All photos © Lauren Fleishman

“What is the secret to love? A secret is a secret and I don’t reveal my secrets!”   – Ykov Shapirshteyn, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn on July 22, 2008

In her series “Love Ever After,” photographer Lauren Fleishman shows New York couples who have been married for more than 50 years, photographed in their own homes. “This project is intended as a photographic series of love letters,” says Fleishman, who includes the words of her subjects with each photo.  Images from the series are on view at the central branch of The Brooklyn Public Library in Brooklyn, NY through April 9.  More of Fleishman’s images can be seen at www.laurenfleishman.com.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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All Photos © Malick Sidibé. Above: Jeune homme, pattes d’elephant, avec sacoche et montre, 1977.

The Eye of Bamako, an exhibition by Malian photographer Malick Sidibé, is on view now at M+B gallery. The 75-year-old’s portraits of personal and cultural changes in post-colonial Africa have been celebrated around the world. “Positioned at the junction of Malian independence and a period of rapid modernization, the works exhibited bear witness to the joy, insouciance, and confidence of Africa’s youth revolution,”  M+ B gallery says. “Sidbé’s ebullient images take place in a variety of settings: either outdoors in one of Mali’s newly minted nightclubs, house parties spinning the latest James Brown album, picnics on the bank of the River Niger or indoors at Studio Malick. In 1958, he opened his own studio to take photographs of “Africans for Africans,” and by 1965, the young people knew to go to Studio Malick with their Vespas and latest goods straight from Saint Germain des Prés. Sometimes the props in the portrait did not belong to the client but reflected the aspiration of the sitter, making Studio Malick a powerful place to realize the dreams of an emergent culture.” Sidibé continues to run Studio Malick with the help of his sons. The exhibition will run through April 9, 2011. To see more of Sidibé’s work click here.

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© Courtesy Philip-Lorca diCorcia/David Zwirner, New York.  Above: W, September 1997, #3, 1997.

On view, for the first time in New York at the David Zwirner gallery, is an exhibition of fashion photographs by Philip-Lorca diCorcia. The exhibition, Eleven, opens tonight and runs through March 5, 2011. All of the photographs were selected from a series of eleven editorial projects diCorcia created for W magazine between 1997 and 2008.

“The tableaux-like, monumental quality, which envelops diCorcia’s broader oeuvre provides an intimate match with the contrived, theatrical nature of the fashion shoot. Together with W magazine’s long-time creative director Dennis Freedman (now the creative director of Barneys New York), diCorcia traveled to distinct locations around the world to produce his photographic essays,” David Zwirner gallery says. “Employing his own models as well as people cast on the spot, his images weave together richly loaded narratives with a stylist’s selection of designer-brand clothes. These narratives sometimes appear far removed from the fashion industry’s traditional emphasis on formulaic beauty and harmony, and instead involve a delicate balance between glamour and grit, imagination and irony.” To see more of diCorcia’s work click here.

Warning: This post contains partial nudity.

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All Photos © Richard Misrach. Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, SF/ Marc Selwyn Fine Arts, LA/ Pace MacGill Gallery, NY.

Richard Misrach: Graecism, a collection of six vintage dye transfer prints taken between 1979-1981, is currently on view at the Yancey Richardson Gallery. Shot during his travels in Greece and Italy as a Guggenheim Fellow, the works mark the end of Misrach’s nighttime studies and the beginning of his color photography. He shot the images of ancient architectural sites, including the Parthenon and the Roman Forum, at dusk and at night with strobe lighting and long exposures. “Misrach’s long exposures emphasize the passage of time in the terms of the celestial” Yancey Richardson Gallery says. “His wandering, exploratory eye lends to the feeling of communing with the spirits of a long lost civilization.” To see more of Misrach’s work click here.

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All Photos © Alexander Richter. Above: 50 Cent

In his career Alexander Richter has photographed some of the biggest personalities in hip-hop—from 50-Cent to the Clipse to EL-P and KRS One—for magazines and record labels. Several of Richter’s portraits are included in a new book, Hip-Hop: A Cultural Odyssey (ARIA, 2011), a history of the music and culture that has captivated young people from cities to the suburbs all over the globe. To coincide with the release of the book, The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles is currently hosting an exhibition of the same name, which runs through May 4, 2011.

See more of Richter’s work here.

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