The CAC and The Stacks, in collaboration with PhotoNOLA, present a special photobook focused panel and book signing. Authors of recent photography publications will discuss how book making fits into their photographic practice, and share insights into their varied publication processes, from concept to print. Stella Kramer will moderate the discussion. The artists will be available to sign books immediately following the presentation.
Featuring: Susan Barnett, Eliot Dudik & Jared Ragland, Robbie McClaran, Tammy Mercure, Lindsay Morris, Nathan Pearce, and Aline Smithson.
Sunday, December 13, 2015
3:30-5:00pm
Free and open to the public
Featured Artists & Titles
Susan Barnett – T: A Typology of T-Shirts (Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2015)
These photographs are not about the t-shirt per se. The messages are combinations of pictures and words that reveal much about the identity of the wearer. They tell who these people are and who they aren’t, who they want to be and what they want us to know about them. They advertise their hopes, ideals, political views, and personal mantras.
Begun in 2009, TEE has taken Susan Barnett to cities and tourist spots throughout the United States and Europe to record the ever-changing messages.
BIO
When George Harrison arrived in New York for the Beatles’ historic visit he was carrying a Pentax Spotmatic as he descended the airplane’s steps. Susan Barnett, then 15 years old, soon bought the same Pentax and began to photograph her everyday life such as it appeared to her.
With a formal education in Art History and Studio Art, she landed a job at Perls Galleries on Madison Avenue, where she worked for twelve years as Associate Director. She handled Picasso, Braque, Leger and Matisse as well as preparing exhibitions and catalogues for Alexander Calder. Next door to Perls Galleries was Light Gallery, one of the earliest galleries to show Contemporary Photography. There Susan experienced first hand the work of Steven Shore and Lee Friedlandler.
In 1990 she went back to school to study graphic design and computer based photography at the School of Visual Arts, where she studied with Milton Glaser and Paul Davis. Susan currently lives in Manhattan, where she maintains a working studio in Tribeca and sails in Hampton Bays.
Eliot Dudik & Jared Ragland – collaborative book (One Day Projects, 2015)
Eliot Dudik, 2014 PhotoNOLA Review Prize winner, joins Jared Ragland in presenting their first collaborative book published by their new imprint, One Day Projects. One Day Projects promotes creative dialogue by challenging artists to collaboratively produce and complete innovative projects within a 24-hour time period.
Photographed, edited, designed, printed, and bound during a single day of the upcoming 2015 PhotoNOLA festival, Dudik/Ragland’s as yet untitled book will feature photographs inspired by the Louisiana folk tale of Bras-Coupé. Each handmade book will include a limited edition pigment print by the artists.
BIOS
Eliot Dudik is a photographic artist, educator, and bookmaker exploring the connection between culture, memory, landscape, history, and politics. His first monograph, ROAD ENDS IN WATER, was published in 2010. In 2012, Dudik was named one of PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch and one of Oxford American Magazine’s 100 New Superstars of Southern Art. He was awarded the PhotoNOLA Review Prize in 2014 for his Broken Land and Still Lives portfolio. Dudik taught photography at the University of South Carolina from 2011 to 2014 before founding the photography program within the Department of Art and Art History at the College of William & Mary, where he currently teaches and directs the Andrews Gallery.
Jared Ragland’s photographic and found-image work is rooted in his lifelong exposure to the landscapes, people, aesthetics, and storytelling traditions of the South. A former White House photo editor under the Bush and Obama administrations, Ragland currently teaches and coordinates exhibitions and community programs at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His work has been exhibited internationally and recently featured by The Oxford American, The New York Times, and TIME. Ragland is a graduate of LaGrange College and holds an MFA from Tulane University.
Robbie McClaran – Mardi Gras 1979 (Worm Ranch, 2015)
In 1979, twenty four years old and fresh out of art school, Robbie McClaran moved to New Orleans with little more than a backpack and a camera bag. By a quirk of history, that same year the New Orleans Police Department staged a strike during Mardi Gras and most of the public events were cancelled. Many tourists stayed home, yet to this day some locals recall it as one the best Mardi Gras ever.
This was a time before the arrival of AIDS, in the final days of the sexual revolution. Public nudity and sexual display were pervasive and revelers eagerly performed for McClaran’s camera. After more than thirty-five years in storage, this is the first publication of these images from his one and only Mardi Gras.
BIO
Robbie McClaran is an editorial, advertising, documentary and fine art photographer based in Portland, Oregon. His work has been widely published and exhibited. His editorial work has appeared in diverse publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Time, Smithsonian, Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Rolling Stone, Runner’s World, Bloomberg and Forbes.
Robbie’s personal work has been featured in Plazm, Life Magazine – Our Century in Pictures, Photo District News, The Photo Review and ID Design and has been recognized by the American Institute of Graphic Arts, American Photography, The New York Art Director’s Club, Graphis and Communication Arts. His work is held in several collections, including the Portland Museum of Art, the University of Oregon, Special Collections Library and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. In 2014 Robbie received a grant from the Oregon Arts Commission and the Ford Family Foundation.
Tammy Mercure – Flower Book (TCB Press 2015)
Living and dead are given flowers in New Orleans. A surprise flower pop-up lives in the middle.
BIO
Tammy Mercure (1976) was named one of the “100 under 100: The New Superstars of Southern Art” by Oxford American magazine. She has been featured on CNN Photos, VICE, Daily Mail, NPR Big Picture Show, and more. She was published in the Guardian UK (Big Picture), Darwin magazine, and in the book “Place, Art, and Self” by Yi-Fu Tuan. She has a BA from Columbia College Chicago and an MFA from East Tennessee State University. She lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Lindsay Morris – You Are You (Kehrer Verlag, 2015)
You Are You documents an annual weekend summer camp for gendernonconforming children and their families. This camp offers a temporary safe haven where children can freely express their interpretations of gender alongside their parents and siblings without feeling the need to look over their shoulders. Through these images the viewer will experience an important moment in history where the first gender variant childhood is being openly expressed with the support of friends and family. Morris reaches beyond the confines of the camp to contribute to a dialog about the crucial role that support plays in the lives of gender unique children.
BIO
Born and raised in suburban Detroit, Lindsay Morris began her studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and holds a BFA from the University of Michigan School of Art. Since 2006 she has been a freelance photographer and photo editor for Edible East End magazine, where she documents the food culture on Long Island.
Recent exhibitions include solo shows at Clamp Art, Rayko Photo Center, the Center for Fine Art Photography, the Hamburg Triennial w/ Photoville Brooklyn, Sous Les Etoiles Gallery, NY, The Fence and Photoville, Atlanta and Brooklyn, NY, and a Ctrl+P artist at the Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago.
Lindsay’s work has been featured on BBC World News and published in TIME Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, GEO, Days Japan, PDN, Marie Claire, Elle, Internazionale and Haaretz Israel, and has been featured on photography blogs VICE, L’Oeil de la Photographie, WPO, Slate/Behold and abcNews.com. She was a 2013 Critical Mass finalist and nominee for the 2013 Julia Margaret Cameron Award. Her first book, You Are You, has recently been published in partnership with Kehrer Verlag.
Nathan Pearce – Midwest Dirt Bootleg Edition (Same Coin Press)
This is the bootleg version of Midwest Dirt. The book’s beautiful (sold out) first edition was printed and designed by Akina Factory in London. This zine version is a bootleg of that original. Its original design was copied at a local print shop in southern Illinois. There are wrinkles due to paper jamming and there are some whiteout corrected errors. Edits and modifications have been made with marker, pen, highlighter and whiteout. The end result is beautifully flawed but in the end it is indeed beautiful. Edition of 275 signed and hand numbered.
There will also be a new zine, All Night Long: volume 13, created in collaboration with Jake Reinhart.
BIO
Nathan Pearce (born 1986) is a photographer based in Southern Illinois. He also works in an auto body repair shop.
Aline Smithson – Self & Others: Portrait as Autobiography (Magenta Foundation 2015)
Self & Others: Portrait as Autobiography is an almost 20 year culmination of portrait photographs captured by award-winning photographer Aline Smithson. Beginning with her early forays into black and white work, produced as darkroom silver gelatin prints, she photographed the world around her considering the poignancy of childhood and the pathos of aging and relationships. The book continues with her hand painted photographs featuring her defining series, Arrangement in Green and Black: Portrait of the Photographer’s Mother, where she combines humor and family to create a universal expression of motherhood. The book is completed by her color projects that revisit beauty, the essence of childhood, and an examination of created realities. Aline brings a background in painting and fashion to her images, but at the heart of her work is her ability to recognize the inner self of her subjects. The photographer considers all her portraits a reflection of herself and the stories she wants to tell, and in that way, she has created a visual language that is her own unique autobiography.
BIO
After a career as a New York Fashion Editor, Aline Smithson discovered the family Rolleiflex and never looked back. An artist now represented by galleries in the U.S. and Europe and published throughout the world, Aline continues to create her award-winning photography with humor, compassion, and a 50-year-old camera.
Aline has exhibited widely including solo shows at the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Center of Fine Art Photography, the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, the Lishui Festival in China, the Tagomago Gallery in Barcelona and Paris. In addition, her work is held in a number of museum collections. Her photographs have been featured in publications including PDN, Communication Arts Photo Annual, Eyemazing, Soura, Visura, Fraction, Artworks, Lenswork Extended, Shots, Pozytyw, Incandescant, Square and Silvershotz magazines.
Aline founded and writes the blogzine, Lenscratch. She has been the Gallery Editor for Light Leaks Magazine, and writes for Diffusion, Don’t Take Pictures, Lucida, and F Stop Magazines. Aline has curated exhibitions for numerous organizations, and is a reviewer at many photo festivals across the United States. Aline’s honors include the Rising Star Award (2012) through the Griffin Museum of Photography and the 2014 Excellence in Teaching Award from CENTER. She lives in Los Angeles and is currently teaching and curating for the Los Angeles Center of Photography.
