LEICA GALLERY, LOS ANGELES: Exhibition Mary Ellen Mark, SEAL, Yariv Milchan

  Amanda and her Cousin Amy, Valdese, N.Carolina, 1990
Mary Ellen Mark - Leica, My First Camera

 Me
SEAL - Stopping Time

Emotions in Motion
Yariv Milchan - Leica. An Affair

MARY ELLEN MARK - Leica, My First Camera

SEAL - Stopping Time
YARIV MILCHAN - Leica. An Affair

Leica Gallery, L.A. is pleased to announce its inaugural exhibition of three photographers: award winning international photojournalist MARY ELLEN MARK, Leica photographer and Grammy award winning singer/songwriter SEAL and Los Angeles fashion and celebrity photographer YARIV MILCHAN. Through August 31, 2013

MARY ELLEN MARK

 
The exhibition includes 50 iconic gelatin silver prints spanning both Mark's work in cinema as well her profoundly affecting social documentary portraits. Included are several of Mark's iconic Indian Circus images as well as significant environmental portraits from the South, Seattle, as well as New York Street photographs.

In addition to her deep affection for photographing people on the margins of society, Mark has long sustained her career by bringing her talents to Hollywood and European film sets. On display at Leica Gallery are several of her powerful set and backstage portraits capturing intimate moments of movie stars such as Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper and Johnny Depp. Mark's photographs have been exhibited in galleries and museums from New York to China, with work in the local permanent collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, California Museum of Photography (Riverside), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Mark has 18 published books to her credit, including Indian Circus, Falkland Road, and Streetwise.

SEAL 

SEAL grew up in England and quickly established himself as a great singer of soul music. Over the span of his illustrious singing and songwriting career SEAL has won 4 Grammy awards, an MTV Video Music award and sold over 20 million albums worldwide. Seal is presently a Coach for The Voice Australia.

A self proclaimed "photography geek" and ambassador for Leica, Seal views his photographic practice as a means of connecting to people and "stopping time." SEAL has been a loyal Leica Camera collector for 25 years. He started shooting 35mm on the original M3 and more recently with the digital Leica Monochrome. His work on display at Leica Gallery includes environmental portraits from the streets of Varanasi, India as well as self-portraits.

YARIV MILCHAN

 
Photographer and film producer Yariv Milchan is Israeli born, educated in France and attended college in Los Angeles. Milchan describes himself as a "self taught photographer" beginning with early internships with world famous fashion photographers that eventually led to jobs with Vanity Fair magazine. Yariv's photographs share a depth and beauty whether he focuses his lens on the stunning California landscape or the sinuous curvature of a woman's back. The common thread always sewing his body of work together is his love of capturing great light, nature and beauty. His exhibition presents a selection of both his landscapes and portraits. (Text courtesy of the Leica Gallery, L.A.)

Through August 31

Leica Gallery, Los Angeles

KERRY SKARBAKKA: 10 Years of Falling at Kopeikin Gallery

 Blue Tree © 2002 Kerry Skarbakka

 Reflected © 2003 Kerry Skarbakka

 Studio © 2003 Kerry Skarbakka

Ten Years of Falling 

July 20 – September 7

Ten Years of Falling is a significant selection of work from Kerry Skarbakka's long term project, The Struggle to Right Oneself. "Skarbakka photographs himself perpetually falling to an uncertain fate in a series of ambiguous narratives. These images stand as ominous messages and reminders that we are all vulnerable to losing our footing and grasp. Moreover, they convey the primal qualities of the human condition as a precarious balancing act between the struggle against our desire to survive and out fantasy to transcend our humanness."(Kopeikin Gallery)

KERRY SKARBAKKA

Kopeikin Gallery, L.A.

ANDERSON + LOW: An Intimate Journey with Chinese Gymnasts at Fahey/Klein

 Anderson + Low

Dong Zhengdong from the Project Endure, 2009/2010

 Anderson + Low

Gymnasium from the Project Endure, 2009/2010

 Anderson + Low

 Beam Training from the Project Endure, 2009/2010

 Anderson + Low

Huang Huidan from the Project Endure, 2009/2010

Anderson + Low

 Warming Up from the Project Endure, 2009/2010

ANDERSON + LOW
ENDURE: An Intimate Journey with the Chinese Gymnasts

FAHEY / KLEIN GALLERY

May 23 - July 6, 2013

Artist Reception: May 23, 7 – 9 PM

Fahey/Klein Gallery presents "ENDURE: An Intimate Journey with the Chinese Gymnasts", the first exhibition in the western world of this project from contemporary photographers, Jonathan Anderson and Edwin Low. The exhibition is comprised of large-scale color photographs taken over a two-year period documenting the elite Chinese gymnasts, their challenging and dedicated training program, their character, and the team's training facilities in Beijing.

Athletics, endurance, and the process of training have inspired Anderson + Low for over twenty years, but it wasn't until 2009 that the duo was granted exclusive and completely unique access to photograph the Chinese gymnasts.   Nobody has been given this access, and the results are as unprecedented as they are extraordinary. Over the following two years, Anderson & Low would work to create a documentary series that reinvents traditional sport imagery. Whereas conventional sport photography primarily focuses on the winning moment, or an instance of heartbreaking defeat-Anderson & Low's images explore the mental and physical process of training itself, and the structure and discipline the young gymnasts endure. The images capture powerful moments of stillness and transcend into a study of the human condition in microcosm, an examination of the purest human emotions under intense pressure. Although the images have a distinctly contemporary feel, athletics, training, and competition are among the most ancient and earliest depicted themes. Anderson & Low's images reference classic Greek and Roman forms, and the ancient ideal of the trained athlete. Their photographs examine the tension between the athlete's ideal and the very real limitations of the human body.

Anderson + Low state that the goal of the project is to celebrate the extraordinary athletes they have spent years photographing alongside, and of whom they remain in awe. They use the word "Endure" in a triumphal sense, celebrating these gymnasts' stamina, endurance, dedication, character and through this they celebrate the human spirit as a whole. Their images avoid judgment; instead, the detailed scrutiny in these images conveys the physical and mental experiences of the athletes, and the photographers' feeling of respect and admiration towards the athletes' strength, grace, power and determination. This became evident to the photographers when they first witnessed the athletes training in their massive gymnasium in early 2009, "We experienced profound emotion, intimate and powerful, made all the more intense by this primal response being so unexpected. It was, and still is, unforgettable; until that moment, we had not known that sport could still make us feel something so simple, as though it was the first time we have ever seen people train." (ENDURE, Serindia Contemporary Publications, 2012)

Since 1990, Jonathan Anderson and Edwin Low have been collaborating creatively as Anderson + Low. Their work has been exhibited internationally, and belongs to many public and private collections including: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Victoria + Albert Museum, London; National Portrait Galleries (United Kingdom and Australia); National Gallery of Australia; Museum of Fine Art, Houston; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and La Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris among many others. A limited edition book of "Endure" was recently released by Serindia Publications (2012). Jonathan Anderson and Edwin Low live and work in London, United Kingdom. (Courtesy Fahey/Klein)

Edwin Low and Jonathan Anderson, October 2012

Untitled (Kit The Swordsman), The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Photo © Elizabeth Paul Avedon / All rights reserved

EA: Where did you two meet?
Jonathan Anderson: We met in a photographic facility in London 25 years ago October the 12th this year. We’ve been working as the team 'Anderson + Low' for over twenty years.   Edwin Low: We submitted some work for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. It was quite unique because it was the first time they accepted Photography as an art form in the Royal Academy. The rest is history.  Jonathan Anderson: We thought we’d better take ourselves seriously and carry on, so that's where it all started.