Flash Forward Festival Boston - Exposure Galore!

In the better late than never category, if you are in Boston, do get out to the fab (and free!) Flash Forward Festival. There are many exhibitions, educational lectures and panels, and events to enjoy. I'll be there again today!

I am delighted to see so many photographers that I worked with or curated into physical or online exhibitions at the PRC be recognized in this terrific international format. It's so great to see them rise and gain many deserved accolades! If there is one snippet of advice I can give to photographers of all stripes--which was reiterated by the first noted below as well as many of the other panelists--keep making the great work that you do and it will come back to you - be true to yourself, be patient, and have faith!

Here is just a sampling...

On the Education side:
- Chris Churchill was on a FFF panel and was featured in the group exhibition, DOCUMENT. So excited to see his great work in soon-to-be-published book by Nazraeli Press!

In the FF 2010 Group Show:
- Claire Beckett was also featured in DOCUMENT. Her work is up now at MassMoca in The Workers and is really taking off!
- Kevin Van Aelst was the NEO featured artist in August 2008. Kevin's work was honored as a part of Critical Mass 2010 and always brings a smile to my face.

In the FF Fresh Work Group Show:
- Toni Pepe was the NEO featured artist in November 2008. She is currently organizing the Think Art: memory conference at BU.

CONGRATS to these folks as well as all of those participating!

Godowsky Color Awards website/exhibition

Check out the new Godowsky Awards website!

This cycle, these international awards focus on emerging artists and new approaches in color photography. Jennifer Uhrhane and I have worked on this for over a year and were both jurors along with two amazing guests: Bill Ewing and Hannah Frieser. It's my last project at the PRC.

We're thrilled with the site and the show, which I have somehow fit in between school. If you are in the area, join us for the opening Thursday, November 12, 7-8:30pm or check out the exhibition, which runs through January 24th. Many of the artists will be in attendance.

MORE INFORMATION:

The Leopold Godowsky, Jr. Color Photography Awards honor the co-inventor of Kodachrome film, a man whose contributions have had a major and lasting impact on photography. Established in 1987, the international awards recognize excellence in the field of contemporary color photography and are gathered via nominations from a prestigious, international group of curators, critics, editors, and educators. Over the course of seven award cycles—with the first presented in 1988, and the most recent in 2009—the awards have bolstered the careers of some 30 individual artists representing more than 18 countries.

2009 Leopold Godowsky, Jr. Color Photography
Award recipients:

Claudia Angelmaier (Germany)
Alejandro Chaskielberg (Argentina)
Curtis Mann (IL, USA)
Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick (NY, USA)

HONORABLE MENTION (online showcase only):
Seung Woo Back (South Korea and UK)

Website designed by Matt Nash

UPDATE: You can check out images of the show and opening reception, including many of the artists, by clicking here.

LKB & PRC in PDN

The wonderful Edgar Allen Beem interviewed a whole host of photo spaces and the results are featured in July issue of PDN.

The article, “Preparing for Launch: Non-Profit Photography Spaces are a Proving Ground for Emerging Photographers,” is chock a block full of excellent advice for getting your work out there.

I was interviewed about the PRC’s ops for and devotion to emerging photographers, especially the Annual PRC Juried Exhibition. I am excited to be included along with my photo friends and heroes. The whole Fine Arts issue is amazing.

PS - online access is for subscribers only - get thee to a newsstand for the whole issue, it’s worth it!

PhD bound and other news

My apologies first for not posting this earlier! I have been emailing to tell the news, but it's been a stressful/crazy spring, so forgive me if there is some repetition and a lot going on. I figured I’d just adapt my “news” email and post it here:

I am delighted to announce that I have been accepted into the PhD program in Art History at Boston University! So, Bruce and I will be around Boston for some time to come. My last day at the PRC will be in mid August. Classes start September 2nd. I will focus on the history of photography. It's a wonderful program - with a history of amazing scholars, professors, and curators - and I am thrilled to be a part of it.

I am honored and humbled to have served and been a part of the PRC and will have worked here for almost 25% of its existence. I am not the best with change and letting go - it will be hard, maybe in some ways easier and some ways harder as I will not be moving - but the time and place is right.

My aim is to emerge on the other side as a curator/educator and will try to stay involved in the contemporary photoworld in the meantime. Although I might take a break from reviewing portfolios and some other things, I hope to stay connected to this incredible community, regionally, nationally, and beyond.

As when it rains, it pours - on a sad note, my father found out he has esophagus cancer and had an operation. But, it's very early, thus he doesn't have to have radiation or chemo and the prognosis is good. Thus, I am even more grateful that I am close to home. In addition, I also was in an accident on my way to Bruce's thesis show (I am absolutely fine), and the insurance totaled my Saturn (it was old). Thus, I also had to look for and buy a new-to-me car amidst all of this (update: I got a 2001 Subaru outback, midnight blue). Ah life, funny isn't it?

Bruce passed his orals, finished the thesis, and graduated. He is teaching four classes this summer at the New England Institute of Art and will be there again in the fall. He also will teach view camera at RISD! My folks, Bruce, and I are looking at wedding venues near Woodstock, NY for a summer 2010 wedding. We have come to love the Catskills and it's halfway between Rochester and Boston. We are eager to begin the next phase of our life.

On another note, I am excited to select my classes and also that I never have to take the GRE again!

I hope that you are enjoying your summer (and let’s all hope that it stops raining soon).

Very best, Leslie

ABOVE: Someday, several years from now, I hope to don BU's elegant PhD regalia and be called, yes, Dr. Brown.

Round up of SYNTAX Cyberarts press...

There are only ten more days to see the PRC's SYNTAX exhibition as well as the whole Boston Cyberarts Festival - both run through May 10th!

I'm hitting the pavement hard tomorrow myself. You can check out SYNTAX virtually here and chart out your entire Cyberarts route here.

Some highlights:

In Sebastian Smee's recent review of the entire Cyberarts fest in the Boston Globe, he stated the following: "The best curated group show I saw as part of the festival was "Syntax" at the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University (reviewed in the Globe by Mark Feeney, April 3)."

In Nina Barber's Big, Red, and Shiny's interview with Boston Cyberarts Festival's amazing Director George Fifield: "The organizations have a very good sense of what the festival is about. Somebody like the Photographic Resource Center's Leslie Brown has done these great exhibitions where she really gets under the ideas of what technology is when you use the phrase in terms of art. Their current show, "SYNTAX," is about artists who are mainly photographers, but they are approaching the data that's actually in the photos in interesting ways."

Below is a list of links and press that SYNTAX has garnered:

Art New England, April/May 2009 (not posted online yet)

Boston Phoenix, Greg Cook, “Our digital landscape, The 2009 Boston Cyberarts Fest,” Greg Cook, April 28, 2009

BU Today, AV Slideshow, “The Artistic Semantics of Syntax, New exhibition opens today at Photographic Resource Center,” Kimberly Cournelle, March 30, 2009

Stuff, “Syntax,” Jacqueline Houton, March 23, 2009

Boston Phoenix, “Digital language at the PRC, Syntax, at Boston University's Photographic Resource Center,” Evan J. Garza, March 11, 2009

Off to repeat & return over the pond

I'm leaving on a jet plane...

I am honored to be giving a paper at the "Repeats and Returns in Photography" conference at the University of Plymouth. It is sponsored and organized by their amazing Land/Water & The Visual Arts department, where Liz Wells and Jem Southam teach. I will be speaking on two PRC exhibitions, New England Survey and Keeping Time.

See below or here for information. Wish me luck!

The Framing Time and Place conference will address a number of research issues relating to capacities of photography as systematically generating narratives of stasis and change in relation to land and environment.

Featured Speakers:

Mark Klett (Regents Professor of Photography and Director of the Third View project, Arizona State University. Publications include: Second View: the rephotographic survey project (with Ellen Manchester, 1984); Third Views, Second Sights (2004); Yosemite in Time (2005); After the Ruins, 1996 and 2006: rephotographing the San Francisco earthquake and fire (2006).

James Ryan (School of Geography, University of Exeter (Cornwall Campus), Publications include Picturing Empire: photography and the visualization of the British Empire (1997) and Picturing Place: photography and the geographical imagination (with Joan M. Schwartz, 2003).

Themes will include:

• Investigation of photographic methodologies central to re-photography
• Situation of re-photographic explorations within broader socio-historical, geographic, scientific and technological contexts
• Critical consideration of ‘space’ and ‘time’ as concepts informing photographic repeats and returns
• Analysis of the relation of photographic ways of seeing and processes to the construction of specificity and distinctiveness of place
• Interrogation of processes of interpretation, including address to histories implied, and to theories of the production of (photographic) meaning
• Critical appraisal of the limitations of photo-imagery in the construction of landscape fictions

PRC show Syntax in Boston Phoenix

Check out this great preview of the next show, Syntax, at the PRC! Click here or above to read the preview. Learn more about the art and artists here.

The gallery will be open March 26th and the reception will be Thursday, April 2nd, 5:30 - 7:30pm.

You have 2 days left to be exposed

Although in theory this is a personal blog, life and work merge together when one works at a small non-profit. I want to remind folks that you have until TOMORROW, Saturday, February 7th to get your submission in the mail (or dropped off at the PRC 12-5pm) for the 14th Annual PRC Juried Exhibition, EXPOSURE.

Seriously photo folks, don't let this one pass you by! It takes but a second to burn 10 images to a cd and gather your materials! If you join online and don't have a card, don't worry, just make a note of it, we check everyone. Run, don't walk to the post office. (Not that I am encouraging procrastination, but you can find the branch that is open til the wee hours online for that coveted postmark).

The juror this year is Russel Hart, Executive Editor at American Photo magazine and Editor of American Photo On Campus. This year, he will be on the jury of AP's "Emerging Artist" and "Student Portfolio" showcases.

Not only that, but all of us jurors are a part of a secret society (just kidding), but understand that we do talk to each other and recommend artists to each other. Who knows what this might lead to? Not only that, but gathering up a handful of juried show wins at places like the PRC and its other kindred spirits speaks volumes on your resume. A good investment, to be sure.

Read about the submission details and get the required entry form as a PDF here. See pics of last year's show here. Now, git!

ABOVE: An installation shot from EXPOSURE 2008

PRC Landscape show is bright spot

The intrepid Greg Cook of the The New England Journal of Aesthetic Reseach cited my PRC exhibition New England Survey in his year-end review in this week's Boston Phoenix, "Year in Art: Beyond the Gloom."

Under the heading "A sense of where you are," he writes:

New England Survey at the Photographic Resource Center offered ravishing photos of this region's landscape that reminded us why we return again and again to our outdoors to find our roots, to find solace, to find awe.

Thanks Greg! NES just closed at Harvard's Fruitlands Museum, but you can still visit it online here.

Be sure to also check out Greg's call for nominations for the first annual Boston Art Awards. Likely initiated in part to make up for the AICA award hiatus, Greg has valiantly taken up the torch.

Click here to read more about the Awards and nominate your favorite [insert below here]....

"Also, some broad categories to consider: favorite local artist, local curator, local show, new media, photography, conceptually-driven installation/performance (including video thereof), favorite gallery show, favorite school show, favorite museum show, favorite historical show, favorite contemporary show, best survey/retrospective, favorite solo show, favorite group show, favorite public art (or best non-exhibition space project), favorite on-line project, favorite outdoors project, favorite art book/publication."

Help me raise $ for the PRC!

Greetings ~

I have set up this fundraising page in order to raise money for my favorite 32-year-old non-profit and the organization to which I have devoted the last 7 years, the Photographic Resource Center. I am sent this to artists and people I have worked with and admired, but of course such folks are also online too.

As many of you know, I am entirely committed to the PRC as well as the artists, many of them emerging, that I exhibit or view well beyond the time that I show or see them. The PRC is an amazing institution and humbled to be a part of its fabric and history. Hopefully we have made a difference in your life too!

(PS...We're having a little friendly competition at the PRC to see who gave raise the most on their page, so I'd love your help - it's fun too!)

Your tax-deductible donation will be used in support of the PRC's Annual Appeal, which helps to raise much needed funds for all of our award-winning exhibitions, education, and member programs. Obama's campaign had it right: small amounts from many committed people instead of large amounts from a very few. Any donation over $1 will help!

Donating through this page is fast and secure. Forgo the latte today and pick your favorite number and click "GIVE NOW" on my page:

www.firstgiving.com/lesliekbrownprc

Many thanks for your support -- and please forward this to anyone who you think might want to donate too by clicking "share this page" or start one of your own!

Thank you for your time. Know that whether not you can give at this time, know that we still think of you and hope all are well.

Warmest regards, Leslie

PS - My emailing list had a little glitch. Thanks in advance for your patience if you get emails from more than one person or got more than one from myself!

In praise of Barbara Bosworth

I am a huge fan of Barbara Bosworth - her work and her person.

It all started when I saw the above image in my very first PRC auction exhibition, Christmas Eclipse in my Father's Hands, Sanibel. I remember exactly where it was installed in the old PRC. I was new - I didn't know her personally yet, but boy did I covet that image.

Time passed and last spring, I was delighted to work with her and feature her Meadow series in New England Survey at the PRC. That same show is on display now through December 21st at the Fruitlands Museum. Last month at the Fruitlands (appropriately in the Hudson River School painting gallery), Barbara gave a wonderful overview of her whole career. I was enthralled all over again.

Courtesy of via Mary Virginia Swanson's blog, I came across this very cool slideshow of Barbara's work from her recent Smithsonian show.

Click here or above to to see it!

Keeping Time review in the Globe

The Keeping Time review ran today in the Boston Globe and it's a good one! Yippee! I am in Rochester now so have my backups picking up a copy in Boston. Click here to read it.

The perspicacious Mark Feeney has some incredible insights as always. We get two wonderful literary quotes too:

"In 'Four Quartets,' T.S. Eliot writes that 'to apprehend/ The point of intersection of the timeless/ With time, is an occupation for the saint.'"...(begins the review, and later on)... "Their concern is with what Edward Abbey, in 'Desert Solitaire,' describes as 'that ultimate world of sun and stars whose bounds we cannot discover.'"

Here are some of my favorite Feeney phrases (the last Morris Louis one is truly super):

Among the virtues of "Keeping Time: Cycle and Duration in Contemporary Photography," which runs at the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University through Jan. 25, is the reminder it brings that time is not just the ocean photography splashes in but also the spray that it raises.

All photographs are, so to speak, sun-singed. ...Think of the process as a visual equivalent of distressing a surface. Where a photograph captures an instant in time, McCaw's techniques indicate time's ongoing effects on that instant.

As the sun casts shadows from wine bottles, drinking glasses, and the like, Cummins traces the outlines of those shadows in colored inks. Meal concluded, she photographs the chromatic accumulation. Visually, it's like having Morris Louis as your waiter.

Keeping Time opens Thursday

I am not sure how many folks know what work goes into putting together an exhibition at a small place. With a staff of four, I am not only the curator, registrar, pr person, wall text and label designer, opening food getter, assistant installer, packer, but also the art transporter. This past Thursday, I did my roughly 4 times a year drive to New York City and back in a day in a brand new Enterprise van. The amazing intern Caleb Cole (hire and show this emerging artist!) helped me navigate and kept me company on his official last day.

After a late start filling up the huge tank, we got into NYC about 12:30 and had to made our way down to Michael Mazzeo Gallery. I've seen Michael several times now at portfolio review events and we always have a good time and he has a great stable of emerging artists. Michael is showing Chris McCaw's work, which I first saw at Photolucida in 2007. I was immediately transfixed (and should have bought one then!!). Michael kindly bought us sandwiches and we caught up. (FYI - it's easy to park in NYC with commercial plates, although I am still a nervous wreck driving and parking in the city.) Chris's work looks amazing in his solo show; he's now started working with a 16 x 20 camera and the results are stunning.

After that, we headed uptown to Bonni Benrubi to pick up Matthew Pillsbury's work. Picking up here is much more difficult than Chelsea, but luckily we found a commercial muni spot. Lou and Thom helped me once again and after tying everything down, we headed home, only to be stuck in traffic in CT for over an hour. I woke up at 5am and about 17 hours later, I was back at home. I am still exhausted.

The gallery is painted a beautiful Benjamin Moore historical color (Templeton Gray) and Vinnie and I install on Monday. I am very excited about this show and I think it will be beautiful. All of the artists are great and I am very proud of them and the show. Come on out Thursday, November 6th from 5:30-7:30pm to see the product of all of our labors. If you are not in town, you can poke around the online component. Click here or on the image above to read my essay, see all of the images and artist statements (just click on the individual images). I will post installation images later. Whew...now back to work.

ABOVE IMAGE: Sharon Harper (Cambridge, MA), Moon Studies and Star Scratches, No. 9, June 4 – 30, 2005, Clearmont, Wyoming, 15, 30, 20, 8, 5, 1, 5, 2, 1 minute exposures; 15, 8, 10, 14 second exposures, Digital C-print from 4x5 transparency, 50 x 40 inches, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Roepke, Cologne

PRC Benefit Auction this Saturday!

The time is near… Get your tickets and bids in now and come out and support the PRC in its largest and most important fundraiser of the year. For those not in town, absentee bids can be taken on any item, live or silent. I’ll get my pencil ready!

This is an elegant and fun event - the food by East meets West is excellent and plentiful, it includes all refreshments, dessert, coffee, and even parking (just rsvp before). And of course you also get fantastic company, a beautiful art deco space, and the opportunity to walk home with an amazing photograph (and did I mention all of them come framed?). Ticket info is below.

Preview the catalogue by clicking above or here. See you Saturday.

TICKETS: $70 per person, member; $75 per non-member.

This includes one copy of the auction catalogue, one paddle, buffet from East Meets West, beverages, and parking with advance reservations. Contact Cate Brennan at 617.975.0600 for tickets, reservations, and bids. Mastercard, Visa, checks, cash accepted.

AUCTION: Saturday, October 25, 2008
808 Gallery at 808 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston

Reception and silent auction begins at 5:30pm;
Live auction begins at 7:00pm

PRC landscape show opening this Sunday at Fruitlands Museum, 4-6pm

I hope you can take that wonderful drive out route 2 to Harvard, MA this weekend. The PRC show I curated, New England Survey, gets a reprise in a delightful setting with a beautiful view (seen above). The reception is Sunday, September 14th from 4-6pm.

Surrounded by 200 acres and right next to a collection of Hudson River School paintings, I couldn't imagine a more perfect setting for this exhibition. Come see work by Barbara Bosworth, Tanja Hollander, Janet Pritchard, Thad Russell, Jonathan Sharlin, Paul Taylor again or for the first time.

Click here for directions and more information about this former Transcendentalist and Utopian community and jewell of a museum.

New England Survey exhibition now on display at Fruitlands Museum

Last week, I traveled out beautiful Route 2 to Harvard, MA and the Fruitlands Museum to lay out the PRC's warmly received landscape exhibition, New England Survey.

The exhibition will run August 23 – December 21, 2008 with an opening reception on Sunday, September 14, 4 – 6pm. I am proud as a peach, as it's the first show that I curated that has traveled.

As you can see above, it is right at home in their Picture Gallery. Take a sneak peek at the installation and their beautiful grounds in this flickr set!

I am thrilled at how it turned out, as are they. The work is in their Picture Gallery, right next to Hudson River School paintings and right outside are incredible views and nature trails. The juxtapositions created are stunning. Re-experience work by Barbara Bosworth, Tanja Alexia Hollander, Janet Pritchard, Thad Russell, Jonathan Sharlin, and Paul Taylor.

A little history - This past spring, we were approached by the Fruitlands Museum to show a version of the PRC exhibition New England Survey in fall 2008. Fruitlands, a former Transcendentalist, Utopian center founded by Bronson Alcott, is increasingly considering exhibitions that complement their interpretive themes (Inhabiting Nature, Encounters on a Changing Landscape, and Traditions that Bind) as well as intersect with their mission. New England Survey was a perfect fit and joins a special exhibition of Joe Wheelwright’s trees sculptures currently on their grounds.

I am thrilled that Fruitlands loved the exhibition so much and that it will live on and be shown at such a beautiful location during New England’s peak fall season. I invite you to see it again in this unique setting, or for the first time. Take a whole day, have lunch, walk the trails, and explore their collections, it's that amazing!

Visit www.fruitlands.org for more information and directions. See you at the opening!

ABOUT FRUITLANDS: Fruitlands Museum is one of the first outdoor museums in America and boasts over 200+ acres of pastoral landscape and several period buildings. This national landmark shares the unique ideas, stories, objects, and landscape of New England’s most original thinkers, movers, and reformers. Enjoy nature trails and four unique galleries of Native American, Shaker, and American art collections, including Hudson River School landscapes and nineteenth-century vernacular portraits.

In praise of Lissa Rivera

In keeping with my last "In praise of" themed post, I am proud as a peach of Lissa Rivera. Lissa is one of our former PRC interns, former AIB student, and a 2nd year MFA student at SVA - and now, a friend. The curious sort and ever the hard worker, Lissa always asks a lot of questions. Lissa is a fellow western/central New Yorker, and thus we have always bonded on our common upbringing.

Watching Lissa's career has been like watching a skyrocket. I am humbled to have witnessed it from the ground floor. In April 2005, I showcased Lissa's work on school on our emerging online gallery, Northeast Exposure Online (NEO). The print that Lissa donated to our auction in 2006 was so popular that she was invited to be in our print program and found a gallery. Last year, I nominated Lissa as a woman to watch for the state of Massachusetts, and she was selected. You can see her work now through June 15th at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Lissa entered Duke's Center for Documentary Studies' competition - 25 Under 25: Up-and-Coming American Photographers - and was selected by juror Sylvia Plachy. The book, which also includes NEO alumna Irina Rozovsky, was just released this spring by powerHouse books. Both couldn't be nicer.

Lissa recently emailed me her new blog - her new work BLEW me away! From documentary-based images of high schools, both public and private, as well as colleges, both community and greek life (viewable on her web site)....to the below? We are always hungry for new work, and Lissa delivered....keep it up and congratulations. Emerge away!

ABOVE: The cover of 25 Under 25: Up-and-Coming American Photographers (image is not Lissa's work)
BELOW: Lissa Rivera, self-portraits, from here

A few of our favorite things...

PDN (Photo District News) just released their eagerly-anticipated Photo Annual. Besides announcing their Annual winners and giving the amazing advice they usually do, they had a great feature titled "46 Reasons to Love Photography Now." The PRC, specifically our annual juried show, is one of their favorite things!

PDN wrote in part: "The economy got you down? PDN's editors and writers have compiled a list of the innovations, inspiring people, innovations, and idiosyncrasies that make photography as rewarding and exciting as ever." PDN- we heart you too!

A special thanks goes out to Jeanine Fijol, PDN Photo Editor, who was the juror for the PRC's 1th Annual PRC Juried Exhibition in 2006, who first contacted me. The PRC joins a whole of people, places, and things, reminiscent of our unique 30th anniversary exhibition, PRC/POV (the venerable Dashwood Books made both of our lists!). Below is a montage from the magazine and a few of the other favorite things.

* Lee Friedlander * National Geographic * ICP Infinity Awards
* on demand printing * Wired magazine * Taschen Books
* Columbia College, Chicago * 20x200 * The Eddie Adams workshop

ABOVE: From PDN magazine

The birth of the PRC Blog

The PRC officially launched a blog on May 1st! We've been posting for a while, so please check out our back posts too. We are especially thankful to DK for all of his help.

(What would happen if I posted about the PRC blog launch on the PRC blog - would it be like when John Malkovich entered his own portal and himself in the movie Being John Malkovich?)

So without further ado, check out www.bostonphotographyfocus.org!

New England Survey in the Globe! (written by their Pulitzer Prize winning reviewer)

Tuesday was an important newspaper day in Boston. Gracing the front page of the Boston Globe was the Red Sox's opening day at Fenway and the announcement that their own Mark Feeney won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, as noted in the last post.

Humbly for us, Mark Feeney's review of the current PRC landscape exhibition, New England Survey, also ran in the very same Globe. (And super luckily for us, he liked it!) I am thrilled at the confluence of events. I wrote to congratulate Mark, and he modestly replied that it's a win for the paper and different than organizing an exhibition. To his and their credit, we had several people visit today because of his review and lots of calls. Here's to the power of well-crafted words and the media!

You can read Mark Feeney's review of the PRC exhibition New England Survey here.

You can read the official Globe story on Mark Feeney's Pulitzer Prize in Criticism here.

You can read some of his nominated stories here.