Beyond the basic laws that govern and maintain our equilibrium, we live in a world that constantly tests our stability in various other forms. War and rumors of war, issues of economic security, effects of globalization, environmental policy and the politics of identity are all external gravities turned inward, serving to further threaten the precarious balance of self, exaggerating negative feelings of control.
This long-term project is in response to this delicate state. The exploration resides within the sublime metaphorical space where balance has been disrupted and the definitive point-of-no-return has been met. It asks the questions of what it means to resist the struggle, to simply let go. What are the consequences of holding on?
Philosopher Martin Heidegger described human existence as a process of perpetual falling, placing the responsibility of each individual to catch us from our own uncertainty. We are all vulnerable to losing our footing and grasp. These images convey the primal qualities of the human condition as a precarious balancing act between the struggle against our desire to survive and our fantasy to transcend our humanness.
Michal Chelbin’s work has been widely shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide. Her work can be found in many private and public collections, such as: The Metropolitan Museum New York, LACMA, Getty Center LA, Jewish Museum New York, Cleveland Museum of Art, Tel Aviv Museum, Sir Elton John collection, SF Moma and more.
Her critically acclaimed Monograph Strangely Familiar: Acrobats, Athletes and other Traveling Troupes was published by Aperture in 2008 and was awarded PDN’s Photo Annual Book Award in 2009. Her next monograph entitled The Black Eye was published in June 2010 by Twin Palms Publishers, with solo exhibitions in October 2010 at Andrea Meislin Gallery in New York and M+B gallery in LA.
Her third monograph entitled “Sailboats and Swans” was published in fall 2012 by Twin Palms Publishers with solo exhibition at Andrea Meislin Gallery in New York.
Michal’s fourth monograph entitled “How to Dance the Waltz” will be published in Spring 2021 by Damiani Publishers, with a solo show at Clampart NYC.
Michal is a regular contributor to the world’s leading magazines, such as: The New York Times magazine, The New Yorker, BusinessWeek, GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Financial Times, Le Monde and others.
In 1975, when Hugh Holland first began photographing the skateboarders in southern California, he had already been living in Los Angeles for nine years. His interest in photography had developed in the mid-sixties as a 20-year-old living in his native state of Oklahoma. Except for a college job working in a photo lab, Holland had no formal art education. However, he spent years training his eye by shooting photographs and working with the images.
It wasn't until after returning from a trip to Spain in 1968 and settling into what would become a career in West Hollywood as an antique finisher, that he began to seriously pursue the hobby. He made a dark room and began photographing everything that came into sight. A favorite subject—from the beginning—was the figure.
Then one afternoon in 1975, while driving up Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Holland encountered his first skateboarders carving up the drainage ditches along the side of the canyon, and Holland knew he had found his subject. Although not a skateboarder himself, Holland never tired of capturing on film the beauty and grace of the burgeoning craze for the next three years. By 1978, the scene had become more commercial, and Holland’s documentation of the skateboarders came to its natural end.
Hugh Holland’s Angels series was first shown at M+B in early 2006. Following the success of the show, the work was shown internationally in London, Paris and New York, with upcoming exhibitions in Sydney and the Pera Museum is Istanbul. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, npr, and the Los Angeles Times. In 2010, the artist’s monograph Locals Only by AMMO Books was published in conjunction with his second exhibition at M+B, and in 2011, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles included his work in the first major U.S. museum survey of graffiti and street art in a group exhibition entitled “Art in the Streets.” Hugh Holland currently resides in Los Angeles.
What is a father? What is a son? What bond links them? Blood? Love? Legacy? Inheritance? I photograph fathers, 30 to 80 years old, standing up, bare-chested, with their son, months-old for the youngest or already in their fifties for the eldest. They are close, often skin to skin. Looking at these portraits, you search for similarities. You scrutinize the facial features, compare the gestures and attitudes. You imagine a story. Attempt to discover the secret of a relationship. Nudity disturbs and scrambles the clues a bit.
Among the Native men, among the rush of rivers and mountains of Omak and Okanogan on the Colville Reservation in Northern Washington, where Fergus Thomas traveled to photograph a bare back horse relay and a ‘suicide” race, the word for horse is kəwáp and the word for the race is q̓ʷq̓ʷuƛ̕aʔxnm.
Fan Ho (Chinese: 何藩; Jyutping: ho faan; 8 October 1931 – 19 June 2016) was a Chinese photographer, film director, and actor. From 1956, he won over 280 awards from international exhibitions and competitions worldwide for his photography.
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