Happy New Year!

I hope all had and are having a wonderful New Year! I think I am not alone in saying a hearty goodbye to 2009. It was a tough year. Here's to clean slates and new beginnings. Bring on 2010.

Of note, again, are Tim Garrett's fabulously funny new year's postcards. Every year for ten plus years, he has produced a postcard with a phrase that rhymes with "happy new year," an example of which is above: "Shaqy, Drew, Gere."

You can find out more info and purchase sets of postcards here. (Tim is the co-founder of www.photobooth.net and was shown in the PRC's 30th anniversary exhibition.) Jill and Tim are also super people to boot!

Above by Tim Garrett and from www.fullchordpress.com

It's a Swedish Christmas!

For this year's Christmas, I decided to get my family Swedish items in celebration of Bruce's heritage and do a little Swedish-themed blog post. Previously, I posted on Dutch traditions, including Chocolate letters, as my family is mostly Dutch.

In my research, I came across the Christmas Goat, or Julbock, who is ridden by the Swedish version of Santa Claus. Tomten is a gnome that lives under floor boards and rides a goat to deliver presents. Julbock ornaments and decorations are traditionally made out of straw, symbolizing good luck.

Since 1966, the town of Gävle in Sweden has erected a large Julbock in the center of town, only to have it burned down 38% of the time. In 1971, another group joined in the making and now Gävle has two straw goats. This newer goat has a higher survival rate of 47%. (Wikipedia even has a chart both of the goats' demise and survival.) You can see a live webcam of this year's sad burnt goat here and read about the news here. This reminds me of MIT's pranks and pranksters, although I wish this one didn't involve destruction. Thus, the tradition even has a tradition.

This strange phenomenon does not surprise me given that I just learned of the Swedes tradition of watching a 1958 Donald Duck cartoon every Christmas eve at 3pm. Read more about this fascinating cultural custom here.

As they say in Sweden, God jul!

ABOVE IMAGE: screen capture by David in Delta from webcam, Dec. 13th, 10 days before the Julbock was burned

The Last Place to Process Kodachome

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Out of the Box at the DeCordova Museum

I am delighted to announce that the show that I curated for the DeCordova Sculpture Park + Museum, Out of the Box: Photography Portfolios from the Permanent Collection, is now open!

I was honored to be chosen as the first guest curator for this new series. This exhibition is a part of a new initiative at the DeCordova: inviting guest curators to explore their permanent collection and bring to it new viewpoints. The staff was wonderful to work with and I am very proud of the show. Above are images from a special reception and gallery talk.

Out of the Box highlights the history and strengths of the DeCordova's permanent photography collection. DeCordova's holdings offer a unique opportunity to explore this topic as nearly one fifth of the photography collection's over 1,400 prints are from portfolios. Selections from 11 diverse portfolios are featured, as well as the entire PRC Portfolio.

If you are in the area, I hope you can check it out! Dates for the exhibition and the opening reception are listed below.

Out of the Box: Photography Portfolios from the
Permanent Collection
DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA
October 24, 2009 - October 2010
Opening reception (in conjunction with their Biennial):
Saturday, January 23, 7 - 9pm

For more information and directions, click here.

Pics above, a mix of images taken by Roger Farrington and Bob Watts.

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.

The Instant Art Critique

I am so overwhelmed with reading and grading right now...I simply will share a link and quote it. I present you with The Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator. Click on the links to make your own. Some of my results are after the jump. Enjoy!

Salvation is here!
Feeling inarticulate? Critically gauche? Or just verbally impotent?

We here at Pixmaven have developed The Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator so you need never again feel at a loss for pithy commentary or savvy "insights." With this device you can speak about Art with both authority and confidence. Use this marvellous tool to amaze and confound friends and colleagues. Don't miss this opportunity to menace and dumbfound professors and artists emeriti!

The instructions are simple -- type any five digit number in the field below, click 'Create,' and enjoy your ready-made Critical Response to the Art Product (or CRAP).

Now you can produce CRAP critiques as easily and fluently as anyone in your MFA program!

Some of my results:

"It should be added that the reductive quality of the purity of line seems very disturbing in light of the eloquence of these pieces."

"With regard to the issue of content, the mechanical mark-making of the gesture makes resonant the substructure of critical thinking."

"I'm troubled by how the internal dynamic of the spatial relationships threatens to penetrate the eloquence of these pieces."

Bruce's new website has been Wordle-ed

In next week's Art History discussion sections, we are going over a lot of terminology from sculpture and architecture (relief, pediment, peristyle, doric, ionic, triglyph, metope, etc.).

In a moment of true art history geekdom, I wanted to make the point that we are going to "vocabulary land" and thus searched out sites that created word clouds. I stumbled across wordle.net and proceeded to input all of the classical architecture terms from wikipedia.

Excited, I then took all of the text from Bruce's new website under the news section (be sure to check it out) and inputted them into wordle. Above is what it came up with. Bruce astutely pointed out that it looks vaguely like a map of the US. This site is a blast! You can change the orientation, font, colors, etc. I encourage you to visit wordle.net and create your own!

My new commute and first week as a PhD student

Not that I am actually walking from the PRC to the BU Art History department, but above represents my "move" if you will and a big life transition from working fulltime to going to graduate school fulltime: 0.3 miles. I am currently parking in Cambridge to save money and walking over the BU bridge with laptop and books. Luckily, I have a little office cubicle, which is proving quickly to be a life (and back) saver and I don't have to find a new grocery store. I always wanted to go back for my PhD, it just took me a while. I am loving it.

Updates will be fewer and farther between as the reading and prep work takes over... But in short, I had my first 1/2 week of classes, including a seminar on representations of Paris. I will also be taking a seminar on Material Culture. I am a teaching fellow and will be leading 3 discussion sections in support of Art History 111 (ancient to medieval) with about 20 students in each. I just finished preparing my section powerpoint, we're looking at the Venus of Willendorf, Palette of King Narmer, Standard of Ur, and the Alexander Mosaic and comparing them with some later works to get them used to looking and describing what they see in words. I had a blast putting it together.

Two years ago, Bruce was preparing for graduate school, see this post for example, and now I am. He starts teaching fulltime at the New England Institute of Art this fall and is also teaching a section of View Camera at RISD. Wish us both luck!

A Kodak Family

At one point, I asked my father to help me name how many people in our family worked at Kodak and tell me what they did. This is an incomplete list and does not include countless distant relatives -- or the families of pretty much my whole high school and many in college -- but I thought I'd share it at this point.

It's a window into a time when (for better and for worse) a town was an industry and an industry a town and folks worked 30+ years at and for only one company. The closest I've experience I have had to this is here in Boston meeting folks who worked at Polaroid. Consider this an open post to share any company, industry, or trade that has persisted in your family. I'd be curious to know!

Let's see.. Wow!!!!

Dad: all over (claim to fame: he named T-Max)
Mom: Secretary
Brother: Fork lift operator in high school
Uncle: Master mechanic
Uncle: 126 Film loader
Aunt: Secretary
Uncle: Plastic molding operator
Cousin: Personnel
Cousin: Emulsion making
Grandfather: Roll film paper coating
Great Grandfather: Tin smith
Great Uncle: Paper mill
Great Aunt: Secretary
Great Uncle: Art department
Great Uncle: Distribution
Great Uncle: ?
Great Uncle: ?
Great Aunt: ?
Great Uncle: ?

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.

Congrats...2 years + 1 vanagon + lots of hard work = MFA

Bruce graduated this past weekend from the University of Connecticut, Storrs. Exhibition and defense completed, he now just has to hand in the bound thesis.

Two years of being mostly apart is almost over. He worked very hard, produced a lot of great (and different) work and now has an MFA and a fulltime job to show for it. I am very proud of him for finding his calling and following his dream.

For those curious, you can read about Bruce's road to grad school here on Henry Horenstein's Teaching Photo. Henry wrote and featured several articles on the MFA graduate experience this past spring on teachingphoto.com - you can read ruminations here, grad school alternatives here, and another student's experience of a low-residency MFA program here.

To those who are not fresh out of undergrad and are considering going to grad school for an MFA, or to those newly-minted BFAs who are considering whether to wait or jump right in, let these stories inspire you and let you know you are not alone.

Next up for the Bruce?

Move part of his thesis show to NYC to Soho20 in Chelsea opening later this month, send off work that was just selected for Houston Center of Photography's 27th annual juried exhibition by Katherine Ware and get ready for a show at NEIA. Oh, and teach four classes (theory among them) this summer. No rest for the weary!

ABOVE: After being hooded, Bruce gets ready to receive his degree! Photo by Gordon 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.

Cool word & image finds

Great images by Shaun Sundholm found via this JB blog post about twittering/curating.

My Critical Mass reviewer scrapbook

While reviewing for Critical Mass in the fall, the super Shawn Records asked me to create a scrapbook of individual images to be featured later on the photolucida blog. Keep checking back, more reviewers and artists will be featured in the coming weeks.

You can view a slideshow of my picks from this blog post or go directly to the show by clicking here. Congrats all and thanks everyone for entering your work!

Artists included: Nan Brown, Pelle Cass, Livia Corona, Steve Davis, Angela Buenning Filo, Andy Freeberg, Laura Heyman, Jesus Jimenez, Adam Lampton, Alison Malone, Rania Matar, Eric Percher, Cara Phillips, Alexis Pike, Ellen Rennard, Suzanne Revy, Christina Seely, Dustin Shum, Charlie Simokaitis, Rebecca Sittler, Aline Smithson, Will Steacy, Barry Stone, Lex Thompson, and Daniel Traub.

Image: Dustin Shum, Chengan, 2006 長安，2006, from the series "it isnae disney!"