Abelardo Morell, "Camera Obscuras: 1991–2006" show, NY, US

cam.era ob.scu.ra – a darkened enclosure in which images of outside objects are projected by their own natural light through a small opening and focused onto a facing surface.

For the last 15 years, Abelardo Morell has been quietly building one of the great ongoing photography projects – a view of the world through rooms that have been turned into camera obscuras. At once pictorial and conceptual, these pictures address issues of science, art, topography, landscape, and architecture. Surprisingly, this will be the first New York exhibition devoted exclusively to Morell’s Camera Obscura series.

The initial idea for the work came out of Morell’s demonstrations to his photography students at the Massachusetts College of Art in the mid-1980s where he turned his classroom into a Camera Obscura. The exercise was designed not only to elicit a sense of awe and wonder, but also to connect students to the precursive roots of the medium. It was not until 1991, however, that Morell decided to document the process on film, and he began by taking pictures in his own house in Brookline, Massachusetts. In order to capture the elusive projections, the exposures had to be about eight hours long, but the initial results charged Morell with possibilities. The play between the inside and outside world, the tension between the right way up and upside down, the surreal contrast of buildings and beds, trees and walls, formed a miraculous and original vision of a magical but still real world.

Over the ensuing years, while continuing to make photographs of a number of different subjects, from still lives of books to the backstage of the Metropolitan Opera, Morell has continued the Camera Obscura series venturing further and further afield to different cities and states and then to England, France, Italy, and Cuba. He has photographed in simple cottages and in some of the world’s great museums, in the homes of the rich and in public libraries. 60 of the photographs were recently published in a monograph: “Camera Obscura – Photographs by Abelardo Morell.” and the work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Victoria and Albert Museum, and more than forty other museums and institutions around the world.

This exhibition was produced in association with the Bonni Benrubi Gallery.

For further information please contact Danziger Projects at the above number or at: info@danzigerprojects.com.

The show runs 3 March – 7 April, 2007, at Danziger Projects, 521 West 26th St., New York, NY, US

Via Pinhole Visions

CPOPportunity show, Detroit, MI, US

Photographer Katie West writes:

I will be showing two images in the show that opens March 10th and runs until April 9th. The press release should come out soon but I wont’ be in the country next week, so I thought I’d post this now. It’s a juried exhibition, with four of the participating artists being selected to participate in the "CPOPportunity Showcase", their own group show in July 2007. Over 100 artists will be showing their work from all over the world: LA, Calgary, Chicago, Brooklyn, the UK, Denmark, Oklahoma, Montreal and Italy.

All artwork will be for sale and the artists get 90% of the sale price, which is pretty amazing. If anyone can make it out, that would be really cool, as this is a great opportunity for me and I’m very excited.

If you’d like to check out the Cpop website, it’s in transition at the moment, but you can look at it anyway, www.cpop.com. Or for more information on the show, you can look here: www.myspace.com/cpopgallery (which also has the history of the gallery as well as people who have showed there: Iggy Pop, Dee Dee Ramone, Mark Ryden, H.R. Giger to name a few).

"Lightleaks" toy camera photography show, Melbourne, AU

Australian photographer/neuroscientist Hamish Innes-Brown writes:

Me and 11 other people (some from this Flickr – fotojux, mikelefevre, artpunk, maybe others?) are in a show that opens this Thursday night called LIGHTLEAKS [not the magazine]. It is called this as all the images are shot on dodgey crappy cameras with useless lenses and hideous light leaks. Sound good? Come along, they’re all for sale!

The show runs 23 February – 8 March, 2007, at Kerala Gallery, 283 High St., Northcote, Melbourne, AU.

Opening at 6:30pm 23 Feb, be there!

Katie West on a group show gone horribly wrong

Have a look at photographer Katie West‘s account of a group show of erotic art gone pear-shaped. Misguided show publicity, admission fees, stolen work… it’s all here.

I started getting messages from people who had seen the flyers in the strangest places, like Toys R Us, and The Childrens Place. I thought to myself, wow, those are strange places to advertise an erotica show…

It gets worse from there. Continue reading in West’s Flickr photostream.

“Cheap Shots: The Silver Dreams of Plastic Cameras” show, MI, US

Cheap Shots show flyer

“Cheap Shots is an exhibition of photographic art created with cheap, plastic cameras, old cameras, pinhole cameras, and Polaroids. In an age of expensive, hi-tech equipment, these simple cameras offer a refreshing, lo-tech view of the world in our time. The work in this show was created by seventeen artists from the Michigan area who call themselves the Krappy Kamera Club. This will be their first public showing in Ann Arbor.”

When: Cheap Shots will run from Friday, March 23rd to Friday, April 6th, 2007. The opening is March 23rd from 7:00pm to 10:00pm.

Where: Gallery 4, 212 Nickels Arcade, Ann Arbor, MI [US]. On the second floor above Arcade Barbers.

The gallery will be open during the show Thursday and Friday from 3pm to 7pm, Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5pm, and by appointment. The show is free and open to the public.

More info on the show from Matt Callow.

Here’s a larger version of the flyer.

Erotic art show, TOMORROW, Catskill, NY, US

Photographer Anne Dunn writes:

Hey all you porn fans,

There’s an erotic art show in Catskill [NY, US] next Saturday at Wilder Gallery (395 Main Street) from 5-9PM. I will be showing some racy photos amongst some other people’s kinky art.

So come on by and get cho’self a piece.

(DJ to spin until wine is done…)

Work from over 30 artists will be on display covering a wide variety of media from photography to oil, acrylics, quilting, and installation. Must be 18 or older.

Mark Stetler "Nature Without Glass" pinhole landscape show, NY, US

Nature Without Glass is the first exhibition of fine art photography by Mark Stetler, a resident of Olive, New York and a successful commercial photographer in Manhattan. While his NYC career has focused on fashion and portraiture, this new body of personal work builds on his affinity with nature and combines it with his fascination with the pinhole camera to presents his own unique viewpoint.

Mark hikes into the woods or along the coast or in the mountains near his home and returns with images that reveal hidden places and give us a glimpse of a rare moment in time, not typically seen. The enigmatic color landscapes are shot "without glass", using a pinhole camera to capture those mysterious moments just before dawn or the obscured vision in stormy weather.

Mark Stetler moved to New York in 1994 to pursue his life long interest in photography and worked as an assistant to Richard Avedon, which further fueled his interest in the photography industry and in portraiture, in particular. Mark has achieved worldwide visibility through his recognition as a Mamiya Emerging Photographer and through publication of his images of September 11, shot from the rooftop of his apartment near the World Trade Center.

The show runs through February 12, 2007 at Galerie BMG, 12 Tannery Brook Road, Woodstock, NY, US. Gallery hours are Friday through Sunday, 11 am to 6 pm, or other times by appointment.

As I lived in Woodstock and the surrounding area for years, I’m excited to see his view of a landscape I know well.

Via Pinhole Visions