Bertien van Manen: Let's Sit Down Down Before We Go

"I have to like the people I photograph. I need to feel an attraction, a fascination." Bertien van Manen. Buried deep in Bertien van Manen's images is an intimacy between photographer and subject. The viewer trespasses on the private moments in the frame, catching a glare over breakfast, unheard words between friends, both party to the action and intruding on it. Between 1991 and 2009 van Manen travelled across Asia and Eastern Europe with a small, analogue camera, learning the local language and engaging with the people who would become the subject of this collection. Let's sit down before we go is a portrait of the places van Manen visited and the people she met, stayed with and became friends with during her travels across Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Siberia, Tatarstan and Uzbekistan. Across nearly two decades, with the exception of big cities, little about the scenery in van Manen's photographs has changed. The relative sameness of Russia's appearance binds the images together, leaving us no indication of the time lapse from one photograph to another. The title, Let's sit down before we go represents an old Russian tradition, the practice of taking a moment, stopping to think before embarking on a journey, to consider where we will be travelling to and why. A special edition of  Let's Sit Down Before We Go has recently been released by Mack Books and includes a hand made c-type print and first edition copy housed in a bespoke embossed linen clam-shell portfolio box.  Let's Sit Down Before We Go, the series, is also on view at the In Camera gallery in Paris until January 21. 

CATHERINE OPIE

Stephen Friedman Gallery presents an exhibition of early and recent work by Catherine Opie. Opie is considered to be one of the most important American photographers of her generation. This is her fourth solo exhibition at the gallery and follows her highly acclaimed solo mid-career surveys at the Guggenheim, New York in 2008-2009 and at the ICA, Boston, earlier this year. Shown here for the very first time is an early group of portraits from the artist's black and white 'Girlfriends' series and a major new body of landscape photographs, taken at sea. On view until January 23, Stephen Friedman Gallery, 25-28 Old Burlington Street,Β London.

New Photographers @ Danziger Gallery

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New Photographers presents five artists exhibiting in New York for the first time. The artists are not linked thematically or stylistically, but what they have in common is their distinctive approach to photography and the originality of their images. In this show, each body of work creates its own context. Artists include CHRIS LEVINE, YUJI OBATA, SCHELTENS AND ABBENES, PATRICK SMITH, TEREZA VLCKOVA. New Photographers is on view at the Danziger Gallery, January 12 through February 25, 527 West 23rd Street, New York.

Distance is Where the Heart Is

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β€œDistance is where the heart is, home is where you hang your heart” is an intimate collaboration between two near-strangersβ€”Zackary Drucker, the LA-based photographer, video and performance artist, and Amos Macβ€”the creator and publisher of Original Plumbing. Executed over a long, snowed-in Christmas weekend at Drucker’s childhood home in Syracuse, New York, the images combine elements of personal history, performance documentation, and exhibitionism. The resulting intervention is also an experiment in cross-identity representation; a dialogue between Mac, a trans man, and Drucker, a trans woman. The exhibition marks the official release of this unique suite of 25 limited-edition photographs, a number of which appear in the first issue of Mac’s new publication, Translady Fanzine. "Distance is where the heart is, home is where you hang your heart" is on view at the Luis de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles until January 22.

The Protest Box by Martin Parr

Martin Parr’s collection of photobooks is one of the finest to have ever been assembled and The Protest Box, published by Steidl, is a box set which brings together five books from that collection as facsimile reprints. Parr has selected diverse books which each deal with the subject of protest in quite different ways. From the documentation of various protest movements to the actual book being a form of protest, all these reprints are gems within the history of photographic publishing. A few are known but many are new, even to the connoisseur of photography books. All these books are virtually impossible to locate, so these reprints will make a substantial contribution to our understanding of this sub-genre of the photobook. The box set is accompanied by a booklet which includes an introduction by Martin Parr, an essay discussing the wider context of these books by Gerry Badger, and English translations of all the texts in the books.

Younger Than They Appear

β€œRJ installed a mirror above his bed so he could watch himself fuck. In my opinion, any sane woman who came over to fuck would roll their eyes and leave but he fucks weirdos so I guess it’s par for the course. I think it’s pretty cheesy but to each their own, I guess. One thing he didn’t take into consideration was that our ceiling is slanted β€˜cause it’s a converted attic. So, when he installed the mirror and laid on his bed, he looked up and because of the slant didn’t see the bed but instead saw the doorway on the other side of his room. Fucking hilarious oversight!!! So, he has to lie upside down on the bed so he can see himself. To demonstrate the needed position, Rob pretended to buttfuck Ledger on the bed. Because RJ fucks young girls, I installed a sign that said, β€œWARNING- Objects in mirror are younger than they appear.” He wasn’t impressed but everyone else in the house got a good laugh.” From the journals of photographer Ben Pobjoy

JEANS BY KARLHEINZ WEINBERGER

Jeans is the first publication that concentrates on the early work of the Swiss photographer, Karlheinz Weinberger. An extra-large format, this new book, published by the Swiss Institute in New York, is a facsimile of the artist’s self-made portfolio. Jeans focuses on the artist’s fascination for men in blue jeans, an article of clothing whose scarcity in post-war Switzerland and close association with America implied more than a fashion statement.

Lukas Strebel: Antoglyph

During the 1970’s Lukas Strebel travelled to Spain to meet and photograph Salvador Dali. He took with him β€˜Antoglyph’, the kitchen table which appears regularly in his images. "Forty years ago, I went travelling with a table. It was an incredible, animal-like object and I carried it around, taking its photograph in different landscapes," says the artist.Β Having been initially refused entrance Lukas gave Dali’s maid a copy of the photograph β€˜meus volatus magicus supra Antoglyphum’ and asked her to appeal once more. On the strength of this image he was granted entrance. Cruelly, the day of the appointed shoot Lukas was called back to Switzerland for national service. About the above photograph: "I set up my camera on a tripod, took the table out into the water and climbed on. Then I jumped up while my girlfriend pressed the button. We had just one roll of film: in those days, you couldn't check you had got the shot, so I only found out when I returned to my darkroom two weeks later." An exhibition of Strebel's workΒ Β is on view at the Print Space in London until January 3,Β 74 Kingsland Road.

In the Picture: Self-Portraits by Lee Friedlander

Lee Friedlander (b. 1934) has been tackling the challenge of self-portraiture throughout his prolific career. What began as an unorthodox investigation of the genre has become a masterful engagement spanning five decades. A new book of self portraits, entitled In The Picture: Self Portraits, 1958-2011, includes hundreds of previously unpublished pictures.  Produced to the highest production standards and featuring over 400 duotone imagesβ€”from his first self-portraits, taken with cable release in hand, to recent images of the photographer with his family and extended network of friendsβ€”In the Picture explores Friedlander’s various guises throughout a rich and colorful life.

Innerscapes

[An] idealization of youth....goes hand in hand with an overall sense of sadness and desperation felt by the artist. With the encroaching global problems facing the youth today, wars, famines, economical downturns, a hope for a better future becomes an idealization in itself. Starting January 11, the Green Art Gallery in Dubai will be presenting a solo show of new works by Turkish photographer Nazif Topcuoglu. Innerscapes will be on view from January 11 to March 5 2011, Green Art Gallery, Al Serkal Ave. D28, Dubai.

Ivars Gravlejs at PLAT(T)FORM 2012

Riga, Latvia based photographer Ivars Gravlejs'Β work will be on view atΒ Plat(t)form 2012 at the Fotomuseum Winterthur in Germany from January 27 to January 29. ThisΒ is the sixth Plat(t)form event featuring the portfolios of young emerging European photographers.Β As in the previous year, Fotomuseum Winterthur has invited 42 photographers to present their work for two hours to the public and a selected team of experts.

3DD Deluxe

Following the success of his first 3D breast book, Henry Hargreaves is back with 3DD Deluxe, another collection building on his universally appreciated theme: real breasts, in β€œeven better” 3D. While the last compilation featured NYC models exclusively, the deluxe edition has women of all shapes, sizes, ages and colors from New Zealand, Australia, London, LA and NYC.

TIM BARBER: UNTITLED PHOTOGRAPHS

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OHWOW announces the publication of Tim Barber's Untitled Photographs. In Untitled Photographs, Barber presents a collection of images spanning his fifteen years behind the lens. From portraits to landscapes to narrative scenes, Barber approaches all of his subject matter with a palpable delicacy. Expanding on amateur aesthetics, these images can feel as much like spontaneous documentation of the artist's adventures as careful compositions. The line between autobiography and fiction is as ethereal as the overall tone of the work. In the case of Barber's photography, ambiguity is seductive and the lure of fantasy eclipses the security of literality. Book signing Friday, December 16, 2011 6-8pm at OHWOW book club - 227 Waverly Place, New York.