French photographer and street artist JR. © Zachary Bako

While doing an artist residency in Beijing, photographer Zachary Bako started documenting the contemporary art scene in China. But it wasn’t until he returned home to New York City that he would meet Liu Bolin, who was working on his series “Hiding in New York.” Bako began photographing Liu’s creative process for the images, which show Liu painted to blend into the background of various sites around the city.

Within six months, Bako relocated to Beijing and began his own series “Liu Bolin: The Process.” Using both still images and video, Bako continues to record and document what goes on behind the scenes in order for Liu to make photographs for his “Hiding in the City” series. Here, Bako chronicles a collaboration between Liu and French photographer JR. For the work, JR photographed Liu, enlarged the image, and pasted it on his studio’s exterior wall and door. Then Liu painted JR to blend into the image and photographed the resulting work.

Liu’s exhibit “Lost in Art” is currently on display at Eli Klein Fine Art in New York City through May 11.

(more…)

“Gotthard #2754,” 2010. © Jörn Vanhöfen, courtesy of Robert Mann Gallery

In his latest exhibit “Aftermath,” German fine-art photographer Jörn Vanhöfen explores the physical, cultural and social forces at work around the world, and how they often collide with the natural world. The large-format color photos, now on display at the Robert Mann Gallery in New York City through May 5, are stunning in scale and detail. But they also evoke beauty, wit, drama and outrage in equal parts.

(more…)

"1:18pm, Silverlake Drive," 2012. © Alex Prager, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery.

Alex Prager‘s latest exhibit “Compulsion,” which opens April 5 at Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York City, continues to explore the cinematic esthetic she is known for. Like much of her early work, there are detailed and dramatic photos that look as if they were taken on a movie set. But now her “characters” are at a distance or sometimes even missing from the frame, allowing each viewer to determine his or her own version of the events taking place in the photo. Inspired by the grisly scenes captured by tabloid favorites Weegee and Enrique Metinides, the cinema-style photos in “Compulsion” feel almost invasive; as if we are all spectators of a crime we were too late or unwilling to prevent. Further playing on the role of the viewer, each of Prager’s “scenes” are paired with a closely cropped photo of a woman’s eye.

(more…)

© Tetsugo Hyakutake. Courtesy of Philadelphia Photo Arts Center.

This month marks the one-year anniversary of the undersea earthquake and resulting tsunami that struck Northern Japan. In observance of the tragedy, the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center (PPAC) is exhibiting “Silent Existence” by the fine-art photographer Tetsugo Hyakutake. Through his images, Hyakutake has said that he wishes to explore “contemporary issues in relation to their historical contexts.” For “Silent Existence,” the contemporary and historical meld into one, as the images show the destruction caused by the tsunami soon after it occurred. The resulting photos have a quiet sadness to them, featuring the things the wave left behind.

(more…)

"Luxembourg," 1923-1925. Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden.

The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibit on Eugène Atget is named after the sign that hung outside of the photographer’s studio door, which simply said “Documents pour artistes” (Documents for Artists). Atget photographed Paris over the course of his 30-year career with the artist in mind, often capturing detail-rich scenes like an abandoned park or rural courtyard that could serve as source material for painters and others. Taking care to avoid cliché sites such as the Eiffel Tower, Atget instead “focused on the fabric of the city,” including parks, street scenes, store displays and building facades. The rare times Atget did photograph his fellow Parisians, he focused his camera on those living on the fringes of society: street merchants, Gypsies and prostitutes.

(more…)