Benjamin Heller

Flights

2015

Amodaj created the Hoop and Ball series of photographs in June 2010 with dancer and author Shawnrey Notto. The photographs were based on an earlier series of drawings Nenad made of Notto wearing parts of the deconstructed wedding dress during his figure drawing study in Michael Markowitz’s 23rd Street studio in San Francisco. The hoop skirt serves as an augmentation device, a skeletal extension meant to alter the visual perception of the human form. To realize the full associative power of the hoop, Amodaj created a counter-shape to the hoop, a white sphere (the Ball) made from plaster strips, to match the cloth texture and placed it in a dynamic relationship with his model. Notto improvised the poses from Nenad’s drawings in constant slow motion. The whole project was done in two 3-hour sessions with no rehearsals and no replays. The minimalistic setting, uniform lighting, and central vantage point shift perception from a trivial reality to a metaphysical one. The intent was to induce the spectator to spontaneously alternate between the three aspects: the human form, the symbolic function of the skirt, and the geometry of the cone and sphere. The spontaneity of dynamic poses and the imperfections of a handheld camera balance this sparse imagery. The exhibition presents a selection of 15 photographs from a project collection of over a hundred. Most of the series are gelatin-silver prints from a 35 mm film, with a few exceptions for large-scale digital color prints. Amodaj was influenced by the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher's typologies of industrial buildings and František Drtikol’s nudes. In the spirit of Becher’s “typologies,” Amodaj’s Hoop and Ball series of photographs explores endless mutations of the hoop skirt architecture, a clothing item with a curios geometric form that can be classified as a “flexible cone.” It is a form that appears both in nature and in artifice: flowers, bells, horns, nuclear power plants...

Price for UNFRAMED item The Robin Rice Gallery proudly announces SUMMERTIME Salon 2018, an annual photography exhibit featuring gallery artists as well as a few newcomers. This year...

This photograph depicts a ballerina in motion at the Parrish Museum in the Hamptons. It is currently on display as part of Robin Rice Gallery's 2018 Summer Salon. The Robin Rice Ga...

Listing is for UNFRAMED print. Inquire within for framing. Edition of 1. If the exhibition piece is sold or the customer orders a different print size, the photograph is produced upon purchase. Please allow two weeks for production. Shipping time depends on method of shipping. Price is subject to availability. The Robin Rice Gallery reserves the right to adjust this price depending on the current edition of the photograph. ABOUT: For the last two years Mark and Kristen have collaborated using one of the earliest photographic methods, collodion wet plate to create ambrotypes on glass and tintypes on aluminum. They use a 1860 style view camera to create one-of-a-kind images, which become windows into an intimate, romantic, and beautiful world of faces, still lives, nudes, and landscapes. In this demanding process, the collodion coated tin or glass plates are immersed in a silver nitrate solution, and then they must be exposed in the camera and developed while still wet. Serendipitous flaws and beautiful imperfections are an inevitable part of this imprecise hands-on process. This show includes a combination of 24 tintypes and ambrotypes, which are 8x10 and smaller in size. Their intimate sizes ask the viewers to look closer and spend more time with these photographs to fully appreciate their power. — A welcome antidote to today's nonstop, ¬instantaneous imagery. Paradoxically, this intersection of past and present gives these pieces an unmistakably contemporary feel. The two collaborators deliberately play up the ambiguity of time. The nudes (some recalling E.J. Bellocq's alluring portraits of New Orleans prostitutes in 1912) are suffused with freshness and sensuality, even eroticism at times, with nearly all of them coming off as refined rather than crass. Fredrick Scott Archer developed the collodion process in 1851. Artists such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Lewis Carroll, William Henry Jackson and Civil War photographer Mathew Brady used the process, due to its cost and versatility advantages. In addition Sink and Hatgi’s work can also be seen revived in contemporary artists work...

Stunning and glamorous image of Lucille Ball in fur.Lucille Ball was an American actress, comedian, model, film-studio executive, and producer. She was the star of the self-produced ...

Black and white candid capture of Prince Rainer, Grace Kelly, and their children playing in the snow in Switzerland, circa 1959. What's included: - Limited Edition Archival Print - ...

Black and white capture of actress Bette Davis in a fur coat for her role in "Dark Victory", circa 1939. What's included: - Limited Edition Archival Print - Numbered Certificate of ...

Black and white studio portrait of Ginger Rogers in a fur coat, circa 1953. Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer and singer during the Golden Age of Hollywood. She won an A...