Chip Simone at Steven Kasher Gallery in NYC

Atlanta-based photographer Chip Simone will open a show of his work at the Steven Kasher Gallery in Manhattan April 12th, 2012, with a reception from 6-8 pm. This show will offer over 40 digital color photographs by Simone, and will be up through May 26th, 2012.

Simone had a major show of work at the High Museum in Atlanta last fall and published some of this work in the volume Chip Simone Chroma (Nazraeli Press, 2011). He has now made it to the Big Apple with what the folks at the Kasher Gallery are calling "the first exhibition by the artist outside of the American South in over 20 years."

The folks at the Kasher Gallery describe Simone's work as representing "a unique confluence of two traditions, the American modernist photographic tradition epitomized by his teacher Harry Callahan, and the new digital street photography that has only recently burst out. Simone brings together the studied constructedness of the mid twentieth century New Vision with the nanosecond quick captures made possible by the digital photographic revolution. He is one of the first photographers to make wholly satisfying digital prints, prints both monumental and full of quicksilver 21st century perceptions."

Simone’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States and in France. His photographs were exhibited at the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. In 1985 The French Ministry of Culture exhibited his work at the Chapelle De La Sorbonne in Paris, The Refectoir Des Jacobin in Toulouse and The Centre D’Action Culturelle in Angouleme.

Simone’s photography can be found in scores of museums and private collections worldwide. Simone’s work currently resides in the permanent collections of High Museum of Art, Sir Elton John Collection, Museum of Modern Art, NYC, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Corcoran Gallery, Washington DC, Worcester Historical Museum, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Rhode Island School of Design, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Harry Ransom Center for the Humanities and more.

This show is actually up right now at Jackson Fine Art, so you can see it without having to go North, if you are able to get to Atlanta before April 7th.

Congratulations to Simone for going from glory (in Atlanta) to glory (in NYC) in his career.

AIPAD Opens in NYC

The annual photography dealers' extravaganza known as AIPAD opens this week in the Park Avenue Armory in NYC, and runs through the weekend.

AIPAD stands for the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, and this year's show features fine art photography presented by 75 dealers from across the country and around the world.

You can learn more about AIPAD here, and here.

There is usually a strong presence of Southern photographers in AIPAD.

So far, we have confirmed that Jackson Fine Art from Atlanta is one of the 75 represented dealers, and that photographers represented include Florida's Jerry Uelsman.

As we learn of others, we will update this blog entry.

Among work to be seen in this year's show is a portfolio of images by Walker Evans made in the South (see, for example, the above image, Evans' Breakfast Room at Belle Grove Plantation, White Chapel, Louisiana, 1935).

Great News from Rebekah Jacob -- Gallery Expansion

Great news from Rebekah Jacob, who runs the Rebekah Jacob Gallery in Charleston, dedicated, mostly, to photography of the American South.

Rebekah has had a splendid gallery  at 109 Lower King Street, in Charleston, for some time. Now, she is moving to 502 Upper King Street, a new location that will give her triple the space she has had at her current address.

“Rebekah Jacob Gallery is about being progressive and experimental, seeing talent in emerging artists and genres while recognizing the contributions of past generations of artists,” says Jacob. “I can’t think of a more appropriate place to continue making our mark than among our dynamic new neighbors Uptown.”

Rebekah opens the new Gallery on April 12th, 2012, with a reception from 5:30-8:30 pm.

Congratulations to Rebekah! We'll definitely drop by for a look the next time we are in Charleston.

The Oxford American's List -- the Rest of the Story

OK, with the current issue of the Oxford American in hand, I can report on the rest of the photographers on their list of 100 under 100: The New Superstars of Southern Art.

The are, as follows:

Nikita Gale
Leslie Burns
Tim Hussin
Wilmer Wilson IV
Jody Fausett
McNair Evans
Kelly Anderson-Staley
Jamie Baldridge

This makes a total of 30 photographers out of 100 people (or partnerships) on the Oxford American's list. Which, I guess, is a kind of recognition of photography's importance that is good for photographers in the South.

The printed edition of the magazine also makes clear that the Oxford American is not trying to establish a definitive canon of the South's best artists under 100 years old, as the title of the list implies, but instead to come up with a list of "new superstars," which is a different matter.

I have real trouble with lists like this one. On the one hand, there are a number of names here that I was previously not familiar with (much to my chagrin), and its always good to learn about more folks who are doing good work.

I think any kind of publicity in the arts is good for the folks who receive it, especially in the South, with our tradition of suspicion of the visual and the aesthetic. Glad to know the folks at the Oxford American are paying attention and are in an appreciative mood.

On the other hand, I can think -- without really trying very hard -- of a dozen or twenty-five or a hundred names of photographers working in the South who are doing splendid work, work especially deserving of inclusion on a list like this.

I suggest you check out the names that appear to the right of this message that do not appear on the Oxford American's list, if you need any proof of what I mean.

That said, lists are helpful to the folks who appear on the lists. Still, numbers like "100 under 100" are gimmicks of the publishing business.Editors think they generate excitement and sell copies.

As Walter Cronkite used to say, that's the way it is, in the world we live in, even in the South.

The Oxford American Chooses the South's Best Photographers

The Mississippi-based journal the Oxford American has chosen the top 100 Southern artists, and a lot of them are photographers.

The folks at the Oxford American came up with this list by consulting, they say, "gallery owners, curators, critics, [and] artists."  They have not posted all the winners on their website -- the top 40 are only listed in the print edition of the journal, and my copy hasn't made it to me yet.

But the website does list the bottom 60, and here are the photographers from among them:

Susan Worsham
Matt Eich
Frank Hamrick
Christopher Sims
Jon-Phillip Sheridan
Jessica Ingram
Louviere + Vanessa
Angela West
Johnathon Kelso
Alex Leme
Nathan Alexander Ward
Jason Miller
Daniel J. Moskop
Paul Outlaw and Jennifer Catron
Tammy Mercure
Ben Gately Williams
Blake Fitch
Jonathan Michael Hicks
Brandon Thibodeaux
Shelley Calton
Jennifer E. Fairfax
Eliot Dudik.

Great to see these folks getting this kind of recognition. Some of the names are familiar to us, while others are not. 

I'm always delighted to learn of photographers new to me, and I will be getting these folks into my lists of photographers as I get to know them better. I will also be sending along the Top 40 as soon as I get my hands on an Oxford American.

SXSE for March 2012 -- Springtime in the South

Nancy McCrary and all the good folks at the Soutb by Southeast Photomagazine (SXSE) have released their March 2012 issue. This issue is devoted to springtime in the South, which came early this year. In fact, this year will go down in Southern History as the Year Without a Winter.

And this month, you have no reason, no reason whatsoever, not to check out the fine work on offer to celebrate springtime in the South.

Nancy has provided a link on SXSE's  home page to enable you to sign up for a month of SXSE absolutely free (no one will call, as they used to say down here).

You owe it to yourself, yes you do, to sign up and experience all the riches of photography in the South, on offer in SXSE every month.

This month, for example, you will see work by Shannon Johnstone (see image above) as well as images from Keith Carter, Dave Anderson, Peter Essick, Kathryn Kolb, Vicki Ragan, Victoria Ryan, Gayle Stevens, Bob Poe, Anne Berry, and Woody Woodruff. 

Not to mention interviews with Sondra Gilman on her collection of photography and Brett Abbott on his new role as photography curator at the High Museum in Atlanta.

Please, have a look, take advantage of Nancy's generous offer, and see why you should sign up as a regular subscriber.  

Laura Noel on La Lettre de la Photographie

Atlanta-based photographer Laura Noel's image Smoke Break is the subject of a feature story on the blog La Lattre de la Photographie. 

The folks at La Lettre note that Laura's image shows us the "residue of glamour" that is still associated with smoking -- "the theatrical inhaling and exhaling, the sensual pleasure of watching smoke float and dissipate in the air, and the primal tie to fire. Though we may not approve of the act, we can understand the appeal of smoking, however false it may turn out to be."

Laura is one of my favorite Southern photographers, and has been since she was in a juried show at the Gregg Museum here at NC State a few years back.

Congratulations to Laura for this celebration of her work.