Standing Together: Jeanine Michna-Bales

Marian Goodman Gallery is very pleased to announce a forthcoming exhibition of works by the acclaimed Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov which will be on view from 10 January to 22 February 2025. Known for his groundbreaking photographic practice which combines his interest in cinema, documentary, performance, and writing, Mikhailov has been an inventive, tender but uncompromising witness to the changing fate of his native Ukraine and the consequent experiences of war and displacement. The exhibition explores his rethinking and reworking of the photographic image by including two video works – one from the late '60s-'70s, Yesterday’s Sandwich, and the most recent, Our Time is Our Burden, 2024 – as well as showcasing three iconic photographic series from the ‘80s and ‘90s. One of the most acclaimed photographers of the former USSR, he represented Ukraine at the Venice Biennale in 2007, and debuted his work in the United States with a solo presentation at MoMA in 2011. Mikhailov was born in 1938 in Kharkhiv, Ukraine, and has spent his life living between Kharkhiv and Berlin. Educated as an engineer, he encountered photography as an art form quite by chance. Through his raw pictures which offer an unequivocal critique of everyday life, he has represented the collective unconscious of Ukraine for over five decades. His embrace of social truths often involves the incorporation of deliberate accidents in his image construction to allow the abject to surface. His work is known also for specific aesthetic innovations, such as hand coloration as part of his conceptual practice, and the superimposition of images as a metaphor for the duality of Soviet life, as first seen in Yesterday’s Sandwich (1960s-70s). Alongside the videos, three seminal sets of photographs will be presented, taken between 1986-1993, which reflect on the changing conditions and inevitable contradictions of Ukrainian life. Operating in a society in which prescribed portrayals of idealized Soviet life were part of the era, these pictures represent the complex scrutiny, irony, and dissent that Mikhailov brought to his work. From the mid eighties, operating behind the ideological façade of the times, just as ‘glasnost’ was on the horizon, to the social upheavals that followed the downfall of the Soviet Union in 1991, he seeks to represent everyday humanity, questioning legacies of heroic identity. The earliest of the series on view is a set of black & white works, Salt Lake, 1986, in which we see bathers around a body of water in Southern Ukraine, recalling as Mikhailov says, ‘ times gone by post- revolution, where seemingly, like in the 1920’s and 1930’s people bathed naked, believing in the healing properties of waters. ’ This everyday portrayal of a lakeside idyll, with people mingling and socializing in regenerative spirit, actually depict the ‘underside of a proselytized utopia’ taking place against an industrial landscape with a factory looming in the distance, that was known to pollute the waters with waste. “It seemed to be the quintessence of the life of an average person in the Soviet context; despite the atrocious, polluted, humane environment, the people were relaxed, calm and happy … families, old men, and women lying down like odalisques or Greek statues. “ By the Ground, 1991, a series made five years later, was created the same year as the fall of the Soviet Union. Through a horizon camera that featured a panoramic point of view on his subjects in a novel sepia tone, a destitute reality emerged, reflecting life of the people at ‘ground level. ’ Shot from hip height, solitary figures are captured against an urban landscape, leaving the easy idyll behind. Having depicted subjects in a purposefully nostalgic manner through sepia tones, Mikhailov writes of these images: “Things were beginning to fall apart, the country was breaking up. This was life beyond the collapse. This series begins with a photo of a man lying on the ground… Suddenly I thought of Maxim Gorky’s play “The Lower Depths,” and this inspired the title of the series.” Two years later, Mikhailov continued his experiment with color, returning to the street with his series At Dusk, 1993. Evoking memory and war, At Dusk continues to document a worsening condition in Ukraine, following independence and collapse of the USSR. Using a horizon panoramic camera again, the images are hand-colored cobalt blue, recalling a complex beauty but also the foreboding of the night sky, which Mikhailov remembers having fled as a young boy from ‘sirens, searchlights, and bombs’ in 1941 Kharkhiv, during the advance of World War II. Mikhailov writes, “Blue for me is the color of the blockade, hunger and war.” In his documentation of Soviet life, there’s an underlying tone of dark humor, which serves a means to subvert the status quo, and as commentary to denote the failure of the prevailing systems of communism and capitalism. The narrative that he captures is in stark contrast to the reality and expectation from society and its government, then and especially now, in light of current events. In 1971, Mikhailov co-founded the Vremya group, an underground art collective exploring experimental forms of photographic techniques and methods, which later formed the basis of the Kharkiv School of Photography. He was the head of the photography department of Panorama, the Ukrainian Union of Experimental Photography, from 1987 until 1991. His work was included in the Carnegie International in 1991; and his series By the Ground was included in a show of New Photography that same year at MoMA in 1993. In 1993, he spent a year in Berlin, sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Organisation (DAAD). He was a visiting professor at Harvard University in 2000 and a professor at the Leipzig Academy in 2002-2003. Mikhailov has received many prestigious awards, including the Coutts Contemporary Art Award (1996), the Albert Renger-Patzsch Prize (1997), the Goslarer Kaiserring Award (2015), the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (2000), the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize (2001). In 2000, his book “Case History” won the prize for best photography book at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles, France, and the Kraszna Krausz Book Award in London. In 2021, his slideshow installation Temptation of Death (2017-2019) was awarded the Shevchenko National Prize, the first official recognition of Mikhailov’s work in Ukraine. Mikhailov’s work has been shown in numerous solo exhibitions at such institutions as the Ukrainian Pavilion at Venice Biennale (2007 and 2017), Tate Modern, London (2010), MoMA, New York (2011), Berlinische Galerie (2012), Sprengel Museum, Hannover (2013), PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv (2019), Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden (2020), Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris (2022), Palazzo Esposizioni, Rome (2023), and Fotomuseum Den Haag, The Hague (2024), and the Royal Danish Library, Copenhagen (2024). Marian Goodman Gallery champions the work of artists who stand among the most influential of our time and represents over five generations of diverse thought and practice. The Gallery’s exhibition program, characterized by its caliber and rigor, provides international platforms for its artists to showcase their work, foster vital dialogues with new audiences, and advance their practices within nonprofit and institutional realms. Established in New York City in 1977, Marian Goodman Gallery gained prominence early in its trajectory for introducing the work of seminal European artists to American audiences. Today, through its exhibition spaces in New York, Los Angeles, and Paris, the Gallery maintains its global focus, representing some 50 artists working in the U.S. and internationally.

Flower blooms at night invite us to delve into enchanting gardens after dark. Gardens require attention and care, slowly growing and evolving. The gardener must listen and negotiate the vast will and system of its universe. Each plant carries histories, symbolisms, mysteries, and mutations, emerging in these collages as emblems of adaptation. Robert Mann Gallery is pleased to present Night Gardens, a solo exhibition of works by Mary Mattingly on view from December 12, 2024 through February 7, 2025. Gardens produce food, medicine, fragrances of the earth—flowers, mulch, compost—textures, colors, and life. Birds, insects, and hidden movements stir in the dark, reminders that a garden is a world of its own. In this vibrant exhibition, Mattingly creates hyper-detailed images merging physical and digital realms into magical worlds. The twelve images in this exhibition are set in riparian zones where biological life responds to shifting water levels; the stories of these precious ecosystems go back to ancient times. In some myths, lotuses and water lilies rise from waters. Similarly, the thistle, both cursed and cherished, embodies resilience, even dispelling melancholy with its roots. Walking around Socrates Sculpture Park at twilight, the artist became inspired by the moonlit gardens. Mattingly took cuttings, scanned plants, painted and drew flowers, experimented with using fish tanks and mirrors, made flowers out of fabric, and used a digital program to further shape the subjects of her collages. Through these garden scenes, Mattingly “explores how disparate elements—ancient symbols, mythic blooms, evolving plants—come together to speak of survival, imagination, and transformation in a time of environmental upheaval. Night Gardens is an inquiry into the wild and shifting relationships between lifeforms, the self included.” In these images, Mattingly cultivates a garden that begins in reality and transforms into an ethereal myth of what could be. “The garden becomes a miniature world, echoing Foucault’s idea of a symbolic and even sacred enclosure—a universe in-between, where time and space, nature and artifice, history and future all overlap.” Mattingly’s work has been exhibited at locations including the International Center of Photography, the Seoul Art Center, the Bronx Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Public Library, deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Museo National de Belles Artes de la Habana, and the Palais de Tokyo among other venues. Her writings were included in Nature, edited by Jeffrey Kastner in the Whitechapel Documents of Contemporary Art series. She is a recipient of support from the Guggenheim Foundation, A Blade of Grass, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Art Matters Foundation.

Marian Goodman Gallery is very pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new work by An-My Lê, Dark Star/Grey Wolf, which will be on view from 10 January to 22 February 2025. The exhibition follows on two important solo museum exhibitions in the United States including her recent 2023 career retrospective, Between Two Rivers/Giữa hai giòng sông/Entre deux rivières at MoMA, and the exhibition On Contested Terrain, at the Carnegie Museum, 2020-2021, which traveled to the Milwaukee Museum and the Amon Carter Museum. In this exhibition, An-My Lê presents two new series of recent photographs, Dark Star and Grey Wolf, continuing her exploration of the contradictory nature of the manifest and the sublime within the contemporary American landscape, and the latter as a present-day locus of technology, power and ambition. In Lê’s work, scale is both temporal and historical, encompassing themes of displacement, war, memory, and resilience. These are present in her earliest black and white pictures of Vietnam (1994-1998) in which she returned to a scarred homeland as a political refugee, to her pictures of war re-enactors in the southern U.S. (Small Wars, 1999-2002), to staged military training exercises in the American desert (29 Palms, 2003-04), to her more recent lens on polarization in the United States through a series of historical fragments (Silent General, 2015 to today). With extraordinary consideration of history and culture, Lê’s view onto her subjects often incorporates an elevated perspective to achieve its signature precision and ethical neutrality. In zooming out to look closer, her stepped back ‘proscenium framing’ brings into crystal clear vision her observations and stories not unlike layers of a history painting. This strategy expands in the current exhibition in which two new series of photographs, both cinematic in their depiction of the constructs of war, explore a new geopolitical gravity, and what Lê defines as the nexus between photography and the post-atomic world. Establishing a thin line between reality and fiction, what is visible and unknown, each begins from reverse points of view: Dark Star, presents starscapes taken in Mesa Verde, and Grey Wolf, aerial views in Montana. While embarking on the latter, Lê discovered her interest in documenting the stars, as well as the evolution of a contemporary and paranoid sublime.

Through portraiture and biography, “Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900–1939” illuminates the accomplishments of sixty convention-defying women who crossed the Atlantic to pursue personal and professional aspirations in the vibrant cultural milieu of Paris. As foreigners in a cosmopolitan city, these “exiles” escaped the constraints that limited them at home. Many used their newfound freedom to pursue culture-shifting experiments in a variety of fields, including art, literature, design, publishing, music, fashion, journalism, theater and dance. An impressive number rose to preeminence as cultural arbiters, not merely participating in important modernist initiatives but orchestrating them. The progressive ventures they undertook while living abroad profoundly influenced American culture and opened up new possibilities for women. “Brilliant Exiles” highlights the dynamic role of portraiture in articulating the new identities that American women were at liberty to develop in Paris. “Brilliant Exiles” is the first exhibition to focus on the impact of American women on Paris – and of Paris on American women – from the turn of the 20th century until the outbreak of World War II. Included will be portraits of cultural influencers, such as Josephine Baker, Isadora Duncan, Zelda Fitzgerald, Loïs Mailou Jones, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Anaïs Nin, Gertrude Stein, Ethel Waters, and Anna May Wong. The exhibition is curated by Robyn Asleson, curator of prints and drawings, and will be accompanied by a major catalogue, published by the National Portrait Gallery and Yale University Press. Image: Josephine Baker by Stanislaus Julian Walery, Gelatin silver print, 1926 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

INST-gallery-the-hole-200-H.jpg The Hole is pleased to present tinyvices archive 20th anniversary exhibition curated by Tim Barber. tinyvices.com, the influential emerging artist platform founded and curated by Tim Barber, ran from 2005 - 2011 and showcased an eclectic, international roster of over 600 photographers and artists. The site was a unique, pre-social-media hub, where thousands of daily visitors came to discover new and exciting work. For the site's 20th anniversary, Barber brings together over 100 artists for a show at the gallery, and launches the newly designed website tinyvicesarchive.com. Contributing artists include : Mustafah Abdulaziz, Gilda Aloisi Louise, Aurélien Arbet, Corey Arnold, Tim Barber, Gideon Barnett, Anthony Blasko, Julia Burlingham, Asger Carlsen, Elísabet Davíðsdóttir, Alexandra Demenkova, Chris Dorland, Jessica Eaton, Shayne Ehman, Thobias Faldt, Leo Fitzpatrick, Greg Halpern, Balarama Heller, Victoria Hely-Hutchinson, Alexi Hobbs, Jerry Hsu, Maciek Jasik, Klara Kallstrom, Thatcher Keats, Richard Kern, Sandy Kim, Michael Koehler, Marten Lange, Alain Levitt, Allan Macintyre, Craig Mammano, Ryan McGinley, Santiago Mostyn, Nguan, Reza Nader, Jason Nocito, Boru O'Connell O’Brien, Patrick O’Dell, Christine Osinski, Skye Parrott, Christian Patterson, Asher Penn, Brad Phillips, Matthew Porter, Gus Powell, Caitlin Price Teal, Nuria Rius, Lina Scheynius, Michael Schmelling, Aurel Schmidt, Stephen Schuster, Robin Schwartz, Darnell Scott, Dan Siney, Brooke Smith, Lenard Smith, Dash Snow, Brea Souders, Peter Sutherland, Ed Templeton, Agnes Thor, Nathanael Turner, Alexis Vasilikos, Hannah Whitaker, Logan White, Daisuke Yokota, Nick Zinner & many more.

St. Louis-based contemporary artist Jess T. Dugan explores facets of identity through their photography, video, and writing. Grounded in their own experience as a queer, nonbinary person, Dugan’s work addresses the universal human need to understand, express oneself, and connect with others. Dugan’s previous body of work, To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults (2018), a series of portraits and in-depth interviews collected in collaboration with scholar Vanessa Fabbre, received acclaim for providing visibility to a community whose lives and struggles have largely gone unrepresented in a nuanced or thoughtful way. This exhibition is curated by Christopher Jones, Stanton B.and Nancy W. Kaplan Curator of Photography and Media Arts.

Peter Fetterman Gallery is excited to announce "Woof Woof: The Dog in Photography," an exhibition celebrating the special bond between humans and dogs through the lens of some of the most iconic photographers in history. Opening on December 7, 2024, this exhibition will feature a captivating collection of images that explore the deep connection, joy, and companionship shared with our canine friends. Woof Woof: The Dog in Photography will include works by renowned artists such as Kristoffer Albrecht, Sid Avery, Dorothy Bohm, Wynn Bullock, Giacomo Brunelli, Susan Burnstine, Mark Citret, John Cohen,Georges Dambier, John Divola, Robert Doisneau, Elliott Erwitt, René Groebli, Cig Harvey, William Helburn, Thurston Hopkins, Horst P. Horst, Jamie Johnson, Herman Leonard, Jacques Lowe, Kurt Markus, David Montgomery, Daido Moriyama, Sebastião Salgado, Pentti Sammallahti, Traer Scott, George H. Seeley, Sabine Weiss and more. Each photograph in this exhibition offers a unique perspective on the dog’s role in human life, from playful street scenes to intimate moments of quiet companionship. With both historic and contemporary images, this show invites viewers to reflect on the emotional richness that dogs bring to our lives, captured in unforgettable moments. Woof Woof is a must-see for photography enthusiasts and dog lovers alike, highlighting the universal and timeless bond between humans and their furry companions. Image: Dog - The Animals 2010 © Giacomo Brunelli

David Yarrow: The Adventure Continues… invites viewers on a journey through the remarkable work of internationally acclaimed photographer David Yarrow. Featuring a dynamic mix of his awe-inspiring wildlife images and meticulously staged narrative scenes, the exhibition showcases Yarrow’s ability to merge the raw beauty of the natural world with the evocative power of storytelling. Since 2014, Yarrow’s collaboration with Holden Luntz Gallery has introduced audiences to his unique photographic vision. Known for his large-format black-and-white images, Yarrow’s work immerses viewers in dramatic and untamed environments, offering an extraordinary sense of intimacy and immediacy. “The reason I take pictures is not just to show people what I saw, but to make them feel what I felt,” Yarrow explains, a sentiment that resonates throughout his body of work. In his wildlife photography, Yarrow captures apex predators and vast, untouched landscapes with a tension and immediacy that transports viewers directly into the scene. His narrative works, meanwhile, are grand cinematic productions, often featuring cultural icons like Cindy Crawford, who remarked on his ability to create images that feel “timeless and fresh at the same time.” These intricate compositions blur the lines between reality and imagination, underscoring Yarrow’s dedication to crafting stories that transcend traditional photography. Yarrow’s work has garnered praise from figures across fields. Tom Brady has said, “David’s photographs make you stop, look, and think,” a testament to the emotional and intellectual impact of his images. Each piece reflects Yarrow’s relentless pursuit of excellence, whether it’s trekking through remote wilderness or directing elaborate staged shoots. David Yarrow: The Adventure Continues… celebrates the artistry and adventurous spirit that define Yarrow’s career. From the raw intensity of wildlife encounters to the richly layered storytelling of his narrative images, the exhibition is a testament to Yarrow’s ability to reframe the world through his lens, making the extraordinary feel close, real, and unforgettable. Image: Bad Asses (Colour) © David Yarrow:

The Fahey/Klein Gallery is pleased to present Soft White Underbelly, an exhibition of photographic works by Mark Laita. This powerful series reveals raw and real glimpses of humanity’s most vulnerable communities, encouraging a conversation around the individuals and realities that often go unseen. Soft White Underbelly, a metaphor for vulnerability, was born from Laita’s 2009 photo series Created Equal. These new portraits, shot against stark and simple backdrops, highlight the individuality and humanity of his subjects. By emphasizing the lived experiences of his sitters, Laita’s photographs eschew judgment and focus instead on storytelling. Each image in the series captures a sense of unguarded honesty and reflects the vulnerability and complexity of life on the edges of society. Soft White Underbelly explores how a photograph can serve as a document of a person’s state at a specific moment in time. The Soft White Underbelly project has garnered international attention through its accompanying video interviews, which have amassed over a billion views. This exhibition offers an opportunity to experience these works in a new context—up close, and on a scale that allows for deeper reflection on the stories behind the faces. “In my view, my video interviews and portraits are character studies that attempt to reveal what’s behind our tendency to self-destruct.” Mark Laita. Mark Laita, a Los Angeles-based photographer, is renowned for his striking portraiture and meticulous attention to detail. Raised in Detroit and Chicago, Laita discovered his passion for photography at fifteen, documenting Chicago’s homeless population—a project that evolved over three decades. He holds a photography degree from Columbia College and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Laita’s work has been exhibited internationally and is included in prominent public and private collections. He currently divides his time between Los Angeles and New York City.

Peter Fetterman Gallery is delighted to announce the upcoming exhibition, Willy Ronis, celebrating the profound impact of one of the great French Humanist photographers of the 20th century. Opening on December 7, 2024, this exhibition will offer an opportunity to experience the iconic works of Willy Ronis, whose intimate and evocative images captured the heart of post-war France. Willy Ronis will feature a carefully curated selection of the photographer’s most celebrated images, as well as rare, lesser-known works that highlight the full scope of his remarkable career. Known for his timeless portrayals of everyday life in Paris—from children playing in the streets to the quiet moments of love and work — Ronis’ photography resonates with a universal tenderness and deep human connection. The exhibition will be on view from December 7, 2024, to March 1, 2025. A reception to celebrate the opening will be held on Saturday, December 7, 2024, from 4:00 to 6:00 pm, with accompanying refreshments, offering an opportunity to explore the works of this legendary artist.

Kwame Brathwaite, Renée Cox, Gordon Parks, Ming Smith. “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1968, three months before his assassination. Profound and timely when delivered during the Civil Rights Movement; this positivity has helped shape the landscape of Black American ethos. In times of uncertainty and disappointment, Dr. King’s passage is a reminder that hope is evergreen. Jenkins Johnson Gallery is pleased to present Infinite Hope, an exhibition of historical photographs by groundbreaking, internationally renowned artists Kwame Brathwaite, Renée Cox, Gordon Parks, and Ming Smith. The exhibition opens following Martin Luther King Jr. Day and remains on view through February, Black History Month. Jenkins Johnson Gallery will present this ambitious museum-scale exhibition at 1150 25th Street, San Francisco, a 6,000 square foot venue formerly housing the McEvoy Foundation. Spanning the late 20th century, Infinite Hope presents a discourse around philosophical, social, and aesthetic developments for African Americans. Starting in the 1950s with Parks, and Brathwaite, it continues through the present with Smith and Cox. The multigenerational artists address the unique social circumstances of their lives and times. Each artist represents the triumph over the challenges faced by their ancestors, with “hope” as the torch passed from one to the next. Leaning on the exhibition’s central theme of unity, the artists reject the notion of the Black family as fragmented, and the Black male is present and celebrated. The images emphasize both the power and endurance of hope, as well as the disquiet, friction, and doubt that hope dispels. Image: Kwame Brathwaite, Untitled (Couple’s Embrace), 1971

Pace is pleased to present an exhibition of recent photographs by Richard Misrach at its 540 West 25th Street gallery in New York. On view from January 17 to March 1, 2025, this will be the first presentation devoted to CARGO, a body of work that Misrach began in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the last week of the show, advance copies of CARGO (Aperture, May 2025) will be available to view at the gallery. Pace will also host a talk between the artist and Sarah Meister, Executive Director of Aperture. Misrach is known for his poignant, large-scale color images that lean into social, political, and environmental issues while also engaging with the history of photography. In his radiant, contemplative works, Misrach—who is based in California—often examines the destructive impact of human interaction with the natural world. His works have examined man-made fires and floods, nuclear test sites, and animal burial pits in the American West; the petrochemical corridor in Louisiana; the landscape of the US-Mexico border; as well as more lyrical subjects like San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge and his recent hydrofoil surfer series in Hawaii. Harkening back to his Golden Gate Bridge series—which the artist produced from his front porch over the course of four years beginning in 1997—CARGO centers on the light, water, and weather of the San Francisco Bay. He began creating this body of work in 2021 amid the pandemic and its attendant lockdowns. Captured at different times of day from a single location in San Francisco, these photographs speak to his enduring interest in bearing witness to the world around him from a singular vantage point over the course of months or years. In a statement, Misrach describes this series as a meditation on and celebration of the setting of the San Francisco Bay. With these works, he also contemplates the design, function, and history of the ships in the bay, and all of the thousands of workers implied in the images. “Behind these ships, there is a remarkable—if invisible—global workforce that builds them, and inhabits them, that packs and unloads them, that maneuvers them over oceans and canals, sometimes in dangerous situations, toward their eventual berths,” Misrach writes. “Along with the extraordinary achievement and value these cargo ships symbolize, they also represent the complex, challenging side of our critical, intertwined, international commerce. In this historical moment, they allude to the threat that is global warming.”