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INVASION 68 PRAGUE
Photographs by Josef Koudelka

Opening Reception—Pace/MacGill Gallery: Thursday, September 4, 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Opening Reception—Aperture Gallery: Thursday, September 4, 6:00–8:00 p.m.

Exhibition on View—Pace/MacGill Gallery: Thursday, September 4–Saturday, October 11
Exhibition on View—Aperture Gallery: Friday, September 5–Thursday, October 30

Excerpt from the Aperture website:
"On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the invasion, Aperture Gallery and Pace/MacGill Gallery jointly present two exhibitions of Koudelka’s remarkable work made during that one week, which will celebrate the publication of Invasion 68: Prague. The exhibition at Aperture Gallery will be co-produced with Magnum Photos, featuring large-scale, ink-jet prints of a selection of work from the related publication, and will include some of the seminal texts featured in the book as well. The exhibition at Pace/MacGill Gallery will incorporate this sensibility, and will also feature vintage and recent prints of some of Koudelka’s most iconic images from this work.

This exhibition is presented in conjunction with the publication of a stunning monograph entitled Invasion 68: Prague, photographs by Josef Koudelka. This new volume features nearly 250 searing images—most of them published here for the first time—personally selected by Koudelka from his extensive archive. Compelling texts by three Czech historians, primary source material, and a detailed chronology together provide a multi-layered and unparalleled look at the events of that extraordinary week in Prague, as well as the implications for the Czech people."

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If you're in town, it's worth viewing: At the Zabriskie Gallery, an exhibit of Lissette Model's best-known images from the 1930's and '40's.

Zabriskie Gallery
41 East 57th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10022

Through Aug. 29

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Through August 22

Of the Refrain

Robert Mann
210 11th Avenue, at 24th Street, Chelsea

From the New York Times Published August 14, 2008:

A beautiful conspiracy of rhyme and reason, “Of the Refrain” presents 53 black-and-white photographs by 16 Modernist masters in a way that seems as musical and poetic as it is visual. Organized by Phil Taylor, a young employee at the gallery, the exhibition focuses on standard genres of studio and commercial photography, viewing them as occasions for formal and technical innovation and experimentation. There is a particular emphasis on the extraordinarily lucid and stylish work of Ringl & Pit, two women who worked together in Berlin in the late 1920s and early ’30s.

Portraits, still lifes and fashion and dance photographs are distributed around the gallery at different levels like notes on a musical score. Certain motifs regularly repeat. Barbara Morgan’s pictures of Martha Graham in extravagantly expressive poses and Hazel Larsen Archer’s images of Merce Cunningham leaping with athletic abandon create a theme of exuberant buoyancy, while images of glassware by Berenice Abbott, Margaret Watkins, Carlotta Corpron and Ringl & Pit — some bordering on pure abstraction — repeat moments of crystalline luminosity.

Many amusing juxtapositions occur. Man Ray, in a self-portrait, and James Joyce, in a portrait by Abbott, appear sitting on couches and resting their heads on their hands. Ringl & Pit’s image of a woman in a sexy, lacy corset is followed by Ilse Bing’s picture of a white lacy baby’s dress. A Ringl & Pit portrait of Ringl wearing glasses with round black frames mirrors Andre Kertesz’s picture of a man’s hands holding similar glasses. Caught in a crossfire of echoes, reflections and affinities, these and other old photographs, including works by Josef Sudek, Dora Maar and Horst P. Horst, are vividly rejuvenated. KEN JOHNSON

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From the British Journal of Photography:

The Barbican Art Gallery in London will be the first venue to showcase never-before-seen images from Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour.

The recently discovered 'Mexican Suitcase' contains more than 3500 negatives from the two Magnum co-founders, Capa and 'Chim' Seymour, along with photographs shot by Capa's girlfriend, Gerda Taro - one of the first female war photographers, who was killed during the conflict they were covering.

The images were long-feared lost after the negatives were left in the photographer's Paris studio when he fled France during the Second World War.

Last January, the International Centre of Photography in New York announced that after years of secret negotiations with the descendants of a Mexican general who found the works, the rights to the negatives had been transferred to the Capa estate (BJP, 30 January).

The negatives were then handed over to the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, where they are still being assessed, catalogued and analysed. Speaking exclusively to BJP, ICP has announced that so far one fifth of the rolls have been scanned and their secrets revealed.

'The suitcase holds major stories from all three photographers,' says a spokesman. Researchers have found Seymour's images of the Basque clergy taken in January 1937, and of refugees in Barcelona in late 1936. Taro's images depict General Lukacs' funeral in June 1937. As for Capa, the ICP has found photos from March 1939 of French internment camps for Republican refugees.

However, historians are set for disappointment as the ICP confirmed that the suitcase 'does not include any additional images from the "Falling Soldier" series.' It was hoped that the work would shed light on the mysteries surrounding Capa's most famous photograph, which some people believe was staged.

The Barbican expects to receive some of these newly discovered images. 'We're hoping to get some of the works from the Mexican Suitcase,' a spokeswoman tells BJP. 'We don't know how many and what we will get yet. As they are still working on the suitcases, we will see what is available and ready to be used.'

The ICP has confirmed that the Barbican's show will be the first exhibition to include photos from the Mexican Suitcase - which, in fact, is made up of three colour-coded case, each storing rolled negatives and index annotations. The shows of Capa and Taro's work will then move to Barcelona, Milan and Rotterdam. The ICP also plans an 'appropriate exhibition' for the entire content of the suitcase once the scanning process is over.

What has been discovered so far?

- By David Seymour

The woman nursing a baby in Estremadura, May 1936; Images of the Basque clergy, January 1937; Refugees in Barcelona, late 1936.

- By Gerda Taro

The funeral of General Lukacs, June 1937; La Granjuela, June 1937; Valencia, March 1937; Brunete, July 1937

- By Robert Capa

Teruel, December 1937-January 1938; Rio Segre, November 1938; Barcelona, January 1939; French internment camps, March 1939

The Barbican show runs from 17 October until 25 January. For details, visit www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery .

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Pamela Hanson

Born in London and educated in Switzerland, Pamela Hanson went to college in the United States. It was in New York that she met photographer Arthur Elgort, her mentor. Elgort persuaded Hanson to go to Paris where she finally got her first big photographic commissions, working for magazines including Per Lui, Marie Claire, and Elle. Her photography has also been used as a part of an advertising campaign for the fashion designer Joseph.

July 24 - September 20, 2008

Bonni Benrubi Gallery
41 East 57th Street 13th Floor,
New York, NY 10022

212.888.6007 tel
212.751.0819 fax

Regular Hours:Tuesday - Saturday 10 - 6
Summer hours: Monday - Friday 10-5:30

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Photographs

Leica Gallery
670 Broadway
New York City 10012

June 27 - August 9

From the Sarah Lawrence College web site:
Claire Yaffa is an esteemed independent photojournalist, critically-acclaimed fine art photographer, and internationally-famous portraitist. As a photojournalist, Yaffa devoted her career to social issues - documenting the plight of the ill, homeless and disadvantaged, especially children and the elderly. This work has been published in four collections: child abuse and rehabilitation (Reaching Out, 1987); children with AIDS (A Dying Child is Born, 1992); the homeless (Homeless in Westchester County, 1988); and the work of The New York Foundling Hospital (The Foundling: The Story of The New York Foundling Hospital, 2001).

Yaffa's four fine art monographs – the first three prefaced by the late Gordon Parks - include Light and Shadow (1998), a personal meditation on the subtleties of the photographic vision, of which Gordon Parks writes: “Whatever appears seems to have been carved from grace". Her most recent book, Divertissement (2008), will be published both as an individual edition and as part of a three-book slip-cased compilation of her fine-art work.

Claire Yaffa’s photographs have been published in The New York Times as well as in a wide range of Condé Nast and Gannett papers and periodicals. Her photographs portraying the social issues of our times have appeared as part of television documentaries on NBC, ABC and PBS. She is the recipient of the 1995 Westchester Arts Council Award and her work has been exhibited in such public institutions as the International Center of Photography, Hudson River Museum, the Sarah Lawrence College, the White Plains Museum Gallery and the Neuberger Museum of Art.

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