Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial), 2011

The art world's moveable feast takes up residence in Istanbul this week, as the opening of the 12th Istanbul Biennial, Sept. 17-Nov. 13, 2011, corresponds with the launch of a new art fair, Art Beat Istanbul, Sept. 14-18, 2011. Also on the schedule are the inauguration of several new galleries. More here from Artnet.

12th Istanbul Biennial, “Untitled,” 2011

Sept. 17-Nov. 13, 2011

Art and politics is the theme of the 12th Istanbul Biennial, which promises to present artworks that are both formally innovative and politically outspoken. It takes as its point of departure the work of the Cuban American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957–1996), whose work was able to “integrate high modernist, minimal and conceptual references with themes of everyday life.” The festival, which is organized by Jens Hoffmann and Adriano Pedrosa, embraces Gonzalez-Torres’ idea that the world can be made a better place, and that art can be a catalyst for change.

To paraphrase Gonzalez-Torres, the 12th Istanbul Biennial is “Untitled” because meaning is always changing in time and space. The biennial consists of five group exhibitions and more than 50 solo presentations, all housed in a single venue, Antrepo 3 and 5 exhibition halls. Each of the group shows (“Untitled (Abstraction),” “Untitled (Ross),” “Untitled (Passport),” “Untitled (History)” and “Untitled (Death by Gun)”) departs from a specific work by Gonzalez-Torres. Visitors are encouraged to become active readers, not just silent recipients.

Participating artists, whose names have still not been officially released, include Eddie Adams, with a rare series of three vintage photographs from Street Execution of a Viet Cong Officer, Saigon, 1968, on loan from Monroe Gallery of Photography. The photographs are featured in the "Untitled (Death by Gun)" exhibition.

Related: The New York Times: A Simplified and Secretive Istanbul Biennial

               The Guardian has compliled a list of 10 of the best modern art galleries in Istanbul and  a slide show: Vintage Istanbul - in pictures.

10th Aids Impact Conference in Santa Fe

We were very honored to host a champagne reception last night for the 400 researchers, delegates and guests from 60 countries attending the 10th AIDS Impact conference.

The conference was the first among a number of AIDS conferences to return to U.S. soil after a close to 20-year boycott over immigration restrictions for persons living with HIV that were recently lifted.

Where's Today's Dorothea Lange?

Hard times have spawned great art — but not these hard times, it seems.

September 12, 2011

By Jaime O'Neill

Economists and politicians told us that the recession was over, though some of them now worry about it taking a double dip. For those of us living farther from the ledger sheets and closer to the reality of what's happening in our towns and on our streets, this has been and remains a depression. It's hard to make the word stick, however, because we haven't developed the iconography yet. We don't have bread lines, dance marathons, guys selling apples on street corners or men jumping from high buildings because they've been wiped out in the stock market.

The pain and suffering has only been superficially covered by the news media, but it has surely not been addressed by our artists. In the 1930s, John Steinbeck chronicled the Depression as it played out in the lives of the Joads, his fictional Okies. He invented those memorable characters to vivify all the abstractions of the policymakers and to give literary voice to the suffering so many nonfictional Americans were experiencing.

There were a raft of other artists who also were telling the tale, making people see, hear and feel the pain as only the arts can do. There was Dorothea Lange taking photos and Woody Guthrie writing songs. Hollywood was doing its part too, and not only with a movie version of Steinbeck's novel. Unlike current audiences, moviegoers in the '30s were persistently reminded by what was on the screen of what awaited them when they resumed their lives outside the theater. Even "King Kong," generally conceded to be pioneering escapist fare, begins with Fay Wray in a bread line.

In our own times, when Iraq and Afghanistan war vets are suffering double-digit rates of unemployment, you can't find much mention of those veterans and their struggles in our movies. But, in 1932, "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang" gave cinematic life to the kind of men who would march on Washington as part of the Bonus Army, a legion of out-of-work World War I vets who squatted in the nation's capital to bring attention to their plight — an appeal that was ultimately met not with aid but with violence.

Even musicals like "Gold Diggers of 1933" (which gave us the song "We're in the Money") is structured around the story of war heroes who were shamed by the need to seek inadequate public assistance. There also were more overtly political films in 1933, movies like "Wild Boys of the Road," a gritty portrayal of unemployed young men jumping freights to find work.

A few recent indie films have provided glimpses of what the Joads might look like in this new century — "Winter's Bone" comes most forcefully to mind — but mostly the moviemakers are far removed, in their own lives and in their products, from what the majority of Americans are living through now.

Musical artists too are looking the other way. What hit song of the last three years gives voice to our times in the way "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?" gave voice to the 1930s? Where are the songs that evoke images of vacancies in the shopping malls, people driven from their foreclosed homes and couples whose marriages are shattered by the frustrations of their hardships?

A long time ago, during an early peace march through San Francisco, I remember a young guy in an apartment a couple of floors above the street putting a speaker in his window and blasting Bob Dylan singing "The Times They Are A-Changin' " to the protesters marching by. The feeling of support and solidarity that music contributed on that day was palpable, and it came at a time when public sentiment had not yet turned against the Vietnam War.

Years later, in a none-too-brave new world, I attended a Dylan concert in the months following 9/11. The "senators and congressmen" Dylan had once referenced in his old song were then talking about taking us to war in Iraq. I hoped on that night that the protege of Woody Guthrie would say a word or two about the times we were living in. But he said nothing, having long since decided he didn't want to be an oracle, didn't want to speak except through his songs. For many fans, it would have been balm to us had Dylan used even the slimmest portion of his art to provide the sense of solace he'd given so many dissenters long ago.

A few months after seeing Dylan, I saw Jerry Seinfeld. It was a few weeks after the shoe bomber had attempted to blow up an airplane. No one goes to see Seinfeld for political commentary, but he made a joke about the shoe bomber, and it was therapeutic, allowing us to laugh at the boogeyman. It was art employed in the interest of sanity. It's been said that humor is our shield against insanity. So far, we've mostly been crazy this century, and there hasn't been much shielding us from it. The comedians, such as Jon Stewart, Will Durst and Bill Maher, have filled the vacuum the other arts have abandoned.

As much as anything, the arts define the times, sketching a portrait of a moment in the life of the nation and the world, marking a period in ways it comes to be viewed by people who live through it and by people who come after. But the tale of our times is mostly being told by our unwillingness to tell it.

Jaime O'Neill is a writer in Northern California.

Suggested - Be sure to visit Facing Change: Documenting America 

Facing Change: Documenting America is a non-profit collective of dedicated photojournalists and writers coming together to explore America and to build a forum to chart its future. Mobilizing to document the critical issues facing America, FCDA teams will create a visual resource that raises social awareness and expands public debate.    

COVER PHOTO BY MARK SHAW FOR NEW KENNEDY BOOK

Jacqueline Kennedy in April of 1961 © 2000 Mark Shaw

Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy
By Caroline Kennedy

400 pages, 8 CDs, 85 photos

$60.00 US

In 1964, Jacqueline Kennedy recorded seven historic interviews about her life with John F. Kennedy. Now, for the first time, they can be heard and read in this deluxe, illustrated book and 8-CD set.

From Hyperion Books:

Shortly after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, with a nation deep in mourning and the world looking on in stunned disbelief, Jacqueline Kennedy found the strength to set aside her own personal grief for the sake of posterity and begin the task of documenting and preserving her husband’s legacy. In January of 1964, she and Robert F. Kennedy approved a planned oral-history project that would capture their first-hand accounts of the late President as well as the recollections of those closest to him throughout his extraordinary political career. For the rest of her life, the famously private Jacqueline Kennedy steadfastly refused to discuss her memories of those years, but beginning that March, she fulfilled her obligation to future generations of Americans by sitting down with historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and recording an astonishingly detailed and unvarnished account of her experiences and impressions as the wife and confidante of John F. Kennedy. The tapes of those sessions were then sealed and later deposited in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum upon its completion, in accordance with Mrs. Kennedy’s wishes.

The resulting eight and a half hours of material comprises a unique and compelling record of a tumultuous era, providing fresh insights on the many significant people and events that shaped JFK’s presidency but also shedding new light on the man behind the momentous decisions. Here are JFK’s unscripted opinions on a host of revealing subjects, including his thoughts and feelings about his brothers Robert and Ted, and his take on world leaders past and present, giving us perhaps the most informed, genuine, and immediate portrait of John Fitzgerald Kennedy we shall ever have. Mrs. Kennedy’s urbane perspective, her candor, and her flashes of wit also give us our clearest glimpse into the active mind of a remarkable First Lady.

In conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy’s Inauguration, Caroline Kennedy and the Kennedy family are now releasing these beautifully restored recordings on CDs with accompanying transcripts. Introduced and annotated by renowned presidential historian Michael Beschloss, these interviews will add an exciting new dimension to our understanding and appreciation of President Kennedy and his time and make the past come alive through the words and voice of an eloquent eyewitness to history.

Click here for an exclusive look at Kennedy trivia and photos

Related: New York Times Slideshow: "She Said That?"

Photography by Stephen Wilkes

CNN - Witness to History: White House photographer Eric Draper and the images of 9/11

Via CNN


Washington (CNN) -- As the president's personal photographer and head of the White House Photo Office, Eric Draper was with President George W. Bush for nearly every day of his eight-year term, often just a few feet away.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, he was there, too.

"My job was to document the president, to follow him everywhere," Draper told CNN in an exclusive interview. "But I had no idea what stories, what events would play out ... September 11 changed everything."

Draper, a former newspaper and wire photographer who is now a freelancer based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, ended up at President Bush's side on that fateful day and made some of the most iconic and memorable images of the president as the tragedy unfolded.

He was there in the motorcade, driving to Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, when press secretary Ari Fleischer first got a "page" on his pager -- "Back then, we didn't have BlackBerrys," said Draper -- alerting the White House that a single plane had hit the World Trade Center.

Eric Draper video: 9/11 through Bush's lens

"I remember the president saying, 'What a horrible accident.' That's what everyone thought, that it was a shocking, one-time, how-could-that-ever-happen accident," recalled Draper.

Minutes later, they knew it wasn't an accident.

Draper was there, in the holding room of the elementary school, as Bush and his advisers first saw the second plane, United Airlines Flight 175, crash into the south tower, hitting it between the 77th and 85th floors.

He was there, on Air Force One, as the president flew first to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, and then to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, as events continued to develop that tense day.

He was there, in the room, when President Bush saw the twin towers collapse and he was there, days later, when Bush climbed atop the rubble at ground zero in New York, holding a megaphone, and proclaimed "The whole world will hear us soon."

Draper sat down with CNN for an exclusive interview, walked us through several never-before-seen images from September 11 and the days following, and shared how one of the most significant days in American history unfolded:

President Bush reacts to live video of the burning World Trade Center at a classroom at Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota.

CNN: This photo of President Bush in the holding room at the elementary school in Florida, what is happening here?

Draper: This was literally just seconds after the president left the classroom. And the timing here is pretty critical because there's a clock on the wall, you can see it's around 9:10.

The president was asking questions, trying to get the timing down, what happened in New York. It was tense, it was unbelievable. And then there was the distraction of watching the burning towers on TV. Immediately, I just tried to focus on making the picture.

White House communications director Dan Bartlett alerts the room to watch the TV

...as President Bush turns to see the second plane hit the south tower of the World Trade Center.

CNN: And this frame, President Bush is on the phone...

Draper: This was the moment, when the president finally was alerted. We're watching the live screen of the towers burning in New York, and all of a sudden they start replaying the video of the second tower getting hit. ... This was the first time that everyone saw that second plane hitting the tower, the moment of the attack.

President Bush turns around for the first time and sees that image that's burned into everyone's memory.

It was just shocking to see the horrific explosion and knowing immediately that there was going to be a huge loss of life. The roller coaster of emotions really started that day. It started out with shock, then, knowing how many people were in those buildings, it turned to anger, then turned to, at least in my mind, who would do this?

Bush confers on a secure line as "the football" -- the briefcase holding the secure nuclear launch codes -- is watched by a Marine.

CNN: In this picture, I noticed the Marine in the background and the briefcase on the floor. Is that what I think it is?

Draper: Yes. That's the so-called "football" -- the nuclear launch codes -- that the military carries for the president. Right there. On the floor.

As Air Force One approaches Washington, Bush talks with Vice President Cheney while looking at the smoldering Pentagon.

White House advisers plan the route for Air Force One as Bush works in his cabin.

CNN: OK, now you're on Air Force One. What happened once the president was in the air?

Draper: We knew they wanted to get him in the air as soon as possible... I remember walking aboard the plane, and the first thing I heard was (Chief of Staff) Andy Card's voice saying, "Remove your batteries from your cell phones." because we didn't know if we were being traced. I thought, are we a target? I didn't know.

We were hearing a lot of false reports, too. There was a moment when the president came out of the cabin of Air Force One and said, "I hear that 'Angel' is the next target." Angel is the code name for Air Force One.

I also remember those first moments aboard the plane, when the president really tried to rally the staff. He walked out of his cabin and he said, "OK, boys, this is what they pay us for."

With Andy Card watching, President Bush gives the order to shoot down any aircraft that might threaten an attack on the U.S.

CNN: What's going on here? The president appears to be in intense conversation with Andy Card on Air Force One.

Draper: The timing here is pretty critical. This was around the time when the president made the decision that any aircraft that was threatening attack would be shot down.

President Bush watches the collapse of the twin towers aboard Air Force One, with Dan Bartlett and a secret service agent.

Air Force F-16s fly off the wingtips of Air Force One.

CNN: Did President Bush say much to you that day?

Draper: One time, there was a moment. That's when we're watching live TV aboard the plane. That's when the towers fell.

It was a moment of utter disbelief. It was a moment of silence. I remember the president saying, "Eric, what do you think about this?" I said, "This is unbelievable." That's all I could say.

Just moments after this, this is when we discovered the F-16s escorting Air Force One as we approached Andrews Air Force Base. Everyone was looking out the windows, trying to see them. They were right there, literally, looked like they were touching the wings of the plane. For me, it really hit home, that we were in a war. You could see the F-16s on one side of the plane, then you look out the other side of the plane and you could still see the smoke rising from the Pentagon. It was really a shocking scene.

President Bush and retired firefighter Bob Beckwith stand on the rubble of the World Trade Center.

CNN: Now here, the president is in New York, at ground zero. How did that come together?

Draper: I remember, the firefighters, they were fired up. They were angry. They were sad. Some of them had tears in their eyes. They were looking to the president for leadership. You could see it in their eyes.

There was this area set aside for the president to walk over and speak. At the last minute he was handed a megaphone, and the firefighter marking the spot was there, and the president kept him there. He was just there to make sure the president got to the spot, then he was going to leave, but the president said "Stay here."

I remember the firefighter yelling in the background, "I can't hear you." I still get chills when I remember the quote, when the president said, "I can hear YOU, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us soon."

President Bush always kept the badge worn by Port Authority Officer George Howard, who died in the trade center, in his pocket during his presidency.

CNN: This last photo, of the officer's badge, what is this?

Draper: That is the badge that was worn by a New York Port Authority officer who died on 9/11. That badge was found on his body and given to (President Bush) by his mother around the days following 9/11. The president carried it in his pocket as a reminder, he carried it every day. I felt it was very important, symbolically, to make a photograph of that badge. He would always carry it and pull it out to remind people and to remind himself about what happened that day.

Q: Looking back on 9/11, were you scared that day?

Draper: I had it easy because I had a camera to distract me. I had the technical aspects of being a photographer. But at the same time, I was scared about what was happening in Washington, because that's where my wife was, she had just moved to Washington a few days before 9/11.

So when they finally allowed staff to call from the plane later that day, my first words were "Honey, I'm gonna be a little late tonight."

She laughed.

Two of Eric Draper's photograohs from September, 2001 are featured in the exhibition "History's Big Picture" through September 25, 2011.

Related: An Evening with White House Photographer Eric Draper

9.11.01 - 9.11.11

9.11.01 - 9.11.11

Carolyn Schaefer: World Trade Center and Washington Square Arch, New York, 1998



Earlier this week, The New York Times ran an article titled  "Media Strive to Cover 9/11 Without Seeming to Exploit a Tragedy".  "There’s no precedent for something like this,” said Lawrence C. Burstein, the publisher of New York magazine. There has been debate about how the anniversary should be covered. Should it be left to great thinkers and elegant writers to define what the attacks have meant for the country? Or are Americans better served by the accounts of those who experienced the attacks first-hand?"

We relocated from New York City to Santa Fe in January, 2002. Our list of recommended posts (so far):

CNN: Witness to history: White House photographer Eric Draper and the images of 9/11

New York Times Interactive: The Reckoning: America and The World A Decade After 9/11

Wall Street Journal: A Decade After 9/11


New York Daily News: 9/11 Ten Years Later

La Lettre de la Photographie: Archives 9/11

BBC: 9/11 Ten Tears On

VII Photo Agency: 9/11Remembered

POP Photo: 9/11: The Photographers' Stories, Part 1—"Get Down Here. Now."
  
The New Yorker Photo Booth: Ten Years Later

Shutter Photo: 10 Years After 9/11: The Importance of Photojournalism

The Atlantic: September 11: A Story About the History of Digital Photography

Time LightBox: Stephane Sednaoui: 9/11 Search and Rescue

Time Light Box: Twin Towers and the Metropolis: 1970-2011

Time Light Box: Revisiting 9/11: Unpublished Photos by James Nachtwey

Time Light Box:  Flight 93 and Shanksville, Pa: The Forgotten Part of 9/11

Time Light Box: Photo Editors On 9/11: The Photographs That Moved Them Most

David Schonauer: Icons, The 9/11 Series Part One
                              Part Two
                              Part Three
                              Part Four

The Washington Times: Special Section: Sept. 11


The Telegraph: The 9/11 Picture I'll Never Forget (But Wish I Could)

The Guardian: The 9/11 Decade

CBS New York: Remembering 9/11/01 Ten Years Later
(including archive of live newsradio broadcasts)

Photographers revisit 9/11: 'It was that horrific'

Magnum: Susan Meiselas: Ground Zero Artifacts and Construction

Joe McNally: "Like many New York based shooters, I had a bit of a love fest with the World Trade Centers"

Richard Falco: September 11 - To Bear Witness

International Center of Photography: Remembering 9/11
(Including a full list of 9/11 exhibitions and events in New York with locations)

Related: The Newseum has 147 newspaper front pages from 19 countries published on September 12, 2001

Photographers revisit 9/11; 'It was that horrific'

Firefighters at Ground Zero, Sept. 11, 2001
© Bergen Record

Via msnbc Photo Blog

In his new documentary "Witness to History," photojournalist Thomas Franklin revisits 9/11 through the eyes - and lenses - of photojournalists who captured iconic photos that day.

Becky Bratu writes

When Tom Franklin, photojournalist for The Record newspaper in New Jersey, took the picture showing three firemen raising the American flag above the rubble of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, he had no idea it would become an iconic image.

“It was something that just happened,” he said. “I shot it the best way I could and I moved on.”

Franklin said he was standing about 30 yards away from the three firefighters, and the photo was one of a series of frames he shot of them that fateful afternoon.

On the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, Franklin - now a multimedia editor for NorthJersey.com - revisits the day of the attacks in a new documentary about the iconic photos of the day and the photojournalists who captured them. Franklin says photographers played an important role in documenting the historic day.

“I hope a lot of people get to see [the documentary],” he told msnbc.com. “It’s a way of recognizing what journalists do.”

Featuring dramatic images of 9/11, the 13-minute documentary “Witness to History” looks behind the lenses of professional photographers such as David Handschuh of the New York Daily News and Aris Economopoulos of the New Jersey Star-Ledger, and accidental witnesses such as Carmen Taylor, who happened to be visiting New York from Arkansas that day.

Taylor, who was on vacation by herself, told Franklin she would have been screaming if she hadn’t been busy taking photos.

While iconic, most of the images from that day are stirring, if not shocking. Franklin argues there is real value in retelling what happened, particularly because of the horror of the events.

“9/11 was that bad,” he said. “It was that horrific.”

Watch the entire documentary here, and watch Thomas Franklin explain how he got the iconic image of the firemen raising the American flag.


Thomas Franklin's photograph of Firefighters at Ground Zero, Sept. 11, 2001 is included in the exhibition "History's Big Picture" at Monroe Gallery of Photography through September 25, 2011.

"Like many New York based shooters, I had a bit of a love fest with the World Trade Centers"

Joe McNally

A very good read:

Joe McNally Presents: A 9/11 Remembrance, In Pictures

Photogs. We’re storytellers, right? So, if you will, permit me a story. (It’s occasionally been a saga, and maybe, every once in a while, an opera.)

Like many New York based shooters, I had a bit of a love fest with the World Trade Centers. What was not to like? These twin exclamation points at the southern tip of Manhattan provided a sense of place, majesty, and graphic balance to your snaps, all at once. Full post with photographs continues here via Scott Kelby's blog.


Information here about donating to the ongoing maintenance and costs of the Giant Polaroid "Faces of Ground Zero" collection.

LEE FRIEDLANDER: AMERICA BY CAR/THE NEW CARS 1964

Montana, 2008. Gelatin-Silver Print. Image: 15 x 15 in. / 38 x 38 cmSheet: 20 x 16 in. / 50.8 x 40.6 cm. (©Lee Friedlander/Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco).


Lee Friedlander's "America By Car/The New Cars 1964" is at the Timothy Taylor Gallery, London until 1 October 2011. Below are several article and reviews.


Wayne Ford's Blog

Sean O'Hagen in the Guardian's The Observer

Charles Darwant in The Independant

Rachel Spence in the Financial Times


Press release :

Timothy Taylor Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of recent work by the influential and critically acclaimed American photographer Lee Friedlander, on display for the first time in the UK. This will be Friedlanderʼs first solo exhibition in London since his 1976 show at the Photographersʼ Gallery.

Lee Friedlander: America By Car charts numerous journeys made by the photographer during the last decade across most of the fifty US states. Shot entirely from the interiors of rental cars, typically from the driver’s seat, Friedlander makes use of side and rearview mirrors, windscreens, and side windows as framing devices for a total of 192 images.

In America By Car, Friedlander uses the quintessential icons of US culture - cars and the open road - to explore contemporary America, revisiting in the process many of  the places and strategies that he has incorporated into his practice throughout his career.

Elements from car interiors such as steering wheels and dashboards, as well as leather or wood panel trim, provide an index of their own; these differing qualities of finish and contemporaneity often appear strikingly at odds with the terrains in which they are located. Presented in the square-crop format that characterizes Friedlander’s more recent work, these images complicate and invigorate the most bereft of rural scenes. His desire to collapse and flatten out the three dimensional world parallels the means of cubist painting and recalls the collaging techniques of pop art.

In a career spanning over fifty years, Friedlander is renowned for his recordings of everyday phenomena in works that he describes as ‘American social landscapes’. First coming to prominence after exhibiting alongside fellow photographers Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus in John Szarkowski’s New Documents exhibition at MoMA, New York in 1967, Friedlander has been instrumental in the medium of photography’s acceptance as a significant 20th century art form.

Lee Friedlander: America By Car was shown in its entirety at The Whitney Museum of American Art, 4 September – 28 November 2010 and was organized by Elisabeth Sussman, the Whitney’s Curator of Photography.

Lee Friedlander was born in Aberdeen, Washington in 1934 and was introduced to photography at the age of fourteen. After shooting album cover portraits of Jazz musicians in New York and New Orleans, he began freelance commercial work in the late 1950s.

Among his numerous awards are a MacArthur Foundation Award, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and three Guggenheim Fellowships. Friedlander  has published over twenty books beginning with the groundbreaking Self Portraits in1970, and including American Musicians (1976), Lee Friedlander at work (2002), and Sticks and Stones: Architectural America (2004). Friedlander was the subject of a major traveling exhibition organized by MoMA in 2005, as well as being the 25th Hasselblad Award Winner the same year