Film trailer of a 27 minute documentary on Michael Flomen and his photography. World Premiere: Thursday 26 March 2009 at 9 pm Cinéma ONF, 1564 Saint-Denis, Montréal, Québec

Represented by Hasted Hunt, NY 529 West 20th Street, 3rd Floor New York, NY 10011

TEL 212-627-0006

Michael Thompson, Woman with White Mask,
New York City, 1998. Digital C-print,
60 x 76 inches. HASTED HUNT

The AIPAD Photography Show - NY March 26-29, 2009 at the Park Avenue Armory

MarchHasted Hunt is one of over 70 dealers exhibiting at one of the most important international photography events, The AIPAD Photography Show New York , presented by the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) from March 26-29, 2009. At the Park Avenue Armory at 67th Street and Park Avenue in New York City.

The 29th edition of The AIPAD Photography Show New York will open with a Gala Preview on March 25 to benefit the John Szarkowski Fund, an endowment for photography acquisitions at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The AIPAD Photography Show New York is the longest running and foremost exhibition of fine art photography. View the Show press release.

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park AvenueNew York, NY 10065212 616-3930 http://www.armoryonpark.org/

Map and directions.

Staring into Amnesia 3: Private collection / Courtesy of Boers-Li Gallery and ArtShortCut

Opened February at Arken Museum of Modern Art's unique exhibition space The Art Axis. It's a journey into a jumble of memories of China's past and pondering of the good life. In the 1960s and '70s this train ran in northeastern China transporting ordinary Chinese people to and from work, visits and journeys. Now at ARKEN's Art Axis, its purpose is to make museum visitors think about the dreams and values in our society. "Starring into Amnesia by Qui Anxiong is the first installation in a series of exhibitions in the museum's UTOPIA project. It opened on February the 6th. UTOPIA exhibition is the first of three exhibitions of contemporary art shown in ARKEN's Art Axis in the period 2009-2011 - one per year. Each exhibition will feature a significant, international contemporary artist in exploration of "the good life." The first artist is the Chinese Qui Anxiong (b. 1972). Qui Anxiong has converted this train car into a multi media work, Staring into Amnesia (2007). Viewers are expected to interact by boarding the train, sit down and be transported through China's history. Video clips of documentary and propaganda films from China from 1910 until today pass by the windows as fragments of memories alternating with silhouettes a la Kara Walker, of ordinary scenes. What is is juxtaposed with what was and what will be in this artistic metaphor for passage of time. Will it lead to Utopia? With its 6,000 drawings - one movie and the interaction of the masses, Staring into Amnesia is the principal work of the UTOPIA exhibition.

View fine art photography blog by Marcus Bunyan at his artblart blog with a multitude of info and links concerning fine art photography. And more Bunyan work at his website.

“Sounds of Complexity”

Concerning criticism some artists may have of those utilizing modern technology as a means to an end, the following supports my theory that technology is a current, contemporary tool and to ignore it would be counter evolutionary. Art, technology and also science can comingle and if Leonardo da Vinci were alive, he would not only be using computer technology, he would be inventing it! There is absolutely no question in my mind that photographers who choose not to take advantage of digital and computer technology are no more artists than those choosing to embrace the tools of the 21st century. So for the elite purists, I am posting “Sounds of Complexity” which validates my premise that audio visual digital technology and science can be synchronized to achieve fine art. Classic photography is no more art than that which is manipulated. It takes great artistic prowess to know just exactly how much or how little to incorporate technological enhancement.

"Sounds of Complexity" is an artistic project that moves from the field of cognitive science and neurosciences. It's an audiovisual performance in which the sound materials and the visual mappings are the consequence of very complex and stratified processes that hardly can be represented with symbolic forms in our world. It's an attempt to make audible and visible the dynamics and the interactions that for their richness, variety and complexity are unheard and invisible.

The audio material of the performance derives from the analogic recording of cerebral activities through an analogic elettroencephalograph (EEG) and corresponds to the discharges of billions of neurons situated in the sixth layer of human cerebral cortex, disposed vertically respect to the scalp.

The crude sound of brain is translated in an audible frequencies through techniques of pitch shifting; such material is then processed digitally in real time and the corresponding frequencies transformed in a Cartesian space to form visual trajectories projected on four screens that react dynamically; "it has to be considered in the first place the possibility offered by such sounds to represent the oscillatory phenomena, cyclical and rhythmic that govern our cerebral life, whose function is to synchronize periodically the activities of approximately 1000000000000 neurons, in order to allow the emergence of advanced phenomena like consciousness. The most part of cerebral oscillators are in the range between 10 Hz (alpha rhythm) and 40 Hz (gamma rhythm)." More on the digital art revolution.

ART FOR ART'S SAKE

Every artist should view these for inspiration and every collector and curator should look at these to disconnect from the market mentallity and let go of the notion of art as commodity.

Jonas Mekas has made excellent observations which spaek to all artists - not only filmakers. I urge you to stick with these two videos where he speaks about his retrospective but more importantly the process and value of art making. It has given me renewed energy to continue work in foam whether anyone will show it or buy it! I hope it fuels others in forward motion despite the gloomy economy.

Jonas Mekas on Underground Cinema Whitney Retrospective - Part 1

Jonas Mekas on Underground Cinema Whitney Retrospective - Part 2

A vist to the Castle of the Marquis de Sade & the Studio of Cezzane.

Jonas Mekas and Andy Warhol avant-garde approaches to filmmaking helped established film as an art form before and during the Fluxus movement.As early as the 1950’s, leading avant-garde filmmaker and diarist Jonas Mekas was experimenting with new technologies, developing his signature approach and in-camera style of editing ( illustrated in this video). Decades later, he has continued to be at the forefront of digital innovation (see http://www.jonasmekas.com/). His 365 film project on his web site is testament to his commitment to the art of film. Incorporating archival and new footage, he released one film each day throughout 2007. This work was exhibited in 2008 at Mary Stendahl Gallery “From Fluxus to Media Art” one year ago.

For the exhibition, Mekas personally selected films from this collection to document creative impulses of important Fluxus artists. Appearances by George Maciunas, Shigeko Kubota, Nam June Paik, Ben Vautier and Andy Warhol were featured.His recent 9-monitor video installation “Fluxus and Warhol” (2008), premiered at this exhibition. The monitors featured the latest innovation in Wetsinghouse digital technologies. Edited between frames, Mekas’ inserted text making comparisons between Maciunas and Warhol.

Also at this exhibition were 40 film stills entitled “Warhol Series #1”. The collection examined the career of Andy Warhol. Produced in edition of 10, these still images recorded Warhol during the early days of his Factory with Baby Jane Holzer, vacationing at his estate in Montauk, Long Island with friends Lee Radziwill, and the 1971 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art when Warhol covered the walls with his novelty cow wallpaper.