Bita Fayyazi, PlayGround Installation at Espace Louis Vuitton, Paris, 2007, copyright artist and B21 Gallery and Espace Louis Vuitton; photo by Kamran Diba
Shirin Aliabdai and Farhad Moshiri, We Are All Americans, Operation Supermarket Series, 2006 Ink Jet Print 100 x 75 cm; copyright artists
This week, NY’s Chelsea Art Museum launches its latest exhibit: Iran Inside Out: Influences of Homeland and Diaspora on the Artistic Language of 56 Contemporary Artists. Running through September 5th, the exhibit features 35 artists living and working in Iran (some exhibiting for the first time), and 21 others living in the Diaspora. The show’s goal? To challenge conventional perceptions of Iran and Iranian art.
The exhibit boasts 210 works of sculpture, painting, photography, video and installation. Curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, Iran Inside Out examines the means through which a generation of artists reconciles its cultural and geographical circumstances with the search for artistic expression.
One year ago today, photographer Max Gerber caught my attention as a guest on The Charlie Rose Show (above). Gerber spoke with Rose about My Heart vs. The Real World. a documentary project that explores the lives of children with congenital heart disease through pictures and interviews. A book by the same name was published in February 2008.
Every year, 25,000 children are born with CHD in the US – or 1 out of every 125 – and Gerber himself (a successful editorial and commercial photographer whose client list includes TIME, Newsweek, and The Village Voice) has worn a pacemaker since the age of 8. At 35, Gerber has far outlived his 15 year life expectancy. Recalling the isolation he felt as a boy in the doctor’s office, always surrounded by adults, Max wanted to give a sense of familiarity and community to other young kids with CHD. His inspiring series profiles ten children with the disease.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Max today:
AC: How are you feeling about the book a year later?
MG: It’s funny to think about the book “a year later”, as you say. To me, it doesn’t really feel like a year later. I began photography for the project in late 1999, when I first visited Camp del Corazon, and finished shooting the photos in 2004. The idea for the book actually occurred to me earlier, in 1998, but it took about a year to begin finding subjects. Since then it had just been a long process of finding a receptive publisher, getting the book edited, designed and to press. It was a long road.
I take pictures for a living, mostly for magazines and corporate clients, and purely as a photographer it’s strange to look at the book now and think how I would do those pictures differently today. Still, even the photos that might be less than perfect still have significance for me – it’s really impossible for me to separate them from the experience, from the subjects themselves, from the circumstances that surrounded things.
Publishing a book is a goal for many photographers, and I don’t for a second forget or overlook how lucky I am to have done it at all, fairly early in my career, and with a subject that means so much to me.
AC: Have you had any success organizing exhibits of the series?
MG: It’s always been my plan – or, rather, my hope – to have exhibitions of pictures from the book, as well as brief excerpts. From the beginning, I had wanted to put these exhibitions in children’s hospitals rather than traditional galleries. Places where they could do more good, if you will. Places where the people who need some familiarity could find them. Sadly this has proved to be a little more difficult to organize than I had originally anticipated. As of yet, we have not managed to do this. Over the past year I’ve had some promising leads and affiliations with non profit and patient advocacy groups, but in almost every case the recession has hit these groups quite hard. Fundraisers have been canceled, conferences pared down, budgets cut, and unfortunately exhibitions from the book have been victim to these cuts.
Still, I remain optimistic that this will be doable in the near future. If there are any interested institutions please contact me!
AC: Any thoughts you’d like to share on the subjects themselves?
MG: I’m really happy to say that I keep in contact with many of the subjects in the book. One of the side effects of the project that didn’t occur to me when I started was that I would literally be watching these kids grow up. Jeni was 13 years old when I met her, now she’s almost 24 and married. Micah’s sister, Tashena, is in her mid twenties and an amazing photographer, having graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara. Ali just graduated high school and got a scholarship to CalArts for photography. She cites me as an influence and I’m immeasurably proud! As the kids grow up and become teenagers and then young adults I’ve been able to relate to them in much different ways, and it’s very cool. Hopefully I’m like the cool uncle.
I have my own copy of the book signed by the kids themselves. I caught up with Tashena, Patty, Jeni, Mario, Dylan and Ali shortly after the book was published. In one case Dylan, Mario and I duplicated a picture we had done for the book, a few years later. You can see them here:
above: The Flying Chair by Phillip Grass, December 2007
(digital prototype to be built later this year out of wood, fiberglass,
epoxy resin and chrome paint. The seat will be a shell of fiberglass,
upholstered with PU foam and white leather.)
above: Zhair chair by Phillip Grass, July 2008 (digital prototype)
Rhode Island-based furniture designer Phillip Grass has an eye toward the future. His sculptural designs are works of art: fluid, sleek and playful, evoking a sense of speed. His goal? To create “furniture that stimulates the senses and enriches the surroundings – as good artwork does.”
His talent and sensitivity to stability, size and material is well earned. Grass studied at the Art Academy in Bremen, learned wood-sculpture in Austria, and built furniture for respected Copenhagen manufacturer Rud Rasmussen before starting out on his own.
About Grass’s newest, hai_speed series (top image), in his own words:
“In the hai_speed world, there have been found six species so far. They all come from the same source and share certain characteristics. Each hai_speed being is made entirely by hand. The core is shaped out of wood (1). In order to ensure each hai_speed being a long life the wooden core is strengthened with layers of bamboo fiber (2) and epoxy resin. As hai_speed beings do not only look good and fast but are real freedom lovers each hai_speed being is finally coated with automotive quality paint. This ensures that hai_speed beings can enjoy life in their residence as well as next to the pool preparing for a swim.
The dimensions of the hai_speed species discovered so far are about 300 x 130 x 100 cm or 9’10″ x 4’4″ x 3’4″ (LxWxH).”
For years, the Australian creative firm Frost has found international success with innovative and edgy work in disciplines as diverse as design, advertising, strategy, environments and digital. According to the company, their goal is simple: “make the world a better place.”
Now, Frost has launched a line of 100% Bamboo t-shirts. In stores starting this September, the funky t’s are ethically produced with minimal use of chemicals or pesticides. Frost boasts the new shirts are soft as silk and durable as cotton, identifying bamboo as a naturally hypoallergenic and renewable resource.
Paste Magazine‘s recent entreaty for reader donations is the first I’ve seen of its kind. As a writer and editor, I’m well aware of the economic climate’s effects specific to the publishing industry. As the number of unemployment recipients grows, full time employees receive dramatic pay cuts and formerly reliable freelance-friendly outlets cut their entire freelancer budgets, publishers and contributors alike wonder, “What’s next?”
It’s a daunting and tricky time, to be sure, and several questions have been repeated. Is print dead? What differences will the future hold for books vs. magazines? Will niche publications be the only to survive? Where is the balance between print’s tactile satisfaction and web’s immediate conveniences and opportunities? And so on.
Paste (a 6-year old, musically-focused print publication that includes a sampler cd of new music with every issue and has a solid, complementary online presence) has chosen to appeal to readers in an honest, simple tone on their website. The Save Paste FAQ sub-page even rhetorically asks questions like “Will my donation line someone’s pocket?,” “Is this just a temporary fix?,” “Why weren’t you prepared for this?” and “Isn’t print dying? What makes you think you will survive?” In addition to tone, though, and quite interestingly, Paste also offers paying supporters an exclusive, musically sweet offering: access to a growing list of songs donated by musicians also supporting the cause – from Arrested Development and Neko Case to Josh Ritter, She and Him, Matthew Sweet, Cowboy Junkies and The Decemberists.
While the publishing industry wonders what next, and so many cower and wait for the storm to blow over, it strikes me as the ideal time for innovators to rise. I’m personally quite ready to see the new leaders emerge. And while I don’t think Paste‘s latest move is necessarily the wave of the future – more so, it’s a sign of the times – it is interesting to watch. Obviously, publishers have to change now – Paste‘s moving and shaking provides a soundtrack.
As a friend of mine pointed out, it’s all about determining a value for your product in the open market. These freebies are not, in true terms, free, and really deserve to be renamed – “taste-testers” or “feelers” anyone? In a time when a band like Radiohead offers a “pay-what-you-wish” album or an independent music magazine offers 75+ songs for as little as a dollar donation, it’s not only time for the industry to change; it’s also time for the language we use to evolve.
