Gregory Halpern spent five years shooting ZZYZX , and another year editing the results, from an estimated thousand rolls of film, about half of which were shot in the final year after his Guggenheim Fellowship enabled him to live in California. According to Halpern, the series “is grounded in reality, but it occupies an in-between space, between documentary and a certain sense of mystery.” …“I see ZZYZX as part of a continuum but edging a little closer towards fiction.” The series title is borrowed from the village Zzyzx (pronounced zye-zix), formerly Soda Springs, but rechristened by the mineral water pioneer, Curtis Howe Springer, in 1944. The eccentric Springer named it after what he claimed to be the last word in the English language. The images in the ZZYZX series begin in the desert east of Los Angeles and drift west, through the city, and finally end at the Pacific ocean. This general westward movement is a pilgrimage toward the ocean, and alludes to the manifest expansion of America from east to west. The people, places, and animals in the series did appear before Halpern’s camera, but he has selected and organized the images into a work of fiction or fantasy, with assistance from artist Jason Fulford on the sequence. The work brings together seemingly disparate images of environmental crisis, kinship, entertainment, urbanity, and stunning vistas. There is a strange narrative harmony to the series—the sublime, the psychedelic, and the self-destructive. Southern California is unpredictable, wild. Cultures and histories coexist, the beautiful sits next to the ugly, the redemptive next to the despairing, and all under the golden state’s radiant light, as transcendent as it is brutal.
Gregory Halpern is an acclaimed American photographer whose practice is predicated on wandering. Combined with a curiosity about the elusive qualities of Americanness, he makes images that mix documentary and fiction. He has been celebrated for his pioneering photobooks, which involve rich colors, thoughtful sequencing, and evocative associations between images as a form of storytelling.
Black Figures, Modern Art Enter the Met’s European Painting Galleries – ARTnews.com Skip to main content By Alex Greenberger Plus Icon Alex Greenberger Senior Editor, ARTnews View All November 20, 2023 10:31am Pablo Picasso joins El Greco in the Met's new European paintings presentation, which expands the purview to include modern art...
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James Ensor: series of anniversary shows to reveal ‘the man behind the mask’ Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Exhibitions news James Ensor: series of anniversary shows to reveal ‘the man behind the mask’ Belgium commemorates 75 years since the artist's death with a year-long season of exhibitions and events, often highlighting the lesser known aspects of his work Eddi Fiegel 15 December 2023 Share James Ensor, Pierrot and skeleton in a yellow robe (1893) Photo: Hugo Maertens The Belgian artist James Ensor may be easily recognisable for the macabre faces that so often feature in his works, but a major new season of exhibitions and events in his home country aims to reveal “the man behind the mask”...
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the amana collection Exhibit 05 – Daisuke Yokota | Exhibition | IMA ONLINE the amana collection Exhibit 05 – Daisuke Yokota 14 December 2019 - 20 January 2020 IMA gallery TAGS IMA gallery Daisuke Yokota Share © Daisuke Yokota_untitled_from Color Photographs Where does the photographic process begin and where does it end? Often the making of a photograph is considered to be a momentary event: the instant when the shutter is released and a photosensitive element is exposed thereby recording the physicality of reality...
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10 Emerging Galleries to Watch in Foundations | Artsy Skip to Main Content Art Market 10 Emerging Galleries to Watch in Foundations Maxwell Rabb Jan 25, 2024 5:31PM The second iteration of Foundations , Artsy’s online art fair, brings together more than 130 galleries from 36 countries, showcasing a diverse array of emerging talent in the digital art market...