Benjamin Lowy's New Book

Congratulations to dnj Gallery artist, Benjamin Lowy, for the recent release of his new book titled, Iraq|Perspectives. The book is now available for purchase in stores and online.

In addition, Benjamin will also be doing a book signing at the ICP Book Store in New York on Friday December 2, 2011 from 6 - 7:30pm.

"Then and Now" Opening Photos

A big thank you to all who made it out for dnj's "Then and Now" exhibition opening! Here is a slide show of images to enjoy from amazing evening.

Dylan Vitone at the Carnegie Museum of Art in "Picturing the City: Downtown Pitsburgh, 2007-2010"

Picturing the City: Downtown Pittsburgh, 2007–2010
September 23, 2011–March 25, 2012
Gallery One (Works on Paper Gallery)

Experience Pittsburgh through the lenses of nine photographers who call the city their home. Inspired by the city’s century-old tradition of documentary photography, The Heinz Endowments asked photographers to record the current renaissance of Downtown, as told through its rivers, parks, buildings, and transportation systems, and brought to life through the celebrations and challenges, faces, and personalities of the people who live and work there. The artists of the Downtown Now Photography Project—Melissa Farlow, Jim Judkis, Richard Kelly, Kenneth Neely, Annie O’Neill, Mark Perrott, Martha Rial, Renee Rosensteel, and Dylan Vitone—focused on changes, large and small, in Pittsburgh today. This exhibition presents 80 works selected by curator of photography Linda Benedict-Jones from the final Project archive of over 400, providing ample evidence that after more than 100 years, photographers continue to marvel over our unique urban landscape.

Picturing the City: Downtown Pittsburgh, 2007–2010 is organized by Linda Benedict-Jones, curator of photography.

Darryl Curran News - LACMA

dnj Gallery artist, Darryl Curran, has an image in LACMA's Hammer Building, Level 3 along with several other prominent artists featured in Angeles, 1960 - 1980, which runs through February 12, 2012. Congratulation Darryl!

This installation of work from the permanent collection represents a chapter in the larger photo history of Los Angeles, focusing on the freewheeling use of process employed by photo-based artists during the 1960s through the 1980s. The installation features work by Robert F. Heinecken, Jerry McMillan, Darryl Curran, and Susan Rankaitis.

In 1960, Heinecken, as the head of the Photography Department at UCLA, became known for promoting a photo practice that was varied and often camera-less. Jerry McMillan utilized the populist photo cube that was a fixture in the 1970s home to create photo-sculpture, and generated photo “drawings"—simple manipulations of paper that result in abstractions. Darryl Curran’s photolithographic prints place the artist’s own photographs alongside mass-produced images or logos, creating a hybrid that focuses on our littered environment. Susan Rankaitis created tonal abstractions made solely from chemicals “painted” in layers onto photo-sensitive paper, transforming the way we perceive photography, a conversation that continues today.

Benjamin Lowy's "Storylines" reviewed in ARTSCENE (Nov.)

dnj's own Ben Lowy's Storylines written as "Continuing and Recommended" exhibitions in the November ARTSCENE





Benjamin Lowy is best known as a photojournalist who has worked for both Corbis and Getty Images. Having covered numerous wars and traveled worldwide covering conflict with his digital camera, he began using toy cameras, such as a Diana or Holga, in 2004 that allowed for an overlapping of images. Originally intended to save film, these overlapping images became the project "Storyline" which, according to Lowy became a panoramic image representing an idea or space that he could not illustrate with his digital cameras. Lowy's images present narratives unfolding over time. The black and white as well as color images are montages of multiple square frames presented in an extended horizontal format. The images from Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, rather than capture a decisive moment or image of action, imply a storyline and the sense of simultaneity. The photographs gain a cubistic aura. The topic and location are still specific to the ongoing conflicts worldwide, but Lowy's presentation in these works is humanistic and narrative. For example, in "Afghanistan 02, 2007" Lowry could combine two views of a crowded outdoor scene showing people moving in and out of the frame as the street recedes in two opposite directions, thus creating a powerful compositional component (dnj Gallery, Santa Monica).
Jody Zellen

Tom Stone Featured on "The Good Men Project"

Congratulations to Tom Stone for his recent feature on "The Good Men Project"! If you would like to see some of Tom's images in person, please stop by dnj Gallery at Bergamot Station for a visit.


"It’s in the Eyes"
BY JACK VARNELL

Renowned portrait photographer Tom Stone shoots with a discriminating eye, but it’s the eyes he shoots that remind us of our mission.

A vital part of the Good Men Project is to model the behavior we espouse and discuss here, safe within the confines of our “Project.” It is all smoke and mirrors or bullshit if we don’t. The luxury of coming into contact with the people who share a curiosity about and willingness to openly discuss what it means to be a “good” man is only a part of the picture. We also get to see the integrity and feel the impact that someone who lives by a code, by a set of values and morals worthy of passing along, can have. Tom Stone is one of those people.

As a writer, I long to present the world with a point of view. A focal point that the world presents to me sent through the words. Sometimes words feel so inadequate.

Tom Stone has been creating connections in the communities he visits for years. On the streets with people who never share anything of themselves. Trips are planned in the coming months to Appalachia and Haiti. An acclaimed portrait photographer, he is able to tell the stories you normally might need words or a news photographer to tell if he was less talented.
We present a few representative works from Tom here, and would refer you to his site, Tom Stone Gallery, with the knowledge that a large part of his body of work is available for sale. In most cases the prints are signed, limited and a minimum of fifty percent of the price goes directly to charities he supports. A majority of the rest goes to funding the next project. Consider that as we enter the holidays.

I am including the Artists Statement from Tom’s Website because frankly, I haven’t ever seen a better one and to try and out do it would be dishonest and an insult to the man himself.

As you look at Tom’s work, notice the connection of one human to another; a connection in love, in compassion, and in awareness that the world is beautiful even in its ugliest places. It’s in the eyes.

◊♦◊

Artist Statement:

I photograph people who skirt the edges of things; people whose connection to the broader flow is murky or obscured. Mistaken as more, less or different than they are; they aren’t really seen and don’t really belong. That’s everyone sometimes; but some more often. I try to establish a line for a moment. I hope to connect. And I see the most beautiful and the most heartbreaking things.

To my thinking, the original human trauma is our separation. We are too close not to need each other; and too far to trust each other. We rely on dubious senses and clever devices to interact; but we are alone in our thoughts. Lonely, insecure and uncertain; we pair, we group, we associate. We try to belong and we seek to exclude. We form bonds by geography, religion, economy and otherwise. But it is all precarious. We come together and we drive apart.

And we climb our ladder. We step away from those who don’t belong and help those who do. We are connected rung by rung—though less and less—as we push and pull. But some do not climb; and below, the earth is littered with them. They fit too poorly. They stand apart. They stand without.

And what of them; these ones who don’t belong or who are excluded; who don’t fit or don’t try? Is there nothing they value? Is there nothing of them we value? I count it as a measure of our ignorance, the depth of poverty in the world. It’s a glaring marker to how far we have not come. Yet it has also driven our advance; on less fortunate backs and against less fortunate fate.
But is there really no connection there? Does such fate—whether choice or circumstance—speak nothing of us? Tell me we do more than advance in place; with so many left behind. Or promise me we can do better. Say we can reflect ourselves; us and them. That we can see the ways we overlap and distinguish the ways we grow apart. And pledge that we can learn; to fit all of our misshapes; to reward value beyond charity and beyond the marketplace; to be better to each other; to be better ourselves. And promise me it could be a better world. Or tell me we are at our best.

Tom Stone News

Congratulations to dnj Gallery artist, Tom Stone, for his recent image features in "Rethinking American Poverty" by author Mark R. Rank. The article is extremely thought provoking and is paired perfectly with Tom's moving images of American poverty. Here is a link where you can purchase the full article. Thank you to both parties for shedding light on this issue.

Article Introduction:
It’s a fundamental paradox: in America, the wealthiest country on earth, one also finds the highest rates of poverty in the developed world. Whether we examine children’s rates of poverty, poverty among working age adults, poverty within single parent families, or overall rates of poverty, the story is much the same—the United States has exceedingly high levels of impoverishment.