For the first time outside of China, over 200 photographs by recently released artist Ai Weiwei are on view in Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs 1983 – 1993, an exhibition presented by Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing in association with the Asia Society Museum in New York. Before Ai became an internationally recognized artist and activist, he lived in the East Village amongst expatriate Chinese intellectuals and artists. His images document some of the most critical and defining events of the period, as well as the general atmosphere of the time; highlights of the exhibition include photos of a reading by Allen Ginsburg, riots in the parks of the East Village, drag queens at Wigstock, and a visit by Bill Clinton, as well as artful self-portraits, and portraits of notable Chinese intellectuals, like the filmmaker Chen Kaige and composer Tan Dun. In addition to the beauty and significance of these images as artifacts, the show offers a rare look into the thoughts and attitudes of a burgeoning conceptual artist. Click through for a preview.
Outsiders often observe a side of society that those living within naively overlook or simply accept. Such are the situations in Swiss photographer Robert Frank’s seminal series of black-and-white photos, The Americans, which he shot during road trips across the US in the mid-‘50s; and Danish photographer Jacob Holdt’s American Pictures, a series of color snapshots that he made while crisscrossing the US from 1970 to 1975. Two current solo shows of these inquisitive artists’ work allow us the opportunity to look back at the turbulent times they documented and to consider where America is going now.
In 1958, the Paris-based publisher Robert Delpire had the foresight to release Robert Frank’s sheaf of plainspoken, black-and-white images, The Americans. Delpire insisted, however, on a cover of Saul Steinberg’s pencil doodles, a fact presented in An American Journey, Philippe Séclier’s documentary which retraces the 15,000 miles that the Swiss-born legend drove to create the book.
Opening today at Film Forum, it’s more of a soft-focused supplement to the current Frank-ophilia in New York, with the Met honoring the artist through a retrospective of his filmography (which includes the Beat portrait Pull My Daisy and the pumice-stoned Cocksucker Blues) and a stunning exhibition of his enduring, mid-century documents of life in the land of the free. After the jump, watch the Jack Kerouac-narrated short Pull My Daisy, which stars Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso. Read More »
Robert Frank/Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art
Decades after Robert Frank snapped her picture, Sharon Collins recognized herself as the elevator girl when she saw the photo in an exhibition of work from The Americans at the SFMoMA. Listen to her describe the bizarre moment in this clip from NPR’s All Things Considered and click through for a recreation of the iconic image starring Collins today. Read More »
