Projects WE Love: Aging-Out of Foster Care

THIS is a campaign that is so worth funding, you’ll kick yourself if you don’t contribute.

The amazing people at Salaam Garage want your help. ” Growing up is hard for everyone. But for a child raised in foster care with no family to fall back on, the transition to adulthood can be particularly rough.

Removed from their birth parents for abuse, neglect or abandonment, foster kids typically grow up in various foster families and group homes.  Those homes may last for as little as a few days or as long as a few years, but they rarely provide enough stability to ground kids with the education and skills they need to start out on their own.

When these children turn 21, they officially “age out” of foster care. That means they’re no longer entitled even to minimum room and board from the foster care system. All of a sudden, they have to fend for themselves.

Nationwide, about 20,000 of the 542,000 children in foster care “age out” each year. Five percent of them – about 1,100 young adults – are left on their own in the New York City area.

Go to it!

Projects WE Love: Dogs in Cars

We love this project by Brit photographer Martin Usborne and the honest account of how it came about. It’s already had press coverage and accolades from the likes of David Alan Harvey; everybody (except one of the authors of this blog) loves dogs, so get funding.

“Dogs in cars – why on earth??

 When I first had the idea five years ago I thought it was foolish. Dogs in cars? errrr..

But the best ideas are the ones that stay with you and after many years of being lodged in my subconscious this one eventually had to come out barking.

I now realize the pictures come from fairly deep fears I’ve had of being alone and without a voice (I found it almost impossible to express myself when I was a kid) and also from my early fascination with animals, dogs in particular, who also seemed vulnerable and somehow mute.”

Projects WE Love: Documenting ABC No Rio

Jade Doskow shares an affinity for ABC No Rio along with surely many New Yorkers. In its final hours, this project documenting its demolition needs a boost.

“ABC No Rio is a collectively-run arts center located on New York’s Lower East Side. Established in 1980, it has gone through quite a few manifestations, from alternative art gallery to punk squathouse to community center. It now houses a gallery space, screen-printing studio, black and white darkroom, free bike workshops with Times Up!, computer lab, zine library, and has provided space to Food Not Bombs and Books Through Bars.” Head to Kickstarter to help.

Projects WE Love: ADIL

©André Liohn/Prospekt

After Dawn In Libya (ADIL) is an idea conceived of by photographer Andre Liohn, with fellow photographers Lynsey Addario, Eric Bouvet, Bryan Denton, Christopher Morris, Jehad Nga, Finbarr O”Reilly and Paolo Pellegrin.

This project has 11 more days to be funded, so we hope to help make this happen.  The idea of bringing photography to the people of Libya, one year after the beginning of the conflict is something we totally support, and hope you will too.

ADIL is an Arabic name derived from the Arabic word “Adl” which means “fairness” and “justice”

An original idea by André Liohn with: Lynsey Addario, Eric Bouvet, Bryan Denton, Christopher Morris, Jehad Nga, Finbarr O”Reilly and Paolo Pellegrin.

The ADIL project”s purpose is to contribute to the Reconciliation process for Libyan People facing the aftermath of the civil war. The core concept of the project is to use Visual Communication as a Bridge for Reconciliation.

International photographers who lived the conflict “on the ground” offer independent visual documentation of the war and are partnering with local organizations to bring four exhibitions to four Libyan cities – Benghazi, Misratah, Tripoli and Zintan – scheduled for the spring 2012, one year after the eruption of the conflict against the Ghaddafi regime.

The aim is to put these exhibitions at the service of dialogue, we do not want to impose a reality, we are knocking at doors wishing to be welcome. During the period of the exhibitions some of the photographers will come to Libya to participate in events linked to ADIL, such as workshops with local photographers and journalists, and panel debates with local activists organizations. These events will be organized by our local partners, among them: The Tripoli Post, the Art Gallery Art House of Tripoli, the artist Mohammad Bin Lamin, the Libyan lawyer and activist Rima Bugaighis.

It is our aim to create a neutral arena were different people, with different opinions, expectations and experiences of the war, will be invited to see and react to how independent eyes saw their reality.

You can read and see more about ADIL here

Cindy Sherman Doesn’t Thrill Me

Cindy Sherman. Untitled #425. 2004. Chromogenic color print, 70 3/4″ x 7′ 5 3/4″ (179.7 x 228 cm). Courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures, New York © 2012 Cindy Sherman

Clowns? Really? You’ve got to be kidding.

I’ll say it right here, right now: I don’t like Cindy Sherman’s work.

Wait, let me say that more clearly: I don’t like MOST of Cindy Sherman’s work. And I definitely don’t see her as some kind of brilliant artist. Maybe she was once, when she was just starting out.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York just opened a retrospective of Cindy Sherman that will run until June 11. It’s a chance to see her beginning and development into one of the most successful photographers alive. Not only is her work eminently collectible, she is now holds the record as the photographer whose work has sold for the most money.

I walked through the exhibit twice in order to really get a feeling for the work and to clarify my feelings about it all. Here goes…

The show is hung chronologically, which allows you to see how revolutionary Sherman’s work was when it first showed in the mid to late 1970s. That was a time of all sorts of new art, including punk music. In that way she fits in perfectly with the energy of the times. Her explorations of identity (in black & white) really resonate and seem so fresh and smart even now.

Cindy Sherman. Untitled Film Stils #6 1977. Gelatin silver print, 9 7/16″ x 6 1/2″ (24 x 16.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the generosity of Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder in memory of Eugene M. Schwartz © 2012 Cindy Sherman

Identity is the subject of so much art, including every college students  work.  So even though I have seen it repeated over and over, there are few photographers I feel really nail something deep.  Cindy Sherman‘s work from 1975-1981, which includes her “Untitled Film Stills”,  does exactly that: it throws all the stereotypical views of women in our society right back into our faces.  And she was one of the only photographers doing it in those days.

From damsels in distress to secretaries to sexpots, it s all there and I was honestly blown away.  I didn’t think I would like anything I saw.  I was wrong.

It was early in the 1980s when Sherman began her move to color film.  And it was also when she began to create the personas we have all come to know. First she photographed herself in costume against projected landscapes.  Then she was commissioned to  re-create  images from men’s  erotic  magazines.  This is where she began to lose me.  The images are nothing like what they are  supposed  to be, and I find them mundane.  Yet as a former photo editor I can see the allure in having this new photographer explore the topic.  For me it falls very flat, as if Sherman couldn’t really stretch herself to turn the idea on its head.

Cindy Sherman. Untitled #96 1981. Chromogenic color print, 24″ x 47 15/163″ (61 x 121.9 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Carl D. Lobel © 2012 Cindy Sherman

In the mid-1980s into the early 1990s Sherman turned her attentions and productions to fairy tales, the Masters, sex and deconstruction.  Who cares?  This is when she really began to alter her own appearance to create vaguely recognizable people in large format.  I mean what can I say about a room full of large color portraits of people who might be seen in a Rembrandt painting?  For me it is crass and looks really cheap.

Cindy Sherman. Untitled #213 1989. Chromogenic color print, 41 1/2″ x 33″ (105.4 x 83.8 cm). Courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures, New York © 2012 Cindy Sherman

I do find it interesting that the museum alludes to her work with sex toys, yet barely shows any of them.

It was also during this time that Sherman created a series of  fashion  photos, and as stated by the museum,  “challenge(d) the industry’s conventions of beauty and grace.”

Sherman photographs herself as a burn victim, as what looks like a crazy woman all the time wearing very expensive designer clothing.  But I ask you, isn’t there another level to turning conventions on their head than too skinny models at one end of the spectrum and Sherman‘s overly ugly women? It seems to me as if she is taking each chance to do something new, and just shoe horning her work into it.  Why is this so different than shooting a fashion spread in a slum area? Both characterizations hover on the surface without diving deeper into why it matters at all.

And how is a stereotype turned on its head by making herself, and consequently the women she looks to portray, as ugly as she can.  I’m not talking about standardized beauty, but it seems she goes out of her way to make herself uglier and uglier for some purpose that eludes me.

So Sherman moves on into the 2000s and that is where the clowns first appear.  Holy hell.  Am I supposed to take this seriously?  It makes me think of Jeff Koons and his porno sculptures with his then wife, Ilona Staller.  Or Damien Hirst and his suspended dead cow.  Is the point just to show that you can make people fall for anything and spend big bucks in the process?  Wow, banality rules.  What a surprise.

If it wasn’t bad enough that I felt I was seeing an artist becoming more and more irrelevant as her work progressed and she became more successful, I can’t understand why the photographs are so very large. The bigger they get, the more irrelevant they seem to me.  It’s as if you print large just because you can (and of course you can charge more at that size), not because it s warranted.

And so her most recent work, gigantic portraits of rich women not only do nothing for me, they hardly  presage(d) the financial collapse,  as the museum states.  I just see more ugly women in photographs that are printed way too large.  The colors are so saturated that they render them garish.

Cindy Sherman. Untitled #474 2008. Chromogenic color print, 7′ 6 3/4″ x 60″ (230.5 x 152.4 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York.  Acquired through the generosity of an anonymous donor, Michael Lynne, Charles Heilbronn and the Carol and David Appel Family Fund. © 2012 Cindy Sherman

I couldn’t help thinking as I wandered through this exhibit about people who adore Madonna, thinking she somehow empowers women by changing her persona thus challenging stereotypes.  That s what this exhibit wants you to believe about Sherman as well. I don’t buy it.   While Madonna always wants to be beautiful, Sherman strives for ugliness.  Yet both performers (yes, I said performers) choose an easily identifiable way of portraying women.

I’m interested in women who look for the middle ground between what is offered to women by our male-dominated society, that being either being beautiful or being dismissed as ugly.  I’m looking for women who turn convention on its head.  Why can’t we set our own ideas of what women are, and why aren t our artists leading the way?

Sherman reminds me of a band that releases one brilliant album with a dozen or so songs and then falls into endless mediocrity, doing basically the same thing over and over again because they can make a lot of money at it.

Stop!

You must be rich enough by now.

Projects WE Love: Get The Picture?

“Get The Picture?” Temp Trailer from Get The Picture on Vimeo.

“Meet John G Morris, 95, the legend of photojournalism whose unerring eye for the best shot has moved and changed the world.

He is probably the last living journalist involved in the coverage of World War 2’s D Day and through the people he has known he has many first hand tales to share of how these courageous photojournalists covered the events and wars of our last 70 years and the impact this has had on our collective world view.

John Morris has often been referred to as a walking history library, but he is also a man ahead of his time. He has an important legacy to leave behind.

This is a story of humanity and a search for peace in our world.”

Help finish this important film

Projects WE Love: Patrick Brown: Trading to Extinction

“Day by day, hour by hour, our planet’s rarest creatures are being hunted, trapped and slaughtered to feed a global black market in wildlife products. This is my attempt to expose that trade. I could use your support.

For years, I have traveled across Asia to document the devastating impact of wildlife trafficking. Now I’d like to bring my work to a worldwide audience, by producing a campaigning photographic book called “Trading to Extinction.”

It is a shocking tale of cruelty, crime and human greed. As with drug trafficking, money fuels the animal trade. Its tentacles wrap around the world, from the remote forests of Asia to the trafficking hubs of Beijing, Bangkok, London, Tokyo and New York.

A poacher who kills a rhino and removes its horn in India gets $350. That same horn sells for $1,000 in a nearby market town. By the time it reaches Hong Kong, Beijing or the Middle East, the horn is worth $370,000. Tiger bones are worth up to $700 per kilo.

This trade is flourishing. But the fightback has begun. An extraordinary worldwide movement is bringing together people from diverse backgrounds in a bid to save our most endangered species before it is too late. “Trading to Extinction” will tell their stories, too.”

Add your support now.

Projects WE Love: The Last Stand

Marc Wilson is creating beautiful, evocative photographs of the structural remnants of Europe’s military defences in his project “The Last Stand.” With several under his belt, Marc is currently raising funds via IndieGoGo in order to reach his goal of 40-50 structures.

For the past fifteen months I have been researching, reccieing and starting to shoot the photographs that will make up The Last Stand, which aims to document some of the physical remnants of war in the 20th century in the UK and northern Europe. The subjects I am photographing are the remaining military defence structures situated around their coastal areas.

These man-made objects and zones of defence now sit silently in the landscape, imbued with the history of our recent past. Some remain proud and strong, some are gently decaying. Many now lie prone beneath the cliffs where they once stood. Through the effects of the passing years, all have become part of the fabric of the changing landscape that surrounds them.

Whilst I capture the individual beauty of these objects in their landscapes, the series of photographs become much more than a set of traditional landscapes. My aim is that the collection will become a permanent photographic record of the past. A testament to the physical form of the subjects and the histories, stories and memories contained within.

With each passing year the evidence and memories fade a little more and it is especially for this reason that I am undertaking this project. I see each and every landscape as a witness to war with a story to tell, whether it is one of unfulfilled defiance or one of tragedy.

All images © Marc Wilson

Projects WE Love: Detroit Portraits

Brian Kelly started working on this personal project, “Detroit Portraits” in order to counteract a lot of the negative press the city has been getting.  Now he’s put up a request on Kickstarter to finish it.

We are particularly enamored of projects that find meaning close to home and give voice to people who don’t have a way to speak out to the larger world.  The people in Brian‘s portraits stare right at us and tell us they matter, even when it seems we’re being told they don’t.

As Brian says:

“If you’ve noticed the onslaught of national media attention and the photographs posted to many tumblr sites and photo blogs…you might believe Detroit is already dead and decayed into ruins…there’s no hope for this city…Detroit’s too screwed up.

But I know differently…Detroit is not dead…I know this because I’ve been documenting Detroit’s future…I’ve been photographing Detroit’s people.

The future of Detroit rests with its entrepreneurs, artists, dreamers, musicians, innovators, recovering addicts, urban farmers, clergy, children and educators.”

Please consider helping to finish this project by contributing here

Projects WE Love: This Wild Idea

Day 123: 9475 miles driven; 7930 photos taken; 30 cups of coffee; 25 places camped; 70 folks met.

That’s the most current tally for “This Wild Idea,” photographer Theron Humphrey’s one year road trip around America to find, photograph and record the stories of the people he meets.

“The idea is simple, the goal is straightforward, but I need your help! I’m going meet 1 new person a day, everyday, for 365 days. The goal is to makes images that age well and increase in value over time; images that will become part of your family story, which we can pass on to the next generation.”

It’s long been my belief that Americans feel no one listens to them (just check out the Occupy movement for more proof of that) and they want to feel connected to others. That is exactly what “This Wild Idea” is about.  It’s a fantastic example of what you can do by just stepping right outside your door.

As Theron says,

“One day I woke up and realized how amazing it would be to hear my moms voice before she had me, or to hear my great-grandparents voices. To see them living their everyday. And I’ve always admired folks who’ve traveled the country and photographed the world, a lot have done it. And done it better than me. But something that was missing for me were folks’ names, I wanted to know that the photographers loved their subjects, that they shook peoples hands and told ’em that they matter. So This Wild Idea is me getting out there and doing it, living my dream.”

And you can become a part of This Wild Idea is you like.

“The cool part of the project that it’s alive now,” says Theron.  “It’s free to access and look at and remember. Anyone across America can ‘Change my Route‘ and become part of the project. That’s pretty powerful. Instead of folks just being voyeurs to a photo project after the fact, we wanted to use social media to connect folks now.”