Thomas Ruff

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Thomas Ruff (b. 1958), known for his deadpan portraits and gorgeous views of the night sky and architecture, is one of Germany's leading contemporary artist/photographers. Among his work is an exploration of the internet, that parallel visual universe teeming with sexuality of every flavor and variety. He gathers from that virtual playground erotic and often pornographic photographs that he subsequently manipulates in his computer, making beautiful--and disturbing--artwork from visual material that, for better or worse, is probably more abundant than any other type of image in our world today. The pictures, which are graphic and abstract at the same time, are accompanied by an excerpt from a forthcoming novel by controversial French writer Michel Houellebecq, whose work is similarly influenced by the sex industry. Reviewing the series in the Village Voice, Jerry Saltz wrote: "Ruff may think these images are analytic or objective, but they're also sweetly, luxuriantly visual...Sex slips into something ravishingly, optically comfortable, and these everyday, off-world images morph into parapaintings from the Planet Love."

Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Dolls and Masks

Ralph Eugene Meatyard is not one of the most familiar names in photographic history, but his impact on the field, belatedly recognized, is significant. An optician in Lexington, Kentucky, Meatyard sustained a lifelong interest in visual perception. Well read and deeply connected to a circle of poets and philosophers, he made photographs rich in literary allusion. In his last decade, Meatyard kept returning to the tropes of dolls and masks, often photographing his children posed in abandoned houses and landscapes in the environs of his home. These pictures put an uncanny spin on family photography, exploring the contrasts between youth and age, childhood and mortality, intimacy and unknowability, sharing and hiding. Drawn from the photographer’s estate, and including three prints recently acquired by the Fine Arts Museums, this exhibition of almost 60 photographs examines dolls and masks across different bodies of work as a window onto this enigmatic photographer’s larger practice. Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Dolls and Masks is currently on view at the de Young in San Francisco until February 26.

Bruce of Los Angeles: Beefcakes and Boundaries

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As part of Pacific Standard Time, Pop tART Gallery in Los Angeles presents Bruce of Los Angeles: Beefcakes and Boundaries. In the same pioneering spirit as many others who have packed their bags and headed west, Photographer Bruce Bellas, or Bruce of Los Angeles as he came to be known, arrived in California in 1946 and immediately began challenging the norms of acceptable society. With post-war conservatism growing, Bruce of Los Angeles photographed Muscle Beach’s most beautiful male bodies and published an extensive body of homoerotic work during a time when institutionalized homophobia was the norm. His pin-up images of the male physique pressed the boundaries between art and obscenity. Having influenced contemporary photographers such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Bruce Weber, and Herb Ritts, Bruce of Los Angeles is regarded as a “creative force in the establishment of the modern American homosexual identity”. This exhibition will showcase original prints of the photographers extensive body of work as well as exhibit the work of contemporary artists who’ve found inspiration in the classic style and boundary breaking approach that mark the contribution Bruce of Los Angeles made to art as we know it today. Bruce of Los Angeles: Beefcakes and Boundaries is on view until December 21

Hollywood Arsenal

For his latest journey, Hollywood Arsenal, artist James Georgopoulos combines unique and extremely large silver gelatin prints with elegant multi-layered fields of acrylic paint. These meticulous and painstakingly produced prints are created in a mural darkroom, and each image often combines many layers of individually toned and processed fiber based prints which are then layered and trimmed to create a unique, seamless, and extraordinarily powerful artistic statement. Georgopoulos has amassed Hollywood’s most notorious arsenal in one location. He has photographed famous cinematic guns along with a selection of motion picture cameras used to record some of the most celebrated film and television shows ever made. Hollywood Arsenal will benefit The Art of Elysium, a non-profit organization. Founded in 1997 by Jennifer Howell, the group encourages actors, artists and musicians to voluntarily dedicate their time and talent to children who are battling serious medical conditions. The Art of Elysium provides artistic workshops in acting, art, comedy, fashion, music, radio, songwriting and creative writing. On view Saturday, November 12, 2011, 7:00pm - 11:00pm – Siren Studios 6063 W. Sunset Blvd. Hollywood, CA.

Jeanne Moreau: Enduring Allure

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“I write my own rules day by day,” Jeanne Moreau once said, and few actresses of her generation can claim to have rewritten the rules of film stardom with as much conviction. After her provocative performance in Louis Malle’s The Lovers (1958), Moreau (b. 1928) was touted as the next Brigitte Bardot, but she was always something more than an object of desire. Whether cool and cunning or frank and free-spirited, each of her characters projects a worldly intelligence; behind her heavily shadowed eyes are depths of private knowledge. As she has said, “Beyond the beauty, the sex, the titillation, the surface, there is a human being. And that has to emerge.” An accomplished stage performer who had appeared in a few B movies, Moreau was nearly thirty when Malle persuaded her to star in his first feature, Elevator to the Gallows (1958). “It was,” she later said, “the decisive moment for the rest of my life.” By the time she played the captivating Catherine in François Truffaut’s Jules and Jim (1961), she was at the crest of the New Wave. Moreau’s talent drew the attention of many major directors: Michelangelo Antonioni, Luis Buñuel, Jacques Demy, Orson Welles. All of these artists are indebted to a woman whom Welles, with his usual combination of hyperbole and insight, called “the greatest actress in the world.” Text by Juliet Clark. Jeanne Moreau: Enduring Allure is currently on view until December 11 at the Pacific Film Archive at the University of Berkley. 

Melody Nelson

Artnet Auctions announces the sale of nine rare and beautiful works by photographer Tony Frank (French, b.1945) to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the legendary album, Histoire de Melody Nelson, by iconic French singer and artist Serge Gainsbourg. This photographic sale includes the memorable album cover, which contributed to Melody Nelson’s stature in French culture, and will only be on artnet Auctions until November 16, 2011.

Rita's Opening

Rita Lino is an unabashed, self exploratory photographer based in Porto, Portugal. Her work delves deep into the psyche of the feminine in a post-modern landscape where there is no curtain to hide behind.  Rita also makes brilliant short cinematic shorts that bring her photography to life. She just sent over her latest video, entitled Rita's Opening, which is a personal statement of sorts of her art and work.

Plossu Retrospective At Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura Gallery in Paris, who represents the French photographer Bernard Plossu is currently presenting Parcours dans l’œuvre de Bernard Plossu, du Mexique à l’Ardèche, a retrospective of sorts in two parts through two bodies of work, entitled “voyage en Mexique” (1965-1966) and “le pays des petites routes (2008-2010) en Ardèche”. In 1965 Plossu arrived in Mexico and took photographs of the landscapes and of the people to create his series “Voyage Mexicaine." Plossu also traveled to Africa in 1975 and then lived in New Mexico before moving to France in 1985. In the 1970s, he invented a simple and neutral photographic style, without depriving the sentimentality from his pictures. The photographer is mainly recognized for his black and white pictures, however at the exhibition, spectators have the opportunity to discover his color photography as well.  It should be noted also that this exhibition is displaying never before published works by Plossu.  On view until December 23. 

Nate Lowman: Thirty Million Dollar Smile

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Triple A is a two-year public art project initiated by Francois Ghebaly, Emma Gray, Mandrake Bar and OHWOW gallery. Eight internationally recognized artists will be asked to create a single color image to be painted at large scale on the exterior wall of a former muffler shop that sits at the corner of Venice Boulevard and La Cienega Boulevard, just south of the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles California. The wall, situated in the Culver City gallery district, also sits at one of the most heavily trafficked intersections in Los Angeles.This location offers high visibility to both arts professionals and the larger general public. The eight images painted on the wall over the course of the project will also be used to create a suite of eight individual silkscreen prints in an edition of ten. The inaugural project, a wall painting by New York based artist Nate Lowman, is now on view. Lowman's piece, Thirty Million Dollar Smile, is a halftone transfer of a photograph of Julia Roberts originally taken for a Loreal campaign, but later rejected by Roberts because she felt the image was over-photoshopped. The mural is located at 2600 South La Cienega Blvd.

Sweet Violence

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Sweet Violence is the first museum exhibition in the United States of the work of Sanja Iveković (b. 1949, Zagreb) covers four decades of the artist's remarkable career. A feminist, activist, and video pioneer, Iveković came of age in the post-1968 period, when artists broke free from mainstream institutional settings, laying the ground for a form of praxis antipodal to official art. Part of the generation known as the Nova Umjetnička Praska (New Art Practice), Iveković produced works of cross-cultural resonance that range from conceptual photomontages to video and performance. Sanja Iveković: Sweet Violence is on view at the MoMA in NYC from December 18 to March 26, 2012.