mar/apr '08
jan/feb '08
nov/dec '07

Add this inaugural event to your calendars: the New York Photography Festival 08, billed by organizers as “the future of contemporary photography.” The five-day event, which opens on May 14 in the burgeoning arts district of Dumbo in Brooklyn, will occupy more than 75,000 square feet of exhibition space in ten buildings. Organizers Daniel Power, founder and CEO of powerHouse Books, and Frank Evers, managing director of the VII Photo Agency, hope to attract 100,000 visitors. “The scale and the architectural quality of this historic industrial area gave me the idea for the festival when I moved our operations here in 2006,” says Power. The event includes four exhibitions, curated by Magnum photographer Martin Parr, New York Times Magazine picture editor Kathy Ryan, Lesley Martin of the Aperture Foundation, and Tim Barber of tinyvices.com, and shows by emerging artists, workshops, and lectures.

The second edition of the LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph, meanwhile, runs from June 12 to 14 in Charlottesville, Virginia, with presentations, exhibitions, portfolio reviews, and workshops. The festival is an outgrowth of National Geographic photographer Michael “Nick” Nichols’s popular backyard seminars, and an informal spirit prevails, with outdoor projections of images all over town. Mary Ellen Mark, Joel-Peter Witkin, James Nachtwey, and Eugene Richards are scheduled to participate in the three-day event.

An international group of individuals are being honored on May 12, when the Inter­national Center of Photography (ICP) presents the 24th Annual Infinity Awards, with Malick Sidibé of Mali receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award. Other recipients include Edward Burtynsky of Canada (Art); South Africa’s Mikhael Subotzky, who was nominated to join Magnum Photos at the tender age of 27 (Young Photographer); and Taryn Simon, for her publication An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar.

Collectors of contemporary photography have a new site to explore in Chelsea. Bruce Silverstein, whose stable of artists at his 24th Street gallery has been steadily growing, has opened a second gallery at 529 West 20th Street. The opening show, Human Observations—abstract images of people in Chinatown by Maria Antonietta Mameli—“represents exactly the type of emerging or under-recognized artist we look forward to showing in the new space,” says Silverstein. The exhibition runs through June 14.

On the West Coast, a new space devoted to contemporary photographers using alternative processes opened in April on San Francisco’s Union Square. With a nod to Alfred Stieglitz and Pictorialism, Ed Carey has adopted the name Gallery 291. “There has been a resurgence of interest in alternative processes by many talented photographers today,” explains Carey. On view through June 28 are Jim Marshall’s platinum prints of musicians from the 1960s.

The photography world lost a beloved figure with the death of Houston collector and art dealer John Cleary in February. Central to Cleary’s own collection are some 1,200 photographs of children, including vintage prints by such masters as Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier-Bresson. In a ceremony on June 14, the Houston Center for Photography will name its library for Cleary, in conjunction with an exhibition of photographs from what he called his “Kid Collection.” Longtime director Catherine Couturier will continue to operate the John Cleary Gallery.

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