Category: Exhibitions

Living Los Sures: Selections ?>

Living Los Sures: Selections

LIVING LOS SURES: SELECTIONS
Curator: UnionDocs
Exhibition dates: July 25 – October 25, 2014
The Ildiko Butler Gallery
Fordham University at Lincoln Center MAP
113 West 60th Street at Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023

The six works in this show are part of the larger project Living Los Sures, a collaborative documentary about the Southside of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, produced by UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art.

From 2010 through 2014, UnionDocs is producing a collaborative web documentary about the Southside neighborhood in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where the organization has been situated for nearly a decade. Part omnibus film, part media archeology, part deep-map and city symphony, the project uses Los Sures, a brilliant work of cinema verite directed by Diego Echeverría in 1984, as a starting point for the investigations of more than forty artists over the course of four years. Collectively, their projects tell the story of a longstanding Latino community that is defeating displacement and surviving the growth machine. Living Los Sures is a multi-part project that restores a lost film, remixes local histories, reinvestigates Williamsburg’s Southside today, and hopes to reunite a neighborhood around a sustainable future.

In the late seventies and early eighties, the Southside of Williamsburg was one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City. In fact, it had been called the worst ghetto in America. Los Sures, a documentary from 1984 by Diego Echeverría, skillfully represents the challenges of this time; drugs, gang violence, crime, abandoned real estate, racial tension, single parent homes, and inadequate local resources. Yet, Echeverría’s portrait also celebrates the vitality of this largely Puerto Rican community, showing the strength of their culture, their creativity and their determination to overcome a desperate situation.

UnionDocs has partnered with Echeverría to develop Living Los Sures, revisiting his powerful film to pursue four primary goals. RESTORE: Bring the original film back to life and make it accessible online for the first time, working with the local community to update, annotate, and challenge the narrative through a participatory platform. REMIX: Expand the experience of the original through deeply interactive audio/visual experiments. REUNITE: Activate the community to engage vital civic issues for a more sustainable future. REINVESTIGATE: Create new short documentaries to illustrate the issues the community faces today.

To date, over thirty such reinvestigations have been created by members of the UnionDocs Collaborative Studio. Each year since 2010, UnionDocs has hosted twelve Collaborative artist-fellows who work together to produce short documentary projects about the Southside today. These projects cover a wide range of topics and forms — from short videos to soundworks, audio walks, installations and interactive media. The works in this show represent the variety of form and subject matter, as well as the common concerns, that characterize the Living Los Sures project.

For more information please contact: Toby Lee or Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock

From the Archives ?>

From the Archives

BUTLER_GALLERY_FROM_THE_ARCHIVES
From the Archives: Photographs by William Fox from the Fordham University Archives and Special Collections
Curator: Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock
Exhibition dates: June 6 – July 18, 2014
The Ildiko Butler Gallery
Fordham University at Lincoln Center MAP
113 West 60th Street at Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023
From the Archives: Photographs by William Fox from the Fordham University Archives and Special Collections brings together seventeen contemporary digital prints made from the original negatives housed in the Archives at the Rose Hill campus’ Walsh Family Library. William Fox was a professional photographer who worked for Fordham University on a freelance basis for upwards of twenty years generating photographs that span a range of topics from commencements, to classrooms, and from campus architecture, to student life. The varied images presented in this exhibition were all created between the years of 1940 and 1941.
Fox’s negatives were all made to the exacting standards of the time with a large format, tripod mounted camera and provided an impressive level of fidelity – a task requiring considerable craft. The fact that the negative emulsion has separated, cracked, and deteriorated is not due to their care, as archival standards in archives only developed in the 1980s, but due to the instability of the materials themselves. That we have them at all is a small miracle and testament to the good care provided by those that have worked at the Fordham University Archives and Special Collections over the years.

The images in From the Archives are a small sample selected from thousands of negatives made by William Fox and represent the beginnings of Fordham University’s self-awareness, from a publicity and photographic point of view. His photographs documented the growth of Fordham University over an extended period and gave shape to aspects that the university valued up to and through the tumultuous times of World War two.
It should be emphasized that not all of William Fox’s negatives evidence deterioration. The curatorial choices here intentionally highlight the flaws of the analog process for their mystery and visual beauty, in contrast to our digital age of precision and perfection. Special thanks to Patrice Kane, Head of Archives and Special Collections at Fordham University for her expertise and continued assistance.
Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock, 2014
For more information please contact: apicellahit@fordham.edu

Selections from the Fordham University Charles Francis | Graphic Design Archives ?>

Selections from the Fordham University Charles Francis | Graphic Design Archives

Selections
from the Fordham University
Charles Francis | Graphic Design Archives

The Lipani Gallery
Fordham University at Lincoln Center MAP
113 West 60th Street at Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023
http://lipanigallery.com/

Curators: Curated by Abby Goldstein with Lucy Sutton and Sally Thurer
On view: February 3 through March 28, 2014
Reception: Opening reception: Thursday February 27, 5:30 to 7pm

This exhibition highlights just a small portion of a rich and unique collection that has been acquired by Fordham University Lincoln Center for our Graphic Design Archives. The material spans a period of 100 years, showing the history of the advertising, printing, paper, and typesetting industries. Many items in this collection are limited-edition printed samples of design and typography, books on typography, paper and printing techniques, typographic specimens, and books on printing and design. Charles Francis (1846–1936), who was one of the preeminent American publishers of the twentieth century and considered the “dean of the American printing industry,” began to assemble the collection in the 1880s. Mr. Francis wrote several books on printing and founded the Printers’ League of America in 1906. He dedicated his life to promoting the industry and to teaching publishing, and this extraordinary collection is a testimony to his commitment and zeal. The collection continued to grow under the stewardship of the Allied Printing Union, which was housed in the New York High School of Printing for many years.

The work on display in the Lipani Gallery is a mélange of type and printing examples that illustrates the inventiveness and advancement in the advertising, design, and typesetting industry during the first half of the twentieth century. Highlighted in the exhibition are the inventive and groundbreaking magazines Upper and Lower Case (U&lc) and Westvaco Inspirations.

Upper and Lower Case was created and produced by Herb Lubalin, a highly regarded iconoclastic advertising art director, type designer and publication designer for the International Typeface Corporation (ITC). The “newspaper style” publication was targeted toward the design community. There were over 120 issues produced between 1970 and 1999. The publication promoted the latest typefaces from ITC, which was the first type foundry to exploit new photo typesetting techniques and not use traditional metal foundry type.

Lubalin served as art director to U&lc for 11 years, until his death in 1981. The publication focused on showing experimental typographic compositions and was hugely successful within the design community as it shepherded in a period of new and expressive typography.

Westvaco Inspirations was a graphic-arts publication issued by the Westvaco Corporation, originally called the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. The objective of the magazine was to demonstrate what the printing processes and its papers could produce by utilizing a variety of cutting-edge and traditional printing methods, including letterpress and offset lithography. Originally published in 1925, Westvaco Inspirations was a leading corporate contributor to the graphic-arts profession until its discontinuation in 1962. It remains unsurpassed as an example of promotional graphics, an anthology of advertising and commercial art, and, more importantly, a chronicle of a period of time in American history.

Between 1939 and 1962, Bradbury Thompson designed more than sixty Westvaco Inspirations. Thompson was highly regarded for his design direction, impeccable taste and his ability to blend modernist typographic layouts with classic typefaces and historic illustrations.

*Runaway Train, 1985, was based on an original screenplay by Akira Kurosawa. It is an action thriller staring Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Rebecca De Mornay and John P. Ryan.

Sponsored by the Visual Arts Department, Fordham University Lincoln Center

For more information please contact: Abby Goldstein, Associate Professor of Art, Fordham University, abgoldstein@fordham.edu
Visual Arts Department Blog: click here
Visual Arts Department Website: click here

Gary Metz: Quaking Aspen: A Lyric Complaint ?>

Gary Metz: Quaking Aspen: A Lyric Complaint

Gary Metz: Quaking Aspen: A Lyric Complaint

The Ildiko Butler Gallery
Fordham University at Lincoln Center MAP
113 West 60th Street at Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023
http://ildikobutlergallery.com/

Curators: Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock & Joseph Lawton
Essay: Edward Earle
Dates: January 20, 2014 – March 20, 2014
Reception: Tuesday, January 21, 6 – 8 p.m.
Gallery Talk: Wednesday, January 22, 6PM: Edward Earle, Curator, Collections, International Center of Photography

Fordham University, winter 2014
Rhode Island School of Design, fall 2014
Spéos International Photography School Paris/London, winter 2015
Syracuse University, spring 2015
Southeast Museum of Photography, fall 2015

In the 1970’s, the late photographer and educator Gary Metz generated a significant body of work that was very much in the spirit of the times. Metz’s Quaking Aspen: a Lyric Complaint challenged the first 100 years of landscape photography, which had placed a major emphasis on depicting nature as sublime, heroic, and unspoiled. Unlike previous photographers who glorified nature, Metz and his contemporaries wrenched photography out of the national parks and replaced the scenic with the vernacular of the American landscape.

A number of Metz’s colleagues received wide recognition for their similar investigations culminating in the seminal 1975 exhibition, The New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape at the Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House. Gary Metz never received the same level of acknowledgement. Now, 40 years later, his Quaking Aspen: a Lyric Complaint is as powerful and relevant as ever, resonating with current interest in ecology and the everyday landscape.

Quaking Aspen: a Lyric Complaint is a long overdue exhibition of our former teacher’s photographs. We hope that you enjoy the intelligence, formal rigor, and humor found in each of these images. –Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock & Joseph Lawton, Professors, Fordham University

This exhibition is generously supported by Fordham University Art Collections & funded in part from a Fordham University Faculty Challenge Grant. For more information please contact: apicellahit@fordham.edu

The 21 black & white gelatin silver prints were printed in 2013/2014 by Sergio Purtell and the staff of Black and White on White

Faculty Spotlight 2013 ?>

Faculty Spotlight 2013

Faculty Spotlight 2013

The Ildiko Butler Gallery
Fordham University at Lincoln Center MAP
113 West 60th Street at Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023
http://ildikobutlergallery.com/

Featuring works by:

William Conlon
Sandra McKee
Ross McLaren

The current display of works in Fordham University’s Ildiko Butler Gallery is the 2013 installment of the annual Faculty Spotlight Exhibition. Each year in the fall three members from different disciplines within the Department of Theater and Visual Art are asked to share a sampling of their production with the Fordham community. This year, painting is represented by William Conlon, architecture by Sandra McKee, and film/video by Ross McLaren. Despite the clear differences in their mediums and approaches, their works generate a lively dialogue about interpretations of space and representational methods.

Dates: November 4, 2013 – January 17, 2014
Reception: Wednesday, November 6, 6 – 8 p.m.

WEB:

For more information please contact: apicellahit@fordham.edu

The Ildiko Butler Gallery Opening Exhibition ?>

The Ildiko Butler Gallery Opening Exhibition

Featuring photographs by:
Ildiko Butler
Dylan Chandler
Tiffany Edwards
Joseph Lawton
Curator: Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock
On view: September 23 – October 31, 2013
Reception: Monday, September 23, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
The Ildiko Butler Gallery
Fordham University at Lincoln Center MAP
113 West 60th Street at Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023
http://ildikobutlergallery.com/
Image credits: (left to right, top to bottom) Ildiko Butler, Apt, France, 2013; Joseph Lawton, Calcutta, 1989; Tiffany Edwards, Brandon, 2003; Dylan Chandler, Wan Chai, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong, 2013
The current display of black and white photographs by Ildiko Butler, Dylan Chandler, Tiffany Edwards, and Joseph Lawton is the inaugural exhibition of the Ildiko Butler Gallery at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center Campus. Ildiko Butler (FCLC 1985), Dylan Chandler (FCLC 2004), and Tiffany Edwards (FCLC 2002) are all Fordham alumni and former students of Professor Joseph Lawton. Their work represents a range of years, different photographic styles, and interests; however, despite the differences in their individual focus, each photographer is engaged in the process of carefully studying the world and representing it in a straightforward, descriptive manner. Fidelity to what is framed is of paramount importance.
Ildiko Butler’s digital photographs were made in Apt, France in 2013. Her careful scrutiny of a single site yields a number of meditative, found sculptures and still lifes. As well, her interests in form and attention to light have a connection to romantic photographs by late 19th and early 20th century landscape photographers.
Dylan Chandler’s photographs were made at nighttime in Hong Kong in 2012. His precise focus is on the architecture of a modern city and the repetitions and juxtapositions that are found in dense urban environments. People are conspicuously absent; yet, constantly alluded to.
 
Tiffany Edward’s large format photographs were made in Staten Island, close to where she grew up. Her portraits of individual children are candid and understated. Despite her use of a cumbersome, large format camera on a tripod, the portraits have an immediacy and intimacy.
Joseph Lawton’s 35mm photographs from around the world have a narrative quality and embrace the theatrical found in everyday moments.
Regardless of the photographers’ chosen subjects, all the participants in this exhibition are deeply engaged in the process of looking at what is in front of them. Their images embrace a long tradition in the medium of photography that celebrates the revelatory power of direct representation.
Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock, 2013
For more information please contact: apicellahit@fordham.edu

Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware) ?>

Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware)

Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware)
An exhibition of confiscated art forgeries from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s holdings

Organizers: Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock and Daniel Small

The artists purportedly exhibiting are: James E. Buttersworth, Marc Chagall, Willem de Kooning, Tsuguhara Foujita, Juan Gris, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Maurice Prendergast, Rembrandt van Rijn, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Andy Warhol, and Hale Woodruff

The Center Gallery
Fordham University at Lincoln Center
July 26 – August 9, 2013
Reception: Friday, July 26, 6 – 8 pm
http://fordhamuniversitycentergallery.com

Caveat Emptor brings together a cross section of confiscated art forgeries on loan from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s holdings. The works and time periods represented in the exhibition are disparate and the exhibition’s cohesion is further challenged by the tension between the paintings’ initial renown and their true makers’ anonymity. Although one might recognize a work and be tempted to ascribe the word “art” to the object on the wall, they are in fact knock off products, regardless of skill level, that are intended to deceive collectors, institutions, experts, and history.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has definitively certified each work in the exhibition as a fake. Nevertheless, some contested works have historically occupied a limbo in which the very criteria for determining what is authentic and what is a forgery have been in a constant state of flux. Numerous works have been classified and reclassified, even after the passage of many years. At times it becomes unclear where many disputed works actually fall in the ever-changing continuum. At first inspection, Caveat Emptor presents blue-chip works that could potentially be seen in a group exhibition at any museum, institution, or private collection; yet in truth, one is essentially viewing legal evidence.

Beyond the complexities of forensic evidence that serve to authenticate works, numerous additional issues arise when the competing interests of artists’ estates and legacies intersect with institutional acceptance or denial and countless legal issues. Caveat Emptor will run for two weeks and during the second week the Federal Bureau of Investigation will set up a registration office in the gallery in conjunction with the cyber security conference being held at Fordham University. The forgeries on the walls will serve as the backdrop for their office during the conference.

Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock and Daniel Small, 2013

All works courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Office.
For more information please contact: Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock: apicellahit@fordham.edu
Image caption: The Rembrandt Database, Rembrandt, Self Portrait, dated 1629, Alte Pinakothek, München, inv. no. 11427

All the visible features of an area of countryside or land, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal ?>

All the visible features of an area of countryside or land, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal

All the visible features of an area of countryside or land, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal

Curator: Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock

Including: John Calhoun, Sigrid Jakob, Saul Metnick, Chihiro Nishio, Kota Sake, Daniel Seiple, and Eric van Hove

The Center Gallery
Fordham University at Lincoln Center
June 10 – July 19, 2013
Reception: Monday, June 10, 6 – 8
http://fordhamuniversitycentergallery.com

All the visible features of an area of countryside or land, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal brings together seven artists from Belgium, Germany, Japan, and the United States working in different mediums to explore the idea of what a landscape can potentially be. The lengthy title of this exhibition is simply a dictionary definition of the word “landscape;” however, it hints at the complexity of what a landscape is, particularly in regards to the notion of visibility. The artists in this exhibition continually play with this prerequisite of visibility as stated in the dictionary definition and nowhere is this questioning more evident than in the ephemeral space delineated by a rainbow on the exhibition’s invitation. The American author Rebecca Solnit wrote in her book, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, that “A path is a prior interpretation of the best way to traverse a landscape.” In light of this quotation, this exhibition is a landscape without a path, or perhaps seven different paths of varying natures.

John Calhoun’s monumental time-lapse drawing chronicles a period of 77 days in the studio between 2010 and 2013. Examined at the micro level, the drawings resemble psychological Rorschach tests, yet the numerous smaller elements come together to create a much larger image of a lake in northern Germany. The work simultaneously represents both a description of place, in addition to a description of an unfolding process over time.

One Kilometer by Sigrid Jakob is an ongoing forensic investigation into a peripheral area of fields and forest just outside the village of her birth. This area is a prime example of bucolic southern German countryside, and serves a variety of uses such as agriculture, hunting, and recreation. However, vague childhood memories, rumors, and odd apparitions suggest other time periods and other uses. Over the years, Sigrid Jakob has attempted to piece together the full story of this landscape through research, photography, and interviews with witnesses.

The ten black and white images by Saul Metnick are an excerpt from an ongoing exploration of the transitions, in-betweens, and non-spaces encountered during travels in the Southwest. The body of work examines the rapid and recent growth in Colorado and Nevada, particularly focused on the overwhelmingly utilitarian and non-descript aesthetic of the architecture, the perfunctory engineering, and the often overlooked spaces.

A View, by Chihiro Nishio, consists of a drawing and a video documenting the artist in a studio setting as she repeatedly attempts to trace passing vehicles from a projected video. This ongoing activity has been presented in Japan as site-specific work in progress with the drawings made in pencil directly on the wall; however, in this iteration for Fordham University’s Center Gallery the drawings have been translated into vinyl and applied directly to the gallery’s glass walls and doors. What upon first inspection presents itself as decorative filigree, turns out to be directly related to a rigorous, yet absurd endeavor.

Kota Sake’s Menu, is a 48 page, 7” x 7” book containing an assortment of dishes prepared for him at Kagawa, an establishment located in front of his studio in the neighborhood of Araiyakushi in Tokyo, Japan. Kagawa is a small, local izakaya (a type of Japanese drinking establishment which also serves food), so most customers live in the area and come after work. The food at Kagawa is not particularly fancy Japanese food, nor is it instant, fast food. For Sake, going to Kagawa to eat carefully made foods, drink Sapporo beer, and meet with locals is relaxing and provides a sense of home after a long day.

Daniel Seiple’s collaborative project with woodcarver Gavin Smith, Can’t see the trees for the wood, takes place at Smith’s home in Corgarff, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Guided as much by intuition and instincts as conversation, Seiple walks, drinks, and eats with Smith, then finally clears his barnyard, which is overrun with weeds and littered with large stacks of wood. In order to salvage the boards, they are stacked in the form of a five-ton house inspired by the British Arts & Crafts movement. A tunnel leads to a staircase, which ascends to the roof, from which Smith can overlook his clutter and view the landscape.

Making Sidi Ali Rainbows is a video by Eric van Hove made in Marrakesh in 2011, as well as this exhibition’s invitation image. The artist, standing in an empty pool, repeatedly spits mouthfuls of a popular spring water brand (Sidi Ali) and creates a series of small rainbows. The duration of the event is brief and dictated by the amount of water held by the bottle.

Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock, 2013

Image caption: Making Sidi Ali Rainbows, Eric van Hove, video still, total running time 170 seconds, 2011

Half-Frames: Photographs by J. Joseph Lynch, S.J. ?>

Half-Frames: Photographs by J. Joseph Lynch, S.J.

Half-Frames: Photographs by J. Joseph Lynch, S.J.
Curators: Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock & Anibal Pella-Woo

The Lipani Gallery
Fordham University at Lincoln Center
June 1 – July 31, 2013
Reception: Wednesday, June 5, 6 – 8 PM
http://fordhamuniversitycentergallery.com

Half-Frames brings together twenty-one prints made from the original color transparencies held in the personal archive of J. Joseph Lynch, S.J., a mathematics and seismology professor at Fordham University from 1950 to 1967. He also ran the William Spain Seismological Station at Fordham University’s Rose Hill campus for some 60 years. Through our research at the Fordham University Archive, we were pleased to discover that J. Joseph Lynch, S.J. was an avid photographer, as well as a teacher.
The title Half-Frames refers to the dimensions of the original color transparencies utilized in this exhibition, which are one half the size of a standard 35mm frame. This smaller format was often chosen because it doubled the number of images that one could make from a single roll of 35mm film and was more cost effective. Consequently, it was often used to document topics of a personal nature and was generally utilized in a more casual manner. Our edit from a much larger set of slides made in the 1960s by J. Joseph Lynch, S.J. displays this trend and highlights his spontaneous approach to documenting travels, events, people, and places. Our criteria for image selection stemmed from our mutual enthusiasm for his images, which resonated with contemporary directions in photography from the period such as the snapshot aesthetic and interests in the vernacular within the medium of photography.
We would like to give special thanks to Patrice Kane at the Fordham University archive housed at the Rose Hill campus’ Walsh Family Library for facilitating this exhibition. Her initial suggestion to look at several photographs of icebergs held in the archive started us on a winding investigation that resulted in the exhibit that you now see before you. Although there are no icebergs in this exhibition, the image of the iceberg, with all its hidden potential, is an appropriate metaphor for an archive – what you see at first is only a small part of the picture.
Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock & Anibal Pella-Woo, 2013

For additional information please see the Fordham University Visual Arts Department’s Gallery Website. Alternately, email Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock apicellahit@fordham.edu, or Anibal Pella-Woo pella@fordham.edu