Saturday, December 20, 2008

Gallery Holiday hours

DNJ Gallery will be closed December 23 - 25, 2008 and December 30, 2008 - January 1, 2009. Please feel free to stop by on December 26 and 27 to see our new exhibition, Holly Andres: Sparrow Lane.

Happy Holidays!

Friday, December 12, 2008

Holly Andres featured in ArtScene

Holly Andres' upcoming show Sparrow Lane at DNJ Gallery was recently reviewed and featured on the cover of the latest ArtScene. You can read the full article below, or pick up a complimentary copy at the gallery. The show opens December 20th, but the opening will not be until January 17th.

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detail from Holly Andres The Spilt Milk 2008

December 20, 2008 - February 14, 2009, at DNJ Gallery, West Hollywood
by Ray Zone

With a suite of fifteen color photos in a show called “Sparrow Lane,” Holly Andres has marked off a brilliantly chromatic bit of cinematic turf for fine art photography. In some respects, Andres’s narrative images amplify the aesthetic concerns first delineated by Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin and Lauren Greenfield. Sherman’s chameleonic self-enacted narrative deconstructed B-movie images of women and Greenfield’s deceptively casual portraits of adolescent females critiqued a culture-wide consensus of sexual identity. In an atmospheric array of compelling photo images, Andres has combined both these conceptual issues and dramatically moved beyond them into a mysterious and starkly symbolic world. This realm seems to tap directly and powerfully into a collective, unconscious mind where archetypes loom and elide portentously through light and shadow.

Not surprisingly, Andres is also a director of photography who has worked on a number of films. The lighting in the “Sparrow Lane” photographs is a tour-de-force of ambience and mood. The placement of objects and characters within the scene or frame, is meticulous. The appropriate term for that nuancing is mise-en-scene, and it certainly applies to Andres’ images. They are highly theatrical, and it is a theater of flesh and blood within which the mind and spirit drift as transiently as light. With vivid primary colors, Andres depicts a moment of revelation or a mystery that is imminent and about to be revealed. Repeatedly the images seem to reference, in the most poetic and indirect manner possible, budding sexuality in the adolescent female. Enclosures, hidden spaces, apertures and the interplay of light and dark serve as visual analogues for the body and its phantasms of attraction and repulsion.

“Behind the Old Painting” sets a lovely context for “Sparrow Lane.” Two young girls in the background begin to peer behind a painted portrait of a matriarch dressed in Victorian mode. In the foreground another young girl peers warily out of frame as if standing guard for the two interlopers in the background. A veil of light plays around the painting as complementary red and green colors fix the moment in a perpetual unease. What is behind the painting? What is the secret of the past that is about to be revealed? These are questions this brilliantly unsettling scenario will ask in perpetuity. The clarity of the image and the chromatic playfulness counter the Gothic idea, looming subtly in the background, which is suggested rather than explicitly depicted.

The images have the universality and simplicity of fairy tales. This is visual poetry, however, that could only have been articulated by a feminine sensibility. Young girls of slightly different ages, together in a single scenario, seem to enact the arc of self-discovery that takes place between childhood and womanhood. Works such as “Outside the Forbidden Bedroom” and “Inside the Forbidden Bedroom” are joined with a single unspoken but compelling narrative conceit. “The Secret Portal” depicts young girls discovering and ascending through secret passageways out of a long hallway. The motif of discovery and encounter with a mystery, unidentified for the viewer, richly informs every work.

Two young girls dressed in blue and green are surrounded by an emerald forest in “The Lost Mitten.” They look intently down at a single red mitten floating on the surface of a small pond. The mitten itself is the brightest crimson and stabs the heart of the image with a unifying fixity. The color red seems to serve a central function in many of the images in the show. The dramatic work “The Red Purse” shows light emanating up from a vermilion purse onto the face of a young girl who has opened it. She regards its contents, unseen by us, with awe. In the background a girl in a bright blue dress looks underneath a bed with her head buried within the overhanging green blankets.

The work titled “The Spilt Milk” functions as a syllogism of the aftermath of discovery. A single overturned bottle of milk on a porch is shown as it is happened on by a young girl. The milk drips with deliberation down the steps of the porch into darkness.

Where sociology and identity politics could be said to inform the work of Sherman, Goldin and Greenfield, it is symbolic poetry that informs the work of Andres. This is visual symbology of a high order. Here, the body is gorgeously represented as a dwelling and conspirator in unfolding conundrums of personal feminine discovery.

Dylan Vitone collected by the MFA, Boston

The Museum of Fine Art in Boston has acquired four works from Dylan Vitone's Pittsburgh and South Boston Projects, including Homeland Security Drill, Sprinkler, Easy Dunker, and Getting Band Aid in Bike Shop. If you are interested in any of these images please contact the gallery.

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detail from Dylan Vitone Homeland Security Drill 2005

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Jon Gitelson Featured at the Milwaukee Art Museum

Jonathan Gitelson's "Film Director," from his Dream Job series, is currently on display at The Milwaukee Art Museum in a selection of highlights from their permanent collection. The show will be up through March 3rd. Or, to see the piece in Los Angeles, stop by the Working show at DNJ Gallery this week before it closes on Saturday, December 13th.

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Film Director 2003 archival inkjet print 24 x 20 inches

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Holly Andres Featured in Art in America

Holly Andres' new series "Sparrow Lane" was recently featured in Art in America Magazine.  You can find the entire article below, and the series will be shown at DNJ Gallery December 20th through February 14th.  The opening will be held January 17th from 6-8pm.

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Holly Andres The Ruby Ring 2008 digital c-print 20 x 24 inches

International Exhibition Reveiws, Art in America

Portland
Holly Andres
Quality Pictures

Trained as a painter, Portland artist Holly Andres has found her true métier in photography and film.  Her new photographic series, “Sparrow Lane” (2007-08), focuses entirely on four girls, shown doggedly sleuthing in the manner of Nancy Drew and her chums.  Clad in party dresses or skirts and sweaters with white hose, these fair-haired friends explore a world of satin, lace, and patterned wallpaper, pursuing obscure mysteries as they search a house upstairs and down.  The 11 skill-fully staged and manipulated images are eerily beautiful with vivid, saturated hues and hallucinogenic detail.

What secret does the house hold?  That the enigma is a sexual one we surmise from Andres’s playful symbolism in Outside the Forbidden Bedroom, where two girls open a locked door with the insertion of a golden key.  With this artful cliché, Andres tips us to the allegorical significance of her story, and we hunt for deeper meanings.  The girls’ quest, we suspect, is ultimately self-knowledge; like all children, they probably wonder “where do I come from?”

The bedroom, as the site of conception, may yield an answer to this question of origins.  Once inside the chamber, a girl seated near a dressing table intently scissors open a velvet throw pillow as two others look on.  Curiosity about the maternal body is here metaphorically indulged, while outdoors two blondes kneel on the lawn to examine The Golden Pillow, its cottony insides exposed.  The composition resembles a Nativity, in which Andres’s youthful investigators ponder the miracle of birth.  Pink blossoms litter the ground, hinting at the girls’ waning springtime innocence.

In the basement, twins discover an empty bird cage.  One aims a flashlight inside it; the other glances up, searching for The Missing Bird. Two cats lurking in the shadows, possible perps, escape their notice.  It is a charming image of naiveté whose latent content—given the long-standing symbolic link between an empty birdcage and the loss of virginity—might involve sexual awakening.  Upstairs, the girls explore wondrous cubbyholes and drawers—read womblike spaces—sometimes leaving hallways strewn with snippets of hair and the telltale scissors.  Ladders and stairs recur, evoking Freud’s interpretation of staircase dreams as scenes of sexual activity.  Indeed, The Ruby Ring, an older girl on a carpeted stairway studies the eponymous treasure, a symbol for the female genitals, while her younger sister gazes down from the landing above.  Andres subtly and wittily acknowledges the possibility of such covert meanings with Behind the Old Painting, where the girls peek behind a framed portrait in the living room: similarly, beneath every manifest scene in “Sparrow Lane” a secret content awaits curious viewers striving to uncover it.

--Sue Taylor

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

at the Brewery Project, 1993-2007: the Finale

Please visit the upcoming exhibition at the Armory Center for the Arts featuring the work of Eileen Cowin and Laura Parker as well the work of over fifty other artists who previously exhibited at the Brewery Project.  The Finale show is being curated by John O'Brien, the founder of at the Brewery Project, and includes ten artist-organized exhibitions.

There will be an opening reception Saturday, December 6th from 7-9 pm and the show will run through March 1, 2009.  Please visit the Armory Center for the Arts for details.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Miracle Mile Art Walk

Please join DNJ Gallery for the MCW Miracle Mile Art Walk from 1-6pm, Saturday, November 15. Over 40 galleries in the Wilshire, La Brea and Beverly Blvd area open their doors for this event. To download a map of the galleries, visit the MCW website.

Currently on display is the exhibition "Working" featuring photographs by Nathan Baker, Jonathan Gitelson and Patrick Wymore. These three artists examine different components of the working world. This show runs through December 13.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Working Opening Photos

Working runs through December 13th, 2008. Please come by the gallery to see the exhibition.

View photos from the opening below:

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Dylan Vitone Featured in the LA Times

Dylan Vitone: South Boston and Pittsburgh Project is featured in this Friday's Los Angeles Times Arts & Culture Section. The exhibition closes this Saturday, October 25th.

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Dylan Vitone Dock Fight 2005 archival inkjet print 12 x 75 inches print size

When Daily Life is Seen in Panorama, by Leah Ollman

The panorama is among the least still of still photographic formats. Its horizontal sweep suggests breadth of time as well as place. You often can't see a panorama in its entirety from one spot; you have to move along it, progress through it.

The cinematic storytelling potential of the format is put to good use in Dylan Vitone's photographs at DNJ Gallery. Vitone, a young photographer teaching at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, creates panoramas up to 8 feet wide (and just 14 1/2 inches high) by digitally combining numerous pictures made from a single spot. The seams don't call much attention to themselves, so the images typically read as long, continuous, 360-degree views.

Working in the tradition of street photographers and social anthropologists such as Milton Rogovin and Bruce Davidson, Vitone makes extended portraits of communities through intimate observation of their everyday rituals. He has shot extensively in South Boston as well, though nearly all of the pictures here were made in Pittsburgh.

He surveys the scenes at a monster truck rally, a night at the roller rink, a bikini contest. He shoots the multiple narratives that unfurl simultaneously on a hot summer day when an Elmo sprinkler is set in the middle of a residential street. The pictures are dynamic -- rich in texture, detail and character. Vitone favors the natural choreography of the street over arranged poses, and the authenticity is palpable.

A few images mess effectively with the presumed congruency of linear time and linear format, showing the same figures multiple times in the same visually continuous scene. In "Dock Fight," time folds like an accordion, yielding a wonderfully syncopated image of two young men in various stages of light hand-to-hand combat.

DNJ Gallery, 154 1/2 N. La Brea Ave., L.A., (323) 931-1311, through Saturday. dnjgallery.net

Friday, October 17, 2008

Jonathan Gitelson in "Made in Chicago"

Opening October 18th and running through January 4th is the Made in Chicago: Photographs from the Bank of America LaSalle Collection. The exhibition is on display at The Chicago Cultural Center and includes work by Jonathan Gitelson, as well as Robert Frank, Ray Metzker, Harry Callahan, Art Sinsabaugh, and Aaron Siskind--as well as other photographers living and working in Chicago. Dating from 1930 – 2007, the nearly 150 photographs in the exhibition reveal a compelling and diverse portrait of the city and its rich photographic history.

Included in "Made in Chicago" is Jonathan's The Bartender. If you can't make it to Chicago, be sure to see the upcoming show at DNJ gallery titled "Working" which includes his "Dream Job" series and this piece. The show opens November 1st and continues through December 13th.

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Jonathan Giteslon
The Bartender
archival inkjet print
24 x 12 inches

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Joe Goode Included in "Wall Rockets"

Opening October 3rd and running through January 7th at The Flag Art Foundation in New York's Chelsea neighborhood is Wall Rockets: Contemporary Artists and Ed Ruscha . The show is based upon Ed Ruscha's 2000 painting Wall Rockets, a title which he explained refers to "powerful works of art that shoot off the wall." Curator Lisa Dennison, who was the director of the Guggenheim until last year when she took a position at Sotheby's, attempts to reflect Ruscha's statement through a collection of nearly 75 works from 64 different artists, ranging from painting to photography and sculpture. Included in this exhibition is the work of Ruscha's longtime friend Joe Goode. His piece Noise, etc., etc., etc. (Blackwelder), 2006 is a painted over photograph similar to Goode's work featured in DNJ Gallery's April, 2007 exhibition Ashes. Only such an undertaking as Wall Rockets could illuminate the influence and legacy of Ed Ruscha on the contemporary art world.

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Joe Goode, Noise, etc., etc., etc., (Blackwelder), 2006

a reference to....
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Ed Ruscha, Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western, 1963

Friday, October 10, 2008

The Domino Bazaar

Support the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America (ACRIA) as well as artists including our own Holly Andres who have contributed their new work to debut at The Domino Bazaar Auction. There will be an Opening Fundraising Gala on October 16, 2008 7-10pm. The public sale will run October 16th-19th from 12-6pm at H.D. Buttercup 8707 Washington Boulevard in Culver City. Tickets are available online. Feel free to contact the gallery with any questions!

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Holly Andres
The Glowing Drawer

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Monster Drawing Rally

Join Laura Parker along with 100 artists who will be participating in the Monster Drawing rally for the OUTPOST FOR CONTEMPORARY ART. Every hour 25 artists will draw simultaneously, creating work live and in person. Each drawing will be sold first come first serve for $75. The event will be held at the William D. Davies Memorial Building in Altadena this Sunday, October 12th from 3-7 pm. There is a $10 donation admission fee and food and drinks will be provided by some local favorites.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Art Auction

Regardless of your political affiliation, check out Barack Obama's ART FOR OBAMA online art auction. Included are works by over fifty prominent artists who have donated their work to support grassroots campaigning. Eileen Cowin is among them, having donated her untitled piece from the series "Your Whole Body is a Target." See all of the works by these talented photographers at www.artforobama.net

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Eileen Cowin
Untitled, 16" x 20", Light Jet, From the Series: Your Whole Body is a Target, 2007/2008
Artist Proof
Value: $2000.00
Starting Bid: $750.00

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Dylan Vitone and Laura Parker Opening Photos

Dylan Vitone and Laura Parker runs through October 25th, 2008.  Please stop by and see the exhibit.

View photos from the opening below:

Friday, September 19, 2008

Opening: Dylan Vitone and Laura Parker

Dylan Vitone:
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Gallery II: Laura Parker
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Please join us for the opening of Dylan Vitone South Boston and Pittsburgh Projects and Laura Parker from the Range: pot bottoms and Naked Eye Objects.

The artists' reception will be tomorrow night, Saturday, September 20th from 6-8pm. The show is currently on view and runs until October 25, 2008.

Also, come be a part of the Miracle Mile Art Walk. The Art Walk includes over 40 galleries in the Mid Wilshire Area and runs from 1pm-6pm on Saturday.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Artist Lei Benben featured in Asiance Magazine

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Artist, Lei Benben from our current exhibition Contemporary Photography from China is featured on the online magazine www.asiancemagazine.com. Please view the article here.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Michael Eastman Featured in LIfestyle Magazine

DNJ artist, Michael Eastman was featured in California's Lifestyle Magazine in the July 2008 issue. View the article here.

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Everything Must Go! by Aaron Collins

A caption reads: Disconcerting dark skies frequently overshadow comforting images of a quaint America fading into history in Michael Eastman's Vanishing America, including this image shot in San Luis Obispo entitled Fremont, part of a solo show on view at DNJ Gallery.

The show is now closed, however Eastman's work is still available. Please contact the gallery for more info.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Contemporary Photography from China in LA Times Article

DNJ Gallery's exhibit: Contemporary Photography from China is featured in this weekend's Los Angeles Times Arts & Culture section. Pick up a copy or read the article here .

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A Witness to Transformation
Sunday, August 3, 2008

By Suzanne Muchnic

"Southern California is fertile territory for young artists from China. Along with the Hammer show, DNJ Gallery, a relatively new space on La Brea Avenue, offers "Contemporary Photography From China." DF2, a West Hollywood gallery that specializes in Chinese contemporary art, has "Shine Upon Me," a show of color photographs from Jiang Zhi's "Light Series." Morono Kiang Gallery, in downtown L.A., is showing paintings by Li Yan that link Chinese sports and politics. At UC Riverside's Sweeney Art Gallery is "Absurd Recreation," composed of nine artists' playful explorations of a country in overdrive.

What young artists are doing is another story, as the Southern California exhibitions reveal. The photographers at DNJ Gallery shoot pictures of people riding on trains and bicycles, panoramas of city streets, portraits of miners, dwellings in an ancient farming community. "As the culture changes, you see the subject matter changing," Elaine says. "You see what is really real and what's happening."


Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Contemporary Photography from China Opening Photos

Contemporary Photography from China runs through September 6th, 2008. Please stop by and see the exhibit.

View photos from the opening below:

Joe Goode featured in Lifestyle Magazine

Artist, Joe Goode and the exhibition Ashes was featured in Lifestyle magazine.

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For Goode, Bad Studio Fire  by Aaron Collins

"Interestingly, despite the cataclysm of the fire and Goode's inventive riposte, his latest artistic gambit closely tracks earlier interests, Richter explored the decomposition of a single image; Goode put his whole life's work to the test. The new body of work is a testament to the consistency of his vision over the last several decades, during which Goode has explored various processes of subtraction and destruction as a key to achieving illusion."

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Please view the rest of the article (pdf) by clicking here

Friday, July 25, 2008

CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY FROM CHINA OPENING SATURDAY JULY 26TH

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Please join us for the opening reception tomorrow night from 6-8pm.

The exhibition is guest curated by Wang Rui and includes work from 8 artists living and working in China. Chen Xialing, Gao Hongxun, Jiang Jian, Lei Benben, Pei Xuehong, Song Chao, Wang Fuchun, and Wang Tong approach the medium of photography in very distinct ways, but their photographs, in turn, reflect altering responses to the changes taking place in China’s economy, society and culture.

A percentage of exhibition sales will be donated to earthquake relief assistance through the Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Michael Eastman Reviewed in this Past Friday's Los Angeles Times

Read the review of Michael Eastman's exhibition, Vanishing America below or view the article here.

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Michael Eastman captures the eternal present at DNJ Gallery
June 20, 2008

By Leah Ollman

Photographs keep a subject alive and at the same time mark its passing. The friction between a photograph's perpetual now and its memorial then can saturate an image with poignancy -- the reprieve of preservation tempering a wrenching sense of loss.

This dynamic plays out powerfully in Michael Eastman's photographs of "Vanishing America." DNJ Gallery's selection of 16 large color prints from an extensive series shot over 3 1/2 years across 40 states makes for a moving, piquant and beautiful show. It reads as a tender ode to a bygone social and architectural landscape, an environment consisting of the idiosyncratic, particular and human-scaled.

Eastman's pictures of small-town main streets, old movie theaters, motels and restaurants invite nostalgic retrospection, maybe even a little romanticized idealizing. Those brick facades and hand-painted signs seem to describe a landscape built of earnestness, especially compared with the big-box stores and strip malls we patronize now.

Obsolescence has a seductive patina, and Eastman exploits it well. He shoots many of his subjects under stormy skies, as if to amplify the threat the sites face. He also pictures streets emptied of pedestrians and businesses devoid of customers, reinforcing the mood of abandonment. Mainly, though, he composes images with gorgeous precision, an acute sense of color and deep affection.

"Guadalupe" is an impeccable example. Eastman photographs the brick side of a building on a commercial street. On the left half of the wall is painted a map of California with a hand pointing to the town's location on the central coast. The state is rendered in flat white and the Pacific vivid turquoise, rhyming with the equally vibrant blue cover on a car parked in the scrappy lot beside the wall. To the right of the map, the brick wall is unpainted but for a fading ad for Gold Medal Flour that further engages with the layering of time. "Eventually," the ad reads, "Gold Medal Flour. Why Not Now." Beneath the sign stands the lot's only other car, a rust-colored van that echoes the tones of the exposed brick.

Eastman credits Rothko with teaching him about color, and the lessons were well learned. Beyond their documentary value, the photographs have an independent energy derived solely from their chromatic relationships. Golden fall leaves dust the ground around the little "Le Happy" cafe, painted mustard with black trim. Metal outdoor chairs painted in combinations of pumpkin and forest green set off jazzy syncopation standing against a coral house trimmed in teal.

Eastman is equally attentive to clean, architectonic structure, carefully orchestrating balance and rhythm. In a picture of a boarded-up old theater, for instance, he includes the street's double yellow lines within the frame, not just to offset the building's dingy white facade, murky teal boards and crisp aqua sky but to underline the scene, doubly and in highlighter, signaling significance and urgency.

Walker Evans' legacy is evident throughout Eastman's work: a love of the vernacular, a consistent, frontal approach, and fondness for signage -- hand-lettered, misspelled, dotted with errors caused by time and neglect. Above the sign for the mint-green, still-in-business Club Che-Ches hovers another, embossed in the original architecture, whispering "FANTASY." A rundown facade on Commercial Avenue in Cairo, Ill., announces its own lost currency with a sign reading, "If it new DOTTY has it! (sic)"

Eastman, who lives in St. Louis and has also shot the faded splendors of Cuba, has a close contemporary in Jeff Brouws, a fellow photographer of the overlooked and obsolete. Eastman's subjects are vanishing, and he has diligently raced to record their shabby charm. His project sings plaintively of loss but itself is an act of progress and affirmation.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Darryl Curran and Eileen Cowin on Exhibit at Huntington Library

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DNJ Artists, Darryl Curran and Eileen Cowin are included in the exhibit This Side of Paradise at the Huntington Library in San Marino. The exhibit runs from June 14- September 15, 2008. Please contact dnj gallery for more info on the artists and their work.

Below is an excerpt from the show's brochure.


THIS SIDE OF PARADISE

This Side of Paradise: Body and Landscape in L.A. Photographs examines the dynamic relationship between the city and the art of photography from the 1860s to the present. Divided into seven thematic sections - Garden, Move, Work, Play, Dwell, Clash, and Dream - the exhibition explores photographs of the city through the dual lenses of landscape and the human body, as well as the provocative visual interplay between the two.

During the postwar years, rampant suburbanization dominated the visual discourse of Los Angeles. Photographers such as William Garnett, Maynard Parker, and Julius Shulman produced imagery commenting on such feverish expansion. A new generation of Los Angeles artists, including John Baldessari, Lewis Baltz, Robert Heinecken, and Ed Ruscha, pushed the boundaries of modernist expression, making Southern California a vibrant site in the artistic movements of the 1960s and 1970s. More recently, artists such as Eileen Cowin, Darryl Curran, John Divola, Robbert Flick, John Humble, Catherine Opie, and Larry Sultan have created work in dialogue with the powerful legacies of the postwar era.

This Side of Paradise is drawn from The Huntington’s extensive photographic archives as well as other institutions, collectors, and artists. Henry E. Huntington believed strongly that Los Angeles was the “city of the future.” His convictions resulted in holdings unparalleled in their visual documentation of the explosive transition of greater Los Angeles from pastoral hub to thriving metropolis.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Michael Eastman and Richard Gilles Opening Photos

We had a great time at the Michael Eastman Vanishing America opening this past Saturday. Here are some photos from the event. Please stop by and see the show!

We still have books for sale too!

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Richard Gilles New work in Midtown Monthly

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A review of Richard Gilles series The Highway Remembers is featured in Sacramento's Midtown Monthly:

"With The Highway Remembers, Gilles examines the chaos that happens when we lose the control we have over our vehicles. These photographs look at the aftermath and effects of the initial destruction. Who creates such monuments and memorials? Did it help bring closure, or serve to aggravate the pain? What is the intended effect on other driving by? These are the questions Gilles investigates with his photographs. This show looks to be a stunning follow-up to Gilles' stellar Almost Home-Less show." -ST

Gilles series Almost Home-Less is currently on display at dnj gallery. dnj has work available from both series. Please contact the gallery for more information about his work.

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Michael Eastman opening reception tonight

Please join DNJ Gallery from 6 - 8 pm for the opening reception of Michael Eastman's Vanishing America. Mr.Eastman will be at the gallery signing copies of his recently released book of the same name.

Gallery II features work from the series “Almost Home-Less” by Richard Gilles. Photographing different mobile homes across the West Coast, this body of work illustrates an element of American society that goes unnoticed. As in the ideas of the New Topographics movement, Gilles’ unbiased images illustrate the distinct personality of each vehicle, while at the same time, giving no direct insight as to its occupants. He asks us to take a closer look at the prevalence of the motor-home lifestyle and observe the camouflaged vehicles dotting our city streets, beaches, and rural landscapes. Gilles received a BA from San Francisco State University. He has exhibited in galleries through out the United States and has won various awards for his work. This will be his first show in the Los Angeles area.

We hope to see you tonight!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Michael Eastman's photography at George Eastman House

George Eastman House in Rochester, New York will be including some of Eastman's early photographs in an exhibition of recent acquisitions entitled What We're Collecting Now 2008. The show will run from July 12, 2008 - February 8, 2009

What We’re Collecting Now is the annual exhibition of recent acquisitions to the Photograph Collection at George Eastman House. Curated by graduate students in the Photographic Preservation and Collections Management master’s degree program, the exhibition will explore international, contemporary interpretations of the ways people affect the places they inhabit.

The exhibition will feature artists Cecilia Arboleda, John Divola, Michael Eastman, Patrick Nagatani, and Simon Norfolk. The work represents diverse corners of the globe, encouraging viewers to consider the way humanity defines its places.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Joe Goode Lecture Video

View highlights from the Joe Goode lecture that took place at dnj gallery Saturday, May 17th during the Muse Artwalk. The show closes tomorrow- May 24th, but his work will still be available at the gallery.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Michael Eastman Print Sold at Christie's Auction

On May 15th, Michael Eastman's photograph, "Isabella's Two Chairs with Laundry, 2000" sold at Christie's London auction for $53,000. This is the second photograph from Eastman's Cuba series to sell at Christie's.

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81 x 60 inches - This image is from a sold out edition of 10.

In Eastman's interview and article in St. Louis Magazine, it discusses the recent rise in value of his photography, especially in conjunction with the release of his new book, "Vanishing America":

"The coming months will be significant for Eastman—both because of the release of Vanishing America and because his work seems to be ready for a rise in value. Christie’s London sold the Cuba photograph Green Interior last November for more than $20,000 (the seller bought it three years ago for about $3,000), and the auction house is estimating another work, Isabella’s Two Chairs With Laundry, at $30,000 to $45,000 for a sale this month. How will the photographer handle such success? “He’s been out of fame’s glare long enough,” says his frequent collaborator Gass, “so when it comes, it will simply stir him.”

Images from all of Eastman's series are available for purchase at DNJ Gallery. The exhibition "Vanishing America" opens May 31st.

Muse Art Walk: Joe Goode

Thanks to everyone who came out for the Muse Artwalk. It was a blast! For those of you who missed it, we will be posting a video of Joe Goode's talk. Meanwhile, enjoy the photos from Andy Schwartz's lecture and Joe Goode's walk through. Ashes will be closing this Saturday.

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Thursday, May 15, 2008

Joe Goode Lecture at DNJ May 17th

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DNJ Gallery Lectures: Saturday, May 17, 2008


We are pleased to announce two lectures taking place in conjunction with the Miracle Mile Art Walk and Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Muse Art Walk. Admission is free.

On Collecting Photography by Andrew Schwartz at 11:00 A.M.

Andrew Schwartz will present a lecture on collecting photography which will include examples of the photographic medium from its inception to the present. Mr. Schwartz has been a member of the Modern and Contemporary Art Council and the Photo Art Council at the Los Angeles County Museum. He is currently a consultant to DNJ Gallery.

Joe Goode’s Art Talk and Walkthrough at 3:00 P.M.


Joe Goode will discuss his work in the exhibition "Ashes" which is on display at DNJ Gallery through May 24th. This show in particular revisits a curiosity Goode has always sought to examine—that of creation, destruction, and re-creation. It is a bold example of Goode's observations of life through art.

Click here to download Map and Gallery Listings

During the day (12 pm–8 pm) . . .

Experience more than 40 galleries and museums in mid-Wilshire.
Enjoy discounts at a variety of local restaurants.
Expand your knowledge with artist discussions and collection seminars.

Visit LACMA's website for more info on Muse Artwalk and After Party

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Michael Eastman Featured in St. Louis Magazine

Artist, Michael Eastman is also featured in the May 2008 issue of St. Louis Magazine. To read the article, please click the link below.

Eastman's Eyes By Stephen Schenkenberg

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Michael Eastman Book Reviewed in LA Times

This past Sunday's Los Angeles Times also featured a review of Michael Eastman's new book from Rizzoli, Vanishing America. Eastman's show Vanishing America opens at dnj gallery May 31st, and Mr. Eastman will be signing copies of his new book. The book, Vanishing America is for sale through dnj gallery. Below is a link to the LA Times article
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At the end of the road
A photographer captures the emptiness of the countless little Main Streets we've left behind. By Douglas Brinkley

In my time, I have journeyed through many small towns across America. Recently, I spent some time in Jordan, Mont. -- the Garfield County seat -- which prides itself on being the lonesomest town in the world. Blessed with no natural resources or historic tourist sites, located 175 miles from the nearest airport and 115 miles from the nearest rail depot, Jordan has very little to offer except solitude.

The county population density is 0.3 people per square mile. Perhaps because modernity has left Jordan alone, you can gaze at a forlorn bank building and tiny grain elevator and see faded storefront advertisements for Sioux City Sarsaparilla and the long-defunct Sellman's Motel. "No Loitering" signs are posted from long ago, when the cattle drives from Texas to Montana used to let off right here at Big Dry Creek.

Appearances aside, Jordan is not really a ghost town. And there are in fact thousands of similar offbeat places that have just receded from national consciousness. Chances are that each one of us holds a place like Jordan in our distant memory. Though photographer Michael Eastman has never been to Jordan, his images evoke its spirit for me just the same. Though each of the photos in his forthcoming book, "Vanishing America," shows a specific town, all of the photos evoke that same particularly American loneliness.

Virtually in all 50 states, cobwebbed symbols of our small-town past lurk behind the shiny newness of our fast-food junctions and interstate exits. The sheer thrust of American dynamism has left Main Street unloved. But if your eyes gaze at these neglected roadside monuments long enough, you can be transported back to the time when Main Street was the epicenter of most communities.

Eastman captures the hard-core essence of blue-smoked architectural loneliness better than any new artist I've encountered. I feel qualified to make this claim because loneliness has been my niche since youth. Where some might find gloom in these anti-Rockwellian photographs, I find a liberation from the glaring rat race of American life. In Eastman's images, a scent hangs in the air like that before a thunderstorm -- a time when another Chapter of Life is being closed with the slam of a screen door. Darkness is falling, but a red-brick afterglow lingers in Eastman's work so you can still marvel at another crumpled calendar page being tossed away, just as Thomas Wolfe and Edward Hopper would have liked it.

Photographs like these may someday be taken in downtown Los Angeles or the Vegas Strip or Suburbia U.S.A. Nothing lasts forever. But visages don't fade away without a fight.

Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University, is the author of numerous books, including "The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast." He also wrote the introduction to Michael Eastman's book of photographs, "Vanishing America," which is being published by Rizzoli this month.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Joe Goode Featured in LA Times

The Joe Goode exhbition Ashes is featured in this Sunday's Los Angeles Times Calendar section. Copies will be available in limited release Saturday and everywhere Sunday. You can also read the article online at the link below. Joe Goode's show, Ashes will close May 24th. Please stop by.


After the fire, Joe Goode finds a new passion,
By Anne-Marie O'Connor

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Holly Andres in art ltd. Magazine

Artist, Holly Andres is featured in the May 2008 issue of art ltd. Magazine. The article, "Young at Art: 15 Artists Under 35" is shown below, and can be found on page 50 in the magazine. Pick up a copy, on stands now.

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Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Joe Goode Opening Reception Photos

We had a great turn out at Joe Goode's opening reception, Ashes. Take a look at the photos below. If you were unable to attend the opening, please stop by. The show is on view until May 24th.


Saturday, April 5, 2008

Joe Goode: Opening Reception tonight

Please join us tonight between 6-8 pm for the opening reception of "Ashes"- new work by renowned Los Angeles painter, Joe Goode. This exhibition is a culmination of three of Goode's latest series using both photography and painting.

Click here for directions to DNJ Gallery. We hope to see you this evening.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Joe Goode "Ashes" Early Review

The exhibition Ashes featuring new work from Joe Goode, opens Saturday, April 5th. Read an early review at ArtScene online or pick up a copy.

Goode's Ashes was also previewed on Fine Art Los Angeles.

If you haven't seen The Age of Innocence or want to see the exhibit again, the show closes this Saturday, March 29th. Please stop by.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

LA Times Critics' Choice

DNJ Gallery has been featured once again in the Sunday Calendar section of the LA Times for "The Age of Innocence" on display through March 29.

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Friday, March 7, 2008

LA Times Review: The Age of Innocence

Read the review of The Age of Innocence show in today's Los Angeles Times. Come see the show before it closes March 29th, and pick up a copy of LA Times to see our review in print. Page E29 in the Calendar section.

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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Gregory Maiofis in April B&W Magazine

Gregory Maiofis is in the April 2008 Issue of B&W Magazine. The article "Photography in St. Petersburg" features 9 Russian artists and their work. Greogory Maiofis' work is available at dnj gallery.

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Pick up an issue of B&W Magazine to see more!

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Eileen Cowin and Anthony Friedkin at MOPA San Diego

Eileen Cowin and Anthony Friedkin both have work on exhibit at The Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA) in San Diego. The Photographer's Eye: A Way of Seeing

Drawn from MoPA’s permanent collection, this exhibition interprets the groundbreaking book, The Photographer’s Eye (1966) by John Szarkowski, now in reprint and available at MoPA’s bookstore. As director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), NY, from 1962 to 1991, Szarkowski curated 160 exhibitions. MoPA will use The Photographer's Eye as a template from which to view over 120 photographs from its permanent collection, and to celebrate the museum's 25th anniversary through a renewed commitment to collecting.

The show runs from January 19 - April 20, 2008. For more info visit the MoPA's website linked above.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Photos from Age of Innocence Opening

Check out the photos from our opening, The Age of Innocence, at dnj gallery Saturday night. We had so much fun and were pleased to show the work of such great emerging artists. If you didn't make it out, please stop by and see the work! The show is open until March 29th.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Age of Innocence Opening and Art Walk

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Saturday, February 16th The Age of Innocence will be opening. The opening is from 6-8 pm. Click on the link or visit our current page to see more show info.

Also, Saturday stop by for the Miracle Mile Art Walk from 12-4 pm. For more info visit their website.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Holly Andres at Missoula Art Museum

dnj artist, Holly Andres, has two simultaneous exhibitions showcasing her series "Stories from a Short Street." The first is at dnj gallery, included in the show "The Age of Innocence" opening this Saturday from 6-8pm. The second is at the Missoula Art Museum (MAM) in Montana. Click on the names for a link to MAM and here for press on Holly's work in The Missoula Independent Online.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

St. James Art Walk

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Don't miss the St. James Art Walk this Saturday, February 9, 12-4 pm. A portion of the proceeds from artwork sold will go to St. James school. Please join dnj and the many other participating neighborhood galleries and help give back to the community. This is also the last chance to see the Bill Owens and Ginny Mangrum exhibit. You can purchase a signed copy of Bill Owens' books, Suburbia and Leisure. There are limited copies. Bring the kids and see you there!

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Bill Owens Exhibit Featured in Angeleno Magazine

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Don't miss the end of Bill Owens: Suburbia and Leisure. It closes February 9th, 2008. The show was featured in Angeleno magazine's Calender Top Ten. See the image blurb below:
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

New Work on the DNJ Website

Opening February 16th, the exhibition, "The Age of Innocence" will feature photographs by four emerging artists: Holly Andres, Sarah Bierman, Pamela Mayers-Schoenberg and Brian Sorg.

We've just added new work to the website for Sarah Bierman, Pamela Mayers-Schoenberg and Brian Sorg. Scroll through the images to get an idea of what we will have on display.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Photo LA

Photo LA opens this Thursday, January 10 and runs through Sunday, January 13 at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. DNJ staff will be at the benefit receception for the Photography Department of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art between 6-9pm this Thursday. Look for us there.

Also, look for our ad in the Photo LA catalog for our upcoming show with Joe Goode.
Photo La: Joe Goode

Friday, January 4, 2008