Summer Exhibition Highlights in NYC, Including Frank Paulin, Trent Parke, and Werner Bischof

Looks like it's going to be a great summer of photographic exhibitions, and if you're anywhere near New York City, the Village Voice has an article on the worthwhile ones to watch.

* I had a few of the exhibitions mentioned in the article on my radar just from random web-surfing and recent press releases, and among the more conservative/"classic" photography choices, it looks like the Bruce Silverstein Gallery has a fair number of goodies. They just wrapped up what looks like an excellent series on the work of Magnum photographer Werner Bischof -- the online organization of content is a bit haphazard, but nice large images are provided for viewing. For more information, Bischof has a nice website dedicated to him as well.

Zebra Woman, 1942, Werner Bischof image

* The Nudes of Karl Strauss at the Silverstein features pioneering nudes done by a colleague of Alfred Steiglitz's who would eventually go on to be Cecil B Demille's still-cameraman. Strauss' nudes have an interesting sense of dynamism given the equipment and conventions of the time (and the fact that these are largely classical figure studies), and the accompanying press release indicates that Strauss was influenced by the dance aesthetics of the period. Very interesting, and the compositions and light are frequently lovely.

* I was very pleasantly surprised by the work of Frank Paulin, a disciple of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Harry Callahan, who also went on to work with Alexey Brodovitch. Paulin's background in fashion illustration and design are put to work nicely in thoughtful and inventive black and white street photography that seemed to peak in the 1950s and 60s (mostly in New York City), but went on through to the 1990s (the image below, one of my favorites, is actually from 1981). Paulin's 1957 show at the Limelight Gallery in NYC has been recreated and online at the Silverstein and on Paulin's website.

As with Bischof, the Silverstein gallery has the best looking online images, but Paulin has a comprehensive web site of his own, with smaller and more compressed files.

Frank Paulin image, 1981

* I mentioned the distinctive underwater work of Narelle Autio in yesterday's post, but didn't mention her collaboration with Trent Parke (her companion and another Magnum photographer), who's the subject of a NYC exhibition himself this summer. Autio and Parke published a book, The Seventh Wave, and images from the book can be seen here, and at the Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery site, where the exhibition is being hosted (note: the latter photos only display on Internet Explorer on my PC, and not in Netscape or Opera).

Trent Parke image

* Additional note: Spencer Murphy was one of several interesting emerging photographers I encountered in an issue of Pictured Magazine as part of a post on emerging photographers I wrote a while back...Spencer was kind enough to drop by the other day and inform me that Pictured is unfortunately no longer publishing. It was nice to look back on Spencer's page and continue to enjoy his images (particularly some of the nightscapes and the second gallery of portraits), and yes, make those images larger! There are some good ones that would look great with a little more size...