by Bob Martin | Jun 27, 2009 | Art, Education, Learning, Photograhy
The Banff Centre – Banff New Media Institute – Call for Applications
Interactive Screen 0.9: The Makers
Program dates: August 10 – 15, 2009
Registrations will be accepted until the program is full.
Part conference, part festival, part peer exchange, part creative workshop, Interactive Screen aims to stimulate the creation of emotionally powerful, creatively inspired, and economically viable new media in Canada and abroad. Participants engage in constant dialogue and collaboration through various panels, workshops and performances.
All are welcome to attend!
Applications for the Interactive Screen Scholarship Program will be accepted until July 10, 2009.
BNMI Co-production Residency: Liminal Screen
Program dates: February 25 – March 27, 2010
Application deadline: August 31, 2009
This residency will focus its inquiry on the transitions between screen and life, as the screen reinforces its central position as an ubiquitous communications portal, data visualization surface, and frame on an ever more meditated world. Practitioners from all walks of screen-based practice are encouraged to apply.
by Bob Martin | May 28, 2009 | Art, Artist, Creativity, Photograhy, sculptor, Writing and Speaking
Applications for the 2009 William H. Johnson Prize are now available online at http://www.whjohnsongrant.org
Please note that the due date for all applications is July 31, 2009, several months earlier than in past years. Applicants are advised to take note of the change so that they do not miss the deadline. The 2009 William H. Johnson Prize is 25,000 USD and the winner will be announced in September 2009.
William Johnson Self Portrait
The William H. Johnson Foundation for the Arts is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization that seeks to encourage African American artists early in their careers through its annual award, The William H. Johnson Prize. Early career African American artists who work in painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking, installation and/or new genre are eligible to apply.
William H. Johnson, an African American artist born in Florence, South Carolina in 1901, is the namesake of the Foundation. He moved to New York as a young man to study at the National Academy of Design, and though he was acknowledged as the most talented artist in his class of 1926, he was passed over for a traveling scholarship, most likely because of his race. Rather than see Johnson struggle in the United States, his teacher, Charles Hawthorne, gave Johnson 1000 USD so that Johnson could travel to Europe. This act of faith and generosity was pivotal in Johnson’s life, for it provided the seed from which his career flourished.
In the same spirit, the William H. Johnson Prize is intended to encourage the best artists working today. Past Johnson Prize Winners include Laylah Ali (2002); Nadine Robinson (2003); Kori Newkirk (2004); Dave McKenzie (2005); Edgar Arceneaux (2006); Rodney McMillian (2007); and Jennie C. Jones (2008).
THE WILLIAM H JOHNSON FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS
6022 Wilshire Blvd, #200
Los Angeles, CA 90036
323 931-3744
323 931-3751 fax
http://www.whjohnsongrant.org
info@whjohnsongrant.org
by Sandy | May 5, 2009 | Artist, Blogroll, Books, Museums, Photograhy
Swiss born Robert Frank traveled around the United States in the mid-1950s and captured the America he saw through his photographs. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of his book, 83 of his images, considered controversial at the time they were taken, are on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans, May 16 – August 23, 2009
SF MoMA, 151 Third Street
San Francisco, CA
Images: Robert Frank, Trolley, New Orleans, 1955 and Robert Frank & wife at a photography festival in China (photo by E. Keating)
[ad#review-2a]
by Sandy | Mar 16, 2009 | Blogroll, Culture, Exhibits, Photograhy
“Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits”, April 4 – June 14 *The Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco presents an exhibit of 70 prints which “explores photography’s role in shaping public identity and individual concepts of race and socioeconomic status over the past 150 years.”
Represented are those men and women who have “resisted” in assorted ways, from activist Angela Davis to singer Jessye Norman, from labor leader A. Philip Randolph to boxer Joe Louis.
“Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits”
MoAD – The Museum of the African Diaspora, 4/4 – 6/14/09
685 Mission Street San Francisco, CA
“Let your Motto be resistance! Resistance! RESISTANCE! No opposed people have ever secured Liberty without resistance” – abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet, 1843
Images: Angela Davis, Martin Luther King, Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963
by Sandy | Mar 6, 2009 | Art, Artist, Blogroll, Museums, Photograhy
Exhibition at the Met will focus on a group of New York artists “born into the media culture of postwar America, this loosely knit group of New York artists created the most seminal photographs of the late 20th century. Their overarching subject was how pictures of all kinds not only depict but shape reality.”
”Pictures Generation, 1974-1984”, 4/21 – 8/2/09
The Metropolitan Museum, New York, N.Y.
(Images: “Luxor # 2”, James Casebere and “Untitled (Cowboy)”, Richard Prince)
by Bob Martin | Feb 23, 2009 | Art, Directors, Film, Photograhy
Could it be because this movie is French that it is ignored by politicians? Or at least very few seem to mention it. That is about as far as I am willing to go in a political debate.
“The Battle of Algiers” is a powerful film, made not long after independence was achieved. It’s grainy black and white footage suggest documentary (more difficult to do in the 1960’s) and not “Gone with Wind”. War is an ugly experience, there is no melancholy or heroic music being played. Real gun fire does not sound as big as it does in the movies and when you are shot on screen you are still able to go home at the end of the day. Real war is sort of a gray, bleak and worthless execise in misery. When the war is about an occupation, you can figure the misery will increase exponentially.
I found this quote, attributed to Jean-Paul Sartre, which are his views about this particular conflict and referenced in the film. “This rebellion is not merely challenging the power of the settlers, but their very being. For most Europeans in Algeria, there are two complementary and inseparable truths: the colonists are backed by divine right, the natives are sub-human. This is a mythical interpretation of reality, since the riches of the one are built on the poverty of the other. In this way exploitation puts the exploiter at the mercy of his victim, and the dependence itself begets racialism. It is a bitter and tragic fact that, for the Europeans in Algeria, being a man means first and foremost superiority to the Moslems. But what if the Moslem finds in his turn that his manhood depends on equality with the settler? It is then that the European begins to feel his very existence diminished and cheapened.”
War is a violent game of tag – somebody is always “it”. This movie should be mandatory viewing for politicians, it is already a dietary supplement for Military in this country.
