Self Portraits by Abbey Meaker

Let the blues run the game–an intimate moment with Abbey Meaker by Abbey Meaker in her new series of self portraits.  Abbey's photographs have a supercharged romantic auto-erotism that beckons, in a sincerely unremorseful reflection of lust and loss, a visual treatise that summons grainy, black and white visions of a restless Eros in her boudoir.    www.abbeymeaker.com

Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

The Photographic Album of Joan Colom

Joan Colom was born in Barcelona in 1921. Following military service, he became an accountant in a firm where he stayed until his retirement in 1986. But at the age of 36 he also developed a passion for photography, joining the Photographic Association of Catalonia where he very quickly learnt the technical skills that helped him in his atypical career. Colom is considered one of the most important photographers of the 50s and 60s and one of the greatest documentalists of everyday life in Barcelona. With both passion and respect, his series gave expression to the spirit of Barcelona’s Raval district and became one of the most exceptional photography essays of the time. An exhibition at the Fundació Foto Colectania in Barcelona presents for the first time to the public an unedited album, which includes some of the author's favorite photographs, selected and arranged by him in a graphic sequence of great impact. On view until October 29 www.colectania.es

LIEKO SHIGA: CANARY

Galerie Priska Pasquer in Cologne, Germany presents the 'Canary' series by Japanese artist Lieko Shiga, for which she won the 'Infinity Award (Young Photographer)' from the International Center of Photography, New York, in 2009. In 'Canary', Lieko Shiga combines personal accounts of people and local myths with her own personal memories, feelings and experiences to create fantastic, often perplexing scenarios. The works interact to form a complex, dramatic tableau that vacillates between dreams and reality. On view until July 30. www.priskapasquer.de

Dear Fate: The Photography of Dana Lauren Goldstein

Dear Fate (Jame's Portrait) by Dana Lauren Goldstein
The Spark by Dana Lauren Goldstein

Louisville, Kentucky–birthplace of bourbon whiskey, the Kentucky Derby, and photographer Dana Lauren Goldstein. Her punk tinged photographs fall in a place between eternal youth and temporary amnesia. She states that her work is "highly influenced by theosophical and neo-plasticist principles,"–yeah, whatever, all I know is that her photographs are fucking awesome. www.danalaurengoldstein.com

text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre

[IMAGE MAKERS] Michel Comte

Fashion house Miu Miu just held a bash at photographer Michel Comte's 1920s California jazz age mansion. Michel Comte was born 1954 in Zurich, Switzerland. The professionally trained art restorer approached photography autodidactically. 1979 Comte received his first international advertising assignment from Karl Lagerfeld for the fashion house of Chloe and moved to Paris. Work for the American Vogue lead him in 1981 to New York and later on he took residence in Los Angeles. "I have always lived on the edge", Comte states on his restless persona. "If I no longer have a sense of risk I immediately move on. I probably inherited that from my grandfather." (Swiss aviaton pioneer Alfred Comte.)

MATTHEW STONE / RULES FOREVER (PART II)

In Stone's last exhibition at Union Gallery Forever Rules (Part I), Stone presented a single sculpture in the center of the gallery and 3 photo-collage works on wood. The sculpture and also main focus of the exhibition was an oak and birch floor-based sculpture, a structure entirely hand built by the artist, titled “Forever Rules”. The sculpture was formed in part by an open sided, oak dodecahedron, its pentagonal facets creating a complex, net-like form. In Plato's divine geometry, the dodecahedron is described as a perfect solid. Historically it has been attached to the concept of a fifth element, namely Ether (Aether) or Universe. It has represented the perfect mediation of the infinite and the finite, the sphere and the cube.  For his second part exhibition Rules Forever (Part II), Stone will continue honoring Plato and will present a much larger sculptural element comprising four oak structures, but instead of a large photographic nude, cut into hundreds of wooden squares that passes through the structure, as in the show before, the artist has decided to cluster the structure with photographic collages, printed directly onto birch plywood. These digitally collaged configurations of torso and limb, show bodies intertwined and connected. Unmistakable as Stone's work, the gestures and classical poses of his languorous figures are intersected by areas of new color, cut, if only to reconnect, along unnatural, directional and geometric bias. On view until July 30 at the Union Gallery in the UK. www.union-gallery.com

Todd Eberle: Empire of Space

...The Empire of Space is a lavish look at Eberle’s career and features many rare and never-before-published portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and interiors. In the spirit of Walker Evans, Eberle creates an enduring and poetic portrait of America, the arts, and architecture through thoughtfully contrasting and analogous photographs. This exciting and definitive book on Eberle’s illustrious legacy is sure to rank among the most important publications to mix modernism, minimalism, and photography. www.rizzoliusa.com

[ART IN THE DESERT] Holographic Heart

Curated by Maximilla Lukacs the Red Arrow Gallery in Joshua Tree hosts Holographic Heart: Images of Ecstatic Tradition and Ritual from the HERE and NOW. On view will be photography by Eliot Lee Hazel, Logan White, Alison Scarpulla, Adarsha Benjamin, Yelena Yemchuk, Todd Weaver, Galen Pehrson, Jena Malone and more.  July 9 at the Red Arrow Gallery from 7 to 9 p.m 61597 29 Palms Hwy Joshua Tree, CA.

Ai Weiwei's New York Photographs

Ai_Weiwei's_New_York

Asia Society Museum in New York presents an exhibition of 227 photographs taken by famed Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, capturing the history, culture, and atmosphere of 1980s New York from his unique perspective. The exhibition marks the first time Ai Weiwei's New York Photographs series is being shown outside of China. On view until August 14. www.asiasociety.org

Glamour of the Gods

Leo (John Gilbert) kisses Felicitas (Greta Garbo) in Flesh and the Devil (1926)

Glamour of the Gods is a celebration of Hollywood portraiture from the industry's 'Golden Age', the period 1920 to 1960. From Greta Garbo and Clark Gable to Audrey Hepburn, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, it is these portraits that transformed actors and actresses into international style icons. In many cases these are the career-defining images of Hollywood's greatest names and help to illustrate their enduring appeal. Featuring over 70 photographs, most of which are exquisite vintage prints displayed for the first time, the exhibition is drawn from the extraordinary archive of the John Kobal Foundation and demonstrate photography's decisive role in creating and marketing the stars central to the Hollywood mystique. Now on view at the National Portrait Gallery in London until October 23. www.npg.org.uk