And Now Bunnies!

Hiroh Kikai. "A woman who lives alone with her pet." 1974

Sometimes it's just serendipity. I went over to 535 West 22nd to catch up with some of my favorite galleries and guess what? Bunnies!

First stop was the Yancey Richardson gallery where they were getting ready to hang their Hiroh Kikai show, opening later this week. I showed a couple of Kikai's pictures in my "Sander's Children" show and like many photo people was relatively new to the work of this Japanese photographer who has been making deadpan and slightly odd street portraits since the 1970s. You can read and see more about the show here. While it's not in any way typical, I really liked the picture above as well as its title. (All Kikai's titles have that slightly strange Japanese to English idiosyncrasy.)

Photo by Laurel Nakadate

Photo by Laurel Nakadate

Next stop was Leslie Tonkonow and a new show of work by Laurel Nakadate. Mixing video and photography, I was particularly struck by
a pair of shadow pictures of which the above was one, as well as the coincidence of the bunny theme. There is also one extraordinary six minute video of the artist dancing in the desert to the strains of a Bruce Springsteen song. Beautifully filmed in the fading light of day, and with a sense that the artist is dancing herself into a trance, it has the visceral quality that makes good video/performance stand out from so much of the dreck that's foisted on us in the name of art.

Andrew Bush. From "Vector Portraits"

Sadly, no bunnies at Julie Saul where there is a strong new show of Andrew Bush's photos taken along Southern Californian highways in the 90s. I wrote about the work a while ago so you can read about it here.

And for a sneak preview of the Kikai show, here's a picture (below) of the work waiting to be hung. If you click on the picture you can just make out some of the images.

Let Freedom Bling

I just came across Shirin Aliabadi’s work and her two series “Miss Hybrid” (above) and “Freedom Is Boring, Censorship Is Fun” (below). In Aliabadi’s pictures, the subjects are young Iranian women who in spite of the oppression of Islam seem to be defying our stereotypes and having a good time. It’s a welcome revision to our view of the Middle East.

“Freedom Is Boring, Censorship Is Fun” like Andrew Bush’s “Vector Portraits” focuses on the way we live in cars to find its insights into contemporary life. Clearly the idea is as valid in Tehran as on Interstate 405.

Aliabadi’s latest series, “Miss Hybrid”, pokes fun at the style and beauty trends among fashionista Iranians, where the current vogue is for blond hair, light-colored contact lenses, occasional facial piercing and most importantly, surgical nose tape. (It's like the current trend for faux glasses.)

“Miss Hybrid” Aliabadi suggests, should be seen as an alternative beauty manifesto positing that natural beauty is unfair, elitist, and irrelevant - while artificial beauty and the need to transform into someone else via cosmetic intervention can be regarded as a healthy exercise in cultural rebellion and global integration. Now that's an radical and original concept!

Another picture from the "Miss Hybrid" series.

We Love the 90s!

Woman wheeling down Sunset Boulevard at 34 mph in Beverly Hills on an afternoon in the summer of 1990

Andrew Bush’s “Vector Portraits” – a series of pictures taken while driving alongside his subjects on the roads and freeways of California – was one of the signature photographic series of the 90s. Original, perceptive, and with a fresh conceptual twist, it explored the culture of Los Angeles as well as issues of privacy, danger, and the American dream.

Now, after a decade in which the pictures were slowly slipping from public sight, Yale University Press is about to publish a selection of 70 photographs along with an interview by Jeff Rosenheim, one of the Met’s brightest curators. (The book comes out next week.)

Bush took the pictures by mounting a 4x5 camera and simple strobe on the passenger side of his car and remotely snapping the picture while driving at speeds up to 70 miles per hour. Photographed when Bush is directly across from them, the subjects are framed by the car window to make a separate picture within a picture.

Deadpan titles record not only where and when each photograph was taken, but information about speed, weather, etc. These captions give a faux-scientific aspect to the work, recalling Ed Ruscha's books of the late 1960's in which Ruscha photographed and catalogued such commonplace symbols of Los Angeles as parking lots, palm trees and gas stations.

Despite their humor, Bush's pictures make for fascinating socio-psychological documents. The car is, after all, a unique area of personal space - half public, half private. And as much as we may be what we eat or wear, we are also what we drive.

Man heading south at 73 mph on Interstate 5 near Buttonwillow Drive outside of Bakersfield, California, at 5:36 p.m. on a Tuesday in March 1992

Woman heading northwest at 67 mph on U.S. Route 101 near Santa Barbara at 2:33:38 p.m. in the early 1990s

Man traveling southbound at 67 mph on U.S. Route 101 near Montecito, California, at 6:31 p.m. on or around the 28th of a summer month on a Sunday in 1994

Man and woman passing through the intersection of Cahuenga and Hollywood boulevards, Hollywood, at 33 mph on February 14, 1997

Man rolling along (and whistling audibly) on U.S. Route 101 at approximately 55 mph on a summer day in 1989

Woman meandering at differing speeds through various parts of Pacific Palisades, California, while singing, before noon on a weekend day in the early part of 1997