Alongside its booth presentations, PHOTOFAIRS New York features a range of dynamic special Exhibitor Projects to provide a centralized point for discussions focused on the vast wealth of photography and new technologies.
Debuting at the Javits Center on 8-10 September, 2023, PHOTOFAIRS New York is one art fair not to miss. Book your tickets now.
BITFORMS
RBG Lights Mirror, 2023 © Daniel Rozin – courtesy of bitforms
bitforms bring RGB Lights Mirror by Daniel Rozin to PHOTOFAIRS New York. The piece is Rozin’s third Mechanical Mirror to employ full color reflection and the 25th piece in the series of Mechanical Mirrors that began with Wooden Mirror (1999).
RGB Lights Mirror is a return to the original idea of the Wooden Mirror where tiles turn to face a bright light to become pixels in a physical image. In RGB Lights Mirror the aluminum knobs rotate to face red, green, or blue lights and become full color pixels in a physical image.
The vivid lights, coupled with the glow of the aluminum knobs, result in a strangely saturated display that looks deceptively like an LED screen or a projected image. Further examination by the viewer reveals the mechanical kinetic nature of the piece. The rotating knobs create a 3D illusion that is almost holographic. Viewers standing in front of the piece see themselves in vivid color and full motion. Periodically the piece takes on a generative mode where various colorful animations take over the display.
JACKSON FINE ART
Tabitha Soren’s The Mind-Baby Problem is a new series of five self-portraits of the artist as a nursing mother, printed on coated cotton bedsheets, hung in the manner of a laundry line, whose palette follows the day from dawn to dusk. Each work, which is at once crisply photographic and gracefully sculptural, makes public the intimate dyad of mother and child, which is the root of our highly social species.
At a time when artificial intelligence and global political regression pose what it means to be human, Soren’s series answers with images the sleep deprivation, emotional turbulence and physically draining rollercoaster that is unconditional love. The work has never been shown before and each of the five sheets is double-sided.
ROBERT MANN GALLERY
Eclipse © Sayler/Morris – courtesy of Robert Mann Gallery
Eclipse is a site-specific artwork commemorating a lost species: the passenger pigeon, ectopistes migratorius, whose once massive population went extinct 100 years ago. As of the mid-19th Century, this dove-like bird was the most abundant bird species in North America and flew in flocks of millions that would literally darken the skies for hours when passing over. Audubon, the non-profit environmental organization, likened their appearance to a noonday eclipse.
Inspired by historic accounts of the flock movements, this video animation and soundscape evokes the once overwhelming, even frightening numbers, of the birds: their delicate beauty, the sadness of their loss and the loss of life as irreversible disappearance.
An accompanying artist publication by Sayler/Morris extends the content of the installation. The publication contains an introduction by New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert, whose conversations with Sayler/Morris about the growing crisis of extinction instigated the project.
ROLF ART
Levantamientos [Uprising] © Andrés Denegri – courtesy of Rolf Art
The project Levantamientos [Uprising] by Andrés Denegri (1975, Argentina) offers a large-scale film installation that brings together different works from the series We Were Expected (2012- ongoing) in an unrivalled way.
The artworks reunited for this project unfold the magic of the photochemical images. The film strip, the projectors (ranging from powerful 35mm cinema machines to the fragility of a Super 8 projector), the spotlights, the shadows, and the film bearings combine with the sound environment coming from all the functioning pieces, converting the project into an operating machine.
The film installation reveals itself as a device that recovers a memory that is anchored in the cinema now installed in the contemporary art space. The installation received Best Work at Arco Madrid 2021 and garnered widespread acclaim when it was showcased in the Meridians section, curated by Magali Arriola, at Art Basel Miami 2022.
TERN GALLERY
Tiffany Smith sits on the wicker chair for her Throned series – courtesy of TERN Gallery
Tiffany Smith will present a collection of recent self-portraits from the series For Tropical Girls… alongside an interactive photo booth activation of her photo series Throned featuring a wicker throne/peacock chair as a central photo prop that has been hand embellished with healing crystals.
The custom-designed wallpaper anchoring the space features botanical illustrations of plant species that are native to the Caribbean and are commonly used for medicinal purposes. Smith’s body of work For Tropical Girls… challenges historical representations of Black women, from the Caribbean diaspora in particular, through nuanced restaging of personal narratives informed by common cultural practices, tropes, and symbolism.
Throned is an ongoing interactive photographic project by Tiffany Smith that focuses on creating empowered representations of diverse subjects through staged portraits. Smith creates site-responsive photo booth installations that use plant life and props to reference interior and garden spaces, featuring a wicker chair as a central photo prop (a familiar fixture in Black, Brown, and Caribbean celebrations) and a symbol of empowerment.
Participants will be invited to activate the throne as a meditation space and to create portraits within the set.
The artist will be present to create portraits within the set on:
- VIP Preview (invitation only) on Thursday September 7 between 3-5pm
- Saturday September 9 between 3-5pm
