Amy Elkins Blog

It's been a bit hit and miss with blog posts these days. I feel like it's not just me though. Perhaps the blog hysteria hit a breaking point. Perhaps not. Perhaps it's just the beginnings of Summer and people want to be outdoors.

At any rate.. I have some news that I would like to share. As some of you know I had my first solo exhibition at Yancey Richardson back in October of 2008. Being in group shows, being published or having a solo show is a funny thing. It seems that while some shows lead to sales, others lead to little other than an addition on your CV and others lead to the opportunity to show more work down the road.

In my case, Wallflower at Yancey Richardson Gallery landed me in my first museum exhibition in Vienna, Austria due to Austrian curator and collector Peter Weiermair stopping in to see the show. If you take a peek at the list of artists involved you will surely understand my absolute and utter excitement and nervousness to have 5 pieces hanging in such company! I am flying to Europe in several days. I am so excited.. not only to be involved in the show, but to travel to Europe for the first time. I'll be in Zurich, Vienna and Berlin. If you have any tips or recommendations for galleries to visit, places to eat, visit, etc... please do pass it on to me. I'm pretty much going into this blind.

PRESS RELEASE INFO:

The Portrait. Photography as a Stage
From Robert Mapplethorpe to Nan Goldin


© Nan Goldin, Shiobhan in my Mirror, Berlin, 1992

OPENING:KUNSTHALLE wien, hall 2,
July 02nd, 2009 19:00

Press conference: July 2nd at 10am
Private Preview: July 2nd at 5:30pm
Official opening: July 2nd at 7pm
----

I am visible,
I am image.
-Jean Baudrillard

When the history of photography began to unfold with portraiture in the nineteenth
century, one’s own image was cause for astonishment and rapture. Since its discovery,
the photographic medium has satisfied people’s desire for their likeness and largely
replaced the more demanding and costly painting. Considering the new technologies
available today, with which it has become possible to manipulate any image easily,
inexpensively, and quickly and to change and improve the appearance of the human body
as desired, the role of the portrait as a mirror of the subject’s personality and as a medium
of identification has to be aesthetically questioned and recontextualized.

Starting with Robert Mapplethorpe’s formalist studio photography, Peter Hujar’s intimate
psychological pictures, and Nan Goldin’s visual diary, the exhibition explores the
changes of portrait photography since 1980. Searching for beauty, authenticity, and a
personal visual language, artists have since then developed an unconventional art of
portraiture encompassing glamour and mise-en-scène, radical realism, snapshot, irony,
and documentary objectivity. The selected works combine to form a panorama of today’s
image of man, where icons of society appear next to anonymous individuals.

Artists:
Roger Ballen, Tina Barney, Valérie Belin, Dirk Braeckman, Clegg & Guttmann, Andrea
Cometta, Anton Corbijn, Rineke Dijkstra, Amy Elkins, JH Engström, Bernhard Fuchs,
Alberto Garcia-Alix, Luigi Gariglio, Anthony Gayton, Nan Goldin, Greg Gorman, Katy Grannan, Jitka Hanzlová, Peter Hujar, Jean-Baptiste Huynh, Leo Kandl, Barbara Klemm,
Gerhard Klocker, Andreas Mader, Sally Mann, Robert Mapplethorpe, Hellen van Meene,
Judith Joy Ross, Thomas Ruff, Stefano Scheda, Beat Streuli, Wolfgang Tillmans

Curator: Peter Weiermair

Artists present at opening:
Valérie Belin, Andrea Cometta, Amy Elkins, Luigi Gariglio, Anthony Gayton, Greg Gorman, Leo Kandl, Gerhard Klocker, Andreas Mader, Stefano Scheda

More info HERE

AND BY ALL MEANS... if you are in Vienna or nearby COME SEE IT!