*@ John Divola. N34°09.951’ W115°49.269’*, from the series *Isolated Houses*, 1995-1998. Archival pigment print, image size: 19 x 19 inches. © John Divola, courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery

Yancey Richardson | John Divola: Isolated Houses / Dogs Chasing My Car in The Desert, June 1st — July 7th

Photographed between 1995 and 1998, the images inIsolated Houses were all made in the high desert of Southern California, including the east end of the Morongo Valley Basin, Wonder Valley, and surrounding the town of 29 Palms. The small, simple box-like structures sitting alone on the vast desert plain are framed in square compositions, echoing the geometry of the flat landscape. They encapsulate the artist’s career-long interest in the tension between specificity and abstraction in photography. Illuminated by the extraordinary western light, the structures wear their neglect with a dignity that elevates their humble existence.

While traversing the desert region working on Isolated Houses, Divola frequently came across dogs who would chase his car. In 1996, he started to capture portraits of the dogs while in motion with a motorized 35mm camera and high-speed film, evoking the spirit of Eadweard Muybridge’s exploration of stop motion photography. The work resulted in the now classic series Dogs Chasing My Car in the Desert, acollection of grainy, black and white images that look at the herding relationship between man and animal as a somewhat comic metaphor for futility.

To learn more, visit Yancey Richardson’s website.

@ Christopher Beane, Sailors' Jewels, 2023. Courtesy of Jim Kempner Fine Art.

Jim Kempner Fine Art | Christopher Beane : Baroquecoco Bodega, May 30th — July 1st, 2023

In Baroquecoco Bodega, Beane countinues to masterfully synthesize a diverse range of mediums as he continues pushing the boundaries of this very personal visual vocabulary. Beane uses his keen eye and remarkable sense of color to reinterpret both the vibrant energy of the city and his experience with the awe-inspiring beauty of nature.

“When I agreed to write an essay for Beane’s book (Beane Flower. Artisan, 2008), at the request of a mutual friend, I had no idea I would be writing about one of the greasted photographers I have ever run across. It was easy enough for me to locate his position in the history of photography and art as a whole. I saw its importance immediately. Such an approach hardly begins to meet the challenge of explaining his work.”

—Curator and Art Historian, Anthony F. Janson

To learn more, visit Jim Kempner Fine Art’s website.

© Fern Nesson. Courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography

Griffin Museum of photography | Fern Nesson: E=mc², June 1 – July 9, 2023

Roland Barthes asserts that “a photograph is a witness [to] what has been. Every image is an image of death.” But Barthes is wrong. A photograph may speak to a moment now past if that is what is desired. But a photograph can create its own energy as well. Like Cezanne’s paintings, it can live; it can breathe.

I use my camera to create life and to defy death. My goal is create living works of art that embody the moment when mass becomes energy. They are never constructed. Everything in them is real.

These images capture a moment of transcendence. In that moment, we know ourselves to be infinite, inextricably a part of the universe. We perceive that, when we die, we will merely change in form. Nothing is ever lost. The energy of those we loved exists forever all around us. And we will too.

—Quoted from Fern Nesson’s Statement

To learn more, visit Griffin Museum of Photography’s website.