Medium Festival Accepting Submissions for Size Matters; Some Portfolio Review Openings
Our media partner, the Medium Festival of Photography in San Diego, Oct. 18-21, 2018, is accepting submissions for the Size Matters Exhibition throughout July. They also have a few openings for portfolio reviews left at this point.
Size Matters is the signature exhibition of the annual Medium Festival, presenting a curated selection of works smaller than 10″. The exhibition echoes our belief in small gatherings, small works, and exhibitions that highlight these values. The 2018 exhibition will be held at Sparks Gallery in San Diego’s Gaslamp district with an opening reception on Oct. 20 from 7-10pm. The exhibition juror is Brian Clamp, director of ClampArt in New York City.
Three awards are given to participating photographers, including a $500 Purchase Award where the selected work of art will be donated to a prominent museum collection. The Director’s Choice Award will include two VIP Passes to the 2019 Medium Festival, and an honorable mention will receive a significant award from our supporters.
LACP Exposure 2018 – Portfolio Reviews, Workshops, Seminars – July 20-22, Registering Now
Registration for Exposure Weekend 2018 conducted by the Los Angeles Center of Photography is now in progress. The portfolio reviewers and workshop/seminar presenters this year are a particularly interesting group. You can get your work assessed, learn some new things, and meet some more fellow photographers! Highly recommended!
EXPOSURE 2018
Friday – Sunday, July 20-22, 2018
Hotel MdR in Marina del Rey, CA, near LAX airport
Registration is now open for the following portfolio reviewers, workshops, and seminars:
Photo by Julia Dean
Portfolio Reviewers still available:
Chad Attie, Gallery Director, Eastern Star Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Sherrie Berger, Photo Consultant, Los Angeles, CA; Jonathan Blaustein, Contributor, NYTimes Lensblog and A Photo Editor; Kyle Bradley, CEO/Founder, Nava Print Studio, Chicago, IL; Susan Burnstine, Contributor, B+W Magazine (UK); Marisa Caicholo, Founder/Curator of Building Bridges Art Exchange, Los Angeles, CA; Catherine Couturier, Owner/Director, Catherine Couturier Gallery, Houston, TX; Chris Davies, Founder/Director, Fabrik Projects Gallery and Photo Independent, Los Angeles, CA; Michael Dawson, Owner, Michael Dawson Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, Crista Dix, Founder/Director, Wallspace Creative, Santa Barbara, CA; Christy Havranek, Photo Director, Huffington Post; Virginia Heckert, Curator, Department of Photographs, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (Almost SOLD OUT); Anne Kelly, Gallery Director, photo-eye Gallery, Santa Fe, NM; Randi Kreeft, Gallery Director, the Loft at Liz’s Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Dhyandra Lawson, Curatorial Asst., Department of Photography, LA County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Douglas Marshall, Independent Curator/Appraiser; Kristina Newhouse, Curator, University Art Museum, Long Beach, CA; Cindy Rowe, Art Producer, Saatchi & Saatchi, Torrance, CA; Aimee Santos, Editorial Picture Editor, Shutterstock; Cheyanne Sauter, Executive Director, Art Share LA, Los Angeles, CA; Hannah Sloan, Founder/Director Sloan Projects; Sybylla Smith, International Curator, Educator and Consultant; Aline Smithson, Founder/Editor, Lenscratch (Almost SOLD OUT); Mackenzie Stevens, Curatorial Assistant, Hammer Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (Almost SOLD OUT); Douglas Stockdale, Founder/Editor, The PhotoBook Journal; Yessica Torres, Curator, Dab Art, Ventura, CA.
Cool workshops and seminars, including:
Friday, July 20
10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Workshop – Now What? Re-energizing Your Photography Career with Aline Smithson
10:00 am – 1:00 pm – Seminar – Steps to Success for Photographers with Sherrie Berger
02:00 pm – 5:00 pm – Seminar – The Business of Gallery Representation with Crista Dix
Saturday, July 21
09:30 am – 5:00 pm – Workshop – Concept Aware: Enhance Your Creative Practice with Sybylla Smith
10:00 am – 1:00 pm – Seminar – Fine Art Digital Printmaking: Why and How with Cheryl Kelleher Walsh & Eric Joseph
02:00 pm – 5:00 pm – Seminar – Untangling The Web of Social Media with Paul-Michael Carr
Sunday, July 22
09:30 am – 5:00 pm – Workshop – Pushing Your Work Forward with Jonathan Blaustein
09:30 am – 1:30 pm – Workshop – Street Shooting on Venice Beach with Julia Dean
01:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Workshop – A to Z Grantwriting with Linda Vallejo
SoCal Photo Exchange is a proud media sponsor of Exposure 2018
Laguna Art Museum: Oskar Fischinger and the Interconnectedness of the Arts
Yesterday I had the good fortune to view some paintings of German-born Southern California artist Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967) at the Laguna Art Museum. I also met his son Richard Fischinger and his son’s wife, Mary.
At a time when we are starting to see censorship of critical art in this country (Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), it behooves us to think back to what happened in Europe in the early 20th Century, when art that did not fit the political preferences of a narrowly-focused government was labeled “degenerate” (entartet, which actually means “outside of the [politically approved] style of art”) and therefore forbidden. Oskar Fischinger had to leave Germany in the 1930s because his works did not match the preferences of the people in power.
How are his paintings and inventions relevant to our thinking about photography and other arts?
Fischinger’s works are an artistic mirror of concurrent technical and artistic developments. In a time long before the ease of digital manipulations, he set hand-drawn photographed animations to music, independently and also with some major studios. Some of these animations can be seen and purchased from the Center for Visual Music currently. He was well versed in camera work and invented a wax-processing machine that projected colorful light patterns that could be manipulated for special effects. In this respect, his work was very much in parallel with his contemporaries Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray, as well as Kandinsky, Klee, Feininger, Mondrian, and Miró. His paintings are a wonderful kaleidoscope of his time, in that they reflect the wonders of industrial achievements and space exploration through the 1960s, and the ideas are expressed in artistic forms that are now called “mixed-media”.
The two paintings below shows some of these effects as displayed at the Laguna Art Museum. I immediately felt a kinship with Oskar Fischinger, as my own work in the last few months has taken me to similar levels of abstraction. I recently showed the work “Overture” at a meeting of the Photographers’ Exchange Group in Irvine, and some members could immediately hear music in their minds. The image “The Arrival” certainly also intimates some kind of travel in time and space, although, as may be the case in all of these works, they may also be a metaphor for internal mental processes.
Oskar Fischinger, “Snow White – Red Circle,” 1943
Gerhard Clausing, “Overture,” 2018
Oskar Fischinger, “Satellite,” 1950-60
Gerhard Clausing, “The Arrival,” 2018
Oskar Fischinger also painted a lot of “Heads” in his time, some of which were visualized full of associative symbols and objects. Especially the example which Richard Fischinger showed me on his cellphone (of an Oskar Fischinger painting in his collection), shown below, reminded me of the current work of my friend Sandra Klein, who enhances large photographic silhouettes of herself and her mother with needlework and a variety of other objects as a comprehensive artistic metaphor combining past and present; both works transcend media as well as time and space.
So it is definitely inspiring to look in on the work of a universal talent from the last century, since the work and its implications can affect our own present and future work, as well as our assessment of art as part of our own expression and understanding of life. To talk with Richard Fischinger was also instructive; he was always warned by his dad to be mindful of the dangers of authoritarianism. My thanks to Richard and Mary for their insights.
The selection of paintings by Oskar Fischinger will be shown at the Laguna Art Museum through June 17, 2018. For those interested in delving deeper into this subject, a dissertation was written by Martina Dillmann at the Universität Frankfurt in 2004 (in German) that also includes a thorough inventory of the paintings.
Mary and Richard Fischinger at the Laguna Art Museum, June 7, 2018
Photography and Other Arts in Vienna
Vienna, as seen from the Upper Belvedere Museum
Last week was spent in Vienna (Austria), a city bursting with history and art, as well as home of culinary specialties including the infamous Wiener Schnitzel (no, it’s not a hot dog!).
The occasion was my participation in a workshop on curating, conducted by the enterprising and well-informed art historian Kristin Dittrich, who also happens to be the Founder and Director of the Shift School for Photography in Dresden, Germany. The location was the Anzenberger Gallery, a place known for its emphasis on contemporary photography as well as its special nurturing of photobooks through its affiliated store. All these subtopics would certainly merit separate articles, especially since the Shift School is the site of the complete Steidl Library with well over a thousand volumes, a unique contribution to the documentation and use of photobooks.
The workshop was a highly fascinating experience. Kristin knows how to combine theory with practice, as well as how to build in the experience of the participants at various points in the proceedings. Many hints on the process of curating exhibitions were included, as well as some practical exercises on how to sort topics, issues, styles, and images into an actual exhibit, along with a formal presentation and the fielding of audience responses. A museum visit (Kunst Haus Wien) and the Ostlicht Gallery and Library were also included. The Shift School is offering a variety of events and classes throughout the year, highly recommended!
Naturally, you can’t be in Vienna without visiting some other museums and cultural events. Highlights were Belvedere Castle with its Klimt exhibits, 18th century Messerschmidt facial selfie sculptures, and Klemens Brosch, who was a particularly gifted early 20th century creator of drawings that approximated photographic quality and moods, with a special bent for science fiction. Kafka’s Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung) at the intimate Pygmalion Theater provided a stunning tour-de-force performance by Philipp Kaplan as the stressed outsider figure.
Lest you fear that I was lacking other sustenance, I am including a soupscape, first photographed and subsequently consumed at Anzenberger Gallery, as well as an image of a slice of walnut cake, for your vicarious pleasure. Wahnsinn!
Gerhard Clausing
Anzenberger Gallery: Gilbert Garcin exhibit, “Life is a Theater” (through May 19, 2018)
Kristin Dittrich, Director of the Shift School of Photography in Dresden, teaching the curating workshops at Anzenberger Gallery in Vienna
Sketch/model for a photography exhibit on positive aspects of aging, “Hey, we are still around!” designed by Franziska Neidhart and Gerhard Clausing as part of the Shift School Curating Workshops
Kunst Haus Wien exhibit: “It’s not me, it’s a photograph” by Elina Brotherus (through August 19, 2018)
“It’s not me, it’s my shadow”: The viewer (GC) superimposed on the video projection by Elina Brotherus
An early example of selfies: one of Messerschmidt’s 60 facial grimace sculptures of himself (this one, about to sneeze), 1771-1783; Upper Belvedere Museum
Lower Belvedere Museum exhibit featuring the rediscovered Klemens Brosch (through June 3, 2018)
Klemens Brosch, “The Crocodile on the Moon Disk” – ca. 1912, property of Österreichisches Landesmuseum
Soupscape, observed and consumed at the curating workshop, taking care of the stomach
Vienna is famous for its cakes and pastries: Walnut Cake, Café L. Heiner, Vienna
All photographs © 2018 Gerhard Clausing
An Image in Honor of President’s Day
© 2017 Gerhard Clausing
After the last presidential election, I created the self-portrait above (with some distortion) to express my feelings. And isn’t that really the main purpose of photography and art in general?
While I have been a citizen of the United States for over 50 years and have great respect for this country and the office of the President, I have had great qualms ever since this last election campaign was underway. I feel that much of what we believe in has been seriously distorted. Surely we deserve better than such divisive tactics and insulting rhetoric? And now that the occupant of that office has engaged in many shenanigans for over a year, perhaps on a day like this we should ask ourselves if we are worthy of better representation: someone who does not get elected with the help of foreign propaganda and fake news, someone who does not want to spend our money on “walls,” someone who does not emphasize tax breaks for the super wealthy, someone who does not use the government to solicit business for his own family’s enterprises?
Your mileage may vary from mine. Please send your comments and images that express your own emotions and opinions, so we may have a lively exchange here! That is what a real photo exchange is all about.
Happy President’s Day!
Gerry
Happy New Year!
Wishing all our readers the very best of everything for 2018!
Most of all unlimited creativity!
The Editors
© 2017 Gerhard Clausing
Street Shooting Around the World – One Week Left to Submit!
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Lectures and Events at Medium Festival, Oct. 27-29 (discounted registration through Oct.15)
LA 66 ©John Gossage
Discover Medium’s 2017 Present Tense Lecturers
Medium is defined by an exceptional program of artist lectures—creative voices in the field who share their recent work and creative development with you. The 2017 lectures kick off with a Keynote Lecture by John Gossage on Oct. 27. John Gossage is a revered artist who got his start at the Leo Castelli Gallery (in a two-person show with Jasper Johns, no less)!
The weekend continues with lectures by Justyna Badach, Claudia Kunin, John Chiara, Christina Seely, and J. Grant Brittain. Discover their work on our website and pick up a Festival Pass today—discounted registration is available online through Oct. 15.
Meet Claudia Kunin on Oct. 28 at 11am
Claudia Kunin is a Los Angeles native who has maintained a career in photography for more than 30 years. Her recent work as a filmmaker involves her use of family photographs, which the artist meticulously animates into short films that tell haunting, evocative stories. In 3-D!
The artist will discuss her career and current work as part of Medium’s Present Tense lecture series at 11:00am on Sat., Oct. 28. Festival participants will be invited a free film screening with the artist at the Digital Gym beginning at 7:00pm. We’re honored to have Claudia Kunin’s lecture as part of the 2017 Festival.
© Claudia Kunin
Free Festival events and exhibitions!
Don’t miss the ongoing series of free events and exhibition receptions this fall. We kick things off with an exhibition by Morgan DeLuna, a participant in our Far Sight Mentorship program. The exhibition Morgan DeLuna: Phenotype opens at Subtext Gallery on Oct. 12. from 6-8pm. Additional free events include:
- FLASH! Pop-Up Shop, Oct. 26, 7-10pm, Lafayette Hotel
- Open Portfolio Walk with participating Portfolio Review photographers, Oct. 26, 7-10pm, Lafayette Hotel
- Book signing with John Gossage, Oct. 27, 8-10pm, Lafayette Hotel
- Size Matters exhibition reception, Oct. 28, 7-10pm, Helmuth Projects
Creating “Contact Sheets” Using Adobe Bridge and Photoshop
If you have wanted to create sheets that show sets of images in your folders or series, in order to print them like the “contact sheets” from analog times, this is fairly easy to do. Reasons for doing so might be that you want to keep a printed visual record of what’s in your project folders or project collections, or you might want to document possible sequences for presentations or for photo books, to name just some reasons for using this process.
Here’s an example that goes through six easy steps. You need to have both Bridge and Photoshop running on your computer. I am currently using Bridge CC 2017 and Photoshop CC 2017 on the PC, but this works similarly on the Mac and with older versions of the two programs as well.
Step 1: Open Bridge and open the folder that contains the files that you want to print on a sheet, in the right order. Here I am using a folder with twelve “Bodyscapes” files of mine as an example.
Step 2: From the menu, select Tools > Photoshop > Contact Sheet II.
Step 3: The “Contact Sheet II” window will be activated in Photoshop automatically:
Step 4: Select the size you want the pages to be. For instance, I usually use 8×10” for printing properly on 8.5×11” sheets.
Step 5: Select the number of columns and rows you want – 4×4 is a good place to start. Do not use filenames as captions unless you want them to be appearing.
Step 6: Hit the “OK” button, and BINGO! The contact sheets will appear in Photoshop as if by magic, in sequence, and can then be saved and/or printed.
And there’s my contact sheet for this folder!
Enjoy!
Gerry
ContactSheet-001.jpg:
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