What's the most you ever lost in a coin toss?

stills from No Country For Old Men

The Coen Brothers are at it again with their latest film No Country For Old Men. With the resurgence of western films during this time of war, Ethan and Joel Coen have adapted Pulitzer Prize winner Cormac McCarthy's novel for the big screen. It is a must see thriller about a serial killer and drug deal gone wrong. For all the Coen Brothers fans out there we're sure you've already seen it, but for those of you who haven't.... go now!

Happy Turkey Day

© Amy Stein (from her Domesticated series)

"Considering that virtually none of the standard fare surrounding Thanksgiving contains an ounce of authenticity, historical accuracy, or cross-cultural perception, why is it so apparently ingrained? Is it necessary to the American psyche to perpetually exploit and debase its victims in order to justify its history?" -James W. Loewen

CPW and Dulce Pinzón

A first real weekend for us in a while, we had the opportunity to visit and meet with Ariel Shanberg, Executive Director at the Center for Photography at Woodstock. A warm welcome to our new neighborhood surroundings it was nice to finally speak some photo. While there we viewed a recent show he curated after stumbling upon Dulce Pinzón's work. A new and recent discovery to him, we understood immediately after seeing the images his eagerness to show her work.

"In the shadow of the events of 9/11 and those which followed, she became interested in “heroes” who make great sacrifices not within the mythologizing setting of the battlefield but who do risk immeasurable life and welfare in their day-to-day lives for the good of others and who do so in a far less spectacular setting. To do so, Pinzón focused her attentions on the controversial subject of the Mexican immigrant worker, who in her view, were a perfect example of the hero who has gone unnoticed. "

The Real Story of the Superheroes by Dulce Pinzón is on view until December 16


MARIA LUISA ROMERO from the State of Puebla works in a Laundromat in Brooklyn New York.
She Sends 150 dollars a week.
© Dulce Pinzón

NOE REYES from the State of Puebla works as a delivery boy in Brooklyn New York.
He Sends 500 dollars a week.
© Dulce Pinzón

Nikhil

© Tribble & Mancenido

A Conscious Camera

"I'm an eye. A mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world the way only I can see it. I free myself for today and forever from human immobility. I'm in constant movement. I approach and pull away from objects. I creep under them. I move alongside a running horse's mouth. I fall and rise with the falling and rising bodies. This is I, the machine, maneuvering in the chaotic movements, recording one movement after another in the most complex combinations.

Freed from the boundaries of time and space, I co-ordinate any and all points of the universe, wherever I want them to be. My way leads towards the creation of a fresh perception of the world. Thus I explain in a new way the world unknown to you." -Dziga Vertov

Horizons

© Sze Tsung Leong

All day Saturday we had the honor of meeting and printing alongside Sze Tsung Leong. While we aspired to make as many prints as we can, both of us running in and out of our room, it was a pleasant contrast to see Sze Tsung Leong patiently perfecting one print. Working on his ongoing series Horizons, it was a humbling experience to hang our prints next to his.

"Horizons is a series depicting thin bands of landscape, placed with their horizons in the same position in each frame. The images are meant to be viewed next to each other, creating a spatial continuum out of geographically distant locations. The arrangement of images can be thought of as a photographic cadavre exquis, where new relationships are formed by unexpected juxtapositions."

Friday Night at the MoMA

On a surprisingly not so crowded Friday night at the MoMA, we managed to finally make it to two wonderful exhibitions that have been up for some time now:

Present Tense: Photographs by JoAnn Verburg
closes on November 5 and will travel to the Walker Art Center where it will be on view from January 13 through April 20, 2008. If you missed it in NY, hopefully you can make it to Minneapolis.


© JoAnn Verberg, Olive Trees After the Heat, detail

© JoAnn Verberg, Olive Trees After the Heat

"There is this unique element of time in all of her photographs... With JoAnn’s work, the viewer has this sense that something is about to, or has just happened. There is a sense of going forward or backward in time. It was very imaginative..." -Susan Kismaric

New Photography 2007: Tanyth Berkeley, Scott McFarland, Berni Searle
on view through January 1


© Tanyth Berkeley, Grace, Linda, Ariel
selection of photos from the New Photography 2007 Exhibit

As portrait photographers, we were intrinsically drawn to Tanyth Berkeley's photographs. While both Scott McFarland and Berni Searle shared equally interesting work, Berkeley's photos kept our gaze. The almost life size portraits demanded our attention to the extraordinary women ranging from adolescents to transgenders, challenging the prevalent perception of beauty.

"I love the undeniable truth inherent in photography, the fact of it. I love that within this truth the world can be magical and awe-inspiring..." -Tanyth Berkeley