HU&W on Garmsville

Good friend/writer/stylist extraordinaire Jason Jules has been kind enough to write about us on his blog. You can have a look/read here. We have collaborated on several editorial stories with Jason, and it's always a pleasure and good ol' fashion fun working with him.

Week In Review : In The Loop

Got a chance to see this hilarious satire which had us laughing the entire film!


Trailer for In The Loop

If you're in for a laugh on politics, it's playing at IFC.

Take Us to Berlin

...for many, many reasons, but especially for this!

The French marionette street theater company Royal de Luxe will be in Berlin on 1Oct to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, where the Giants will take over the streets to enact a fairy tale created for this special occasion, remembering the monumental moment in history from 1989.

The Little Giantess, The Wall, and The Deep Sea Diver

Once upon a time, a long time ago, Berlin was a swamp inhabited by giants. They planted roots in the water which slowly grew up into trees, whose trunks they later used to build shelters. In one of these huts lived a Little Giantess together with her uncle, the Big Giant. He had given her a wonderful boat in which she could travel across the continent. But one day land and sea monsters tore the city in two. And one of these two pieces was walled up. When this happened the Big Giant and the Little Giantess were separated. He was so angry that he threw himself into the river and from there he wandered through the depths of the ocean's looking for the sleeping geyser on the sea floor.

Many years passed until he eventually found it. He dragged it underneath the city walls and woke it rudely. The earth shook, the walls crumbled and washed away, a strong wind made the Little Giantess' boat start moving and pulled the roots of the trees up into the air. When this was all over, the Big Giant climbs out of the river and starts searching.
The Little Giantess wakes up beside her boat and discovers a sack full of letters which were never delivered. She decides she is going to deliver the post and on her way round the city she is reunited with her uncle, the Big Giant.
-Jean Luc Courcoult

Editing

Trucker's Chapel

We're still shooting and editing our HU&W work, which has been a wonderful experience for us. This is the first time we've worked on such an expansive subject matter, editing the work is clutch. From being so connected to it, literally, we needed that extra set or sets of eyes who aren't emotionally attached to the work to point things out we may have overseen that existed within the images. One of the reasons we work together is to constantly have that creative dialogue between us. We've explored our creative process and have ventured beyond what we're normally comfortable with, what we think is an important element of our growth as collaborative artists. It will be nice to get back in the lab/darkroom to print the work. It's much different seeing 8x10 contact prints to playing with the actual scale of final prints. So stay tuned as we hope to have a new site up shortly, and more images to unveil.

Summer Show Extended

A little late, but noteworthy nonetheless.
Foto 8's Summer Show has moved to Crane Kalman Gallery in Brighton.
We are very pleased to be included in the second leg of this exhibition, featuring work from our latest series HU&W.

If you're in East Sussex, stop by for us!
The show runs from 7SEPT-27SEPT.

Upstate NY

Maritza, New Paltz, NY

Last wknd was a blast of a wedding in the woods of Rhode Island, this wknd is a retreat to a 10 acre house in upstate NY. Looking forward to being back, not having been there in over a year except for picking up trailers full of soda and paper products. Here is an old portrait we made while we were living there almost two years ago.

Week In Review

The beginning of the fall season is always a busy one, one packed with so many great things you don't know where to begin and wish you can just do it all. Below are our highlights:


© Simon Roberts

We had the pleasure of finally meeting Simon Roberts at his opening last week at Klompching Gallery. We have been in contact with him while we were both simultaneously on the road making work...he around England, we in the states. Reading and following his superb blog, it was great to see his impeccable prints in person. It was also nice to see the work after having read his process of shooting, editing, printing, etc. Above is one image from We English that has left an everlasting impression on us. We'll never think of a red dress the same way. Cheers to Simon!

© Hellen van Meene

SVA held an artist talk with Hellen van Meene and Jörg Colberg. We're huge fans of her work, it was nice to hear her speak about it and her process. She definitely is a wonderful character on her own, one which explains her use of fictional storytelling in her portraits. Every portrait has a story of how and why they were made and she reveled in telling about each one. What we found most interesting, though not surprising, was her difficulty of making work in the states because of our sexually driven yet suppressed culture. Because she photographed adolescents, parents and authorities were skeptical, not willing to understand the nature of her work. We have all been turned down hoping to take a portrait, but it hasn't discouraged any of us yet. Her show at Yancey Richardson opened today, one not to be missed. We enjoyed seeing her new work, her uneven use of daylight and incorporating panoramas added more drama to the fictional characters in her portraits.

Daytrippin'

Étant Donnés © Marcel Duchamp

This holiday weekend's day trip took us to Philadelphia. We made a point to hit the Philadelphia Museum of Art and saw Marcel Duchamp's last major work Étant Donnés : 1. La chute d’eau, 2. Le gaz d’éclairage (Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas). Hidden even from his closest friends, Étant Donnés was constructed over a twenty year period from 1946-66 when he was said to have abandoned making art in favor of playing chess. As you look through the tiny peepholes in the solid and heavy wooden door, you are brought into another world, where you were more than just being a voyeur. The erotic figure set amidst a dream-like background drew myticism, curiosity and a yearning to get closer, if not become a part of it. The Phila Museum houses the largest collection of Duchamp's work, Étant Donnés became part of the permanent collection shortly after his death. Though there was no written words about the work and no formal dialogue, he left a detailed and illustrated manual of its assemblage.

Untitled (Medical Specimen) 1996, © Steven Katzman

We also visited the infamous Mutter Musem, dedicated to anatomy and human medical anomalies. There we saw the evolution of surgical practice and forensic science, human skin-bound books, conjoined twin fetuses, fetal development, wax models of skin diseases, venereal diseases, growth abnormalities, genetic disorders, fallopian tubes, and much much more! Definitely one of the coolest museums out there. We stumbled upon the above photograph in the museum's collection made by good friend and mentor Steven Katzman. A most pleasant and relevant find!

Kehinde, Jake, and Amy

L: After Sir Joshua Reynolds' Miss Susanna Gale, 2009 © Kehinde Wiley
R: Jake, Brooklyn, NY. 2006 © Amy Elkins

Besides the obvious similarities between these two images (both paying homage to Seydou Keita), there is more reason to why we've decided to post them side by side. This was last week for us in a nutshell. Fall is here and while most openings have waited until after labor day, some hidden gems snuck in before then. Black Light, Kehinde Wiley's latest show at Deitch Projects opened last week. For this series, he moved away from painting his portraits, to utilizing the integral part of his process of photographing them while still keeping the image inherent of his portraiture.

Our dear friend Jake Ehrlund (photographed by also good friend Amy Elkins whom we saw at the opening) was staying with us this past week. We haven't seen Jake in over three years and spent the days reacquainting ourselves. Our lives have always seemed to be running parallel (with several exceptions of course) and it will be good to have him back in NY.

We look forward to next week's opening madness!!