Art Out: James Welling, Mary Ellen Mark, Hiroshi Sugimoto
James Welling, 4776, 2015, Inkjet print, 106.7 x 160 cm, © James Welling, Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner
James Welling: Metamorphosis
David Zwirner is pleased to present work by American photographer James Welling (b. 1951), on view across two floors of the gallery’s Hong Kong location—the first solo presentation of the artist’s work in greater China. The exhibition will provide an overview of Welling’s career, spanning from the 1980s to the present, and will highlight the persistent tension in his photographs between abstraction and figuration, as well as his decades-long investigation of color phenomena. Viewed together, his body of work acts as a dynamic archive that reconsiders the history and technical capacity of the photographic medium.
James Welling, 3693, 2017, Inkjet print on rag paper, 106.7 x 160 cm, © James Welling, Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner
Since the early 1970s, when he was a student at the California Institute of the Arts, Welling has fashioned an evolving body of work that considers both the history and material specificities of photography. Emerging at a time when photography focused on its capacity for mimesis, Welling’s work signaled a break with traditional ideas of the medium by shifting attention to the construction of images themselves.
While the artist produces discrete series whose subject matter ranges widely, his work is united by an examination of what might be termed “states of being” produced by photographically derived images and how such states are, in turn, read by the viewer.
The Hong Kong gallery will be open to the public by appointment. To schedule your visit, please click here.
Mary Ellen Mark, Girl Jumping over a Wall, Central Park, New York City, 1967 (printed later); Gelatin
silver print, 16 x 20 in.; NMWA, Gift of Jill and Jeffrey Stern; Photo by Lee Stalsworth; © Mary Ellen
Mark/The Mary Ellen Mark Foundation
Mary Ellen Mark: Girlhood
On March 3, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) opens Mary Ellen Mark: Girlhood, a new exhibition of works by one of the most prolific documentary and portrait photographers of her generation. The exhibition features approximately 30 images that span Mary Ellen Mark’s 50-year-career, depicting girls and young women living in a variety of circumstances all over the globe. Mary Ellen Mark: Girlhood is open through July 11, 2021.
Mary Ellen Mark (1940–2015) is known for her compassionate and candid depictions of subjects living outside of mainstream society. Over the course of her career, Mark traveled extensively, creating bodies of work in diverse communities in the United States as well as India, Mexico, the former Soviet Union and other countries. While Mark photographed people of all ages and from all walks of life, she was particularly interested in children. “I don’t like to photograph children as children,” Mark said. “I like to see them as adults, as who they really are. I’m always looking for the side of who they might become.”
Mary Ellen Mark, Jeanette and Victor, Brooklyn, New York, 1979 (printed later); Vintage gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 in.; NMWA, Gift of Shaun Lucas; Photo by Lee Stalsworth; © Mary Ellen Mark/The Mary Ellen Mark Foundation
“Through her camera lens, Mark cut through social and societal barriers to focus on overlooked communities in the United States and around the world,” said NMWA Director Susan Fisher Sterling. “Her portraits document individual lives with a familiarity that makes them universally relatable. NMWA is grateful for the generous donation by the Photography Buyers Syndicate that allows the museum to spotlight this important photographer.”
This donation of more than 160 Mary Ellen Mark photographs is from the Photography Buyers Syndicate, a group of donors who purchase large photography collections and frequently donate them to public collections. The gift includes images from Mark’s earliest work in Turkey in the 1960s to photographs taken on Polaroid film in the early 2000s. Included in the exhibition are select works from some of Mark’s best-known series, including “Prom,” “Streetwise” and “Twins,” which together offer an intriguing glimpse into the artist’s wondrous and uncanny vision of girlhood.
Mary Ellen Mark, Laurie in the Bathtub, Ward 81, Oregon State Hospital, Salem, Oregon, 1976 (printed
later); Gelatin silver print, 20 x 24 in.; NMWA, Gift of Susan and Earl Cohen; Photo by Lee Stalsworth;
© Mary Ellen Mark/The Mary Ellen Mark Foundation
Mark did not aim to construct a particular narrative of girlhood, nor did she necessarily intend to deconstruct common stereotypes found in the depiction of girls. She rarely intervened in the poses or surroundings of her subjects, and most of the images in this exhibition come from larger bodies of work that were not specifically focused on girls. Rather, Mark observed her subjects as they were—dancing, singing, exploring, staring—and as they were becoming—witnessing death, experiencing intimacy and love, smoking or being made up. Each photograph contains a moment on the precipice, poised for whatever comes next.
Hiroshi Sugimoto, Opticks 034, 2018, Digital C print, Neg. #27.034-L, Image: 47 x 47 in. (119,4 x 119,4cm)
Frame: 60 x 60 in. (152.4 x 152.4 cm), Edition of 1 plus 1,(24594), Copyright: Hiroshi Sugimoto
Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
Hiroshi Sugimoto: Theory of Colours
Galerie Marian Goodman is delighted to present Theory of Colours, the third solo exhibition by Hiroshi Sugimoto in Paris. The exhibition will focus on his new body of work, Opticks.
Opticks, 2018, was created by capturing the photographic transcription of colors as revealed when light passes through an optical glass prism.
The title of this series is a reference to Sir Isaac Newton’s treatise Opticks, published in 1704. Preserved on Polaroid film, the colors of each photograph convey not only Sugimoto’s interest in the most subtle hues of the rainbow, but also those colors which embody a transition, which appear to be mixed or hard to define. Sugimoto writes: “Gazing at the bright prismatic light each day, I too had my doubts about Newton’s seven-colour spectrum: yes, I could see his red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet scheme, but I could just as easily discern many more different colours in-between, nameless hues of red-to-orange and yellow-to- green.”
Sugimoto is not only a reader of Newton, but also of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In his Treaty of Colours (Zur Farbenlehre), published in 1810, Goethe described optical phenomena from a more sensitive point of view, prompting Sugimoto to develop a poetical and metaphysical perception of color “with neither Newton’s impassionate arithmetic gaze, nor Goethe’s warm reflexivity, I employed my own photographic devices toward a Middle Way.” Thus, the artist reminds us that in East Asian Buddhist doctrines, the word ‘color’ refers to the materialistic world, while its Japanese transcription both signifies ‘emptiness’ and ‘sky.’ “To sum it up,” cites Sugimoto, “if the visible world of colour is essentially empty, then this world is as immaterial as the colour of the sky.”
Hiroshi Sugimoto, Opticks 151, 2018, Digital C print, Neg.#27.151-L , Image: 47 x 47 in. (119,4 x 119,4cm)
Frame: 60 x 60 in. (152.4 x 152.4 cm), Edition of 1 plus 1,(24598), Copyright: Hiroshi Sugimoto
Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
The exhibition will open to the public from Saturday, 20 March through Saturday, 22 May. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 am – 5 pm.
Visitors are able to view the exhibition by appointment only, which can be scheduled on the website www.mariangoodman.com. The opening days and hours might change according to sanitary restrictions.
Events
The Sound She Saw: Ming Smith in conversation with Greg Tate
Artist Discussion
March 24, 7pm
548 West 28th Street, 4th Floor
Honoring the publication of Ming Smith: An Aperture Monograph (Aperture, 2020), this conversation brings Ming Smith, the first female member of the Kamoinge Workshop, into dialogue with critic and musician Greg Tate, one of the book’s contributors. Presenting four decades of Smith’s work, the publication celebrates her enduring vision and ongoing contributions to the medium of photography. The program is introduced by Rujeko Hockley, assistant curator
Presented in collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art, this series of programs features conversations with artists from the Kamoinge Workshop included in the exhibition Working Together: Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshopcurrently on view at the Whitney. The talks explore the group’s genesis in Harlem in the 1960s, its role in the Black Arts movement, and the multidisciplinary interests and practices of its members, bringing together artists from the Kamoinge Workshop with scholars and critics of Black arts and culture.
“Field Test: Jackie Nickerson in Conversation with Vince Aletti” at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Critic and curator Vince Aletti will talk with photographer Jackie Nickerson about her current Jack Shainman show, “Field Test” (through April 3), and how her work explores the ways in which digital isolation is leading to the loss of our individual identities.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 6 p.m.
—Tanner West
Open Studio From Home: Book Party with Susan Meiselas
Book Launch
March 20, 11-11:40am
548 West 28th Street, 4th Floor
Aperture is thrilled to team up with the Whitney Museum for a special Open Studio From Home, where we will be joined by award-winning Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas. Together we will celebrate the publication of her new book, Eyes Open: 23 Photography Projects for Curious Kids (Aperture, 2021)! Eyes Open presents fun projects that encourage kids to explore the world around them through photography. Meiselas says, “The camera can be a way of connecting to people and places while also expressing yourself.” Participants will experiment, create, and learn together with at-home art materials.
We will take a look inside Eyes Open and hear from Susan Meiselas herself. Then, we will explore photography together as we respond to one of the prompts featured in the book.
