"Saranghe" (2007 by Patrick Winfield

"Saranghe" (2007 by Patrick Winfield. Polaroid Spectra film on board. 24x30 inches. Via.

"Superimposition" series by Boris Mikhailov

Photo from the "Superimposition" series (late 60s - early 70s) by Boris Mikhailov, c-print

Boris Mikhailov (1938, Kharkov, Ukraine), is considered one of the most significant contemporary photographers. Mikhailov has the ability to discover the unusual where others see nothing. His working method is conceptual and social-documentary. His photographs are regarded as historical documents, means of creating works of art, self-portraits, and political comments.

An exhibition comprised of 32 works, including large-format ones, from the Superimposition series, opens June 30 at Merano Arte in Merano, Italy.

Four photos by Laurie Simmons

Laurie Simmons
The Instant Decorator (Lavender Bathroom), 2003
Flex Print, edition of 5

Laurie Simmons
The Long House (Pink Bedroom), 2004
Cibachrome, ed. # 1/5

Laurie Simmons
The Long House (Downstairs Kitchen), 2004
Cibachrome, ed. # 1/5

Laurie Simmons
The Long House (Den), 2004
Cibachrome, ed. # 1/5

Laurie Simmons (USA, 1949) is one of the first contemporary American photographers to have created elaborately staged narrative photographs. Using dolls to act out piquant scenarios within specially constructed environments, she has slyly commented on contemporary culture while re-creating "a sense of the 50s that I knew was both beautiful and lethal." Prodigiously creative, she has produced fourteen fully developed series since the 1970s.

Her work might remind you of Thomas Allen's.

(source)

"Reclining Nude" (1977) by Romare Bearden

"Reclining Nude" (1977) by Romare Bearden, collage of various papers with ink and graphite on fiberboard, © Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, N.Y.

"The beauty of the black woman was essential to Bearden's art. She is seen here in a minimalist composition that suggests Bearden's admiration for Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954), whose paper cutouts from the 1930s through the 1950s would have been inspirational for a piece such as this." (source)

Copyright © 2007 National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Three works by Jean-Luc Moerman

"Collage #52" by Jean-Luc Moerman (source)

"Untitled" by Jean-Luc Moerman (source)

"Untitled" by Jean-Luc Moerman (source)

Jean-Luc Moermans (1967) lives and works in Brussels. These are drawings on magazine pages, I think. He also does stickers, murals and paintings.

So in the morning I start with designs, then I paint, I sometimes design using magazine photos as a base; or else I start projects according to interventions in places which people propose to me; and in the evening or at night, I tend to do stickers. As I cut them by hand, this takes quite a lot of time. Tattooed ladies come rather more at the end of the day. This gives me a daily rhythm, like waves, like in music. (source)

Montage by Linder Sterling

Montage by Linder Sterling. Image courtesy Paul Stolper Gallery

Linder Sterling is a visual artist, performance artist and musician from Manchester, England who also uses the single name "Linder". Born Linda Mulvey in Liverpool in 1954, she spent her adolescence and most of her adult life in Manchester. She studied art at Manchester Polytechnic 1974-1977. She now lives and works in Lancashire.

A radical feminist and a well-known figure of the Manchester punk and post-punk scene, Linder was known for her montages, which often combined images taken from pornographic magazines with images from women's fashion and domestic magazines, particularly those of domestic appliances, making a point about the cultural expectations of women and the treatment of female body as a commodity.

(source)

Three works from the "Les Demoiselles" series by Cindy Workman

Large Woman 10, 2006, 53 7/8 x 45 7/8", digital print, plexiglass and frame

Large Woman 16, 2006, 59 7/8 x 45 7/8", digital print, plexiglass and frame

Large Woman 17, 2006, 60 7/8 x 45 7/8", digital print, plexiglass and frame

Three works from the "Les Demoiselles" series by Cindy Workman (1961, New York, USA). The exhibition at Lennon, Weinberg in Chelsea, NYC runs from January 25 – March 3, 2007. If you can, go see them, because the above reproductions can't convey the beauty of these works. They are large-format, shiny prints that almost offer the illusions of a collage with depth.

Cindy Workman breaks new ground in her current series of works devoted to images of women. The figures are large, frontal, and are formally and conceptually at the center of the compositions to a greater degree than the works seen in her prior exhibitions at Lennon, Weinberg.

Harvested from an immense number of images of women available via photographs, publications and online, Workman selects from the recent past. Drawings from the envelopes of sewing patterns provide idealized girls, demure in their frocks and bows, while soft-core nudes offer prominent breasts, come-hither poses and an occasional odd accoutrement like plastic panties. Adjusted in scale and digitally collaged, the source images yield conjoined figures of mixed dominance. Through a delicately calibrated range of opacity and transparency, the illustrated girls and photographed women vie for dominance in these figures. Despite the duality of their woman-child appearance, however, her women appear more fully as individuals than Workman’s earlier evocations of female archetypes. These portraits are powerful presences.

In the early 1990s and well before the scanner, computer and printer became her chosen tools, Workman used traditional collage and assemblage methods to examine socially assigned and culturally reinforced gender identities. Her series “The American Family” incorporated photographs of her own family with images of Popeye, Superman and their female counterparts in the comics in constructions of impeccable design and execution. In this and other works, she asks:

“What does it really mean to be a “mother” and how is that different from being a “wife” or “sister” or “daughter” or one cohesive “self” incorporating all of these fragmented identities? Because identity constantly changes and shifts depending on whom a person is interacting with and what role is being played, reality can never be fully realized in one instant and is constantly being reinvented.”

Freed from the constraints of physical assemblage, Workman was able to generate more complex, nuanced compositions in works that followed and to avail herself of a wider range of sources and references. For a time the work became more sexually explicit, about which she says, “I have been exploring the influence of sexual experience on identity and self-esteem. Individual reactions to and interpretations of sexual experience become inextricably linked to a person’s core identity.”

Workman’s compositions are inflected with the style and appearance of classic Pop-art era works and enriched with ideas associated with postmodern appropriation. Woven into her current works are multiple strands of inquiry about issues as diverse as age-appropriate appearance, plastic surgery, the questionable truthfulness of photography and technologies of printed reproduction. At a time when the internet provides virtual reality in online societies such as Second Life where participants create and furnish avatars with whatever identity they wish, Workman reflects upon the degree to which our freedom to construct an identity is shaped and restricted by social and historical boundaries.

"Made's Warung (With Text in Background)" (2006) by Ashley Bickerton

"Made's Warung (With Text in Background)" (2006) by Ashley Bickerton, Mixed media collage on wood, 42.1 x 60.1 in.

This work by Ashley Bickerton (British, born 1959) can now be seen at Sonnabend Gallery in NYC, USA.

"Untitled (Martha Rosler Collage)" (2001-2002) by Carol Bove

"Untitled (Martha Rosler Collage)" (2001 - 2002) by Carol Bove, Period magazines, 48 x 24 inches, Private Collection

Carol Bove (born 1971 in Geneva, Switzerland) is a New York City based artist and collector.

Her work includes drawings and installations which concern the social, political, and artistic movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Ink drawings of nude women taken from "Playboy" magazines from this time period or inspired by a vintage Newsweek picture of Twiggy, or sculptures made up of bookshelves with books from the same time are examples of Bove's work.

sources: image | text