LAST CHANCE: Four Exhibitions

Alex Webb, Sancti Spiritus, Cuba, 1993, from MFA, Boston, exhibition, "Violet Isle" (with Rebecca Norris Webb) and Aperture's "The Suffering of Light" exhibition

––Alex Webb, “The Suffering of Light,” @ Aperture, New York, through January 19, 2012

––Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, “Violet Isle: A Photographic Portrait of Cuba,” @ MFA, Boston, through Jan. 16, 2012

––Alex Webb, “The Suffering of Light,” @  Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto, through Jan. 14, 2012

––Rebecca Norris Webb and other artists, “Winged Shadows: Life Among Birds,” NDMOA, Grand Forks, ND, through Jan. 15, 2012

NEW REVIEWS/ARTICLES

—“On Marrying a Photographer,” on Alec Soth’s blog, Little Brown Mushroom, with comments by several photographers and others, including Martin Parr, Alec Soth, Rachel Cartee Soth, Greta Pratt, Zoe Strauss, Alex Webb, and Rebecca Norris Webb.

–“The Suffering of Light” exhibition @ Aperture reviewed in the Village Voice.

–“The Suffering of Light” exhibition reviewed on DLK blog.

––”As Far As an Outsider Can Go,” in the New York Photo Review.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS WITH ALEX AND REBECCA

“Teaching taught me how little I knew and it forced me to think.  I had to teach to get an education.” –––Harry Callahan, from “Harry Callahan @ 100” at the National Gallery of Art

– PHOTOGRAPHY MASTERCLASS @ THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SINGAPORE, Friday evening, March 9, 2012, thru Saturday, March 11, 2012.  An intensive weekend workshop with the Webbs and Radius Books creative director and noted book designer, David Chickey, with an emphasis on the process of intuitive editing and bookmaking, following the process of how long-term projects can develop into books and exhibitions . APPLICATIONS ARE NOW OPEN. TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS WORKSHOP, VISIT THE MAGNUM WEBSITE.  Or, for those on Facebook, please visit the PHOTOGRAPHIC MASTERCLASS AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SINGAGPORE page. The National Museum of Singapore is a venue partner of the Photography Masterclass.

–WEEKEND WORKSHOP @ APERTURE, NY, Friday evening, March 23, thru Sat., March 25, 2012. Do you know where you’re going next with your photography –– or where it’s taking you?   An intensive weekend workshop with Alex and Rebecca. Check the Aperture  blog for workshop details, such as fee, how to make payment, etc.  Before the Aperture site is live to take workshop applications and  fees online — WHICH WILL HAPPEN EARLY FEBRUARY — you can reserve a space by emailing Anne Lewis of Aperture –– alewis@aperture.org   There is a discount for students and Aperture patrons.

––WEEKEND WORKSHOP IN MILANO @ FORMA; Friday evening, May 4, thru Sunday, May 6th, 2012.  An intensive weekend workshop @ Forma with the Webbs during Alex’s upcoming spring exhibition there, “The Suffering of Light.” Included in the workshop will be a gallery talk by Alex as well as a copy of Alex’s recent survey book of 30 years of his color photographs, “La Sofferenza della Luce,” (Contrasto).  The workshop will be taught in English with Italian translation.  For more information here’s the link.

–FINDING YOUR VISION WORKSHOP @ CAPTION GALLERY, BROOKLYN, NY.  Sunday May 20 thru Friday May 25, 2012.* A week-long photographing and editing workshop where each photographers begins to explore his or her own way of photographing and how to edit intuitively.  Will include exercises, light room tutorials, and a presentation by a noted book editor. APPLICATIONS ARE NOW OPEN.  Early acceptance notification will start on February 29, 2012.  Check the workshop page of the webbnorriswebb website for fees, application process and further details.

*If there is enough interest, we will explore offering a second session of the Finding Your Vision Workshop @ Caption Gallery the week before —  Sunday May 13 thru Friday May 18, 2012.

Rebecca Norris Webb, Havana, 2008, from "Violet Isle" (with Alex Webb) at the MFA, Boston, and "Winged Shadows," at NDMOA, Grand Forks, N.D.

THREE VIEWS: The Suffering of Light

Alex Webb, Tenosique, Mexico, 2007, from "The Suffering of Light"

from THE NEW YORKER, January 9, 2012

ALEX WEBB

A survey of Webb’s color photographs from the past thirty years shows him to be remarkably consistent but never formulaic. His subjects—found throughout the Caribbean, Central America, Africa, and elsewhere—are landscapes with people scattered across the frame in arrangements so arresting and invigorating it’s hard to believe that Webb didn’t stage them. As with Cartier-Bresson, Webb’s decisive moment is often a surprising one, typically a frieze of figures in a setting divided by areas of color, pattern, shadow, and brilliant sunlight. A few pictures are brief narratives (in one, an arc of mourners shelter a dead man in Mexico), but many more are free-form poems. Through Jan. 19. (Aperture, 547 W. 27th St. 212-505-5555.)

LINK

from THE AMSTERDAM NEWS:

Webb believes in the inherent visual intelligence of the viewer. His images are stunningly complicated, using not just color but depth to give us more than a flat photograph ; they are three-dimensional landscapes. His frames are rarely static, often zig-zagging from left to right and back again, from person to object to animal.–Damaso Reyes

LINK TO THE FULL REVIEW.

from photographer TIM CONNOR’S blog:

These may be the most compositionally complex photographs around that don’t depend on photoshop for their effects. In a way, looking at Webb’s pictures is like watching an old-fashioned magic show. What transforms sleight-of-hand into magic is the ineluctable reality of the hands, sleeves and coins that we try to follow. Here it’s the un-fakeable reality of children, women and men – shown in ensemble – as they spin from exuberance to despair in the kaleidoscopes of poverty and upheaval. If we saw these people conventionally isolated, picked out and framed to receive our pity or our anger, the impact would not be the same.

LINK TO THE ENTIRE REVIEW.

Alex Webb, Bombardopolis, Haiti, 1986, from "The Suffering of Light"

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS WITH ALEX AND REBECCA

–THE STREETS OF HAVANA, Sunday, Jan. 22 thru Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012.  There are only a few places left in this upcoming workshop sponsored by Norway’s Nordic Light.  For more information follow this link.

— PHOTOGRAPHY MASTERCLASS @ THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SINGAPORE, Friday evening, March 9, 2012, thru Saturday, March 11, 2012.  An intensive weekend workshop with the Webbs and Radius Books creative director and noted book designer, David Chickey, with an emphasis on the process of intuitive editing and bookmaking, following the process of how long-term projects can develop into books and exhibitions . APPLICATIONS ARE NOW OPEN. TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS WORKSHOP, VISIT THE MAGNUM WEBSITE.  The National Museum of Singapore is a venue partner of the Photography Masterclass.

–WEEKEND WORKSHOP @ APERTURE, NY, Friday evening, March 23, thru Sat., March 25, 2012. Do you know where you’re going next with your photography –– or where it’s taking you?   An intensive weekend workshop with Alex and Rebecca. APPLICATIONS WILL OPEN BEGINNING FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2012.  Check the Aperture website then for details.

–FINDING YOUR VISION WORKSHOP @ CAPTION GALLERY, BROOKLYN, NY.  Sunday May 20 thru Friday May 25, 2012.* A week-long photographing and editing workshop where each photographers begins to explore his or her own way of photographing and how to edit intuitively.  Will include exercises, light room tutorials, and a presentation by a noted book editor. APPLICATIONS ARE NOW OPEN.  Early acceptance notification will start on February 9, 2012.  Check the workshop page of the webbnorriswebb website for fees, application process and further details.

*If there is enough interest, we will explore offering a second session of the Finding Your Vision Workshop @ Caption Gallery the week before —  Sunday May 13 thru Friday May 18, 2012.

The National Museum of Singapore is a venue partner of the Photography Masterclass in Singapore in March 2012