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Following the release of her celebrated memoir Just Kids in 2010, Patti Smith has rebounded as America’s punk-rock idol. The memoir tells the story of the friendship between the artist herself and the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe from the early seventies until his death in 1989. Smith can once again be found on staff recommended and bestseller shelves in bookstores throughout New York City with her latest published work entitled Camera Solo. Camera Solo is a small art book that contains 70 of Smith’s black and white polaroids released by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art after Smith’s exhibition in 2011. For the most part, the photographs are simple still-lives, taken in intimate settings far from the manic punk scene; they document Smith’s home, her travels, and her closest acquaintances. There is nothing inherently remarkable about the photographs in Camera Solo, but paired alongside her music, poetry, and memoir, these images expose just another side of Patti Smith that we might not have otherwise known.

-Gabriela June Tully Claymore

Read More About the Book and Exhibition Here:

http://www.pattismithcamerasolo.com/

This afternoon, I sat down to a blank Google Chrome page after a long day, thinking of the universe of internet possibilities that were at my finger tips. Naturally, I ended up with Tumblr, Facebook, LOLcats, a sandwich shop’s website contemplating delivery, and the New York Times. I do have some redeeming internet browsing qualities. At the suggestion of one of my professors, I have found myself reading the critiques of famed art critic, Roberta Smith, habitually in the past few weeks. Her voice is very clear, no-nonsense, entertaining, and insightful. As one of the powerhouses of the Arts section of the Times, the topics Roberta covers are usually considered top notch. This week, I came across her coverage of a risque new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum. Capturing the Body is her review of an exhibit featuring photography of the oldest subject of art on the planet, the human body. With photos spanning from when photography first emerged in the 1840s/1850s until contemporary times, the exhibit shows new perspectives on something that we see daily: ourselves as little nudists unaware of our bodies’ own potentials for beauty. The exhibit is on display until September 9th. Come one, come all, and remember to not bring your children and those faint of heart. 

-Emily Dubovoy

New York City ca. 1959 © Leon Levinstein and Kenisha WI 2003 © Brian Ulrich

Tomorrow Tuesday, March 6^th between 6:00pm and 8:00pm, the Aperture Foundation is holding the opening reception for its new show SHARED VISION: The Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla Collection of Photography. The exhibition presents two hundred photographs including work by Ansel Adams, Leon Levinstein, Sally Mann and Robert Mapplethorpe among many other renowned artists. In addition to the reception, and as part of New York’s annual contemporary art fair The Armory Show, the Armory Collection Brunch will hold a special walk through the exhibition with both collectors Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Fall at 11:00 am, on Saturday, March 10^th.

The walk will be followed by a book signing from Aperture artists, including Brian Ulrich, who’s work was just featured in our newest issue of ISO Magazine, A New Landscape. Here is a little excerpt from the article, written by Perri Hofmann:

“ Is This Place Great of What? Brian Ulrich’s first monograph (Aperture 2011) attempts to address the complexities of American consumerism through photographs. Ulrich began his project at the “really weird and somewhat great moment |when| all these social rules broke down” following the terrorist attacks of September 11^th. Subsequently, the Bush administration encouraged consumer spending as a patriotic act. This directed Ulrich’s gaze to homogenized spaces of consumption across the country and culminated in there extensive interconnected photographic projects: Retail, Thrift and Dark Stores…”

To read the rest of the article, make sure to get a copy of the magazine at NYU, Tisch School of the Arts!

-Elena Kendall

Gallery Information:

Aperture Gallery and Bookstore

547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor 

Between 10th and 11th Avenues

New York, New York