The World Through Linda's Lens

A retrospective of Linda McCartney's life and photography....In 1966, during a brief stint as a receptionist for Town and Country magazine, Linda Eastman snagged a press pass to a very exclusive promotional event for the Rolling Stones aboard a yacht on the Hudson River; her fresh, candid photographs of the band were far superior to the formal shots made by the band’s official photographer, and she was instantly on the way to making a name for herself as a top rock ’n’ roll photographer. In May 1968, with her portrait of Eric Clapton, she entered the record books as the first female photographer to have her work featured on the cover of Rolling Stone. During her tenure as the leading photographer of the late 1960s’ musical scene, she captured many of rock’s most important musicians on film, including Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Simon & Garfunkel, The Who, The Doors, and the Grateful Dead. In 1967, Linda went to London to document the "Swinging Sixties," where she met Paul McCartney at the Bag ’O Nails club and subsequently photographed The Beatles during a launch event for the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Paul and Linda fell in love, and were married on March 12, 1969. For the next three decades, until her untimely death, she devoted herself to her family, vegetarianism, animal rights, and photography. From her early rock ’n’ roll portraits, through the final years of The Beatles, via touring with Wings to raising four children with Paul, Linda captured her whole world on film. Her shots range from spontaneous family pictures to studio sessions with Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, as well as artists Willem de Kooning and Gilbert and George. Always unassuming and fresh, her work displays a warmth and a feeling for the precise moment that captures the essence of any subject. Whether photographing her children, celebrities, animals, or a fleeting moment of everyday life, she did so without pretension or artifice.  A retrospective volume by Taschen—selected from her archive of over 200,000 images—is produced in close collaboration with Paul McCartney and their children. As such, it is a moving personal journal and a lasting testament to Linda’s talent. Collector's Edition limited to 750 copies, numbered and signed by Sir Paul McCartney.  Also available in two Art Editions of 125 copies each with a photographic print.  A release is set for this May. www.taschen.com

ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ Retrospective

Underwater Swimmer Esztergom,1917, André Kertész

"After I was wounded [in WWI] I was in the hospital for almost nine months. We went swimming in the pool every day, and I realized the distortions in the water. When I photographed them my comrades said, ‘You are crazy. Why did you photograph this?’ I answered: ‘Why only girl friends? This also exists.’ So I photographed my first distortion in 1917 – others followed later, especially the nudes in 1933." -André Kertész, Kertész on Kertész

With around 250 photographs and countless magazine contributions, a retrospective of photographer André Kertész is on display at the Fotomuseum Winterthur on view until May 15, 2011.  www.fotomuseum.ch

 

All That is Unseen

Matthew Stone, boy wonder art star of London's underground, is one of the founders of the !WOWOW! art collective.  Stone is a photographer, sculptor, performance artist, curator, writer, optimist and cultural provocateur. One of Stone's performances at the Tate Britain in 2008 attracted over 4000 visitors. According to his website, Stone "is an artist and shaman." And there happens to be a sort of orgiastic, ritualistic shamanism in his photographs, what with the allusions to ceremonial dance, plumes of  thick white smoke and naked abandon.  In fact, Stone is most well known for his nude photographs - the three images above are part of a series called Ritual.  Matthew Stone will be participating in a group show entitled All That Is Unseen at the Nederpelt Gallery in Brooklyn - on view until March 14.  www.alannederpelt.com or visit the artist's website www.matthewstone.co.uk

I Was a Teenage Paparazzo

1975: I wanted to take David Bowie's photo in the worst way. I had called his publicist asking for a photo pass, but I was turned down. No one knew me at the time and Bowie had a couple of photographers who did most of his coverage, but this was not going to stop me. I had a tip that he was having a late night recording session at Cherokee Recording Studios on Fairfax Blvd in Hollywood. The tip came from a very reliable source; so, I cut school, got there really early in the morning, and waited for Bowie to emerge. 6am Bowie walked out and the early morning light was magic. All he said to me was “Good Morning.” Since no one was really doing paparazzi-style photography back then both Bowie and his producer, Paul Buckmaster, thought my approach was incredibly hysterical. Word got out to all of the publicists in town that I was bold enough to perform this sort of ambush, but since I was a teenage kid, they all found it amusing. Creem ran the photograph as a full page in their "Stars And Their Cars" section.

Text and photo by Brad Elterman

The SIP Interviews Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Adarsha Benjamin + Shot by Oliver Maxwell KupperPhotography by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

A wonderfully fascinating institute, The SIP "a research institute that aspires to facilitate, promote, initiate research, open debate and creative work in the field of photography and related media," conducted an interview with Oliver Maxwell Kupper, publisher of Pas Un Autre. View interview here.

Bebe Buell And Stiv Bators At Fiorucci's 1978

This photo was taken at an incredible party at Fiorucci's store in Beverly Hills. I think KISS, tons of stars and beautiful girls were present. Fiorucci's was known for its outrageous fashions and fun parties, as well as the punks who worked there. Bebe had been living with Todd Rundgren and was at many happening parties. Think of Elvis Costello's "This Year's Model," written when he was dating her. Stiv Bators was the lead singer of the Dead Boys. Interesting how celebrities attract. FYI Bebe is the mother of Liv Tyler. Stiv was hit by a car in Paris, refused to go to the hospital, and died in his sleep.

Photo and Text: Brad Elterman

Ré Soupault: Artist at the Center of the Avant-Garde

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The Kunsthalle Mannheim is the first museum in the world to be honoring the oeuvre of one of the key female figures in the European avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s with the extensive retrospective Ré Soupault—Künstlerin im Zentrum der Avantgarde (Ré Soupault—Artist at the Center of the Avant-Garde) from February 13 to May 8, 2011. “While in the late 1980s Ré Soupault’s rediscovery as a photographer was considered a sensation, we are now happy to be presenting the entire spectrum of her oeuvre for the first time,” writes Dr. Inge Herold, who is curating the exhibition in collaboration with Manfred Metzner, the trustee of Ré Soupault’s estate. Ré Soupault (1901–1996) was a photographer, fashion designer, journalist, filmmaker, author, and translator at the heart of the most modern art trends in Germany and France. www.kunsthalle-mannheim.eu

Kawa = Flow: The Images of YAMAMOTO MASAO

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Artist Yamamoto Masao describes is work, albeit obscurely and poeticly, with these words: "Kawa = Flow is about the world where we are and the world where we go in the future. Although we seem to be connected continually there is a rupture between us in the present and those that went before us or that come next." "Kawa" means river or more precisely flow.  Masao's photographs are like microscopic imagery of the cellular structure of enlightenment; tiny snapshots of those beautiful moments where everything rushes too close and spills over the edge of the mind into pure ecstasy - and everything is crystal clear, if only for a tenth of a millisecond. Oblivion = Eternity. You can see some of Masao's work at the Maerz Gallery in Leipzig February 26th. www.maerzgallerie.com + www.yamamotomasao.com

Jeanloup Sieff’s Photographic Formations

"The French photographer Jeanloup Sieff (1933–2000) began photographing in the 1950s. He worked in the tradition of French humanist photography and photographers such as Edouard Boubat, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau. His early reportages have a romantic, nostalgic air, with lovers, cafes, smoke-filled jazz clubs and other familiar Paris milieus. He was commissioned by the fashion magazine Elle for portraits and short articles, and in 1958 joined the prestigious Magnum photo agency, before going back to freelance work the following year. One of his favorite subjects was portraits of French cinema and “la nouvelle vague” personalities, including Jean-Claude Brialy, François Truffaut and Jean Seberg." A new exhibit exploring his Sieff's work entitled Jeanloup Sieff's Photographic Formations will be opening on Feb. 19 at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. The exhibit is on view until May 22, 2011. www.modernamuseet.se.en

The Truth is Not in the Mirror

Michael Corridore, Untitled 13, from the Angry Black Snake series, Courtesy of a New York Collector

Photography as a medium has always been actively concerned with describing identity. While a portrait is typically an artistic representation of a person where verisimilitude is the goal, here the inquiry is questioned and expanded. Rather than employing a camera to create an objective document, the artists in this exhibition are often involved in constructing narrative sequences that pose questions with open-ended outcomes. As the title, The Truth is Not in the Mirror... suggests, photography has the power to imply, construct, and/or deny a narrative. Many of the photographers are contemporary storytellers and, in this sense, their work reflects facets of our ever-changing precepts about family, identity, truth and fiction.  Artists include, in summary,  Michael Corridore, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Andy Freeberg, Lee Friedlander, David Hockney, Graham Miller, Martin Parr, The Sartorialist, Larry Sultan and Mickalene Thomas. The Truth is Not in the Mirror, Photography and a Constructed Identity is on view at the Haggerty Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin until May 22, 2011. www.marquette.edu/haggerty

The Photographic Work by F.C Gundlach

"Op Art-Fashion“, Gizeh/Ägypten 1966 In: Brigitte 10/1966 © F.C. Gundlach

"Op Art-Silhouette“, Jerseymantel von Lend, Paris 1966 In: Brigitte 4/1966 © F.C. Gundlach

An extensive monograph of F.C. Gundlach's photography will be released this summer. "This definitive monograph brings F.C. Gundlach’s fashion work together for the first time in an extended way and establishes him as one of the most distinguished German fashion photographers of the post-war era. F.C. Gundlach placed fashion in the focus of his work for more than 40 years. His work presents not only the history of fashion, but also the poses, gestures, locations and atmosphere, which defined the changing ideals of beauty over decades. Alongside this work, Gundlach also created empathetic portraits, reportages and traveled intensively around the world. On his assignments he always worked closely together with the editors and art directors. His photographs for high-circulation magazines shaped the public’s perception of the permanent changing fashion. Yet his black-and-white and color photography also captured the spirit of its time, embodying the optimism of the meager days after the war, from the New Look to the swinging sixties, the op and pop art through to the highly staged photographs of the eighties." www.steidlville.com

For Los Angeles...

Hollywood, 1946

Scent of cedar on this Los Angeles evening scent of the new born day arrives at half past magic the glory of the morning sun rising on our broken hearts as they beat three beats in unison The sounds of waves with a triple z cascade below the mountain top down the coast we descend The toke of two pipes made of apples Cherry pies in between virgin thighs with a glance of nostalgia the memory of Remains.... (excerpt of an Untitled Poem by Adarsha Benjamin)

Art and Prostitution: Mark Morrisroe

Art is oft born from tragic circumstances. Mark Morrisroe was born in Boston to a drug-addicted mother and left home at  age 15. Morrisroe would turn to prostitution to support himself. When he was 17 years old, an unsatisfied John shot him in the back, leaving him with a bullet lodged next to his spine for the rest of his life. The experience had a profound influence on Morrisroe's art, which often incorporated images of young prostitutes and X-rays of his injured chest.  Grappling with his identity as a homosexual through photography and performance art, Morrisroe become a seminal figure in the punk scene of Boston during the 1970s and 80s. Mark Morrisroe died in 1980 from complications from AIDS - he was 30 years old. More than twenty years after Mark Morrisroe’s early death, Fotomuseum Winterthur is presenting the first comprehensive survey exhibition on his work. Mark Morrisroe is on view until Feb. 13. www.fotomuseum.ch