Nelson Hancock Gallery

Amir Parsa

Sat, 03 May 2008 17:30:29 -0500

Amir Parsa’s photographic works use the registers and the parameters unique to the medium to allow for new fashionings of the world and of reality. From the single image to multi-image narratives and bookstills, from the tools and materials used to the modes of production, dissemination and exhibition, his engagements with the formal, structural and stylistic underpinnings of photographic practice dismantle categories and overcome conventional genres and projects. The overall oeuvre constitutes a theory in motion, a discourse in constant search of the possibilities of photography in relation to its own history and those of image-making and writing in general. Photography becomes a unique language, a system of scriptural intervention, a critique of and meditation on ways of seeing, ways of knowing, and the very poetics of leaving traces – of graphism – itself. An acclaimed poet and writer, Amir Parsa is the author of 11 literary books in French, English and Persian. His work has been read and discussed in Europe and in the U.S. in various venues, from galleries to museums, from lecture halls to streets and rooftops. He was recently included in the anthology of French and Francophone poets published in France. An educational and cultural designer, Amir is also a Lecturer and Educator at the Museum of Modern Art and at the Met, where he has created and implemented programming for a wide range of audiences. Amir has a B.A. from Princeton and an M.A. and MPhil. from Columbia.

Andrew Miksys and Jonathan Gitelson

Thu, 01 May 2008 14:45:42 -0500

Andrew Miksys BAXT and Jonathan Gitelson: Artist's Books open Thursday evening, May 1st. For more information about Andrew Miksys BAXT, click here. For more information about Jonathan Gitelson: Artist's Books, click here.

David Jelinek: Window Dressings

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:16:25 -0500

Nelson Hancock Gallery is pleased to announce the installation of new work by David Jelinek. Please join us for a reception on Saturday April 26th from 6-8pm. Jelinek's piece will be on display in the gallery windows through July 15th, and also on view in our booth at the AAF Contemporary Art Fair, June 11th - 15th.

Jonathan Gitelson: Artist's Books

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:33:07 -0500

Nelson Hancock Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of artist's books by Jonathan Gitelson. Smart, funny and slightly absurd, Gitelson's book projects draw on everyday experiences as they prompt viewers to think again and look more closely. Gitelson's books exhibit a fresh imagination combined with genuine engagement in the world, as if Duchamp had turned to cultural anthropology. "Dream Job" is a series of portraits paired with fictitious help-wanted advertisements, This work plays on the doomed aspirations of job-seekers. In "Scavenger Hunt," Gitelson follows a to-do list that he found in the street. The photographs reference each item on the list ("popcorn machine," "call Chris Micro," etc.). In another book, "If I had a Girlfriend," a series of self-portraits show him as the model boyfriend (writing love songs on his guitar, introducing her to his family).Throughout, there is a disarmingly plain, wry style that does nothing to hide Gitelson's nimble intellect.

Andrew Miksys BAXT

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:44:40 -0500

Andrew Miksys: BAXT BAXT is a Roma (Gypsy) word that translates to English as "fate" or "fortune," and is the title of a new book of photographs by Andrew Miksys. Based in Vilnius since 1999, Miksys has been photographing in villages, yards and homes of Lithuania's Roma, making elegant, classically styled images in the midst of post-Soviet tumult. from the introduction by Andrei Codrescu: "Viewers both familiar and unfamiliar with history, Soviet history, Lithuania, Romas, or Lithuanian Roma, can expend a great deal of useful exegetic energy looking into these pictures ... Andrew's greatness lies, I believe, in the extraordinary swiftness with which he establishes a relationship with his subjects, a relationship that is unfailingly empathic ... The people who pose for Andrew in these photographs expect something idealized and heroic from him, something that they have been taught years before, is the truly "artistic" portrait. Whether they know it or not, their ideas of art were formed by "socialist-realism." In seemingly granting them their wish, Andrew does something of a triple somersault: He quotes their ideas back to them without offending them while he makes the multiple ironies accessible to everyone, including his subjects.

Robert Gardner

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:14:04 -0500

Robert Gardner has enjoyed a long and distinguished career. In addition to creating a large body of film and photography, he served as director of the Film Study Center at Harvard from 1957-1997 and produced and hosted Screening Room, a television program dedicated to independent and experimental filmmaking. He is a recipient of the American Anthropological Association Lifetime Achievement Award and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His recent show at our gallery is titled "The Impulse to Preserve"

Mark Marchesi

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:34:38 -0500

Mark Marchesi was born in 1977 and raised in Rye, New York. He moved to Portland, Maine in 1995 to attend Maine College of Art and graduated in ‘99 with a BFA in photography. Mark’s photos have been exhibited in group shows all around the country- most notably Unframed First Look at Sean Kelley Gallery and W Behind the Lens Competition Finalists show at Spike Gallery in 2004. In 2006 Mark received a grant from the Maine Arts Commission to support his project “The Town and the City”. Currently Mark lives and works in South Portland, Maine.

Mark Marchesi: The Town and the City

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:43:26 -0500

"The Town and the City" is an ambitious project by Mark Marchesi that surveys the changing social worlds of the northeast. The large-format color prints gracefully range from studies of old grist mills, to evolving suburban landscapes, to intimate portraits of people he meets along the way. The images coalesce around recurrent themes of decay, renewal, home and family. Traveling extensively between New York City and his home in southern Maine, Marchesi's attentions are never limited to a single feature or phenomenon. Equally comfortable making tight portraits as composing broad urbanscapes, his breadth of vision draws connections between seemingly disparate elements. On the basis of such relationships, a suggested 'whole' emerges, bringing history into the present, and placing specific individuals into otherwise anonymous architecture tableau. This is Mark Marchesi's first solo exhibition of the work from "The Town and the City."

On The Page, On The Wall: four photographic books on display

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:40:39 -0500

According to Lewis Baltz’s well-known formulation, “It might be more useful, if not necessarily true, to think of photography as a narrow, deep area between the novel and film.” This exhibition at Nelson Hancock Gallery includes work from four photographers’ books (and the books themselves) in an examination of the boundaries between novels, photography books, and films. Books have always offered an alternative to photographers, a form distinct from galleries and museums and walls in general. Books allow for the commingling of text with images: for fixed sequencing, for the inclusion of more images and a more intimate viewing experience. This exhibition showcases the transformations that photographic books enable and generate, as it displays four bodies of work that have been put into and pulled out of books.

Karen Glaser

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:49:14 -0500

Nelson Hancock Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of color photographs by Karen Glaser entitled "Beneath the Surface: Springs, Swamps and Oceans." An avid diver, for years Karen Glaser has documented “the other 70% of the world.” In Beneath the Surface: Springs, Swamps, and Oceans, the compelling underwater images instruct us on where natural history gives way to the sublime, the ineffable -- the esthetic.

Mark Inglis

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 18:58:59 -0500

The Metropolis

TOPOS: Brooklyn

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 12:23:18 -0500

Eight Photographers Examine the Landscape of the Borough

Keith Johnson: New Work

Thu, 10 May 2007 17:34:09 -0500

Winogrand suggested that the photographic act was to find out what something looked like photographed. Callahan liked photography better than baseball because there were fewer rules. Tom Robbins tells us that the beauty of art is its uselessness. I wonder how it is that I see what I do and realize it is a gift of the muse, a gift that if I am paying attention will pay back with an interesting picture. My pictures are the result of unexpected, incongruous, often ironic juxtapositions and relationships. I am endlessly entertained by what I see. I travel a fair amount; sometimes to interesting places sometimes not, but always pictures seem to be hovering. I especially love the way man marks his space and what happens visually as a result. My photography is about observation, with attention to color, detail, relationships, and layering. Humor is a major component. I am a visual anthropologist.

Peter Ellenby

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:21:37 -0500

Biography: Peter Ellenby has become an institution in the indie rock world and much of his work is gathered in a recent monograph entitled "Every Day is Saturday." (Chronicle Books) An impromptu shooter with a fan's eye, Ellenby's photography embodies the same sort of freewheeling, devil-may-care attitude that underlies the best of indie rock. His arsenal of gear includes plastic cameras, fish-eye lenses, and an array of esoteric filmstocks deftly employed in studios, on locations and at live performances. One of his subjects described Ellenby's as a "Pabst-fueled Pollockesque technique perfected in the beer-soaked expanse between stage and fans."

Peter Ellenby: Every Day is Saturday

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:13:12 -0500

From the press release: Nelson Hancock Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of photographs by Peter Ellenby. Drawn from his new monograph "Everyday is Saturday" (Chronicle Books), the exhibition includes a survey of Ellenby's work in the indie rock world during the last decade. The opening reception will feature a rare acoustic performance by Nada Surf, as well as a book signing by Ellenby. An impromptu shooter with a fan's eye, Ellenby's photography embodies the same sort of freewheeling, devil-may-care attitude that underlies the best of indie rock. His arsenal of gear includes plastic cameras, fish-eye lenses, and an array of esoteric filmstocks deftly employed in studios, on locations and at live performances. One of his subjects described Ellenby's as a "Pabst-fueled Pollockesque technique perfected in the beer-soaked expanse between stage and fans." Opening Night: January 31. The reception was one of Nelson Hancock Gallery's most memorable, with Ellenby on hand to sign copies of his book and independent rock band Nada Surf performing an acoustic set in the main exhibition area to a rapt audience.

Videos of the Nada Surf performance: