TWO QUESTIONS: LA Times and Ricco/Maresca

©Alex Webb, Sunday LA Times, 16 June 13

Barbara Davidson, LA Times: I look at your work and I say to myself, Alex Webb must have an insane amount of patience. Your images are so meticulously layered, rich in color, possess a wonderful visual rhythm, and amazing light. Where does this obsession come from? Can you tell me about the process of creating your images?

Alex Webb: The sculptor Henry Moore, late in life, after a long and successful career, said the following:  “The secret in life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for the rest of your life.  And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do.”  That quote resonates with my sense of the frustrations and difficulties of street photography.  It also reminds me that my father once said — a little jokingly — to Rebecca that if there were a mythical archetype for me it would be Sisyphus, interminably rolling a boulder up a hill.

To read the full Q&A online:

http://framework.latimes.com/reframed/

 

©

North Dakota Museum of Art Curator Laurel Reuter: What did you learn from doing the project?

Rebecca Norris Webb: Looking back at My Dakota, I now realize that I was photographing this dark time in my life in order to try to absorb it, to crystallize it, and, ultimately, to let go of it. Not only did my first grief change me, but making My Dakota changed me as well, both as a human being and as an artist.

To read the full Q&A with Laurel and Rebecca:

http://www.riccomaresca.com/the-geography-of-loss/

UPCOMING EVENTS WITH ALEX WEBB AND REBECCA NORRIS WEBB:

Thursday, June 20, 6-8pm: “My Dakota” opening at Ricco/Maresca Gallery, 529 W. 20th St., 3d Floor, NYC.  Show is up until August 17, 2013.

Friday, June 21, 7-8:30pm: “Together and Apart: The Photographs of Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb,” Aperture Foundation, 547 W. 27th, NYC.  This event is followed by a Q&A led by MCNY curator Sean Corcoran and Aperture editor Denise Wolff and a book signing of the first copies of the 2nd edition of Alex’s “The Suffering of Light” and Rebecca’s “My Dakota.”  This event is free and open to the public

Saturday, June 22, 5-6pm: Gallery talk/walk through of “My Dakota” with Rebecca and Alex, Ricco/Maresca Gallery.  Some of the last copies of signed”My Dakota” book will be available.

RECENT LINKS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA:

ELIZABETH AVEDON BLOG:

http://elizabethavedon.blogspot.com/2013/06/rebecca-norris-webb-my-dakota-opens-in.html

2PARAGRAPHS:

http://2paragraphs.com/2013/05/a-landscape-of-ones-own/

MY DAKOTA @ ND Museum of Art

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Badlands” from “My Dakota” at the North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND, June 5-Aug. 6 and Ricco/Maresca Gallery, NYC, June 20-Aug. 17

North Dakota Museum of Art Curator Laurel Reuter: My Dakota is as much an elegy to a time and place as it is a memorial to your brother. It is unlike any other photo book I have seen about the Dakotas.   

While objects in the forefront seem to ground each photograph, the overall composition often suggests movement stretching far into time and space. The visual parallels the passage of your brother into the beyond just as the prairie itself stretches endlessly toward the far horizon. Is this a conscious theme or am I imagining?

Rebecca Norris Webb:  I think you’ve beautifully captured the sense of tension in the frame, between the near and the far, the tangible and the ethereal, the ground one stands on and the distant horizon, all of which may also suggest the living and the dead.  In the darkest time of grief, one feels suspended between two worlds, sometimes floating, sometimes feeling tugged in two directions at once.

For months after my brother died, it felt as if his loss was carving its own territory, a kind of borderland between memory and the badlands and prairie.

LR: Your photographs layer and dissolve. They soften, bleed, and liquefy. Could this be a conscious or unconscious metaphor for grief itself?

RNW:  An intriguing observation, and one I hadn’t thought about before.   What you’re describing suggests the transformative quality of grief.  This notion is also echoed in some of the text pieces in the book, such as —  “Does the prairie long to be an inland sea again?”

Thinking about grief and transformation also reminds me of a conversation poet Marie Howe had with another poet, Stanley Kunitz, in the months following her younger brother’s death. “I feel something has me in its mouth and is chewing me,” said Howe. “Yes, and you must wait and see who you’ll be when it’s done with you,” replied Kunitz.

To read the rest of “The Geography of Loss” conversation with NDMOA curator Laurel Reuter and Rebecca: http://www.riccomaresca.com/the-geography-of-loss/

©Alex Webb, “Rebecca installing her handwritten text pieces on the walls of her ‘My Dakota” exhibition at the North Dakota Museum of Art.

REPORTAGE FESTIVAL SCHOLARSHIP

@Alex Webb,, from “Violet Isle: Two Visions of Cuba” (with Rebecca Norris Webb), an exhibition at the 10×8 Gallery in Sydney, May 15-June 1, 2013

A Scholarship is now available for the FIND YOUR VISION workshop in Sydney during the Reportage Festival midMay, thanks to the generous support of the Sydney Morning Herald.  DEADLINE: APRIL 21, 2013——Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb

http://reportage.com.au/2013/04/reportage-sydney-morning-herald-scholarship-for-the-alex-webb-and-rebecca-norris-webb-workshop-now-open-for-submission/

LINK TO REBECCA’S PHOTO IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, APRIL 2013:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/visions-of-earth/visions-earth-2013

LINK TO ALEX’S PHOTO ESSAY IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, APRIL 2013:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/mahogany/webb-photography

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Violet Isle” (with Alex Webb), exhibition at the Nordic Light Festival, Kristiansund, Norway, April 23-7

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS:

——”VIOLET ISLE: TWO VISIONS OF CUBA,” Nordic Light Festival, Kristiansund, Norway, April 23-27, 2013.

http://nle.no/

——”VIOLET ISLE: TWO VISIONS OF CUBA,” Reportage Festival, Sydney, Australia, 10×8 Gallery, May 15-June 1, 2013.

http://reportage.com.au/2013/04/alex-webb-and-rebecca-norris-webb-violet-isle-two-visions-of-cuba/

——”MY DAKOTA” & “VIOLET ISLE” at the North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND, June 4-Aug. 2, 2013:

http://www.ndmoa.org/exhibitions-upcoming

——”MY DAKOTA”, Ricco/Maresca Gallery, NYC, June 20th-Aug. 17, 2013; Exhibition Opening and Gallery Talk on Thursday, June 20th, Aperture lecture (with Alex Webb) on Friday, June 21, 7-8:30pm:

http://www.riccomaresca.com/

WORKSHOP NEWS:

——WEEKEND WORKSHOP @ APERTURE, NYC, Friday evening, June 21, 2013, thru Sunday afternoon, June 23, 2013, Aperture, 547 W. 27^th St., 4^th floor, NYC, DISCOUNTS FOR CURRENTLY ENROLLED PHOTOGRAPHY STUDENTS & APERTURE PATRONS

Do you know where you’re going next with your photography –– or where it’s taking you?  This intensive weekend workshop will help photographers begin to understand their own distinct way of seeing the world.  It will also help photographers figure out their next step photographically  –– from deepening their own unique vision to the process of discovering and making a long-term project that they’re passionate about, as well as the process of how long-term projects evolve into books and exhibitions. A workshop for serious amateurs and professionals alike, it will taught by Alex and Rebecca, a creative team who often edit projects and books together –– including their joint book and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, exhibition, Violet Isle: A Duet of Photographs from Cuba, Alex’s recent Aperture book, The Suffering of Light, and Rebecca’s new third book, My Dakota, which will be exhibited this summer at Ricco/Maresca Gallery, in New York City (June 20-Aug. 17), and the North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND (June 5-Aug. 6).

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAXO31_3&VBID=2K1HZONTRD3Y5&IID=2K1HRG77UIXR&PN=4

——NEW WORKSHOP ADDED: “Finding Your Vision @ NDMOA: Weekend Workshop with Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, from June 7-9pm, in Grand Forks, ND.  Tuition-free DAVID HAL NORRIS SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE for the NDMOA Weekend Workshop for currently enrolled North Dakota high school, university, and reservation students. (Includes Moorhead students and other regional schools with reciprocity with ND).  For more information:

http://www.ndmoa.com/Programs/Workshop/Photography.html

——Tuition-free workshop scholarship available for Alex and Rebecca’s week-long FIND YOUR VISION May workshop @ the Reportage Photography Festival in Sydney.  Application details above.

——The May “Finding Your Vision” Workshop @ Caption Gallery is now full.  To be placed on the wait list, please email Alex and Rebecca at the following email:  webbnorriswebb@gmail.com

RECENT LINKS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA:

——”Badlands” from “My Dakota” featured in the March 3 Sunday LA Times “Arts and Books” section with a Q&A with Barbara Davidson and Andy Adams about “Looking at the Land.”  Link here:

http://www.riccomaresca.com/portfolio/rebecca-norris-webb-los-angeles-times/

——”My Dakota” mentioned in recent interview with Radius’ David Chickey with Miss Rosen on Le Journal de la Photographie:

http://lejournaldelaphotographie.com/archives/by_date/2013-02-28/10443/david-chickey-at-radius-books

TWO LOOKS: National Geographic

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Ghost Mountain,” from My Dakota, in the “Visions of Earth” column in the April 2013 issue of National Geographic Magazine.

Please join me in congratulating Rebecca on her first photograph in the April issue of National Geographic.  Appropriately it’s from her book “My Dakota,” and, coincidentally, it just happens to be my favorite photograph in the book.  And how nice our work happens to be in the same issue. —Alex Webb

LINK TO REBECCA’S PHOTO IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, APRIL 2013:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/visions-of-earth/visions-earth-2013

LINK TO ALEX’S PHOTO ESSAY IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, APRIL 2013:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/mahogany/webb-photography

UPCOMING FREE PUBLIC EVENT

——Friday, March 22, 2013, 6-7:30pm, Tipton Hall, 1600 St. Michael’s Drive, Campus of the Santa Fe University for Art and Design, Santa Fe, NM: “Together & Apart: The Photographs of Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb,” followed by a Q&A led by Radius Books creative director David Chickey, who has designed the last four books of Alex and Rebecca.  For more information:

http://radiusbooks.org/6647/together-and-apart-the-photographs-of-alex-webb-and-rebecca-norris-webb/

WORKSHOP NEWS:

——WEEKEND WORKSHOP @ APERTURE, NYC, Friday evening, June 21, 2013, thru Sunday afternoon, June 23, 2013, Aperture, 547 W. 27^th St., 4^th floor, NYC, DISCOUNTS FOR CURRENTLY ENROLLED PHOTOGRAPHY STUDENTS & APERTURE PATRONS

Do you know where you’re going next with your photography –– or where it’s taking you?  This intensive weekend workshop will help photographers begin to understand their own distinct way of seeing the world.  It will also help photographers figure out their next step photographically  –– from deepening their own unique vision to the process of discovering and making a long-term project that they’re passionate about, as well as the process of how long-term projects evolve into books and exhibitions. A workshop for serious amateurs and professionals alike, it will taught by Alex and Rebecca, a creative team who often edit projects and books together –– including their joint book and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, exhibition, Violet Isle: A Duet of Photographs from Cuba, Alex’s recent Aperture book, The Suffering of Light, and Rebecca’s new third book, My Dakota, which will be exhibited this summer at Ricco/Maresca Gallery, in New York City (June 20-Aug. 17), and the North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND (June 5-Aug. 6).

For more information: http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAXO31_3&VBID=2K1HZONTRD3Y5&IID=2K1HRG77UIXR&PN=4

——NEW WORKSHOP ADDED: “Finding Your Vision @ NDMOA: Weekend Workshop with Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, from June 7-9pm, in Grand Forks, ND.  Tuition-free DAVID HAL NORRIS SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE for the NDMOA Weekend Workshop for currently enrolled North Dakota high school, university, and reservation students. (Includes Moorhead students and other regional schools with reciprocity with ND).  For more information:

http://www.ndmoa.com/Programs/Workshop/Photography.html

——Tuition-free workshop scholarship available for Alex and Rebecca’s week-long May workshop @ the Reportage Photography Festival in Sydney.  Details here: http://smh.fairfaxbenefits.com.au/offers/finding-your-vision-photographic-masterclass

——The May “Finding Your Vision” Workshop @ Caption Gallery is now full.  To be placed on the wait list, please email Alex and Rebecca at the following email:  webbnorriswebb@gmail.com

RECENT LINKS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA:

——”Badlands” from “My Dakota” featured in the March 3 Sunday LA Times “Arts and Books” section with a Q&A with Barbara Davidson and Andy Adams about “Looking at the Land.”  Link here:

http://www.riccomaresca.com/portfolio/rebecca-norris-webb-los-angeles-times/

——”My Dakota” mentioned in recent interview with Radius’ David Chickey with Miss Rosen on Le Journal de la Photographie:

http://lejournaldelaphotographie.com/archives/by_date/2013-02-28/10443/david-chickey-at-radius-books

Weekend Workshop @ Aperture, NYC

©Alex Webb, from “The Suffering of Light” (Aperture, second edition, spring 2013)

WEEKEND WORKSHOP @ APERTURE

With Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb

Friday evening, June 21, 2013, thru Sunday afternoon, June 23, 2013

Aperture, 547 W. 27^th St., 4^th floor, NYC

DISCOUNTS FOR CURRENTLY ENROLLED PHOTOGRAPHY STUDENTS & APERTURE PATRONS

Do you know where you’re going next with your photography –– or where it’s taking you?  This intensive weekend workshop will help photographers begin to understand their own distinct way of seeing the world.  It will also help photographers figure out their next step photographically  –– from deepening their own unique vision to the process of discovering and making a long-term project that they’re passionate about, as well as the process of how long-term projects evolve into books and exhibitions. A workshop for serious amateurs and professionals alike, it will taught by Alex and Rebecca, a creative team who often edit projects and books together –– including their joint book and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, exhibition, Violet Isle: A Duet of Photographs from Cuba, Alex’s recent Aperture book, The Suffering of Light, and Rebecca’s new third book, My Dakota, which will be exhibited this summer at Ricco/Maresca Gallery, in New York City (June 20-Aug. 17), and the North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND (June 5-Aug. 6).

For more information: http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAXO31_3&VBID=2K1HZONTRD3Y5&IID=2K1HRG77UIXR&PN=4

UPCOMING FREE PUBLIC EVENT

——Friday, March 22, 2013, 6-7:30pm, Tipton Hall, 1600 St. Michael’s Drive, Campus of the Santa Fe University for Art and Design, Santa Fe, NM: “Together & Apart: The Photographs of Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb,” followed by a Q&A led by Radius Books creative director David Chickey, who has designed the last four books of Alex and Rebecca.  For more information

OTHER UPCOMING WORKSHOP NEWS:

——NEW WORKSHOP ADDED: “Finding Your Vision @ NDMOA: Weekend Workshop with Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, from June 7-9pm, in Grand Forks, ND.  Tuition-free DAVID HAL NORRIS SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE for the NDMOA Weekend Workshop for currently enrolled North Dakota high school, university, and reservation students. (Includes Moorhead students and other regional schools with reciprocity with ND).  For more information:

http://www.ndmoa.com/Programs/Workshop/Photography.html

——Tuition-free workshop scholarship available for Alex and Rebecca’s week-long May workshop @ the Reportage Photography Festival in Sydney.  Details here: http://smh.fairfaxbenefits.com.au/offers/finding-your-vision-photographic-masterclass

——The May “Finding Your Vision” Workshop @ Caption Gallery is now full.  To be placed on the wait list, please email Alex and Rebecca at the following email:  webbnorriswebb@gmail.com

RECENT LINKS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA:

——”Badlands” from “My Dakota” featured in the March 3 Sunday LA Times “Arts and Books” section.  Link here:

http://www.riccomaresca.com/portfolio/rebecca-norris-webb-los-angeles-times/

——”My Dakota” mentioned in recent interview with Radius’ David Chickey with Miss Rosen on Le Journal de la Photographie:

http://lejournaldelaphotographie.com/archives/by_date/2013-02-28/10443/david-chickey-at-radius-books

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Badlands” from “My Dakota” featured in the Sunday LA Times, March 3, “Arts & Books” section.

My Dakota: LA Times and High Country News

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Pronghorn,” from “My Dakota” featured in High Country News

Congratulations to Rebecca whose “My Dakota” work has been featured this week both in the award-winning environmental magazine, High Country News, and the LA Times Framework column, the latter as part of the group exhibition, “Looking at the Land,” curated by Flak’s Andy Adams. —Alex Webb

Excerpt from the HCN Q&A with Rebecca:

HCN: Lots of folks dismiss South Dakota as flyover country. Why does its landscape hold such a draw for you? And why is it important to share that with others?

Norris Webb: I’m thankful many people think of South Dakota as a flyover state!

Last year, when I drove north from Denver to the Black Hills, I was startled by how congested the I-25 corridor had become in just the past few years.  It was a relief to hit the Wyoming landscape, with its rich, familiar emptiness.

It’s hard to explain, but I don’t feel like myself unless I’m in the badlands, prairies, Black Hills or Missouri River valley of my home state.

TWO UPCOMING NEW YORK CITY WORKSHOPS:  

——FINDING YOUR VISION @ THE CAPTION GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY, Saturday, May 4 to Friday May 10, 2013 (ONE SPACE LEFT)

——WEEKEND WORKSHOP @ APERTURE IN JUNE, Friday, June 21-23, 2013, Aperture Foundation

PLEASE NOTE OUR NEW WEBSITE ADDRESS: 

http://www.webbnorriswebb.co/

http://www.webbnorriswebb.co/

RADIUS SCHOLARSHIP: Judges Announced

©Alex Webb, “Havana, 2013″

Judges have just been announced for the RADIUS BOOK SCHOLARSHIPS : James Estrin from the The New York Times Lens Blog,  Stacey D. Clarkson from Harper’s Magazine, photographer David Taylor, University of Arizona faculty and 2008 Guggenheim Fellow, and the Editors of Radius Books.  These tuition-free scholarships will be awarded to photographers who are 27 years old or younger to attend the BOOK WEEKEND @ RADIUS WORKSHOP in Santa Fe in March.  

DEADLINE FOR THE SCHOLARSHIP IS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22.  For more information about the scholarship and the upcoming workshop (only a few space left), please read about the workshop and scholarship below.—Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb

PLEASE NOTE OUR WEBSITE HAS CHANGED:  http://www.webbnorriswebb.co/

ALEX FEATURED ON THE NEW YORK TIMES LENS BLOG

FLAK Q&A ON THE MAKING OF “MY DAKOTA” WITH RADIUS BOOKS EDITORS 

©Rebecca Norris Webb, from “Violet Isle” (with Alex Webb)

BOOK WEEKEND@RADIUS: Alex Webb, Rebecca Norris Webb, & David Chickey

Friday evening, March 22, 2013 thru Sunday afternoon, March 24, 2013, Radius Books offices, 227 Place Ave., Suite W., Santa Fe, NM

——28 JANUARY UPDATE: ONLY A FEW PLACES LEFT IN THE WORKSHOP: PLEASE CONTACT THE WEBBS TO RESERVE A SPACE. SEE DETAILS BELOW.

This intensive weekend bookmaking workshop is open to anyone who is passionate about a photography project that he or she has been working on –– from serious amateurs to seasoned professionals, from documentary photographers to art photographers, from those photographing a theme, a place, or an issue to those working on a more personal series of photographs of family or friends. This workshop will help each participant learn how to take his or her project to the next level.

The workshop will be taught by Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, a creative team who’ve edited seven books together — including Rebecca’s My Dakota, Alex’s The Suffering of Light, and their joint books Violet Isle and the upcoming Memory City —and by noted designer David Chickey, Radius’s publisher and creative director who has designed photo books for more than 20 publishers and museums over the last 15 years.

Through an individual assignment tailored for each participant, presentations, discussions, and an editing exercise, the Webbs and Chickey will explore with you a variety of book-related topics over this intensive weekend, including such issues as how to discover the heart of your photography project, how to edit and sequence a photo book intuitively, how to figure out what’s left to photograph for your project, how to choose a writer, title and cover image, how to work with a designer, what to expect when you go on press, and how prints in a book differ from prints on a wall.

To apply: photographers must submit 10 small jpgs (72 dpi, 8 inches on longest side) or a link to your project online, and a short statement about the project (no more than 250 words), as a word doc to the Webbs: webbnorriswebb@gmail.com Former Webb Workshop participants are invited to apply without submitting a formal application if Alex and Rebecca are familiar with your project. IF YOU ARE 27 OR YOUNGER AND WISH TO APPLY FOR A TUITION-FREE RADIUS BOOKS SCHOLARSHIP, PLEASE NOTE THIS IN YOUR APPLICATION, AND INCLUDE A SHORT BIO AND TWO NAMES AND EMAILS OF PEOPLE FAMILIAR WITH YOUR WORK (SUCH AS PROFESSORS OR EDITORS) THAT THE JUDGES MAY WANT TO CONTACT.

For more information about the workshop, please contact Alex and Rebecca: webbnorriswebb@gmail.com, or visit the Magnum website.

OTHER UPCOMING 2013 WORKSHOPS WITH ALEX AND REBECCA

——MAY 4-10, 2013: FINDING YOUR VISON @ CAPTION GALLERY, NY.  APPLICATIONS FOR THIS WORKSHOP OPEN ON JANUARY 22, 2013.  For more information about this workshop, visit Alex and Rebecca’s workshop page on their website:  http://www.webbnorriswebb.co/

 

 EXHIBITIONS

——FEB. 2.,  7-10PM, ATLANTA, 112 KROG ST. NE at Atlanta’s Stoveworks Complex, “SOAR,” a group show featuring the work of Rebecca Norris Webb, Jason Houston, and others.  After Feb. 2, the show will hang in the Jennifer Schwartz Gallery space until the end of February.  More information here.

——DEC. 14, 2012 – MAY 4, 2013, Salt Lake, Utah, Brigham Young University of Art, “The Suffering of Light: 30 Years of Photographs,“ Alex Webb’s solo traveling exhibition organized by the Aperture Foundation, NYC.

——NOV. 8 2012-JAN. 27, 2012, LONDON, “CARTIER-BRESSON: A QUESTION OF COLOR,” group exhibition with Alex Webb, Trent Parke, Joel Meyerwitz, Harry Gruyaert, Helen Levitt, Saul Leiter and others, an exhibition curated by William Ewing.

LINKS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA:

“MY DAKOTA” ONE OF TIME’S BEST PHOTO BOOKS OF 2012.

 

LINK TO THE NEW YORK TIMES LENS BLOG Q&A WITH REBECCA ABOUT “MY DAKOTA”

LINK TO NOTES ON “THE SUFFERING OF LIGHT’ BY ALEX WEBB ON TIME LIGHTBOX.

LINK TO “MY DAKOTA” ON TIME LIGHTBOX.

LINK TO ALEX’S EAST LONDON PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE AUGUST 2012 ISSUE OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.

TO READ THE  FRACTION MAGAZINE REVIEW of MY DAKOTA CLICK HERE.

“LOOKING AT THE LAND” IN AMERICAN PHOTO MAGAZINE.

MY DAKOTA: Time’s Best of 2012

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Fallen Apples,” from “My Dakota,” one of Time’s Best of 2012

“Grieving after her brother’s death, Norris Webb goes on a quest, returning to South Dakota, where she grew up…She probes symbols of time passing: apples fallen in the dirt, weathered paint on the wall of a motel, a field of sunflowers dried and browned in the autumn. The images are personal but never obscure. Norris Webb’s spare, poetic text speaks to anyone who has experienced the puzzlement and struggle that comes with loss.” 

—Holly Stuart Hughes, editor, Photo District News, from “Time’s Best of 2012: The Photobooks We Loved.”

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Weather-Bitten Motel,” from “My Dakota”

 

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Blackbirds” from “My Dakota” featured in the Jan./Feb. 2013 issue of Orion Magazine

LINK TO “MY DAKOTA” ON PHOTO-EYE’S BEST BOOKS OF 2012.

LINK TO “MY DAKOTA” AS A PDN NOTABLE BOOK OF 2012

PLEASE NOTE OUR WEBSITE HAS CHANGED:  http://www.webbnorriswebb.co/

EXHIBITIONS

——DEC. 14, 2012 – MAY 4, 2013, Salt Lake, Utah, Brigham Young University of Art, “The Suffering of Light: 30 Years of Photographs,” Alex Webb’s solo traveling exhibition organized by the Aperture Foundation, NYC.

——NOV. 8 2012-JAN. 27, 2012, LONDON, “CARTIER-BRESSON: A QUESTION OF COLOR,” group exhibition with Alex Webb, Trent Parke, Joel Meyerwitz, Harry Gruyaert, Helen Levitt, Saul Leiter and others, an exhibition curated by William Ewing.

——SEPT.21, 2012 – JANUARY 13, 2012, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, “Looking at the Land: 21st Century American Views,” A Collaboration with Flak Photo and RISD Museum of Art, group projection and online exhibition, curated by Andy Adams, with photographs by Rebecca Norris Webb, Brian Ulrich, Todd Hido, Joshua Dudley Greer, Christine Carr, and others.

——DEC. 15, 2012-JAN. 6, 2013, PALAZZO DE LEVA, MODICA, SICILY, “Contatti, Provini D’Autore,” a group exhibition on contact sheets and prints with Rebecca Norris Webb, Mark Steinmetz, Larry Fink, and others, curated by Giammaria De Gasperis and Paola Contino.

©Rebecca Norris Webb, Contact sheet for “Blackbirds,” in the book, “My Dakota” (Radius Books, May 2012). Part of “Contatti” book by Postcart editions and current exhibition in Sicily through Jan. 6, 2013

UPCOMING 2012/13 WORKSHOPS WITH ALEX AND REBECCA

——JANUARY 12-19, 2013, STREETS OF HAVANA 2013 with Nordic Light, Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb workshop. For more information, including how to apply, click here

——MARCH 22-24, 2013: BOOK WEEKEND @ RADIUS BOOKS with Alex, Rebecca and David Chickey (Radius creative director and award winning designer). For more information, please email Rebecca: rebeccanorriswebb@yahoo.com

 RECENT LINKS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA:

LINK TO THE NEW YORK TIMES LENS BLOG Q&A WITH REBECCA ABOUT “MY DAKOTA”

LINK TO NOTES ON “THE SUFFERING OF LIGHT’ BY ALEX WEBB ON TIME LIGHTBOX.

LINK TO “MY DAKOTA” ON TIME LIGHTBOX.

LINK TO ALEX’S EAST LONDON PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE AUGUST 2012 ISSUE OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.

TO READ THE  FRACTION MAGAZINE REVIEW of MY DAKOTA CLICK HERE.

“LOOKING AT THE LAND” IN AMERICAN PHOTO MAGAZINE.

My Dakota: Photo-Eye’s Best Books 2012

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Hot Springs,” from “My Dakota”

Congratulations to “My Dakota” for being one of Photo-Eye’s BEST BOOKS OF 2012.–Alex Webb

“A year after photographer and writer Rebecca Norris Webb began a personal project photographing the vast landscape in her home state, South Dakota, her brother died suddenly of heart failure. A friend suggested she channel her grief into the project and transform it into an elegy for her lost sibling. The photographs and text she wrote are collected in this poetic and highly personal book that is at once peaceful and unsettling.”——PDN Editors, from Photo-Eye BEST BOOKS OF 2012

LINK TO “MY DAKOTA” ON PHOTO-EYE.

PLEASE NOTE OUR WEBSITE HAS CHANGED:  http://www.webbnorriswebb.co/

EXHIBITIONS

——DEC. 14, 2012 – MAY 4, 2013, Salt Lake, Utah, Brigham Young University of Art, “The Suffering of Light: 30 Years of Photographs,” Alex Webb’s solo traveling exhibition organized by the Aperture Foundation, NYC.

——NOV. 8 2012-JAN. 27, 2012, LONDON, “CARTIER-BRESSON: A QUESTION OF COLOR,” group exhibition with Alex Webb, Trent Parke, Joel Meyerwitz, Harry Gruyaert, Helen Levitt, Saul Leiter and others, an exhibition curated by William Ewing.

——SEPT.21, 2012 – JANUARY 13, 2012, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, “Looking at the Land: 21st Century American Views,” A Collaboration with Flak Photo and RISD Museum of Art, group projection and online exhibition, curated by Andy Adams, with photographs by Rebecca Norris Webb, Brian Ulrich, Todd Hido, Joshua Dudley Greer, Christine Carr, and others.

——DEC. 15, 2012-JAN. 6, 2013, PALAZZO DE LEVA, MODICA, SICILY, “Contatti, Provini D’Autore,” a group exhibition on contact sheets and prints with Rebecca Norris Webb, Mark Steinmetz, Larry Fink, and others, curated by Giammaria De Gasperis and Paola Contino.

©Rebecca Norris Webb, Contact sheet for “Blackbirds,” in the book, “My Dakota” (Radius Books, May 2012). Part of “Contatti” book by Postcart editions and current exhibition in Sicily through Jan. 6, 2013

UPCOMING 2012/13 WORKSHOPS WITH ALEX AND REBECCA

——JANUARY 12-19, 2013, STREETS OF HAVANA 2013 with Nordic Light, Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb workshop. For more information, including how to apply, click here

 RECENT LINKS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA:

LINK TO THE NEW YORK TIMES LENS BLOG Q&A WITH REBECCA ABOUT “MY DAKOTA”

LINK TO NOTES ON “THE SUFFERING OF LIGHT’ BY ALEX WEBB ON TIME LIGHTBOX.

LINK TO “MY DAKOTA” ON TIME LIGHTBOX.

LINK TO ALEX’S EAST LONDON PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE AUGUST 2012 ISSUE OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.

TO READ THE  FRACTION MAGAZINE REVIEW of MY DAKOTA CLICK HERE.

“LOOKING AT THE LAND” IN AMERICAN PHOTO MAGAZINE.

@Alex Webb,, from “Violet Isle” (with Rebecca Norris Webb); upcoming Streets of Havana Workshop in January 2012 with Nordic Light

In Conversation: Darius Himes, David Chickey, Rebecca

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Homestead Blizzard” from “My Dakota”

Darius Himes: Living on the Great Plains involves a great deal of driving to do, well, basically anything. You’ve mentioned that you think of this as a “road-trip” book, a genre that has a long and storied history in photography. Tell us about how this book fits into that tradition.

Rebecca Norris Webb: Well, to begin with, this project began with a road trip in 2005: Alex and I drove from our Brooklyn neighborhood to my hometown in Hot Springs, South Dakota, a journey of some 1700 miles, in our old Saab, which we’d bartered photographic prints for earlier that year. Alex then flew back East, and I had a summer to explore my home state photographically. I’ve learned over the years to follow wherever a project may lead me, so I don’t think I consciously thought that My Dakota would necessarily become a road-trip book like The Americans, although photographing in the West brought to mind some of my favorite Frank photographs, such as “Butte, Montana, 1956,” which he photographed through the sheer curtains of his hotel room’s window.

I’ve always marveled at how Frank managed to capture not only the feel of this Montana mining town’s drab downtown, but also a sense of something else more complicated and difficult to pin down (Melancholy? Irony? Reverie? A mix of all three?), something that suggests a kind of complex interiority of the poetic Swiss-born Frank as he gazed out from his hotel room at the bleak reality of what the once legendary American West had become by the mid 1950’s. It’s a view that shouldn’t “merit a second glance,” according to the cultural critic Geoff Dyer, yet “it demands that we return to it again and again.” For me, that’s usually a clue that I’m looking at a truly poetic image.

LINK TO READ THE COMPLETE FLAK Q&A WITH DAVID CHICKEY, DARIUS HIMES, AND REBECCA.

©Robert Frank, “Butte, Montana, 1956″ from “The Americans

TALKS, LECTURES, EVENTS

——FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2012. Miami. Small, intimate print viewing with Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb for former and new collectors.  Contact Alex directly for more information as soon as possible, because space is limited: alexwebbworks@gmail.com

——SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2012, 7-8:30pm MIAMI, “An Evening with Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb @ Miami Street Photography Workshop during Art/Miami, Kike San Martin Studio. 2045 NW 1st Ave.  Free but seating is limited.

EXHIBITIONS

——NOV. 8 2012-JAN. 27, 2012, LONDON, “CARTIER-BRESSON: A QUESTION OF COLOR,” group exhibition with Alex Webb, Trent Parke, Joel Meyerwitz, Harry Gruyaert, Helen Levitt, Saul Leiter and others, an exhibition curated by William Ewing.

——SEPT.21, 2012 – JANUARY 13, 2012, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, “Looking at the Land: 21st Century American Views,” A Collaboration with Flak Photo and RISD Museum of Art, group projection and online exhibition, curated by Andy Adams, with photographs by Rebecca Norris Webb, Brian Ulrich, Todd Hido, Joshua Dudley Greer, Christine Carr, and others.

UPCOMING 2012/13 WORKSHOPS WITH ALEX AND REBECCA

——JANUARY 12-19, 2013, STREETS OF HAVANA 2013 with Nordic Light, Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb workshop. For more information, including how to apply, click here

 RECENT LINKS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA:

LINK TO THE NEW YORK TIMES LENS BLOG Q&A WITH REBECCA ABOUT “MY DAKOTA”

LINK TO NOTES ON “THE SUFFERING OF LIGHT’ BY ALEX WEBB ON TIME LIGHTBOX.

LINK TO “MY DAKOTA” ON TIME LIGHTBOX.

LINK TO ALEX’S EAST LONDON PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE AUGUST 2012 ISSUE OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.

TO READ THE  FRACTION MAGAZINE REVIEW of MY DAKOTA CLICK HERE.

“LOOKING AT THE LAND” IN AMERICAN PHOTO MAGAZINE.

@Alex Webb,, from “Violet Isle” (with Rebecca Norris Webb); upcoming Streets of Havana Workshop in January 2012 with Nordic Light