Art Out: Tod Papageorge, Prison Nation, and Irving Penn
Tod Papageorge
Malibu, 1975
From series "The Beaches" (1975 - 1981)
Tod Papageorge
Malibu, 1975
From series "The Beaches" (1975 - 1981)
Danzinger Gallery | July 9 – August 31, 2022
Closing Soon! “Danziger Gallery L.A. is pleased to present the first showing of Tod Papageorge’s photographs taken in the late seventies and early eighties of Los Angeles beachgoers. An early participant in the American school of street photography Tod Papageorge’s path has taken him from the streets of New York to the capitals of Europe, from black and white to color, and from small to mid-sized cameras. Central to his art (if not his life) is the question of what makes a photograph extraordinary, even as he uses nothing more than direct observation of our common, physical world in his efforts to trace a revelatory moment. Papageorge’s L.A. beach photographs (a series of pictures now 40 years old but looking surprisingly current) weave together the casualness of youth and timelessness of nature.”
To see more of this exhibition, please visit here.
Photographer unknown, Prison Rock Band, San Quentin State Prison, June 26, 1975.
Courtesy Nigel Poor, San Quentin Archive, and Haines Gallery, San Francisco.
Jamel Shabazz, Pretrial detainees all part of the “House Gang” (sanitation workforce) pose in the day room of their housing area, Rikers Island, 1986.
Courtesy of the artist.
Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery | August 22–Oct. 14, 2022
“UMBC’s Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery presents Prison Nation from Aperture, on display from August 22 through October 14. Since its early years, photography has been used to create and reinforce typologies of criminality, often singling out specific groups of people. Today, it is essential for photographers to provide urgent counterpoints and move beyond simplistic descriptions of the “criminal” or the imprisoned. Much of the work gathered here—from a recently discovered archive at San Quentin in California to portraits of prisoners participating in a garden program at Rikers Island in New York City or performing a passion play at Louisiana’s Angola prison, a facility located on the site of a former slave plantation—underscores the humanity and individuality of those incarcerated. Some projects explore the prison as an omnipresent feature of the American landscape, often serving as a local economic engine, or delve into the living conditions and social systems of prisons, while others address the difficult process of reentering society after incarceration. One series was produced in prison: Jesse Krimes made hundreds of image transfers with prison-issued soap while he served a five-year sentence. Incarceration impacts all of us. Americans, even those who have never been to a prison or had a relative incarcerated, are all implicated in a form of governance that uses prison as a solution to many social, economic, and political problems. Empathy and political awareness are essential to creating systemic change—and through this exhibition, Prison Nation may provoke us to see parts of ourselves in the lives of those on the inside.”
To see more of this exhibition, please visit here.
Irving Penn, Woman Turning Over, New York, 1995, vintage gelatin silver print, 11-1/2" × 19-7/16" (29.2 cm × 49.4 cm), image 12" × 19-3/4" (30.5 cm × 50.2 cm), paper
Irving Penn, Four-Eyed Beauty (B), New York, ca 1960-70, pigment print mounted to board, 10" × 10-3/8" (25.4 cm × 26.4 cm), image 12" × 12" (30.5 cm × 30.5 cm), paper and mount
Pace Gallery Los Angeles | July 30 – Sep. 3, 2022
“Pace is pleased to present Irving Penn: Burning Off the Page, a solo exhibition bringing together 40 works created by the artist—whose work transcended the pages of magazines to the walls of museums and galleries—between the late 1930s and early 2000s. Photographing for Vogue for nearly 70 years, Penn left an indelible mark on the history of the medium. His inventive fashion photographs, which transformed American image-making in the postwar era, continued to appear in the magazine up until his death in 2009. The artist was also highly accomplished and experimental in the darkroom, having engineered, among other innovations, a complex technique for making platinum-palladium prints. Four works of this kind figure in Pace’s upcoming exhibition, which is curated by art historian Michaëla de Lacaze Mohrmann.”
To see more of this exhibition, please visit here.
