Half King Photography Series - Van Lenten & Price

© Andrew McConnell. June 18th at The Half King join Andrew and...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 07:00:35 -0400

© Andrew McConnell.

June 18th at The Half King join Andrew and the International Rescue Committee for a short film and slideshow from “Hidden Lives: The Untold Story of Urban Refugees.” The event starts at 6:30 and will change your notions not only of refugees but of the people you live amidst in NYC.

Andrew documented this new reality for refugees in eight cities across four continents. He will discuss how the project was conceived and share insights into the lives of those fleeing conflict and disaster.

The splendid pictures in “Hidden Lives” underscore a basic concept: that individual people, caught up in the crushing forces of history, possess status by virtue of their essential dignity and strength.

Please RSVP by June 14 to: Events@Rescue.org or call 888-364-5975.

p.s. Andrew’s “Ghosts of the Sahara” at The Half King back in April 2011 was our best-selling show.

© Andrew McConnell.June 18th at The Half King join Andrew and...

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 08:01:00 -0400

© Andrew McConnell.

June 18th at The Half King join Andrew and the International Rescue Committee for a short film and slideshow from “Hidden Lives: The Untold Story of Urban Refugees.” The event starts at 6:30 and will change your notions not only of refugees but of the people you live amidst in NYC.

Andrew documented this new reality for refugees in eight cities across four continents. He will discuss how the project was conceived and share insights into the lives of those fleeing conflict and disaster.

p.s. Andrew’s “Ghosts of the Sahara” at The Half King back in April 2011 was our best-selling show and the pictures in “Hidden Lives” are equally stunning in how they present a basic concept: that individual people, caught up in the isolating forces of history, possess enormous dignity and strength. Please RSVP by June 14 to: Events@Rescue.org or call 888 364 5975.

© Alessandro Cosmelli & Gaia Light. Bensonhurst. Brooklyn,...

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 16:01:39 -0400

© Alessandro Cosmelli & Gaia Light. Bensonhurst. Brooklyn, NY.

Catch the Buzz this Tuesday, 6/4/13 at The Half King. “Brooklyn Buzz” was shot over the summer of 2010 on MTA buses doing their Brooklyn routes. It’s not just artisanal pickles and restored brownstones—Gaia & Alessandro will be on hand to explain.

© Gaia Light & Alessandro Cosmelli. Bensonhurst. Brooklyn,...

Thu, 30 May 2013 08:01:14 -0400

© Gaia Light & Alessandro Cosmelli. Bensonhurst. Brooklyn, NY.

“Brooklyn Buzz” opens 6/4/13 at The Half King. Come cool off with an icy draft and some sober, yet lively, discussion.

© Gaia Light & Alessandro Cosmelli. Brownsville. Brooklyn,...

Sat, 25 May 2013 08:01:03 -0400

© Gaia Light & Alessandro Cosmelli. Brownsville. Brooklyn, NY.

Catch the inventive, playful, not-so-serious, deadly focused Gaia & Alessandro at The Half King 6/4 where they will take us on a ride back to 2010. Their “Brooklyn Buzz” project, shot from MTA buses doing their Brooklyn routes, will be on exhibit through the end of July. Their Brooklyn Buzz book was POYi’s 2013 Finalist for Best Photography Book.

© Alessandro Cosmelli & Gaia Light. Coney Island. Brooklyn,...

Thu, 16 May 2013 08:01:01 -0400

© Alessandro Cosmelli & Gaia Light. Coney Island. Brooklyn, NY.

From their “Brooklyn Buzz” project, opening at The Half King 6/4. The images were taken over the summer of 2010, solely from MTA buses doing their Brooklyn routes. Come on by to meet these delightful photographers over a beer and a chat. Their Brooklyn Buzz book was POYi’s 2013 Finalist for Best Photography Book.

Gaia Light & Alessandro Cosmelli - “Brooklyn Buzz”June 4,...

Mon, 13 May 2013 08:01:00 -0400

Gaia Light & Alessandro Cosmelli - “Brooklyn Buzz”
June 4, 2013 – July 30, 2013
Opening reception: Tuesday, June 4, 7:30 p.m.

“Brooklyn was a dream. All the things that happened there just couldn’t happen … Or was it all real and true and … she, Francie, was the dreamer?”
- Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

New York, NY—On June 4, photographers Gaia Light & Alessandro Cosmelli will open an exhibit at The Half King of their images from “Brooklyn Buzz.” The project presents an extended visual exploration of Brooklyn, New York and its inhabitants, viewed from the windows of MTA buses during the summer of 2010. Caught in passing, each image is a chance arrangement of figures that appeared for a brief moment in front of the camera before the bus moved on.

Opening night will feature Gaia & Alessandro, and Newsweek photo editor Marion Durand, discussing the stories and images in this project.

“Brooklyn stands for a kind of authenticity,” says Half King curator Anna Van Lenten, “but Gaia & Alessandro’s images give us its less-aspirational street scenes—beyond the artisanal pickles and restored brownstones of the brand. In using bus windows to glean people’s hidden or transitory states of being, their pictures extract timeless moments from contemporary Brooklyn society.”

The Half King Photography Series is dedicated to showing exceptional documentary photography. In tandem with its reading series, it fosters a dialog between photographers and writers that underscores the importance of their relationship. Co-curating its photography series are James Price, photo editor at Newsweek, and Anna Van Lenten, writer and editor.

Gaia & Alessandro were both born and raised in Italy, and have both adopted Brooklyn as their home city. Alessandro’s photography has appeared in leading news magazines and has received many awards, most recently, Prix de la Photographie Paris (PX3). Gaia’s photography takes a conceptual approach to the image as cultural artifact and includes video and installation. Their book, Brooklyn Buzz, was a POYi 2013 Finalist for Best Photography Book.

© Chiara Goia. What is that woman doing? Where is she? Come to...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:01:51 -0400

© Chiara Goia. What is that woman doing? Where is she? Come to The Half King April 9th to find out. Photographer Chiara Goia will be on site to talk about her Mongolia project, along with Time’s International Picture Editor, Patrick Witty.

© Chiara Goia. Chiara and her Mongolia work will be at The Half...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 08:01:12 -0400

Chiara Goia - “Mongolia’s Rainbow of Riches: What Will Be...

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 08:00:00 -0400

Chiara Goia - “Mongolia’s Rainbow of Riches: What Will Be Past”
April 9, 2013 – June 2, 2013
Opening reception: Tuesday, April 9, 7:30 p.m.

Greed keeps men forever poor, even the abundance of this world will not make them rich.
- Mongolian proverb

New York, NY—On April 9, photographer Chiara Goia will open an exhibit at The Half King of her images from the fastest growing economy in the world—Mongolia. Chiara’s work looks at the cultural impact of Mongolia’s sudden economic growing pains and boons.

Opening night will feature Chiara and Patrick Witty, International Picture Editor at Time Magazine, discussing the stories and images in Chiara’s work.

“Over the course of a generation, the Mongolia of pastoral nomads herding on grand steppes is migrating into memory,” says Half King curator Anna Van Lenten. “Massive deposits of gold, copper, silver, and coal are luring foreign investment, raising prices, and despoiling the steppes. Chiara’s images capture the unease of a people whose cultural heritage hangs in the balance as they adapt, over the course of a single generation, to a market economy.”

The Half King Photography Series is dedicated to showing exceptional documentary photography. In tandem with its reading series, it fosters a dialog between photographers and writers that underscores the importance of their relationship. Co-curating its photography series are James Price, photo editor at Newsweek, and Anna Van Lenten, writer and editor.

Chiara Goia was born and raised in Italy. Her clients include The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Time, Le Figaro, and Vanity Fair. Among her recognitions are the Sony World Photography Award, the Canon prize for emerging photographers, and PDN’s 30. Documenting Mongolia’s dizzying transformations is an ongoing project.

Half King exhibitor Diana Markosian made this movie in grad...

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:54:50 -0500

Half King exhibitor Diana Markosian made this movie in grad school three years ago—see if it doesn’t make you cry for how well it captures what is tender, resilient, smart, and frank about Sophia K-Franklin and her daughter Lena. And, it’s screening at Madison Square Garden next week, in honor of Sophia & Lena.

© Samuel James. At an illicit refinery, a worker sits on a...

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 08:00:58 -0500

We’re getting excited for Sam’s show, “Water of My Land: The Niger Delta’s Illicit Fuel Trade,” which opens February 12, at 7:30 at The Half King. His images are lush, even when they capture something horrible. As you connect with the intense dramas playing out in them, you can almost smell the acrid smoke, and touch the inky waters.

“DARK WATERS of the beginning./ …/ Foreshadow the fire that is dreamed of.”
- Christopher Okigbo, “The Passage”

Opening night will feature Sam and Stacey D. Clarkson, Art Director at Harper’s Magazine, discussing the stories and images in Sam’s work.

Samuel James - “Water of My Land: The Niger Delta’s...

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 11:33:00 -0500

Samuel James - “Water of My Land: The Niger Delta’s Illicit Fuel Trade”
February 12, 2013 – April 7, 2013
Opening reception: Tuesday, February 12, 7:30 p.m.

“DARK WATERS of the beginning./ …/ Foreshadow the fire that is dreamed of.”
- Christopher Okigbo, “The Passage”

New York, NY—On February 12, photographer Samuel James will open an exhibit at The Half King of his images of rogue oil ‘bunkering’ and refining on the Niger Delta in Nigeria. Throughout the Niger Delta, fires from hundreds of illicit fuel refineries burn every night. Concealed deep within mangrove swamps and raffia forests, men, women, and children manually run these refineries and sell the fuel downriver.

Opening night will feature Sam and Stacey D. Clarkson, Art Director at Harper’s Magazine, discussing the stories and images in Sam’s work.

“Apart from the lush beauty of his images, what caught our attention with Sam’s story was his direct engagement with Nigerians eking out a toxic, undercover living—and the primeval forest itself,” says Half King curator Anna Van Lenten. “The jungle is as much a character as the oil and the people making it. Haunting everything is the worldwide, unrelenting thirst for fuel.”

The Half King Photography Series is dedicated to showing exceptional documentary photography. In tandem with its reading series, it fosters a dialog between photographers and writers that underscores the importance of their relationship. Co-curating its photography series are James Price, photo editor at Newsweek, and Anna Van Lenten, writer and editor.

Samuel James, a photographer and educator from Cincinnati, Ohio, is based in New York City and Lagos. Since 2008, he has pursued extensive documentary work in Nigeria, as well as independent projects, and assignments for a variety of publications. He teaches nonfiction storytelling at Tufts. While still a student, in 2010, he was awarded the VII Photo/ Exposure Alexandra Boulat Award to carry out his ongoing project about the Area Boys of Lagos.

So nice: BEHOLD, Slate’s photo blog, caught Antonio...

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 10:04:46 -0500

So nice: BEHOLD, Slate’s photo blog, caught Antonio Bolfo’s IMPACT exhibit at The Half King back in July, and included it in their end-of-year post, “11 Photography Shows That Caught Our Eye in 2012”!

Go here for the scoop.

Below: Misha’s artist statement for his wonderful exhibit,...

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:19:00 -0500

Below: Misha’s artist statement for his wonderful exhibit, “Photo51: Is Corruption in Russia’s DNA?” opening at The Half King 12.18.12 at 7:30 p.m.

Photo51: Is Corruption in Russia’s DNA?

Like threads of DNA spiraling in ladder formation, Russian society’s reliance on corruption for its basic functioning is both commonplace and breathtaking. Starting this project, I knew I did not want the aggressive expressions of it; I could avoid ostentatious nightclubs, would not need to listen at keyholes, nor to sniff out connections with criminals. Really, all I needed was Russia itself. And once I got to St. Petersburg and Moscow, to little towns in Karelia and the Urals, it took no more than a drive or a walk to see it manifested everywhere: the grove of birches banded delicately with crime-scene tape; the crew setting up the Scarlet Sails festival; even a lone car driving down a curving road at night.

Most people don’t acknowledge this, but corruption in Russia has become its own institution, upon which all other institutions run. Without the patron-client transaction, business and education, police and military, medical and judicial operations, don’t happen. With time, it got so I couldn’t pass anything—a building, a traffic intersection, an abandoned farm—without becoming hyper alert to the way it embodied corruption’s creep into every organ of civic society. In a way, my sense of alertness was a mirror for the paranoia and arrogance that weaves corruption so thoroughly into the logistics of people’s daily lives.

While this state of affairs has always ruled, since Putin, government’s grip in all arenas has made it so that corruption is now coded into the entire state and civic apparatus. It’s no wonder everyone wants to work for the government: salaries aren’t the reason—their guaranteed enhancement is. The country is now run by a criminal-corporate syndicate with Putin at the top.

What I’ve come to define as corruption goes beyond any one act and points to the acceptance of the whole system of it. Things that are not normal—bribing, beatings, adultery, cronyism, negligence, chauvinism, lying, and the cynicism of elected officials—are borne as normal.

There’s a joke Russians tell, “The city is great, it’s just that this neighborhood is bad.” My aim for this work is start a conversation about why this is funny. How is it that Russians think of themselves as exempt from the problem of corruption, as everything being government’s fault? One way of talking about it is with pictures; I think of Photo 51, the X-ray diffraction image shot in 1952 that provided a breakthrough for researchers trying to model the structure of DNA. To me, Photo51 signals photography’s power to draw out what is latent and make it visible. I want to employ this power and begin to identify corruption’s warping effect on Russian society’s DNA.

Above~ 2012, St. Petersburg. Bychiy Island on the Neva River has long been home to a children’s ecological school and student yacht club. It is now being developed into a private, $100 million judo mega-complex, headed by Arkady Rotenberg, President Putin’s childhood sparring partner. Putin, a black belt in judo, serves as the club’s honorary president. In other ways, Putin ensures that local governments are stocked with supportive civil servants. To run for regional gubernatorial office, candidates need first to get approval of 5 to 10 percentof local legislators. Since the majority of local parliaments are composed of pro-Kremlin officials, only pro-Kremlin people get chosen to run.

Comrades: it’s the one-year anniversary of the Russian...

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 09:48:48 -0500

Comrades: it’s the one-year anniversary of the Russian protests, and a perfect time to come together and talk about Russia’s pernicious problem with corruption. This is a subject that desperately needs the light of scrutiny.

The wonderful photographer Misha Friedman will be at The Half King December 18th along with Peter Klebnikov, Chief Editor at Environmental Defense Fund. We’ll be discussing Misha’s project, “Photo51: Is Corruption in Russia’s DNA?”

Sweet! PDN’s Breakout Photo Essay of the Year story lands,...

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 10:03:01 -0500

Sweet! PDN’s Breakout Photo Essay of the Year story lands, this year, on Lisa Wiltse, a Half King exhibitor from this past spring.

I remember meeting Lisa to talk about her Half King show, and her mentioning how Charcoal Kids was felt to be too dark and upsetting by most editors she showed it to. It’s beautiful and unequivocal, it’s not a story we’re seeing. It well deserves the attention it’s getting now—and more.

A double dose of irony for us over the last couple of days. This...

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 09:45:51 -0500

A double dose of irony for us over the last couple of days. This is a screenshot of what happens if you’re in Russia and you go to Diana Markosian’s web site. Diana was our last Half King exhibitor and the work which drew the icy finger of censorship is most likely the work she showed us here in New York: “Goodbye My Chechnya,” about young women growing up in the increasingly fundamentalist, Muslim state of Chechnya.

One of the largest Russian Internet providers, “Beeline” refused to show the site, pasting only a message saying, essentially, “blocked by a public authority.”

The irony is that our next Half King show is Misha Friedman’s work about corruption in Russia! We’re savoring the confirmation even while lamenting its oppressive reach.

Woo! Diana Markosian, Half King exhibitor, has been named...

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 11:08:33 -0500

Woo! Diana Markosian, Half King exhibitor, has been named finalist in Marie Claire’s International Photography Award.

The prize recognizes the best photo reports about women, and it landed on Diana’s “Goodbye My Chechnya” project—the work we showed in September.

A still from Ed Kashi’s short film...

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 13:12:06 -0500

A still from Ed Kashi’s short film “Photojournalisms,” one of seven films made by members of VII photo agency and screening Nov. 10 at the SVA theater as part of DOC NYC (New York’s Documentary Film Festival). Buy tix at the link here and walk down the street with the filmmakers afterward for the after party at The Half King.

“…[“Photojournalisms”] is the creative result of what was originally conceived as a book,” Kashi says. “The book and therefore this nine-minute experimental, non-linear film was developed from nearly twenty years of journal writings to my wife, Julie Winokur, while on the road working as a photojournalist on personal projects and on assignment for magazines. I spend more than half of my life away from my family and it takes a tremendous toll on my psyche. This book and film is an attempt to make sense of what I’ve been through while expressing the qualities of myself and many of my colleagues: the desire to connect and communicate, the deep feelings and emotions we experience, the privilege of witnessing both the intimate and worldly dramas of life, and finally a statement about how we navigate such a complex and challenging lifestyle.” Read more here.