5 Must See Exhibitions At the Rencontres d'Arles Photography Festival in France

Started in 1970 by the late Arles based photographer Lucien Clergue, the writer Michel Tournier and the historian Jean-Maurice Rouquette, Rencontres d'Arles Photography Festival in the South of France has become a preeminent photography festival. The festival is on view now and runs until September. Here are Autre's picks for the must see exhibitions at this year's festival: 1. The Discovery Award honors photographers who deserve to be discovered - one of this year's highlight nominees is Delphine Chanet, who was once a student of legendary fashion photographer Frank Horvat 2. Stephen Shore will be showing off an extensive exhibition of his American backdrops in glorious saturated colors the Espace Van Gogh 3. Eight Japanese photographers will be presented in an exhibition called Another Language at the église Sainte-Anne 4. The Musée Réattu shows off its impressive collection of photography that it has been building over the last 50 years in an exhibition called Daring Photography 5. Check out Guy Bourdin's photography work for Boz Scaggs' album Middle Man and more in an exhibition of album cover photography on view Ateliers des Forges 

Opening Night Captures The Last Gasp of Hollywood's Golden Era With Rare Never-Before-Seen Photographs by Elliott Landy

"Opening Night" is the latest sexy, sleek and glamorous photo book by Imperial Pictures Publishing and Paperwork NYC. The book features never before seen photographs by Elliott Landy who is known for his photographs of Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Hendrix and more. In this gorgeous edition, you'll be able to find images of Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Streisand, Faye Dunaway, Marlene Dietrich, Dustin Hoffman, Andy Warhol and more, all dolled up to the nines and ready for the flash bulbs. “My pictures reflected the aspects of those events that impacted me the most—the falseness and superficiality,” writes Landy in the intro. “They were a reflection of my inner feelings toward what was happening—a flow of energy, channeled and filtered through my own person.” Even though Landy has moved on from the world of celebritydom, he will get his fair share of the limelight tomorrow night at the Jane Hotel Ballroom, starting at 10pm, to celebrate the launch of Opening Night. You can also purchase Opening Night here. 

Wunderkind Chinese Photographer Ren Hang Has First Solo Show In Japan

Opening tonight in Tokyo, at the Matchbaco Gallery, wunderkind Chinese photographer Ren Hang will present new photographs taken in New York City. A new publication featuring works from this series will be published by Session Press and distributed by Dashwood Books. Ren Hang "New Love" will open tonight at Matchbaco Gallery and it will run until July 25, 2015.  

Ishiuchi Miyako 'Frida' @ Michael Hoppen Gallery In London

"Frida" by Ishiuchi Miyako is a photographic record of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s wardrobe and belongings. She respectfully sifts through the remaining ephemera and in doing so makes intimate revelations about one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists. Frida will be on view until July 12, 2015 @ Michael Hoppen Gallery, 3 Jubilee Place, London

Micaela McLucas 'Cirrus' @ Castor Gallery In New York

Castor Gallery presents "Cirrus," an exhibition of photographs by London-based artist, Micaela McLucas. McLucas’ photographs document her offbeat perspective of daily life by attempting to blur the lines between reality, and fiction. Set in a parallel world of fantasy and altered existence, her explorations of daily life become a realm of foreign familiarity and surreal monotony. McLucas uses her photographs as not only a reflection of her own dream-inspired environments, but also as a manipulation of her daily routines and life. 'Cirrus' will be on view until July 1, 2015 at Castor Gallery, 254 Broome St, New York. 

Chloë Sevigny Creates An Ex-Boyfriend Zine for the I Never Read Art Book Fair in Basel

Zines are really hot right now. If you haven't made one yet, maybe you should. The latest zine to come off the press comes from Chloë Sevigny who has released a little chapbook with photographic collages of all her ex-boyfriends. The zine was published on the occasion of the I Never Read Art Book Fair, which is being held alongside the Art Basel festivities in Switzerland. Entitled "No Time for Love," the zine is published by venerable cool zine publisher Innen. The I Never Read Book Fair will be on view until June 20, 2015 in Kaserne Switzerland. 

Read Our Interview With Dutch Photographer and Artist Isabelle Wenzel →

German-based artist Isabelle Wenzel creates colorful sets on which to enact bodily performances, the evidence of which appear only as fixed photographs. These final images depict women’s bodies fragmented and abstracted like mannequins whose limbs have not yet been pieced together. In the following interview, Wenzel discusses her process, philosophies, and next projects. Click here to read the interview. 

Nobuyoshi Araki Shows New Photographs Tinged with the Self Realization of Impending Death at the Taka Ishii Gallery In Tokyo

“I’m now seeing things from the side of death. I’m looking at the world from the other side of the sky. That’s why it’s mirrored.” – Nobuyoshi Araki. This spring, Araki started shooting 6×7 color positive film and black and white photographs with date inscriptions in a diaristic manner documenting daily events and his emotions regarding life and death. In the current series, Araki presents everyday scenes in mirrored images to express the sense that he now sees the world from the side of death, i.e. the other side of the mirror. In 2013, after experiencing the onset and removal of prostate cancer and the death of his beloved cat Chiro, Araki suffered from central retinal artery occlusion and lost sight in his right eye. Despite this loss, he has continued to produce photographs at a prolific pace, transforming his sadness and thoughts on death into fuel for shooting photographs. This series is his first foray into shooting images with his perspective from “the other side.” The exhibition will be on view until June 20, 2015 at Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film in Tokyo.

Read Our Interview With Legendary Photographer Roger Ballen →

"This word exploitative is pathetic. It’s actually pathetic. It shows an inability to understand anything about photography. What does anybody know about being the subjects? They could have gotten on their hands and knees and begged me to take their picture." Click here to read our interview with legendary photographer Roger Ballen. 

Photographer Eliot Lee Hazel At The Opening of 'Disconnection,' A Group Show Curated by Justin Tyler Close at Wilding Cran Gallery In Los Angeles

Wilding Cran Gallery Unit B is pleased to present "Disconnection," a group show curated by Justin Tyler Close of Lab Magazine, featuring new work by Eliot Lee Hazel, Ariana Papademetropoulos, Nouel Riel, Logan White, Darian Zahedi, and Amanda Charchian in collaboration with Eli Craven. "Disconnection" explores ideas about living in today's world where everyone is more connected than ever and how that has led to a loss of mystery and suspense within relationships because of the constant need for immediacy. Disconnection will be on view until June 13, 2015, at Wilding Cran Gallery in Los Angeles. 

Gillian Laub 'Southern Rites' @ Benrubi Gallery in New York

Benrubi Gallery, in collaboration with the International Center of Photography, presents "Southern Rites," the new exhibition from award-winning photographer Gillian Laub, whose previous exhibition at the gallery, "Common Ground," dealt with the relationship between Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinians. With "Southern Rites," she again takes on a story steeped in generations-long tensions, and tells it with power, sensitivity and enduring poignancy. "Southern Rites" is a provocative twelve-year visual study of one community’s struggle to confront longstanding issues of race and equality. In 2002, Laub was invited to Mt. Vernon, Georgia, to photograph its segregated homecoming celebrations. She kept returning to the community and in 2009, The New York Times Magazine published a photo-essay by Laub titled, “A Prom Divided,” which documented Georgia’s Montgomery County High School’s racially segregated prom rituals. Laub’s photographs ignited a firestorm of national outrage that, remarkably, led the community to finally integrate the proms. Laub continued to travel to Mt. Vernon to document the aftermath, which was welcomed in some circles and decried in others. In 2011, amid newfound hope, the murder of a young black man (portrayed in Laub’s earlier prom series) by an older white town resident reopened old wounds. Through her intimate portraits, first-hand testimony, and video installation, Laub reveals in vivid color the horror and humanity of these complex, intertwined narratives. Southern Rites will be on view until June 27, 2015 at Benrubi Gallery, 521 West 26th Street, New York. You can also purchase a monograph (Damiani) of the work here. 

A Sad Day for Photography, Mary Ellen Mark Dies At 75

Her photography addressed such social issues as homelessness, loneliness, drug addiction, and prostitution. She worked primarily in black and white. She described her approach to her subjects: "I’ve always felt that children and teenagers are not "children," they’re small people. I look at them as little people and I either like them or I don’t like them. I also have an obsession with mental illness. And strange people who are outside the borders of society." Mark also said, "I’d rather pull up things from another culture that are universal, that we can all relate to….There are prostitutes all over the world. I try to show their way of life…" Mary Ellen Mark - March 20, 1940 - May 25, 2015

A Tour of Artist and Photographer Zoe Crosher's Studio

Zoe Crosher, Founder and President of the Los Angeles branch of The Fainting Club, is an artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. Inspired by the collapse of the image and the imaginary, Crosher explores disconnects between the fantasy of something and its reality. Through her conceptual mappings of identities and self-hoods, both of place (Out The Window and LA-LIKE) and person (The Michelle duBois Project), Crosher is interested in activating the gaps between expectation and misremembering. Recent works have been realized as sculptures and perfumes, billboards and desserts, entropic walls, and fools gold dust paintings, musical compositions and collaborations of all kinds, including curating, publications, and of course, images. Conflating the real and the fake, and concerned with an iterative process, repetition, and multiples that emerge through virtual and real-time, she engages the fiction of documentary and the impossibility of the archive, eschewing any sort of belief in a singular history – aka, the “Imagiatic”. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Photographer Melanie Pullen @ Paris Photo Los Angeles

While some kids had imaginary friends, photographer Melanie Pullen had a transvestite prostitute who she would speak to from her window as a 6 year old, after her parents went to sleep. These early dialogues with the dangerous world of the night in New York City, beyond her childhood bedroom, built the foundation for the strange and dark worlds of crime scenes and ghosts that inhabit her photographs. photograph by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Part Two: VIP Opening of Paris Photo Los Angeles 2015

Paris Photo Los Angeles returns this year to Paramount Pictures Studios' famous sound stages and New York City backlots. Paris Photo presents a true exploration of classic and contemporary photography and moving images - and everything in between. The fair opens today and runs until Sunday, May 3rd. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Part One: VIP Opening of Paris Photo Los Angeles 2015

Paris Photo Los Angeles returns this year to Paramount Pictures Studios' famous sound stages and New York City backlots. Paris Photo presents a true exploration of classic and contemporary photography and moving images - and everything in between. The fair opens today and runs until Sunday, May 3rd. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Cole Sternberg On His Solo Exhibition At Paris Photo L.A. →

Artist Cole Sternberg is gearing up for his solo exhibition at Paris Photo Los Angeles 2015 presented by MAMA Gallery. In the following interview, Sternberg discusses his show, entitled "My Grandmother's Den," which is essentially a photographic reproduction of his grandmother's den in Long Island, New York. He also discusses his practice and the fate of mankind. Read the full interview here. 

5 Must See Solo Exhibitions at Paris Photo Los Angeles 2015

Paris Photo Los Angeles returns to Paramount Pictures Studios where the photographic medium will be celebrated among the famous backlot movie sets, sound stages and classic replica's of New York City storefronts and streets. Here are some of the most exciting, must see solo exhibitions that will be on display: 1. Ren Hang presented by Capricious 88 (Stage 14 - Stand 4) 2. Cole Sternberg presented by MAMA (NYB / Stand H3) 3. David Benjamin Sherry presented by OHWOW (Stage 32 / Stand 15) 4. Guy Bourdin presented by Louise Alexander (Stage 31 / Stand 5) 5. Juergen Teller presented by Suzanne Tarasieve (NYB / Stand G5)