© Herb Ritts Foundation. Man with Chain, Los Angeles, 1985. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2011.19.11

Herb Ritts was considered one of the most important photographers to emerge during the 1980s. He had a distinctive sense of style, and the visual dexterity to stand out for both his personal work (which helped revive the genre of male nudes) and the fashion and portraiture of his commercial photography. From the late 1970s until his death in 2002, Ritts’s ability to bridge the gap between art and commerce was not only a testament to his imagination and technical skill, but also reflected the blending of art, popular culture, and business that followed the Pop Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Herb Ritts: L.A. Style (Getty Publications, April 2012) traces the life and career of the iconic photographer through his renowned images, as well as some of his unpublished work. An exhibition will be on view at the Getty Center from April 3 through August 12, 2012; at the Cincinnati Art Museum from October 6 through December 30, 2012; and at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, from February 23 through May 19, 2013.

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© Ryan McGinley. Above: Brennan (Blue), 2007.

Ryan McGinley’s premier retrospective monograph, You and I recently released by Twin Palms Publishers creates a portrait of a generation that is savvy about visual culture and acutely aware of how identity can be communicated through photography.

-courtesy Twin Palms Publishers.

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All photos © Eleonora Ghioldi

Los Angeles-based fine-art photographer Eleonora Ghioldi learned about photography through printing the work of renowned photographers, including Helmut Newton, Graciela Iturbide, Lauren Greenfield, Wim Wenders and Donata Wenders. In her current series, Ghioldi aims to challenge the concept of female identity. “Women are identified primarily through their physical appearance in our society; their bodies are tools to express moods, desires, feelings and ideas,” she explains. By stripping away traditional elements that often define women in our contemporary society, Ghioldi presents the female form in its most bare state.

These images were captured with a 35 mm and a medium-format camera, and printed on 16 x 20 silver gelatin prints.

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© Mark Seliger

Mark Seliger’s elegiac nude study is a meditation through slow looking that speaks metaphorically of the eternal themes of love and death. Paying homage to Seliger’s forebears Brandt, Kertesz, Hosoe, and Penn, the nuanced tones of the platinum palladium convey the rich textures of his sensibilities. Seliger’s work will be on display with the Steven Kasher Gallery at the AIPAD Photography Show New York, March 17-20, 2011, at the Park Avenue Armory.- AIPAD. To see more of Seliger’s work click here.

© Carrie Levy

Carrie Levy, New York based photographer and photo editor, has her third solo show with Daniel Cooney Fine Art opening today on February 17th. Levy says, “Being a female artist and the authority behind this work, I chose solely male subjects in order to enhance the submissive nature of the imagery.
You Before All questions the line that separates pain from pleasure. The work magnifies how in the moment it is hard to decipher between these two very different emotions. Both are intense, but are very much the opposite of another. The aim in this body of work is to ask the viewer to uncover which one of these emotions is behind a single frame and where he or she is more sympathetic.”  To see more of Levy’s work click here.