BROOKLYN, NY.- Janet Borden, Inc. is presenting Little/Big, a group show that champions the physicality of the photographic image. Comparing size (literal and figurative), and our perceptions, these images are presented in a new way. Landscape, little town and the big city, the larger than life household object and invented still lifes confront the viewer in a wonderful and immediate way.
Are you seeing this announcement on your mobile device? Are the photographs small? Guess what? Those are images of the photographs, not the photographs. They may be little on that phone or that tablet, but they're big in real life. Instagram and selfies are not the only way to see photographic content, nor are they particularly the best.
The historic conversation about the veracity of the photographic print seems to have given way to a non-heirarchical acceptance of all images. Photographs, as we experience them daily, are logghoreal, repetetive and homogenized.
Works ranging from John Pfahl's Punchbowl Falls to Martin Parr's classic Kent. Flag bang against each other, creating refreshing (no pun, Neil Winokur!) juxtapositions. Speaking of Neil Winokur, here is his metaphor- and rhyme-free Orange.
Robert Cumming's complex backstage Hollywood set scene has the small writ large, and shares a scale conversion with David Brandon Geeting's Birthday Gourds. Both exhibit a preoccupation with picture space, and a delight in confounding it.
The artists in this exhibition have extensive exhibition and biographical histories.
John Pfahl, (b. 1939, has been an acclaimed professor of photography.
Pfahl was an early adapter of new digital photographic procedures both in printing and for digitizing his negatives.. He resides in Buffalo, New York with his wife of fifty years, the artist Bonnie Gordon.
Pfahl was a full Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology and has for many years been a Visiting Professor at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. His early series, “Altered Landscapes,” has had a lasting impact on contemporary photography's view of optical and spatial issues. Pfahl's major retrospective, A Distanced Land: The Photographs of John Pfahl was organized by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in 1990 and toured to Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. He received an Honorary Doctorate from Niagara University that same year. His work is included in all major collections of photography, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada, and more.
Jim Dow was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1942. He lives in Belmont, Massachusetts. Dow has a both an encyclopedic interest and appetite for photographs. His typologies include baseball and sports stadiums, taco trucks, barbecue, New York City social clubs, Uruguay, the buildings of university and secondary schools. Dow was part of the legendary “Court House” project, initiated by Seagram's in honor of the U.S. Bicentennial. All of his work is made from 8x10” analog negatives, whether in black and white or color. His work is collected by virtually all major American museums including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Eastman Museum, Rochester; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and more. His most recent monograph was American Studies.
Robert Cumming is a triple threat— painter, sculptor, and photographer. Born in Worcester, assachusetts in 1943, Cumming currently lives in Whately, Massachusetts. C He has received three National Endowment for the Arts Grants, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. He has had solo exhbitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hirschorn Museum, Washington, DC; the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His work is in the collections of most American museums. His most recent monograph The Difficulties of Nonsense, was published in 2016 to accompany his solo exhibition at the Eastman Museum, Rochester. That show is traveling
David Brandon Geeting, the youngest artist in the exhibition (b. 1989) has published three books, most recently Amusement Park, published by Dutch publisher Lodret Vandret. His commercial and fashion work is influencing a new generation of picture makers, with its exuberant color and upbeat vibe.
Martin Parr was born in Epson, Surrey, England, in 1952. He currently lives in Bristol, where he is relocating his studio from London. Parr's early work includes The Last Resort, an astounding view of the then-decaying beach town of Brighton. Lurid cheerful color was in stark contrast to the blowing trash and decrepit beaches. Subsequent projects included “The Cost of Living,” “Small World,” “Luxury,” “Common Sense.” He.has produced over ninety photobooks throughout his career. His work is included in almost all public collections throughout the world. In 2014,Parr became a President of Magnum Photos, the world-reknown cooperative. Parr has received numerous awards, including the Royal Photographic Society Cenetary Medal; onorary Doctor of Arts, Manchester Metropolitan University; Lucie Award. In 2016 he was awarded an Arts Medal from the Queen of England. He has published over 90 books, which is quite a feat in itself.
Neil Winokur was born in New York, New York, in 1945, His work has been exhibited widely since 1982, when it was prominently included in the important book, "Lichtbildnisse: Das Portrat in der Fotografie," from the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, Germany. Other important exhibitions include The Museum of Modern Art's "Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort," from 1991; "The Photography of Invention," The National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1989; “Likeness: Portraits of Artists by Other Artists.” ICA, Boston, 2005. Winokur's photographs are included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Denver Art Museum; The Philadelphia Museum of Art; and others. He currently lives in Hastings, New York, with his wife, curator Ann Umland.
Hanno Otten was born in Cologne, Germany, in 1954. He currently lives in Cologne, with his wife, the art historian Christiana Schneider. His work has been exhibited in the Projektraum in the Museum Ludwig, Koln; Leipzig; Galerie Tanya Grunert; 1unchen 1994; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Forderkreis der Galerie fur Zeitgenossische Kunst, Leipzig. Among the American museums collecting his work are Houston Museum of Fine Art; Busch Reisinger Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Otten's work probes the nature of color through extraordinary photograms made only with light from a color enlarger onto photographic paper. He manipulates color and light to create a modern palette of vivid hues. Geometric patterns and shapes evoke a 1960s graphic sensibility. As in his earlier work, Otten insists on the primacy of color, forgoing any literal and narrative imagery. His subject matter is light itself.
Fred Cray was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1957. After graduating from Middlebury College (B.A.) and Yale University School of Art (M.F.A. Painting,) Cray moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he continues to reside. Cray's solo exhibitions include Middlebury College, The Hotchkiss School, University of Colorado, Boulder, and his work has been included in exhibitions at White Columns, NY; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; International Center of Photography, NY. Public collections include The Museum of the City of New York; Middlebury College of Art; Smith College Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum of Art; and others. His work was highlighted in an article last fall about his hiding over 50,000 original prints throughout the world, in books, museums, stores, and on the street.
Jan Groover (1043 – 2012) was among the very best still life photographers since the medium's invention. Her Kitchen Still Life photographs were first exhibited at Sonnabend Gallery. She received a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 1979. In 1987, Groover had a major solo retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art which subsequently toured the United States. In 1987, Groover had a major solo retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art which subsequently toured the United States. Her work has been exhibited and included in the collections of most major museums worldwide, and continues to influence a new generation of artists. Groover moved to France in 1991, with her husband, the painter Bruce Boice, who still lives there.
