongfully accused served 13 years of a life sentence for murder.

Calvin Washington
C&E Motel, Room No. 24, Waco, Texas
2002

Taryn’s latest work from 2006 is called An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar and has been travelling around the world, showing in some of the most prominent galleries in the world. The series documents strange and rarely seen American spaces that are controversial but integral to American industry and culture.

The National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR) is the only facility in the United States which is federally licensed to cultivate cannabis for scientific research…

In the United States, all living white tigers are the result of selective inbreeding to artificially create the genetic conditions that lead to white fur, ice-blue eyes and a pink nose…

The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), a division of the U.S. Library of Congress, provides a free national library program of Braille and recorded materials for blind and physically handicapped persons. Magazines included in the NLS’s programs are selected on the basis of demonstrated reader interest. This includes the publishing and distribution of a Braille edition of Playboy…

Submerged in a pool of water at Hanford Site are 1,936 stainless-steel nuclear-waste capsules containing cesium and strontium. Combined, they contain over 120 million curies of radioactivity…

You can read more at her website.

I just read that the show will do a 6-month stint starting in May 2009 at the Centre-Pompidou in Paris, right where we stayed last year. Sigh. Such good memories. I love Paris so much. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I talk about Paris almost as much as I talk about home renovations.

I’m thinking of heading off to Paris on my own to see this show (and of course to pick up hot boys at The Queen). What do you think? Impromptu Europe trip? Could be really good for me right now.

Anyone want to come with me?

The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize exhibition is now on at Ramillies Street and it’s a pretty strong line-up this year fully doing justice to the more spacious accommodation the Photographers’ Gallery now has to show it off.

Unlike in previous years there’s a certain sameyness in the works of the four shortlisted photographers – no one jars or stands out (or makes you go, “What the bloody hell?”). There’s Paul Graham who is here for A Shimmer of Possibility – an intriguing collection of images that capture moments in half-light or actions that seem to have purpose and meaning in ways that aren’t explained. Seemingly more straightforward is Tod Papageorge whose record shots of Central Park that capture all the wild eccentricity of New York with humour and a sharp eye. Both are examples of the kind of photography that looks easy to construct but given that in Papageorge’s case it’s the accumulation of 22 years wandering with a camera let’s assume it actually isn’t.

The weakest on the list to my eye, and so therefore the one who will obviously win, is Emily Jacir, a Palestinian photographer (according to Wikipedia, the guide has her down as Kuwaiti) who with Material for a Film brings together documents, images and assorted items linked to the assassination of Wael Zwaiter. I’m sure it has significance in terms of Arab-Israeli politics but here it fails to spark and seems too laboured – although a short but revealing telegram sent after Zwaiter’s death does carry an emotional wallop.

My personal favourite is Taryn Simon, returning to the Photographers Gallery with An American Index of the Hidden and Familiar featuring beautifully shot images of inbred white tigers, braille Playboys and the CIA art gallery – whose mystery is explained by the lovingly structured text next to each photo. I’m not sure I buy the argument that it creates an American mythology but these are pictures and stories you want to go back to again and again.

So, well worth heading over to the Photographers’ Gallery for, especially given that it’s free and they do nice coffee.

The Photographers’ Gallery（フォトグラファーズ・ギャラリー）が主催、Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2009展が、２月２０日から４月１２日まで開催される。フォトグラファーズ・ギャラリーは、初の写真専門のギャラリーとして１９７１年に設立された。以前は、レスター・スクエア駅のすぐ近くにあったが、２００８年１２月に、オックスフォード・サーカス駅の近くのRamillies Streetに移転した。中華街近くのごちゃごちゃしたロケーションで、１軒おいて２ヶ所に分かれた、以前のギャラリーに比べ、オックスフォード・ストリートの喧噪の裏の静かな通りにある新ギャラリーは、ゆったりしていて気持ちいい。

Deutsche Börse Photography Prizeは、昨年ヨーロッパ写真界に貢献した写真家に贈られる国際写真賞で、今年で１３年目となる。今年の候補は、Paul Graham（ポール・グレアム）、Emily Jacir（エミリー・ジャシール）、Tod Papageorge（トッド・パパジョージ）、Taryn Simon（タリン・サイモン）の４人。パレスチナ人で、１９７２年ローマで暗殺されたパレスチナ人知識人・Wael ZuaiterをドキュメントしたEmily Jacirの他は、アメリカを主題とした作品だ。イギリス人Paul Grahamは、現代アメリカの日常生活をポートレートし、Tod Papageorgeは１９６９〜９１年の間に、マンハッタンのセントラルパークでの情景を白黒で撮影。Taryn Simonは、原子力廃棄物処理場や処女膜再生手術等、普段は目にしない「隠れた」ものをドキュメントしている。Taryn Simonの作品は、見た事がないものを主題としているため、インパクトが強かったし、また写真中の人々の息づかいを感じられる、Tod Papageorgeの作品も良かった。結果は３月２５日に発表される。

Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2009, organized by The Photographers’ Gallery, will starts from February 20 to April 12. The Photographers’ Gallery, founded in 1971,was the first independent gallery in Britain that was devoted to photography. The gallery moved to Ramillies Street, near Oxford Circus, from original Great Newport Street near Leicester Square, in December 2008. In compared to the old one on  a busy street and divided in 2 locations (a restaurant or bar in between), the new gallery situated on the quiet street on the back of chaotic Oxford street, is cozy and pleasant.

Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, now in its 13th year, is an international phogography award, which rewards a living photographer who has made the significant contribution to photography in Europe over the past year. This year’s candidates are )Paul Graham, Emily Jacir, Tod Papageorge, and Taryn Simon. Other than Emily Jacir’s work which documents the assassination of the Palestinian intellectual, Wael Zuaiter, subjects of other three photographers are about America. British Paul Graham’s works are photographic short stories of life in contemporary America. Tod Papagoerge’s black & white photographs of Central Park in Manhattan, are amusing made me feel the breath and the movements of the people in the photos. Taryn Simon shows us the ‘hidden and inaccessible’ subjects in the United States, such as nuclear waste encapsulation and storage facility and hymenoplasty cosmetic surgery – some were chilling and some were beautiful.  We’ll see who wins, on March 25.

Taryn Simon

How Dave Sim puts an Issue of Glamourpuss together?

Glamourpuss – Photo-realist Comparison: Chanel Ad

Matthew J. Brady’s Comicsbulletin.com Review of Glamourpuss #2

Who knows what is going on with Dave Sim these days. Actually, who
knows what’s been going on for the last fifteen years or so, ever since
he turned his long running series Cerebus into a forum for personal
essays about the evils of women and other such bizarre opinions. But at
least while that series was going on, he had something to keep working
on, month in and month out. Now that he’s finished his life’s work,
what’s he supposed to do now?

Well, it looks like he’s
continuing to put out more of his idiosyncratic stab at refining his
artwork and examining its history. As with the previous issue, he
continues to redraw (or trace, if you want to be mean about it) panels
from the comic strips of Alex Raymond, filling the word balloons and
captions with commentary on the artistic styles used. This issue is
actually a bit easier to follow than the last one (for a non-artist
like me, at least), with less discussion of specific techniques and
equipment, and more of a look at the various competing “schools” of
photo-realistic comics art, including how they informed and built upon
each other, eventually morphing into the comics art styles that are
used today. It’s fascinating stuff for those who like to read about
that sort of thing, and it also reads a bit more smoothly than the
previous issue, with Sim even using word balloons to have a bit of a
dialogue with himself, rather than just fill them with the words of his
essay… More

The Full Norwich Notes from December’s Vogue

I know the resolution isn’t the best, but for sake of completeness, here’s the stupid article.

More Links:

http://www.glamourpusscomic.com/

http://www.comicsbulletin.com/reviews/122819347973407.htm

In American Index Of The Hidden And Unfamiliar, Taryn Simon exposes the complexities of people, places, things and organizations that exist all around us everyday as we go along our merry way. Some of the most painfully plain images explode into life as the revelation of what your eyes are looking at is revealed in the subtext that accompanies the pictures. Part of the wonder is how a civilian photographer could even gain access to capture some of the images within the collection. A definite must see.

I first saw a photograph of Playboy in braille when going through Taryn Simon’s amazing series An American Index of the Hidden and Familiar. After seeing it in her series I just assumed it was some secret manuscript that no one knew about. So imagine my surprise when seeing another photograph on I heart photograph yesterday. This time the photograph was made by Matthew Jordan.  I guess the braille Playboy wasn’t as secret as I thought. And now I am just wondering what it’s like to read Playboy in braille. Very interesting. Photographs below.

1. Matthew Jordan:

2. Taryn Simon:

En Estados Unidos, como en cualquier otra parte del mundo, existen lugares vetados para el ciudadano común y corriente. Áreas donde, por razones diversas, el acceso es restringido. Hacia esos lugares dirigió su mirada la fotógrafa estadounidense Taryn Simon (New York, 1975) y los condensó en el libro An American index of the hidden and unifamiliar. En este ensayo fotográfico, la artista nos muestra espacios ligados a la medicina, la seguridad, el gobierno y la religión. Desde un ángulo refinado y penetrante, termina por construir las otras piezas que completan el engranaje de la sociedad norteamericana, la otra cara de la moneda.

La imagen pertenece a la unidad de criopreservación del Cryonics Institute de Michigan, en este lugar se encuentran los cuerpos congelados de Rhea y Elaine Ettinger, la madre y la primera esposa del “padre de la criogenia” Robert Ettinger.

[enlaces]
Página oficial de Taryn Simon
Entramos en los lugares prohibidos de América

I remember reading a few months ago about Taryn Simon’s exhibit – An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar. I was so excited about it, I told my girlfriend that her work was amazing and genius and I was so angry that I never thought or executed any brilliant idea like hers. So today I decided to re-look her up and I saw that she is showing at The Whitney until June, I guess I should add this to my list of reasons to go to New York asap.

This is what the Whitney had to say about her work:

Taryn Simon: An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar
on view March 9, 2007-June 24, 2007

For this project, artist Taryn Simon (b. 1975) assumes the dual role of shrewd informant and collector of curiosities, compiling an inventory of what lies hidden and out-of-view within the borders of the United States. She examines a culture through careful documentation of diverse subjects from across the realms of science, government, medicine, entertainment, nature, security, and religion. Transforming the unknown into a seductive and intelligible form, Simon confronts the divide between those with and without the privilege of access. Her sometimes ethereal, sometimes foreboding compositions, shot with a large-format view camera whenever conditions allowed, vary as much as her subject matter, which ranges from radioactive capsules at a nuclear waste storage facility to a black bear in hibernation. Offering visions of the unseen, the photographs of An American Index capture the strange magic at the foundation of a national identity.

This is one of my favorite images on Simon’s from this series.

Cool set of images uncovering unknown and secret worlds of mainly industry and research facilities. The effect is surprisingly vulnerable and beautifull. Taryn Simon is one of the two winners of the Paul Huf Award 2007.

Interview with Taryn Simon in the Morning News