Dear friend of aCurator, a personal favourite, delightful Jade Doskow has been producing images of World's Fair sites around the US, and other countries, over the last few years. 

Wall Space Gallery in Santa Barbara, California, is pleased to announce that Jade will be in the gallery on Saturday, April 19th, at 2 pm, to discuss her 'Lost Utopia' project, which looks at current uses for, and remnants of, World's Fair Sites.

And it's the 50th anniversary of the New York Unisphere this month. Buy a print in celebration! 

"Driving West into New York City on the Long Island Expressway after passing nondescript strip malls and housing complexes, something unexpected appears on the horizon in the middle of a park green. A humongous steel globe towers over the park below, and beyond that looms a gigantic ovoid structure, supported by trunky concrete columns and painted in bold red and yellow. Receding beyond it are two towers that could best be described as supernatural landing pads. This is not a sci-fi movie set, but rather the site of the 1964 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens, New York. The globe is the icon from this event, the Unisphere (weighing in at 900,000 pounds of solid steel) and the other structure is the New York State Pavilion, designed by Philip Johnson." Jade Doskow.

Check out more of the World's Fair sites in Jade's full screen aCurator feature.

Flintshire, from the series 'Brighter Later' © Brian David Stevens

A Fine Beginning is a collective showcasing contemporary photography made in Wales. Their exhibition, "Made in Wales," features 17 artists, including friend of aCurator and generally top man, Brian David Stevens. Mark your calendars for March 14, 2014.

"A Fine Beginning, from which this collective takes its name, is the first chapter of Dylan Thomas' unfinished novel Adventures in the Skin Trade. The central character of the story leaves his parents home in South Wales for Paddington Station and when asked where he's going, Samuel Bennett replies, 'I don't know where I'm going, I haven't any idea in the world, that's why I came to London'."

See Stevens' feature on Billy Childish; his Remembrance Day project They That Are Left; and Portraits.

One of my faves, Kate Simon. London go see.

Plus there's the exhibition of Burroughs' own photography through end of March at the Photographers' Gallery.

We love interdisciplinary artist Riitta Ikonen. Images from across here work were included in a feature in the aCurator magazine a couple of years ago. I'm thrilled to see Riitta keeping her images fresh and out there. Share with your Norwegian friends!

A couple of years ago, the amazing Pete Brook of Prison Photography successfully crowd-funded a cross-country trip "8,000 miles across America, interviewing photographers and prison experts who've documented and witnessed the era of mass incarceration." (I backed the project and as a recipient of the mixtape reward, can vouch for Pete's musical taste as well as his drive, as it were.)

Pete has now curated an exhibition which opens in Philadelphia this weekend. "Prison Obscura presents rarely seen vernacular, surveillance, evidentiary, and prisoner-made photographs, shedding light on the prison industrial complex. Why do tax-paying, prison-funding citizens rarely get the chance to see such images? And what roles do these pictures play for those within the system? With stark aesthetic detail and meticulous documentation, Prison Obscura builds the case that Americans must come face to face with these images and imaging technologies both to grasp the cancerous proliferation of the U.S. prison system and to connect with those it confines."

Presented by the John B. Hurford '60 Center for the Arts and Humanities with support from the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program.

The exhibition opens January 24th, 2014, with a talk by Pete Brook at 4.30 pm. I strongly recommend you go if you can.



Clinical contact holding cage, Administrative Segregation Unit (ASU), C-Yard, Building 12, Mule Creek State Prison, California. August 1, 2008. Brown v. Plata. Photographer Unknown

David Zimmerman has been working in India for the past two years on a series of beautiful portraits of Tibetan refugees and nomads, large-scale prints from which are on show at Sous les Etoiles Gallery in Soho, New York, through November 30th, 2013.

David says: "Much of my work for the past fifteen years focuses on issues of human survival, and adaptation in the aftermath of catastrophic events. The causes of these events are varied - from economic hardship in the southwest US, to the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, to northern India where 100,000 Tibetans have fled Chinese occupation."

"I have lived and worked in India for many years, and this past year, along with my wife, founded the Himalayan Art Centre - a free school teaching photography and visual storytelling to underserved regions of the southern Himalayas. The Art Centre in north India will also serve as a meeting and workshop space for visual artists and writers from around the world."

All images © David Zimmerman

Opening on Thursday at Proud Chelsea in London is a wonderful-looking exhibition, 'Jacques Lowe: My Kennedy Years.' The exhibition is drawn from the Estate of Jacques Lowe's special collection of vintage and modern fine art prints, all printed and signed by Lowe prior to his death, and is curated by my dear friend, photographer and curator, Emma Blau.

The exhibition will run from September 26th to November 25th, 2013. 'My Kennedy Years: A Memoir by Jacques Lowe', is out now from Thames & Hudson, and accompanies the exhibition.

See my previous post about Jacques Lowe, and the effort to digitize his work using contact sheets after his negatives were lost in the collapse of the World Trade Center.

I am happy to publish a selection of images from World Press Photo award winner and INSTITUTE artist, Paolo Woods. "With journalist Arnaud Robert, he tracked down Haitian society's invisibles, its absurd flaws and hidden aspects. He investigated the economic elites, NGOs, the profusion of FM radios, American evangelists. Month after month, he came to realize that all the substitution powers that had come to save Haiti were actually replacing Haitian authorities. And yet, in a country whose leaders have failed ever since it was founded, the population's desire for a State remains unaltered."

This colourful, insightful long-term project on the situation in Woods' adopted home of Haiti has been collected into a book to be published by Photosyntheses this month. Woods will exhibit at Photoville 2013 in Brooklyn, NY (September 19-29), and for three months at the Musée Elysée, Lausanne, opening September 20. 

Can't make it? Enjoy this selection.

The American religious organization Global Compassion Network supplies houses built from grain silos, a gift of the Monsanto company. Torbek. 

All images Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

There seem to be more and more and more photo-related events going on, worldwide. 

"The Photo Art Fair is a four-day exhibition of carefully curated, collectable works from up to 50 international photographers. As a brand new show, the Photo Art Fair is designed to provide visitors with the unique opportunity to purchase collectable photographs direct from both undiscovered and emerging artists." It is taking place at London's Victoria House in Bloomsbury Square, from May 3-6, 2013, and will also feature panel discussions and all that stuff. There is a fee for becoming an "intelligent collector;" it's £7.50 in advance or a tenner at the door. 

© Tabitha Soren

Some new images from Tabitha Soren's "Running" series, previously published here. Tabitha's solo show at Kopeikin Gallery in LA opens soon.

The gallery says "In Tabitha Soren's photographs, archetypal figures struggle to escape or arrive - the viewer cannot be sure. Uncertainty, chaos and vulnerability infuse Soren's universe. These are elemental fears made visible. Movement provides an opportunity for loss of control, un-self-consciousness. A theater of the absurd unfolds as she describes our shared instinct to survive. Her figures stumble, grimace and lose composure. They are both wounded and heroic."

Go see! The exhibition, erm, runs from April 13 - May 18, 2013.

All images © Tabitha Soren