Dreamscapes

Looking through the archives....a photograph of Adarsha Benjamin pondering her next shot for a fashion story at a John Lautner house for the first issue of AUTRE almost one year ago today. Adarsha will be having her first solo exhibition, entitled Dreamscapes, next week in Los Angeles.  Along side the series of photographs & moving images there will be Soundscapes by Rocco Deluca and tunes DJ'd by the Ana Calderon. Dreamscapes will be on view as part of The Rooftop Sessions artist series at Siren Studios, May 17th 6-10pm. RSVP by Wednesday May 16th at rsvp@sirenstudios.com.

Helmut Newton's Sex & Landscapes

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Opening June 1st in Los Angeles, Helmut Newton's Sex & Landscapes, a series created in collaboration with the late artist’s wife and collaborator, June Netwon, features 20 of his so-called “sex pictures” — glamorous, seductive shots of women in various states of undress and seductive performance — and 20 landscapes.  Helmut Netwon: Sex and Landscapes, opens on June 1 at Perry Rubenstein Galleryat 1215 N. Highland Avenue.

Richard Avedon's Murals & Portraits @ Gagosian New York

Opening today at Gagosian New York, Richard Avedon's Murals & Portraits. Against the backdrop of America's social and political transformation, Avedon began to create four photographic murals between 1969 and 1971 which would be unprecedented in scale and pointed in subject. Between 20 to 35 feet wide and comprising up to five panels, the murals revealed a striking new format in which subjects were positioned frontally and aligned against a stark white background. This intensity of characterization and confrontational aspect typifies Avedon's portraits; his subjects exist larger than life, stripped of all artifice by an unflinching eye. His mural groupings featured emblematic figures: Andy Warhol with the players and stars of The Factory; The Chicago Seven, political radicals charged with and acquitted of conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention; the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and his extended family; and the Mission Council, a group of military and government officials who governed the United States' participation in the Vietnam War. Murals and Portraits will be on view from May 4 to July 6 at Gagosian, 522 West 21, New York.

Gered Mankowitz Retrospective

Prolific music photographer and documentarian Gered Mankowitz is to be the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the Snap Gallery in London. The exhibition features over 100 photographs from Gered’s entire career, spanning four decades of music photography. This is the largest collection of photographs Gered has ever exhibited, and it is his first career retrospective. Gered is best known for his 1960s photographs of The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix, and both subjects feature in this exhibition. During the 60s he also photographed Marianne Faithfull, Georgie Fame, Chris Farlowe, The Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, Small Faces, Donovan, Spencer Davies group and PP Arnold to name a few, before moving into the progressive end of the decade with Free, Soft Machine, Traffic and The Nice. Gered Mankowitz: A Retrospective will be on view until June 16 at the Snap Gallery, 12 Piccadilly Arcade, London.

Ryan McGinley's Animals

Team Gallery in New York presents Ryan McGinley's Animals which consists of the artist's color studio portraits of live animals with nude models. The exhibition is his first made up exclusively of selections from this growing, and ambitious, body of work. The artist visited various sanctuaries, zoos, and rescue establishments across the United States, erecting a mobile studio wherever possible and working with a number of pre-eminent animal trainers. The animals are not mere props in photographs of people; on the contrary, McGinley considers them the subjects of these images. There exists both tension and tenderness between the models and wild animals, as they claw, clutch, nibble, and hug one another. These photographs are studies in animal bodies, their strangeness and seductivity. Animals will be on view concurrently with McGinley's Grid show both Team Gallery locations in NYC from May 2 to June 2, 2012.

Warhol in Flowers

American photographer William John Kennedy’s exhibition of newly published prints of Andy Warhol and Robert Indiana is believed to be the only such images in existence capturing the artists with their works, among them Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe and Indiana’s LOVE. After almost half a century in storage, a select number of the nearly forgotten images were carefully chosen, and are now being published for the first time as a collection. On view now until May 29 at Site 109 Gallery in NYC.

Dark Sky

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On 6 June 2012 the second and the last transit of Venus of the century will occur. Departing from this extraordinary phenomenon, the Adam Art Gallery, in New Zealand, presents the exhibition Dark Sky which delves into the relationship between photography and astronomy to examine the intriguing photographic consequences and new territories discovered from capturing the skies. The exhibition has been timed to coincide with the 2012 Transit of Venus, a rare astronomical event when Venus passes between the Earth and the sun. The exhibition will be complemented by a public programme, including talks by scientists, artists and writers, including the German and New Zealand poets who have been commissioned by the International Institute of Modern Letters and the New Zealand Goethe-Institut to write about the Transit of Venus. Dark Sky will be on view from May 1 to June 8, at the Adam Art Gallery Victoria University, Gate 3, Kelburn Parade.