Participating artists: Amy Elkins, Sheri Lyn Behr, Dawoud Bey, Carolyn Marks Blackwood, Timothy Briner, Luis Carle, David Carol, Michal Chelbin, Adrian Chesser, Jon Feinstein, Rafael Fuchs, Dana Hoey, Brenda Ann Kenneally, Jeremy Kost, Mona Kuhn, Annie Leibovitz,Lisa Levy, Jennifer Loeber, Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Cara Phillips, Alex Prager, Carlo Van der Roer, Ariana Page Russell, Tyler Shields, Bayete Ross Smith, Trey Speegle, Zoe Strauss, Bill Sullivan, Hank Willis Thomas, Betty Tompkins, Phil Toledano, Michael Wolf.
Curatorial Statement
Up, Close & Personal is a group exhibition curated by Ruben Natal-San Miguel based on a photography series of his by the same name . The exhibition aims to explore the relationships of several artists to their close, intimate and very personal with their art creations.
The exhibition investigates how a group of artists approach their work, the ideas, the process and ulterior message sent by it. The show aims to reveal in degrees how the work may have affected the artist and thus eventually, the viewer. From the truly shocking to the most subtlety beautiful approach, Up, Close & Personal tackles and highlights the most popular themes of our ongoing contemporary and most current culture.
To see the New York Photo review of "Up, Close and Personal" click HERE
To view the complete list of works from the show CLICK HERE
Participating artists:
Amy Elkins, Sheri Lyn Behr, Dawoud Bey, Carolyn Marks Blackwood, Timothy Briner, Luis Carle, David Carol, Michal Chelbin, Adrian Chesser, Jon Feinstein, Rafael Fuchs, Dana Hoey, Jeremy Kost, Brenda Ann Kenneally, Mona Kuhn, Annie Leibovitz,Lisa Levy, Jennifer Loeber, Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Cara Phillips, Alex Prager, Carlo Van der Roer, Ariana Page Russell, Tyler Shields, Bayete Ross Smith, Trey Speegle, Zoe Strauss, Bill Sullivan, Hank Willis Thomas, Betty Tompkins, Phil Toledano, Michael Wolf.
Jennifer Loeber series “ Left Behind” which highlights and tells a story of a mother no longer in her life through her everyday personal objects. It gives us a glimpse of her mother, her personality, likes and what she preferred when; she was part of this world.
Ariana Page Russell deals with something more than “ Skin Deep”. She suffers from a medical condition called” Dermatographia” or skin writing and her photographic works demonstrates the beauty behind it.
Sheri Lynn Behr photographic works deals with up close security surveillance and reminds that Big Brother is always watching you.
Jon Feinstein photographs investigate the love/hate relationship that many Americans have with fast food, and, like many other aspects of popular culture, its ability to be simultaneously seductive and repulsive,”
Timothy Briner’s black & white abstract photography series of architectural details close ups evokes and continues the legacy elegant, subtle and geometric photography that Ezra Stoller became known for.
Mona Kuhn’s photography series demonstrates the closeness of human nature; it’s beauty and personal relations developed in front of the camera.
Cara Phillips’s Ultraviolet Beauties, is a response to the traditional modern portrait’s goal: to eliminate every quirk and imperfection in favor of a smooth, pores less surface. Instead of attempting to mask the “flaws” that distinguish one face from another, these photographs are intended to reveal every unique characteristic.
Alex Prager is a self-taught artist; she was inspired to take up photography after seeing the color images of William Eggleston, who is widely regarded as the father of contemporary color photography. Her photographs primarily use staged models to create “film-like” images creating unsettling moments, mystery and beautiful cinematic composed imagery.
Rafael Fuchs photographs document his own family in the most private and very personal moments with cathartic results.
Bill Sullivan photography works are a great precursor to the “ Selfie “ era that we are experiencing right now. Enlarged self-portraits who create a wonderful, rich and full of pattern imagery.
Dawoud Bey great documentary photography brings us back to the 1980’s giving us a close portrait and visual of it’s residents in their own neighborhood providing a close view of the rich street culture before the imminent gentrification that is happening right now.
Brenda Ann Kennealy brings it home and close to Bushwick, Brooklyn where the photographer and documentarian had been photographing this community since the late seventies till now; in particular documenting the life of a young boy who eventually will become her Godson till now.
Amy Elkins art installation deals with the trial and tribulations or the prison system and a closer inspection of the death penalty inmates with pen pal letters and imagery interchanged during last days of life.
Dana Hoey is a visual artist working with photography, using “the camera to reveal the inner life of women, especially young women.” Her photographs are often ambiguous and have multiple meanings.
Michal Chelbin’ Strangely Familiar images in this series are an attempt to capture human stories in everyday life, those that exist in the space between the odd and the ordinary. The images are almost always of people and they usually take the form of portraits. Most of the people photographed have something in common, very familiar and personal.
Carolyn Marks Blackwood portrays in beautiful photographs and video her strong and close relationship with the weather and in particular the Hudson River, NY, She portrays the subtle, elegant but at times quite menacing Mother Nature at it’s best.
Trey Speegle uses vintage paint-by-number paintings as his source material, he explains that they are a type of “visual vocabulary” he juxtaposes with text in order to subvert their intended meanings. His textual phrasing in his paintings usually have a double and at times personal message and meaning.
Zoe Strauss was given a camera for her 30th birthday and started taking pictures of life in the city’s marginal neighborhoods and in most cases her own community, neighbors and people she runs into on a daily basis.
Hank Willis Thomas Is a visual artist and photographer whose primary interests are very close look, analysis and reinterpretation of race, advertising and popular culture.
Ruben Natal-San Miguel photography takes a close look at the ongoing gentrification in NYC, the loss of street culture and zeroing on close up details of a whole persona. His Up, Close & Personal series were the inspiration for this curated exhibition.
Phil Toledano’s “ Reluctant Father” became a father at the age of forty. He fell in love with his daughter about a year and a half later, when he realized she was the most bewitching human being he’d ever seen. Initially, though, things were different.
Michael Wolf’s makes portraits of people who are on their way in the Tokyo subway, constrained between glass, steel and fellow travelers. He returned to Tokyo in order to immerse in the subsurface insanity once again and this time even deeper and closer. He rather discovered the subway system as suitable place in order to investigate and take a close look at the mental state and aggregate condition of the city people
Luis Carle photographs explores and take a closer look at the sense of identity, place and true sense of belonging of the Gay, Lesbian & Transgender community.
Betty Tompkins paintings that before Jeff Koons, Thomas Ruff, Terry Richardson and their raffish ilk appropriated porn for high-art settings, Betty Tompkins was meticulously reproducing close up scenes of heterosexual penetration in pencil, acrylic, airbrush and ink. Her monochrome images make it clear that porn, not real-life sex, is her subject and underscore the harsh binary responses to her controversial subject and artwork, and to her identity as a woman artist.
David Carol’s street photography holds no barriers. The subjects are never approached for permission to be photographed, giving the photographer total freedom and a rather aggressive close up approach to his subjects.
Adrian Chesser took a very close and very personal manner to communicate his HIV status to his close family and friends...right in front of the camera.
Carlo Van der Roer’ Portrait Machine series is Polaroid land camera that also accepts photographic input from a biofeedback sensor, which when exposed on film, registers as a dreamy cloud of color around the frame’s edges. In addition to the image itself, the camera attempts to interpret what it sees. It delivers this information in a printed chart, which Van de Roer presents alongside his portraits of artists, designers and friends
Tyler Shields photography series submerged takes a closer look at how the human body interacts, manifests and gets distorted in front of the camera.
Jeremy Kost photography illustrates and takes a closer look at the beauty, glamour and clamoring celebrities as part of the highly saturated global celebrity cultured that we are presently living
Annie Leibovitz is a internationally recognized photographer whose portraits include those of musicians, celebrities and artists alike.
Lisa Levy uses textual messages on top of her awards that relates to each individual’s inner psyche.
Bayeté Ross Smith is an artist, photographer, and educator living in New York City. In his work “Taking Aim,” Bayeté draws socio political lines determining for instance, how the subject fits into a society that has so many various, contradictory takes on violence