benhider.com/blog

I began my blog about year after I started at Pratt and I generally avoided directly talking about my experience there. I felt like it was not my place to pass a running commentary on what happened in the class room and would probably have got me into all sort of sticky situations complaining about faculty, students or crap I got myself into. Many critiques and class room discussions felt so personal and more like group therapy that delving too deep into that publicly would’ve also seemed odd.  James Pomerantz just had his first day in the SVA MFA program and will be dedicating his blog to his experience there. It’ll be interesting to see how he handles it. (You can see his current photography website here)

I rarely see work from plastic cameras that I enjoy. I find the affect the lens has and the style of printing people choose to be a filter that blocks the viewer from experiencing the actual image. Often the addition of vignetting, a shift in focus and some extra saturation can make people like an image that doesn’t have the strength to stand on its own. I’ve used these tricks on some of my wedding images that otherwise would be pretty dull. Arian Camilleri’s images don’t scream “Holga” to me and I find some of the images pretty strong.

(via Hey Hot Shot Contenders)

“All Photography” right there in the middle… hmmmm, perhaps c-monster.net, perhaps!

I hate the fact that my apartment feels like a gallery of my own work. I’m torn between having none of my work up and hiding it all in storage or just using it to fill some wall space. Thankfully I have some of my friends work from school to break up the ‘Ben Hider Show.’ Jen Bekman’s 20×200 is a good way to start filling your walls with work you like that is actually affordable.

The following artist has traveled to many of the same places in the world that I did as a young student, and his work reminds me that I need to dig through my old work, or go back with my Mamiya 7ii and a bag full of film.

Red Truck on the Back Road to Manigango
by Raul Gutierrez

NATIONAL ART HATE WEEK is a call for direct action against the mass acceptance of art as a phantom economy for the smug manipulative elite and their ensuing grip of control over culture as a tool for mediated emotion, market lead non-critical homogeny, and boring popularism. During NATIONAL ART HATE WEEK citizens are encouraged to visit art institutions across the land and HATE. Individuals who are unable to attend an organised ART HATE are encouraged to open a random book on any given artist and HATE what they see. If a child offers you a painting during NATIONAL ART HATE WEEK you are to turn away in disgust.

I love a large portion of Joel Sternfeld’s work and was even excited to see some older prints of his at the recent MOMA exhibit. His work is always impressive in its fresh outlook but familiarity. His new book “iDubai” is from a recent trip to Dubai where he shot in malls with his iPhone. What surprises me most about this book is that a photographer who shoots primarily large format negatives was able to travel all the way to Dubai and make images with such a low resolution. I guess with this kind of idea for the book, you have to let the idea of ‘quality’ or resolution fall under the larger idea of documenting consumer culture with “the consumer fetish du jour, the iPhone.” It will be interesting to see if he gains anymore intimacy or distance by shooting with a more discrete piece of apparatus

I can’t seem to find any images from the book, other than the cover. (Which is enough for me to want the book already)

A poor image of me being abused in the shadow world!

Justin’s show opened today, and it was a close call on whether he was going to be ready. It’s an ongoing and changing exhibition of found object sculpture, so check back for further pictures as the week progresses. He has the whole gallery space with all four rooms being used, so there’s plenty of room to move stuff. I’ve only included pictures of some of the work I found more interesting.

Knox Martin was the mentor at Yale of my mentor George Parrino.

An old friend from Purchase is the General Manager for this dance company, and thankfully pulled the trigger on booking me to photograph the opening night and today’s press call. The snippets of performance I saw today were incredible, I’d highly recommend grabbing some tickets HERE before the curtain drops on Sunday.

If you haven’t seen this exhibition then you HAVE to go before it closes. It has some iconic images and presents the American West, from its early importance in the photographic process to its influence on modern image making.

Check out the PBS website with the SundayArts Section. It has a feature on the only graffiti I actually like – Chalk Artist Ellis Gallagher. I think his work is fun, non-offensive and actually somewhat thought provoking. I was in awe when I walked out my apartment to wait for my local 54 bus and saw his work outlining a bike and fire hydrant shadow in 3 different directions on Myrtle Ave.

I only just noticed Bill Brand’s work yesterday on my way into the city. It was constructed in September 1980 and was just renovated in November 2008. It blew my mind as I sat quietly in my seat, trying to go unnoticed. I remember making a zoetrope when I was about 9 and thinking it was the coolest thing ever. I like that Brand says in a NY Times article “When my ego is low, I do like to find teenagers on the train and make them look at it.”

This week I’ve been seeing this ad on craigslist being posted in almost all the forums. It seems like a pretty strange way to promote yourself. Why would you want to have a gallery show that showcases your crappy mis-fired photos, and how long would it take me to find those through all my archived unedited images. I guess i ads another gallery to your list and you don’t have to go into too may details?

_________________________________________________________________________
Artist in need of you Mis-Fires from all type of Photographers.
The more obscure, strange, worthless you feel they may be, the better.

Please e-mail JPEGS in a Zip – low resolution is is o.k

www.emrestudios.com/exposures

This is for an art project and exhibition called ‘The Indecisive Moment’. Excellent Exposure and Exhibition in Williamsburg.
Also potential publication in leading British Art-Photography Magazine.

Gonkar Gyato’s work collages small stickers of of branding logos, typography, and recognizable cartoon characters to create images of the Buddha. I like the idea, and find it compelling both from a visual stand point and also when considering the teachings of the Buddha in the modern world. However, I’m normally surprised by what makes it into the Venice Biennale, as it seems to me that this isn’t winning any major points for originality or even aesthetics. Having said that, I still like his new work quite a bit and it’s great to see a Tibetan making it in the ‘Art World.’

Gonkar Gyatso, The Shambala of Modern Times, 2008, stickers, paper cuttings and pencil on treated paper, 200 x 219 cm

Gonkar Gyatso was born in 1961 in Lhasa. He graduated from the Fine Art Department of the Central Institute of Nationalities, Beijing and from the Chelsea Art & Design College, London. He is the Co-Founder of “The Sweet Tea House Artists Association”. Gyatso has exhibited his works in Dharamsala, New Dehli, London, Helsinki, Washington, Lyon, Durban, Zurich. Gonkar Gyatso is living in London and is a visiting teacher at the London Institute.

I prefer these works of his, which I’m assuming are photographs because it is not made clear on the website.

Here is an interesting article about the contemporary Tibetan Art movement. More of his work after the break…

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