In conjunction with the Secretaria de Cultura del Ciudad de México, the Museo Archivo de la Fotografia, and Glen Echo Photoworks, I have brought a condensed version of Geografia del Cuerpo to inaugurate the One Wall Gallery at Glen Echo Photoworks. One Wall Gallery is a pop-up gallery space by the front door, designed to provide flexible exhibitions of shorter duration and bring life to an otherwise under-utilized space.
Given the time constraints and the space constraints, the exhibit was limited to one piece each from 11 of the 13 artists participating in the original exhibit in Mexico City (two were unable to participate). The form of presentation had to be re-interpreted to fit the space, and I think it turned out nicely.
The banners were printed on our 24″ Epson wide-format printer. The original concept was going to be mounting each image on a 12″x12″ backing board and hang them in three rows from curtain wires (like the one you can see at the top of the photo). This, unfortunately, is one of IKEA’s worst products – the metal feet that you screw the posts into that attach to the wall do not fit the threads on the posts a significant amount of the time. I do have a tap-and-die set I can (and will, when I get around to it) fix the threads with so we will be able to use the hanging wire in the future, but that in the moment necessitated the re-envisioning of the exhibit into what you see here today.
The artists represented in the show are, in alphabetical order (names will be linked to their Instagram accounts):
The show opened September 2 and will remain up through October 4 on the One Wall Gallery at Glen Echo Photoworks, 7300 MacArthur Boulevard, Glen Echo, Maryland. Photoworks is located inside the ground floor of the Arcade Building.
I am still trying to find words to describe how absolutely overwhelmingly wonderful last night was. I had previously shown some work in a group exhibit at the Museo as part of the Foto Inter/Cambio conference, and even then they treated me as some kind of photographic rock star – I was part of the ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the exhibit, they asked me to speak publicly, and I received a certificate of recognition for helping to organize the conference.
I had brought additional personal work in a portfolio that I was planning to share with attendees of the conference. This included a bunch of my male nudes. One of the staff members saw that work, and was very interested in it. He asked me to show it to one of their curators, Juan Pablo Cardona. Juan Pablo was very taken with the work, especially the four-color gum bichromate prints I had made of an African-American model.
At the opening reception for the Foto Inter/Cambio show, he asked if I would be willing to show that work to the museum director. Not being an idiot, of course I said yes. We stepped off the floor of the reception and into the museum’s framing lab where my portfolio had been stored for the day, and Lizbeth Ramirez, the director, along with Juan Pablo and another museum staffer, had me go through my portfolio.
Everyone was excited by my work, and at that time Juan Pablo asked if I would be interested in participating in a show for this year’s Pride celebrations. Of course I said YES! And thus began the journey to yesterday’s opening.
I got to the museum a bit before 6 PM – the opening was scheduled to start at 7, and they had asked all of us artists to be there an hour ahead of time. That was my first glimpse of the installed exhibition:
panoramic view of the galleryMy wall in the gallery
The museum staff did an absolutely amazing job of preparing the space – I love the way they used color blocks on the walls to break up the space and give the work a flow and a rhythm around the room. This gallery is on the first floor of the museum immediately off the entrance, so public visibility is excellent. I had expected this would be in their upstairs gallery where we had the show last year for the conference, but this is the big deal.
Also to my surprise, I was selected to be one of three of the fourteen artists to speak at the opening. They also listed my name first on the list of participating artists, which to me was a very high honor.
When organizing the event, the museum staff indicated it was limited to 100 people. I think over the course of the evening, significantly more than that came. When I turned around to look at the crowd waiting to be admitted, I was absolutely stunned at how many turned up.
I’ve never had a crowd this big or this enthusiastic at an opening before. This exhibit, and especially this opening night reception, has been the absolute high point of my career to date and quite possibly the most incredible night of my life.
I realize I am incredibly tardy in posting this, on the cusp of the closing of the show (the museum very generously extended the show through September 2!). I wish I could be there in person for the take-down and to collect my work (I have a friend who will be picking it up and storing it for me until I am back in CDMX next), but that wouldn’t be practical.
Show dates and times: Saturday June 22- Sunday August 18, 2024. Opening reception June 22 at 6pm. Artists Talk June 25th at 5pm (I will be participating in the artists’ talk and showing some additional work from my portfolio).
Geografía del Cuerpo is at the Museo Archivo de la Fotografía, and runs from June 26 to July 18. The opening reception is July 26 from 7-9pm, and is limited to 100 persons in attendance. I will be there as well (In case you’re wondering, I’m the one in the hat with the gray beard and glasses).
I’m going to have work in not one, but TWO shows in Mexico City the end of June. Show number one is at the Museo Archivo de la Fotografía. The show is called “Geografía del Cuerpo” and features work by eleven photographers creating work dealing with gender, sexuality, identity and politics.
This show will be a minor retrospective for me as it includes work I’ve made across the last 20 years. I’m including some unique gum bichromate prints that I made in the 2000s, some infrared shots of male nudes in the landscape printed in palladium on kozo paper (a Japanese paper made from kozo bark which is almost tissue-like) that were shot in the 2010s and printed recently, and some studio nudes I did just last year. Pensive (Kodak HIE, palladium on Awagami Platinum kozo paper, unique print)Torso Moreno (four color gum bichromate, unique print)Narcissus (palladium on Saint Armand Frobisher paper, edition of three)
The opening reception will be held on Wednesday June 26 from 5-7 pm, and the show will be up through the end of July. I will be in attendance at the opening reception, so if you’re in the neighborhood please stop in and say hi!
The second show also features images dealing with gender, sexuality, identity and politics, this time at Eucalipto 20, an independent art center in the Santa Maria Ribera neighborhood. The gallery is a short walk from the Buenavista bus/metro/train station. The building is somewhat nondescript on the outside, so watch carefully for the street numbers.
James, Rocks, San Francisco 2001 (platinum print, edition of 5)James, Tree, Lands End Beach, San Francisco 2001 (platinum print, edition of 5)
The opening reception will be June 22, so I will not be in attendance, but we will have an artists talk during the week, dates and times to be announced.
For many people, getting a gallery show is the holy grail of their artistic ambitions. Even though the art world is undergoing a major transformation with relationship to brick-and-mortar galleries, many people still see getting a gallery show as a mark of accomplishment (and it is – it means that someone who has money invested in an exhibition space is willing to commit their time, energy, reputation, and cash to showing and marketing YOUR work). Having achieved this, I’d like to pass on some salient advice for anyone still struggling to get there.
HAVE AN IDEA
Before you ever begin to look for a gallery show, have a rock-solid concept about your work. You can take all the pretty pictures in the world, but if you don’t have some idea, some message behind your work, then you probably won’t get very far. I’m not saying that your concept/message must be a social/political/intellectual/academic one, but it should be more than just “they’re all photos of Yosemite because I think it’s pretty”.
ARTICULATE THAT IDEA
Develop your elevator pitch – if you need help writing it, find someone you know who is a good writer to come up with a couple of sentences that encapsulate what your work is about, and then practice delivering it to your friends and family until you are able to rattle it off with confidence.
In my case, it was:
Sinister Idyll: Historical Slavery in the Modern Landscape is a visual narrative of the physical evidence of the slave-holding past in and around the nation’s capital. The work consists of 2 1/4 inch by 4 1/4 inch palladium prints that, by virtue of their size, force the viewer into an uncomfortable intimacy with images that are both familiar and unknown.
That was the hook to pull the interest of the gallerist. After that, I had the attention of the gallery owner, and was able to tell the story of how I got started on my series, what was my motivation, and all the other bits about the work that made it worth showing.
NETWORKING
Go to art openings – lots of them. Go see different galleries and keep track of the kinds of work they show. Get to know other artists and talk to them about their work, especially artists whose work you identify with. Get them to introduce you to the gallery owners – having a personal introduction from someone the gallerist already knows and works with is a big leg up in getting your work in front of them.
GALLERY OWNERS
At the openings, go talk to the gallery owners. Don’t be afraid to identify yourself as another artist looking to show your work, but don’t introduce yourself that way if you’re meeting them cold. Engage them in conversation – ask them about the show, how they chose the work to include, and so on. When they turn to you and ask you about who you are, then tell them, “I’m Bob Jones (or whatever your name is) and I’m a photographer. I’ve been working on a series about xyz for the last three years”. Have your elevator pitch ready to go – if they’re interested, they’ll ask, and you can give them your confident, practiced hook. Have a few images of your work on your phone, at the top of your phone’s gallery, so they’re ready to show, if the gallerist asks to see some. If they don’t, don’t whip out the phone and start showing them anyway.
ETIQUETTE
If the owner is interested, ask what their process for viewing new work is – maybe they have portfolio drop-offs once a month, maybe they schedule appointments, maybe it’s an online process. Whatever it is, FOLLOW THEIR PROCESS. Nothing will piss off a gallery owner more than someone ignoring what they consider to be the most basic of basic rules. They will see it at best as a waste of their time, and you’ll likely never get your work reviewed by them, and there won’t be a second chance.
If they look at your work, and they like it but don’t have a space to show it soon, don’t take this as a no. Say thank you, let them know you appreciated their time, and listen to any advice they might dispense. Get their business card before you leave. When you get home, that same day, or next day at the latest, send them a thank you email, and find out if they would be interested in getting future communication from you about your work. If they say yes, do send them links and announcements about new bodies of work you’re doing. Do it often enough they won’t forget you, but not more than say 3-4 times a year so you aren’t a pest. Don’t send them announcements about every time you get a photo hung in a cafe somewhere, but do let them know if you get a major show or you get a write-up in a serious publication like a national newspaper or art magazine.
SELF-PROMOTION
A lot of this stuff above falls under the umbrella of self-promotion. It’s a practice, not a one-time event. You’ve got to kiss LOTS of frogs to find a prince, so if this doesn’t lead to a solo show the first time you try, don’t give up. Lather, rinse, repeat.
DON’T BE A DIVA
Unless your last name is Mapplethorpe, Avedon, or Liebowitz, you can’t get away with being a diva. So don’t even try. Your goal (I assume) is to get invited back to show again. Producing a show, even a solo show, is a collaborative effort. The gallerist will know their space and have a pretty clear idea of how to hang your work in their space to be most effective. Listen to them. You can politely disagree and discuss their ideas, of course, but don’t take a “my way or the highway” approach to hanging the show. If you pull a stunt and say, “I’m not doing this unless…”, it had better damn well be a hill you want to die on. “Doing that would compromise my artistic vision” is 99% of the time a bullshit excuse. Be willing to share a wall. Be willing to have your pictures arranged in a way you hadn’t thought of. Don’t insist that “if this picture isn’t in the show, I’m not doing the show”. The gallery owner will remember if you’re a temperamental diva, and they won’t want to work with you again. The art gallery world is small – word gets around and if you’re a diva, more doors will close than open.
Some of my more dedicated readers might remember my fondness for Ed Bearss and taking his history tours through the Smithsonian, exploring Civil War battlefields. Ed passed away on September 16 at the ripe age of 97. I remember seeing him speaking in public and taking that tour with him in 2017 when at the age of 94, he was still leading groups with more energy than many people I know half his age. He used that microphone and mini-speaker he had not because his voice was weak but because his crowds of groupies on his tours would regularly number over 50 people, and he needed the boost so the folks in the back could hear. I can still hear the echoes of his narration in my head… “And, MISTER Lincoln… “. Semper Fi, Ed, and know that you’ll never be forgotten. I have linked to his obituary
Hi all- sorry for the very long silence on here. Life has been tempest-tossed the last year or so, so I’ve been kinda out-of-action on the blogging front. Anyway, back at it. I was just interviewed on the Film Factor Podcast, talking about alternative processes, collecting daguerreotypes, and teaching photography in a pandemic. Film Factor Podcast is hosted by Franz Lopez, a devoted photography enthusiast in the Philippines. Getting everything synced up for the live show was a little interesting, given the vagaries of the global internet and the twelve-hour time difference. Here’s the link to the recording of the session:
My work from the Sinister Idyll series is appearing in the next issue of The Hand magazine, a monthly journal of reproduction-based art. This covers hand-made photography as well as most forms of traditional printing (woodcut, linocut, etching, collotype, and more).
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Issue 24 is in the distribution room. We are trying our hardest to get them in envelopes, stickered and bundled for the mail room!
Hey all!
We’re working hard to get your copy sent out early this week. After they are shipped, delivery can take up to 10 days, or longer outside the US. We hope you’re excited to get the magazine and we are confident it will be worth the wait!
This issue features an interview with Lyell Castonguay. Lyell is the director of the large-format woodblock press, BIG INK, and an accomplished artist in his own right. We also have an Artist’s Spotlight on Francesco Poiana. If you haven’t ordered yours yet, GET A COPY TODAY!
Below, you will see images by the artists we featured on our social media platforms over the past week. Please join us on Facebook and Instagram for more behind the scenes pics and fun stuff. We hope you will take the time to take a closer look at these wonderful artists. Please click on their links, go to their websites, and start a dialogue with them. Take care of yourself and each other.
Issue 24 contributor, Peter Ward (St. Albans Park, Victoria, Australia), “Lost Quilt”, Linocut on calico, quilted, 63″ x 63″ VISIT PETER’S WEBSITE
Issue 24 contributor, Molly Phalan (West Lafayette, Indiana, USA), “Decarlo”, Silver gelatin mordançage, 14″ x 11″ VISIT MOLLY’S WEBSITE
I am overjoyed to announce that I will be one of five artists participating in INDELIBLE: That Which Cannot Be Erased, at Gallery O on H, 1354 H Street NE, Washington DC, from February 22 to the end of May. I will have over 40 palladium prints in the show. I also want to give a huge round of applause to Mary Ellen Vehlow, the owner of Gallery O on H and curator of this show, for including my work in a very powerful exhibit.
INDELIBLE: that which cannot be erased. A multimedia two-floor installation curated by Gallery Director Dolly Vehlow of GalleryOonH and Busboys and Poets Arts Curator Carol Rhodes Dyson.
Opening Reception: February 22nd 6-10pm. On exhibit through May 2019. Daily Tuesday 5-7:30PM, Wed-Fri 12-5PM, Saturday 11-3PM.
Indelible: that which cannot be erased is a confrontation of an unjust and repetitive history. The works in this exhibition seek to highlight a narrative often overlooked by mainstream art history to illustrate a continuum of injustice in our nation, featuring artists working in its capital city. Inspired by Black History Month, the show seeks to focus on the cyclical nature of unresolved issues–from the legacy of slavery to modern day police overreach and violence. The works included are a visual embodiment of current events, linked to a sinister history of oppression. Indelible puts local artists to the forefront, selected to underline the long history of racial inequality within our collective past and contemporary society. Artists featured include Milton Bowens, Billy Colbert, Scott Davis, Nehemiah Dixon, Justyne Fischer and Rodney “BUCK!” Herring.
The DC Yacht Club, site of the former docks for the city where in 1848, the Pearl, a merchant ship, had been hired by a group of slaves desiring to escape to the north. The so-called Pearl Incident was the largest non-violent slave escape in US history prior to the Civil War. Seventy-seven individuals had arranged passage. They were betrayed by a fellow slave who did not participate in the escape. The owner of several of the slaves, a Mr. Dodge, sent a steam launch to pursue them down the Potomac. The Pearl had become becalmed near the mouth of the Potomac and was caught by the steam launch. Among the passengers were two of the Edmonson daughters mentioned in the previous caption. In the immediate aftermath of the incident, pro-slavery groups ran amok in Washington DC, attacking abolitionist newspapers and groups. The long-term outcome was that the slave trade was banned outright in Washington DC in 1850, although slavery remained legal in the District until April 16, 1862.
My artists statement about the work:
Roland Barthes wrote of how a photograph contains a “punctum”, an element that strikes the viewer to the spiritual core, something that provokes a visceral emotional reaction in them. I believe life has moments of punctum – the origins of this project, for me, was an experience that ran through me like a lightning bolt. I was taking a Civil War history tour through the Smithsonian one late summer afternoon. I was standing on the lawn of L’Hermitage, a farm just outside Frederick, Maryland. I was looking around at the gently rolling hills, trees full of green leaves, puffy white clouds dotting the sky, corn in the adjacent field taller than my head, and listening to the guide talking about the history of the place.
The “bachelor’s house” at L’Hermitage on the Monocacy National Battlefield. This house would have housed the young un-married male members of the family and their personal servants. Four to six people at a time would have lived here. In the field adjacent, just out of the field of view of this photograph, the three slave cabins for L’Hermitage were located. Each of those three cabins were not much bigger than this cottage but held roughly thirty people each.
The farm was founded by a family of French emigres from Haiti who had fled the slave uprisings in the 1790s. They re-settled in Frederick, Maryland, and proceeded to attempt to reestablish Haitian-style slavery replete with the same degree of brutality they had practiced before. These people were so brutal with their slaves that their neighbors, slave-owners themselves, called the sheriff on them multiple times. In 1810, the importation of new slaves into the United States was made illegal. After that time, if you wanted more slaves, you had to buy them from someone else, or you could breed them. This family ran a stud service with their slaves, treating human beings as breeding stock.
The stone barn at L’Hermitage. The family that built the estate were originally from northern France, and so built their barn in the style of construction they remembered from their home. This would have housed their animals such as horses and cattle, along with carriages or other farm equipment like plows or threshing equipment for wheat.
Hearing this, I was struck by the horrific irony of the pastoral idyll of the scene I was viewing being literally soaked in the blood of other human beings who had lived, worked, and died there quite possibly never able to look at that scenery with the innocence I had looked at it until the moment before that revelation. I felt compelled to respond to that epiphany artistically, because I knew from my own experience that all the academic reading in the world does not adequately convey that emotional truth I had experienced.
View of the US Capitol from the approximate location of the Capitol Hotel. The Capitol Hotel served as a slave market and slave auction site, and advertised in local newspapers that their holding cells in the basement were sufficiently secure that should a slave owner suffer a loss of property while staying at the hotel, they would be fully insured against the loss.
I grew up with a very specific version of the history of this country – it was built by great men of lofty ideals, who imbued it with a progressive spirit intended to raise up the dignity of all humans. As a child, and into my adulthood, I went to the houses of these great men to see the way they lived and the places that inspired them to deliver the great nation of the United States into being. We went to Mount Vernon, Monticello, and Montpelier in Virginia, the Paca house in Annapolis, Maryland, the Carroll estates in Baltimore, and dozens of other colonial-era grand homes – their grandness was signaled as direct proof of their virtue and wisdom.
The Mount Vernon mansion. Home to George Washington, first president of the United States, an extraordinarily wealthy man, and whose profits were built almost entirely upon a large slave labor force (over 300 persons) required to manage the agriculture and industry on his 3000+ acres. Look upon this house and remember that this nation was not only founded by slave owners, it was built by slave labor and the profits of slave industry.
It was never discussed that they had the wealth and leisure to develop these lofty ideas because they owned in some cases hundreds of their fellow human beings who labored for them to produce that wealth and leisure. Nor was it discussed that these men who wrote so eloquently about the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness saw fit to administer corporal punishment to the people they owned when those people decided that they too were deserving of the same life, liberty and happiness their owners wrote about.
A reconstructed slave cabin at Mount Vernon. This is typical of what the average enslaved worker would have lived in – log and mud construction, no glass in the very small window, poor ventilation, and two rooms (one under the roof, one on the main floor) shared by an entire family, perhaps two.
I still go to see those great houses because I am fascinated by the styles and architecture of bygone eras, but now I think about how they were paid for (and often built) with slave labor. It is a metaphoric and literal foundation to this country that we must acknowledge and recognize if we are ever going to make forward progress.
The landing from the Patuxent River at Sotterly Plantation, in southern Maryland near St. Mary’s City. At this location in 1729, a cargo of 220-plus people were delivered to the owner of Sotterly, George Plater, to be transported overland to St. Mary’s City where they would be auctioned off and he would receive a commission from the sale. This is one of five documented “Middle Passage” sites in Maryland and the first to have a memorial marker.
I chose to produce these images the way I have for two reasons. I made them as compact contact prints 2 ¼ by 4 ¼ inches in size to force the viewer to engage very personally with the images, so they cannot hold themselves at arm’s length from the subject. I printed them in an historic photographic process, palladium, because using a noble metal to make jewel-like images that can only be made with extensive manual labor was a metaphorical way of repaying some of the debt to the people who without compensation or recognition built and shaped the landscapes I photographed. I hope that these images will in this way produce moments of punctum for the viewers the way they have for me.
This is the slave graveyard at Mount Vernon. There are believed to be between 50-75 people to be buried here. Not a single one of their graves has even a headstone to mark their final rest, and in the Mount Vernon records, many of the slaves buried there are recorded by just a first name. No records of who was buried where in the plot exist, so it is impossible to say which graves belong to which individuals.
Glen Echo Photoworks Annual Fall Fundraiser is just around the corner. The event will be held Saturday, October 20th, 2018 from 7pm to 10pm at Photoworks –
We are doing something really amazing to support our community of photographers and collectors and friends – with each ticket, while supplies last, we are giving away a box of 10+1 photographs by Photoworks faculty and community members to EACH PERSON who buys a ticket. So you’re guaranteed not only to have some wine, look at some art, learn something interesting, and support a great cause, but you’ll also leave with a boxed set of prints by some of the DC area’s best photographers! Win-Win!
This will be a fun evening of photography – we will have film screenings, a talk by Sarah Gordon, Independent Curator and Lecturer, wine and nibbly things, and lots of photography on display! There’s a great show up on the walls, Places We Find by Sandy Sugawara and Catiana Garcia Kilroy, that you can check out while you’re there. Donated items for the silent auction range from photographs by faculty members, a home-cooked Italian dinner for four, a vacation cottage on Squam Lake, New Hampshire for a week for up to ten people, one-on-one tutorials, to autographed books and college application portfolio reviews. There are items in every price range, with items starting as low as $25, so you don’t have to be a millionaire to bid.
I have donated a print of the featured image on this blog post, “Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso”, an 8×16 inch palladium print hand made by me, edition #1 of 10, as part of the silent auction that will be held both onsite and online.
I am also donating two one-on-one workshops in advanced darkroom printing and platinum/palladium printing, so this is your chance to get personal instruction while supporting a worthy cause!
Items for the silent auction are available for online bidding in advance.
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