20x200 Newsletter

Edition Announcement #218 - James Griffioen

2009-11-18T14:38:42Z

Wednesday Edition: James Griffioen

Feral House #13 8"x10"($20) | 11"x14"($50) | 16"x20" ($200) and Feral House #7 8"x10"($20) | 11"x14"($50) | 16"x20" ($200) by James Griffioen Good afternoon collectors! It's Sara on this sunny day. We're in the midst of moving to a slightly more spacious office which means that the chaos that is JBP HQ is even more crazy. Clattering keyboards and conversations are accompanied by that starchy sound of packing tape stretching over cardboard boxes. Yes, a move (!) even before we open our new show at the JBG, Mixtape, this Friday, November 20th, from 6 to 8 p.m. See you at 6 Spring Street?! Yesterday we were all abuzz about the easter egg embedded in Jen's newsletter and it seems to have struck a note in all of you as well—the promise of free art for the first five (correct!) responders sent a flurry of emails our way. Easter eggs near Thanksgiving-time? No we have not lost our minds; it's just part of the holiday goodness we're concocting to keep you on your toes as we unveil our master plan for the season of giving. We have all sorts of amazing editions lined up to share with you and we may be dispensing of a surprise or two along the way! Speaking of surprises long in the works, we first approached today's artist, James Griffioen in early April, a few months after James entered the 2008 Second Edition of Hey, Hot Shot!. In photographing, writing and living, James gives due attention to a city that has been long neglected. Feral House #7 and Feral House #13 document two of many abandoned homes in Detroit. Now a strange sort of media darling, luring the likes of former NYT reporter Charlie LeDuff, the city is still sad, rough, unchanged and mostly un-bettered from all the attention. (James too is no stranger to the spotlight!) As Thomas Morton notes on Vice, "Journalists love pictures of abandoned stuff." But then what? Writers and photographers go home, readers put their papers down and return to their relatively comfortable lives; heads are turned away again from the disintegrating center of our country. But if you are James, and you live in Detroit, you can't just look away. James instead looks harder. He looks at what happens not only when we stop seeing but when we leave things alone entirely. While Alan Weisman's The World Without Us is hypothetical, a "thought experiment", about just that—what would happen to cities and infrastructures if humans ceased to exist—Griffieon's photographs are reflections of reality. As people leave in droves, slowly but surely, green growth returns and dominates, covering and suffocating engineered, architectural elements until only the outlines of formerly solid structures are apparent. While James notes that feral means "belonging to the dead," there is something reassuring about the ability of nature to recover and to reclaim. These old buildings are made beautiful again. ]]> View more editions tagged: GREEN

Edition Announcement #217 - Jorge Colombo

2009-11-17T17:07:41Z

Tuesday Edition: Jorge Colombo

iSketch842 10"x8"($20) | 14"x11"($50) | 20"x16" ($200) and iSketch818 10"x8"($20) | 14"x11"($50) | 20"x16" ($200) by Jorge Colombo Tuesday greetings, collector friends! We've got all kinds of good stuff percolating in JBP land -- we're getting ready to open Mixtape at the gallery on Friday, announcing this year's last group of Hot Shots on November 30th, looking forward to exhibiting the original, OMG-so-gorgeous-in-person paintings of Ms. Sarah McKenzie at the PULSE art fair in Miami, we're hiring and we're putting the final touches on our holiday offerings. As is always the case at JBP, there will be a lot of crossover in our art ecosystem during this season of giving. 99% of the gallery show consists of 20x200 editions and originals, providing you a chance to peer into the future and reminisce about the past. ('Tis the season, y'know.) And naturally, there are lots of Hot Shots in the mix. As for 20x200 proper, we're gearing up to unleash our Twelve Days of Festivus, which will commence on Monday, November 30th (big JBP day! mark those calendars!) We'll be featuring two full weeks of new editions and special treats for 20x200 collectors. To go along with our made-up holiday celebration, I am going to play a made-up character -- the Easter Bunny -- and will be liberally sprinkling easter eggs over our online domains throughout the season. We decided to offer up a few appetizers today, allowing a few fast-acting close readers of this newsletter to get some of our ridiculously affordable prints for free. I only decided to announce these easter eggs this morning -- there's never a dull moment -- and yet, our long-ago-scheduled iSketch842 and iSketch818 prints from the delightful Jorge Colombo are the perfect vehicle. Those geniuses at Apple, makers of the iPhone upon which Jorge sketches, are legendary easter egg pranksters themselves. And they're cooking up those pranks just a little to the south of San Francisco, where Jorge has been perfecting his sketching away game. In keeping with the SF theme, the answer to today's easter egg question can be found in this interview by 7x7 Magazine, which happened in anticipation of the trip during which today's editions were made. Hometown hero that he is, however, we'd be remiss to not give homage to the magazine that's made him famous. Our beloved Mr. Colombo's iSketches have graced the cover of not one, not two, but three issues of The New Yorker. Which brings us to our easter egg question: What is the name of Jorge's editor at The New Yorker? The first 5 people to email the correct answer to easteregg AT 20x200 DOT com will receive a gift certificate for $62.50, with which they can purchase the 11" x 14" iSketch print of their choosing. If you're late to the party in reading today's newsletter, fear not! We'll be laying a few more eggs on collectors before day's end, via Twitter and Facebook. So don't delay, follow us on Twitter today! And don't forget to declare your fandom via Facebook while you're at it.

Edition Announcement #216 - Jessica Bruah

2009-11-11T17:10:15Z

Wednesday Edition: Jessica Bruah

Untitled #6 8"x10"($20) | 11"x14"($50) | 17"x22" ($200) | 24"x30"($1000) by Jessica Bruah Wednesday greetings, my collector friends! The crisp air and colors of the season have me walking about in a haze of cinematic nostalgia. And while I have memories specific to my own history—a certain flower-patterned corduroy* jumper and the woolly tights that went with it, a full harvest moon that hung improbably low in the sky on Halloween night when I was 6 or so—it's the nostalgia of movies that capture this time of year in eras and places that have little or nothing to do with my own experiences that have me most captivated. Today's edition hits that cinematic sweetspot similarly. (And not to mention alliteratively!) Untitled #6 is our second edition from talented photographic tale-teller Jessica Bruah. When we last visited our heroine in Stories #46, she'd ransacked the supply closet and gone a bit overboard with the Post-it Notes. In today's edition we find her in a considerably more explosive situation. The tableau Jessica's created in Untitled #6 brings to mind two of my favorite yesteryear fixes: Todd Haynes' gorgeous Douglas Sirk homage, Far From Heaven, and the series that's been the toast of basic cable for a few seasons now, Mad Men. Our circle-skirted protagonist looks like she's hitting the road with her Samsonite in tow, and burning down the house she's leaving behind to ensure that there's no turning back. And who could blame her, really? Life in the bell jar sure wasn't the fairy tale it was made out to be—just ask Betty or Cathy Whitaker! *Today is Corduroy Appreciation Day, afterall!

Edition Announcement #215 - William Swanson

2009-11-10T17:52:31Z

Tuesday Edition: William Swanson

Chemical Schematic 8"x10"($20) | 11"x14"($50) | 16"x20" ($200) | 24"x30"($1000) by William Swanson Balmy November greetings collectors! It's Sara filling in for Jen on this eerily warm afternoon. Temps are supposed to hit the high sixties today even with winter supposedly right around the corner. I don't want to beat the global-warming-dead-horse with a stick but I am—this unseasonable weather is strange, isn't it? Still, not pulling on the winter wools just yet is pleasing, almost as pleasing as the pinks and purples in today's edition from William Swanson: Chemical Schematic. Pretty as it is, Swanson's palette is also unsettling. Swanson highlights the direct relationship between the variety of colors that appear as the sun falls over the horizon and the level of pollution in the air. The more brilliant a sunset, the dirtier the sky, and yet we still ooh and ahh over it. Just as we're happily forgoing a hat and gloves for now, we take an odd pleasure in conveniently forgetting the facts surrounding glowing skies in the evening hours. Ignorance is bliss! But, cleverly, Swanson inserts reminders of human interference in his paintings—an architectural grid, evidence of an oily pool of water and slightly foreboding skies. Just as last week's edition from Tyson Anthony Roberts hinted at our ever-changing environment, Swanson's work fuses our planet's past, present and future, foreshadowing sparks, glory and doom. As the boys over at DCKT said, "Holding to a belief that disaster can be a transformative process, Swanson's spaces play with end into beginning as in all natural cycles."

Edition Announcement #214 - Gregory Krum

2009-11-05T16:07:05Z

Thursday Edition: Gregory Krum

New York (Peony) 11"x8.5"($20) | 22"x17"($200) | 30"x24" ($1000) by Gregory Krum Thursday greetings, collector friends! Unlikely as it may seem, I've genuinely missed you all. I consider it a privilege to write about art and artists, and it's an even greater one to do so knowing that at least a few people are going to actually read this newsletter. Even better still? Some lucky few of you will be living with the art I write about! Today's edition—New York (Peony)—is a special one indeed. Its elegance, beauty and melancholy are so evocative of its creator, Gregory Krum, that I've come to see it as a self-portrait of sorts. You might be wondering why you would want a self-portrait of one of my dearest friends hanging on your walls. Or how on earth I see a self-portrait in a vase of dying flowers. And maybe you're even thinking that Gregory's going to be mighty peeved that I've likened him to a subject so sad. (Fortunately, when I mentioned this to Greg on the phone the other day, he was actually quite pleased.) The ability to feel an ache all the way to your core—to have that openness to emotion at all—it unlocks all the beauty in the world. Sometimes it's too much. If you're someone like my dear Mr. Krum, this too much-ness will cause you to knit up your eyebrows and sigh in the most heartfelt of ways. When he does this, I think of my most beloved short stories, tragic heroines, classical paintings in the dusty halls of museums and of my favorite poet, Frank O'Hara. This photograph reminds me of him when he's like that, which reminds me that to feel anything at all, and to feel it deeply, is to be alive.

Edition Announcement #213 - World Series Wednesday

2009-11-04T17:58:49Z

World Series Wednesday

Good Wednesday dear collectors! It's Sara with a short shout-out and some of our favorite baseball editions in celebration of tonight's big game. NYC is all abuzz as the Yankees and Phillies set up to face off for Game 6—what could be the final game of the World Series. Will we soon be seeing Philadelphia's Mayor Nutter sweeping our city's fair streets in pinstripes? However the chips may fall this evening, I think you'll all be pleased to know that Jen will be back tomorrow with a new edition from a favorite 20x200 photographer. It's a gorgeous print sure to bring some joy to everyone—even the Phillies fans among you. In the meantime, browsing the 20x200 archives may be the best cure for nail-biting. There are a few baseball-themed prints left, including Don Hamerman's Thread 2 and Mark Ulriksen's The Babe in the Negro Leagues. Isn't it nice to think of the Big Bambino watching over his hallowed team on eves like this? Last week's In the Ballpark from Tatsuro Kiuchi rounds out our offerings—the bases are loaded! In other news of note: we've extended Hosang Park's exhibition A Square over at Jen Bekman Gallery. If you haven't seen this show, be sure to swing by before November 14th. Reading about Hosang's work here, here and here isn't the same as seeing it in person! Until tomorrow! ]]> The Babe in the Negro Leagues by Mark Ulriksen

Edition Announcement #212 - Tyson Anthony Roberts

2009-11-03T17:24:23Z

Tuesday Edition: Tyson Anthony Roberts

The Gardens 8"x10"($20) | 11"x14"($50) | 16"x20" ($200) | 24"x30" ($1000) by Tyson Anthony Roberts Happy Tuesday collectors! It's Sara here on a very crisp and sunshiny NYC afternoon to introduce a brand-new edition from a brand-new 20x200 artist: The Gardens by Tyson Anthony Roberts. Jen first came across his work on Design-Milk and after visiting his site to see more, we agreed: wowza indeed. Upon spotting The Gardens, Jen immediately conjured Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grand Jatte. While the compositional elements are strikingly similar, Tyson, in fact, was inspired by a more recent reference, a trip he took to the Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. But this blending of then and now is an appropriate lens for viewing Tyson's work. With cunning strokes of his brush, Tyson mixes the best of old-skool traditions to create a quiet commentary on the world we live in. Landscape painting goes way back to the beginning of artistic conventions in both the Eastern and Western worlds. From there, Tyson brings in a little bit more modernism, referencing abstract expressionism and minimalism, then eventually transports us to the ever-changing present. His brushstokes, while defined by history, are very much objects of the here and now, looking a little like exagerrated pixels or Legos. However you see them, it's hard to not get the feeling that they are moving, or are, at least, recording something in motion. As Tyson writes, "the places we know are always changing whether we are ready or not." This is especially true for nature. In spite of our efforts to tame and control it—Butchart Gardens boasts five seasons!—and sometimes, intentionally or not, to destroy it, nature relentlessly continues to permeate the globe. In his painting, Tyson is reminding us that not only will nature persist, but we'll be lucky if we're able to keep up with it. The same can be said for pretty much every aspect of life today; it's cliche but resonant: the only constant is change itself. I'll leave you today with this little bit—knowing full well it's a thought that can be equally overwhelming and exciting. But I am doing so also knowing that Tyson's work provides a little peace, calm and quite amidst all this craziness.

Edition Announcement #211 - Tatsuro Kiuchi

2009-10-29T15:59:42Z

Thursday Edition: Tatsuro Kiuchi

Hello collectors! Making up for my absence as of late, I have a special bonus edition on this grand Thursday. It's that time of year again; the leaves are falling, the air is getting cooler and baseball buffs are getting all riled up. To bring some serenity to agitated and excited fans, we present In the Ballpark by Japanese illustrator, Tatsuro Kiuchi. Celebrating the World Series has become a bit of a tradition for us at 20x200. Don Hamerman's Found Baseballs have always been a big hit and Mark Ulriksen's Babe and Stars and Stripes are going, going, just about gone! So I was pleased as punch to find this diamond among Tatsuro's work. I've been ooohing and ahhhing over many of his drawings and you can rest assured that this won't be the last you see of Tatsuro on 20x200. We know we're not the only fans of his work and think there may be more than a few converts among the slew of you! But for now, I'll keep this note short and sweet. I first found Tatsuro on the cover of Poetry Magazine, so it's fitting to leave you with—what else—a poem! This one's by Marianne Moore and comes from Poets.org's great archives. Baseball and Writing (Suggested by post-game broadcasts) Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting and baseball is like writing. You can never tell with either how it will go or what you will do; generating excitement-- a fever in the victim-- pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter. Victim in what category? Owlman watching from the press box? To whom does it apply? Who is excited? Might it be I? It's a pitcher's battle all the way--a duel-- a catcher's, as, with cruel puma paw, Elston Howard lumbers lightly back to plate. (His spring de-winged a bat swing.) They have that killer instinct; yet Elston--whose catching arm has hurt them all with the bat-- when questioned, says, unenviously, "I'm very satisfied. We won." Shorn of the batting crown, says, "We"; robbed by a technicality. When three players on a side play three positions and modify conditions, the massive run need not be everything. "Going, going . . . " Is it? Roger Maris has it, running fast. You will never see a finer catch. Well . . . "Mickey, leaping like the devil"--why gild it, although deer sounds better-- snares what was speeding towards its treetop nest, one-handing the souvenir-to-be meant to be caught by you or me. Assign Yogi Berra to Cape Canaveral; he could handle any missile. He is no feather. "Strike! . . . Strike two!" Fouled back. A blur. It's gone. You would infer that the bat had eyes. He put the wood to that one. Praised, Skowron says, "Thanks, Mel. I think I helped a little bit." All business, each, and modesty. Blanchard, Richardson, Kubek, Boyer. In that galaxy of nine, say which won the pennant? Each. It was he. Those two magnificent saves from the knee-throws by Boyer, finesses in twos-- like Whitey's three kinds of pitch and pre- diagnosis with pick-off psychosis. Pitching is a large subject. Your arm, too true at first, can learn to catch your corners--even trouble Mickey Mantle. ("Grazed a Yankee! My baby pitcher, Montejo!" With some pedagogy, you'll be tough, premature prodigy.) They crowd him and curve him and aim for the knees. Trying indeed! The secret implying: "I can stand here, bat held steady." One may suit him; none has hit him. Imponderables smite him. Muscle kinks, infections, spike wounds require food, rest, respite from ruffians. (Drat it! Celebrity costs privacy!) Cow's milk, "tiger's milk," soy milk, carrot juice, brewer's yeast (high-potency-- concentrates presage victory sped by Luis Arroyo, Hector Lopez-- deadly in a pinch. And "Yes, it's work; I want you to bear down, but enjoy it while you're doing it." Mr. Houk and Mr. Sain, if you have a rummage sale, don't sell Roland Sheldon or Tom Tresh. Studded with stars in belt and crown, the Stadium is an adastrium. O flashing Orion, your stars are muscled like the lion. — Marianne Moore

Edition Announcement #209 - Scott Listfield

2009-10-27T05:51:42Z

Tuesday Edition: Scott Listfield

Waiting Dangerously in Rio 8"x10"($20) | 11"x14"($50) | 16"x20" ($200) | 24"x30" ($1000) by Scott Listfield Rainy Tuesday greetings, collectors! It's Youngna here, very excited to bring you today's irreverent and blue-sky-filled edition, Waiting Dangerously in Rio from Boston-based painter, Scott Listfield. Jen first paired one of Scott's paintings with a poem by James Tait on Personism after coming across his work on Booooooom. Scott took note of the mention in Jen and Booooooom curator Jeff Hamada's conversation on 20x200, and wrote in, with the sense of humor that is also apparent in his images:

Forgive me if there is another "Scott, the astronaut dude," because lord knows I don't want to step on his toes. But if you were indeed talking about me (and I think you were), I'm incredibly flattered you mentioned me (I don't even mind being called 'the astronaut dude'), particularly as someone you would like to see on 20x200.

So we are here today with Scott's edition, which occupies the mysterious place between the Mesozoic era and Stanley Kubrick's imagined future. Listfield paints the strange and unusual present, where both astronauts and dinosaurs roam—though rarely together. In Waiting Dangerously, a suited James Bond-like figure leans on his DeLorean, the famous sportscar released in the early 80s with gull-wing doors that flap open to reveal a fiberglass underbody. The car was made iconic in the Back to the Future series, where the vehicle acts as a time machine, taking Doc and Marty McFly to the year 2015, then back to 1885. As they dart around, the modern and archaic intersect in oft-comical ways, much like they do in this painting, where a fully-suited astronaut serves casual company to the car. If you've ever visited Scott's website—he is the envy-inducing owner of astronautdinosaur.com—you'll see he also incorporates myriad pop cultural and tongue-in-cheek sci-fi references in between the frequent astronauts and dinosaurs. He writes, "from Lost in Space to the Jetsons to Jurassic Park, it seems that popular culture fostered this space-age perception of the future." So, it makes perfect sense that in his paintings an anonymous astronaut is hanging out at a laundromat with Boba Fett or roaming a city street next to a giant statue of the Notorious B.I.G.; this is simply Scott's version of a very probable and imaginative present. Before we take off for the day, we want to remind you that your last chance to apply to Hey, Hot Shot! in 2009 is TONIGHT, October 27th at 11 p.m. (EDT)! Our panelists are excited to see the submissions of this edition's contenders, who have entered work from all over the globe. If you want a sneak peek, we've been writing about them on the HHS! blog, sharing entries on Flickr, and will continue to do so until the Hot Shots are announced on November 30th.
Don't miss out on the opportunity to have your work reviewed by our stellar panel, a chance to exhibit at Jen Bekman Gallery and the potential to release work here on 20x200. We'll be back tomorrow and Thursday with brand new editions, including one from a recent Hot Shot, so see you back here then!]]> Detail: Waiting Dangerously in Rio, by Scott Listfield

City Walks Party + Last Chance to Enter HHS

2009-10-20T18:16:44Z

City Walks Release Party Tonight + Last Chance to Enter HHS! in 2009!

Happy Tuesday, collectors! Jen is back in San Francisco taking care of some important business, so it's Youngna here with some news, rather than art, on this beautiful afternoon. Jen will be back tomorrow with a special announcement, so stay tuned for more from her then. And, have no fear: we'll resume with our regular schedule of brand new editions next week. Before then, join us at the JB gallery tonight at 6:00 p.m. for the official release party of Alissa Walker's City Walks Architecture: New York published by Chronicle Books. Come first to mix, mingle and view A Square, the New York City debut exhibition of 2008 Hot Shot Hosang Park. Then, at 7:00, Alissa will lead the group on a stroll through the Lower East Side with special stops at the New Museum, the Storefront for Art & Architecture and more. After the walk, which ends back at the gallery, il laboratorio del gelato will be on site serving four special New York-inspired flavors of gelato. At that time you will also be able to purchase a copy of the book and have your favorite city walk signed by Alissa. Advance reservations are not needed for this evening's event; simply show up at at 6:00 p.m. ready to walk! Next, we want to remind you that the deadline to apply for the 2009 Second Edition of Hey, Hot Shot! is coming up this Friday, October 23rd at 8:00 p.m. (EDT)! We've been mightily impressed with the work we've seen so far, and look forward to your entries! The guidelines are simple: contenders submit three photographs from a single body of work, using our online upload tool, with an entry fee of $60. Don't miss out on this fantastic opportunity to have your work reviewed by our stellar panelists (including our newest addition—New Yorker picture editor Whitney Johnson). All entries are also considered for editions on 20x200 and the selected Hot Shots participate in a group exhibition at Jen Bekman Gallery. Lastly, for today, we want to remind you that we're hiring! We're looking for passionate, art-loving people in the fields of marketing, accounting, web development and project & product management. Sound like you? Check out our jobs page, then send us your resume and cover letter today. But first, please review, and be sure to follow, our guidelines: - Tell us what you're the best at, what you're looking for in a job and what you find most appealing and/or interesting about working at Jen Bekman Projects. - Please include your cover letter within the body of the email. (Do not send as an attachment.) - Include your resume as an attachment. - Let us know when you can start. - Use the subject line: Your Last Name, Your First Name: Job Inquiry: Related Position - Email inquiries ONLY, please. Send your stuff to jobs@20x200.com. And with that, Jen will be back with more news tomorrow! ]]> Walking Tours by Alissa Walker

Thursday Reprise Editions: Hosang Park

2009-10-15T06:55:17Z

Hosang Park's Solo Debut

Good Thursday to you, collectors! It's Sara today, with a reprise of editions from 2008 Second Edition Hot Shot and JBG artist, Hosang Park. Jen first introduced you to Howon and Uman back in March, just before Hosang was named an Ultra and slated for a solo show. And now, Hosang's United States debut solo exhibition, A Square, is currently on view at the gallery. The show opened a few short weeks ago and will be closing in just a couple more, on Saturday, November 7th, so if you haven't seen it yet, hurry in! If you're not a New Yorker, I'll forgive you for not dropping by the gallery but I'd urge you even more to take a closer peek at Hosang's prints—the detail in them is spectacular! One of the greatest hurdles we face at 20x200 is making sure that the artwork translates as well on screen as it does in print. We do our very best but really, it's hard. You're in luck with these editions though; Jeffrey Teuton, the associate director of the gallery, put together a Flickr set of details of all the photographs that are currently on view in A Square for your close-viewing pleasure. Jeffrey, who is wearing a bow-tie today and feeling jazzy (the rest of the JBP crew is wearing coats inside and feeling cold; the heat is off on this forty-degree day and the super is, ironically, out sick) graciously chimed in with a few words about the prints:

There are so many intricacies and details to be discovered. In Uman, there are paths that have been created by those trying to move quickly and directly through the park. There is no evidence of time to follow the meandering paths; instead, the most straight and direct routes are carved into the ground creating a geometry all their own.

Denying the paved invitation to take a detour, the patrons of Uman have stubbornly refused to let contrived design interfere with their busy lives, much like the NYC citizens with offices around Federal Plaza rebelled against Richard Serra's Tilted Arc, ultimately ruling for its undoing. How we navigate public spaces, it turns out, is a very personal matter. Sometimes, disuse of parks is the greatest evidence of our tastes and desires. Jeffrey continues on about Howon:

Howon seems to be one of the oldest of all the parks. The bright colors are starting to fade and small signs of neglect creep in. The cracked, uneven ball court, the build up of leaves and fading veneers reflect the forthcoming fates of each of the more polished and newly finished parks: unvisited and unattended.

There is certainly more to these photographs than meets the on-screen eye; we're just skimming the surface! Nicola Twilley went a little further with her examination, Park's Parks over on BLDGBLOG and there is also more about Hosang in this Q & A on the Hey, Hot Shot! blog. What isn't revealed in that bite-sized interview is that Hosang shares our love for NYC and giant-sized hamburgers, particularly those served, where else, but in a park. If you're also a fan of public spaces, architecture and design, you can meet us at the gallery, next Tuesday, October 20th at 6:00 p.m. for the City Walks Architecture Tour with Alissa Walker. You'll be able to see Hosang's show, get your dose of architecture and indulge in one of our other favorite foods—gelato. Come one, come all! And my last note: If you're a photographer looking for the best way to gain exposure, support and recognition for your work, then apply to Hey, Hot Shot! You can upload your photos from the comfort of your own home. Youngna gave you the deets yesterday; I just want to make sure you don't leave till tomorrow what you can do today! Time is running out. The competition closes next Friday, October 23rd at 8:00 p.m. EDT.

Edition Announcement #208 - Mike Sinclair

2009-10-14T16:14:02Z

Wednesday Edition: Mike Sinclair

Rodeo Stars, Strong City, Kansas 8"x10"($20) | 11"x14"($50) | 16"x20" ($200) | 24"x30" ($1000) by Mike Sinclair Chilly Wednesday greetings, collectors! It's Youngna here on this brisk but sunny day in NYC, excited to bring you today's edition, Rodeo Stars, Strong City, Kansas by Hot Shot! Mike Sinclair. Jen, though she can't be here writing to you today, is also extra thrilled to bring you Mike's edition. It is part of a body of work she describes as "satisfying my idyllic image of America in a way that doesn't feel contrived" and adds that his images depict an "America I didn't grow up in" as a born and bred New Yorker, but still evoke a strong nostalgia. She associates his work with photographers like Justin James Reed and the American photography legends who captured the domestic national landscape in Where We Live, a book that accompanied the exhibition at the Getty Center. Mike is one of the photographers who stopped our own Raul Gutierrez—also a Hey, Hot Shot! panelist—in his tracks during last round's review. Mike's selection as a Hot Shot has elicited excited reaction amongst the rest of the JBP-team and gallery visitors alike. His brilliant portraits of sun-dappled barbecues, fairgrounds, group fishing extravaganzas and street parades hit the hearts and minds of viewers who find dual comfort and wonderment in his images of these loosely organized forms of mass congregation. Seeking out quintessentially American celebrations and rituals in his Midwestern stomping grounds, Mike finds himself in crowds where he is often staring at the spectacle that everyone else is immersed in. So, it is only fitting that in Rodeo Stars, Strong City, Kansas, we find ourselves gazing into the eyes (as seen by Mike) of the Roberts family: E.C. and three of his children—Gerald, Margie and Ken—all world champion rodeo riders. The billboard of these painted local heroes sits outside the rodeo grounds in Strong City, a grand and celebratory entrance to an annual event which welcomes visitors from far and wide. Mike's edition is another in a series of recent 20x200 releases by our Hot Shots. Last week's West Nineteenth Street (Yellow Dress) comes from two-time Hot Shot and 2006 Ultra Joe Holmes, and two other First Edition Hot Shots, Michelle Arcila and Kurt Tong, have also recently graced your inboxes with their editions Kind Intruder, Eivind, Gosling Lake and RAF Vulcan XL-361. You can look forward to upcoming editions by two more of our 2009 Hot Shots, Parsley Steinweiss and Daniel Cheek, on 20x200 very soon. One of the best parts of working with Hot Shots is we get to meet many of them in person, see their work on the walls of the gallery and collaborate with them on 20x200 editions like Mike's here today. On this note, we want to remind you that the deadline to apply to the 2009 Second Edition of Hey, Hot Shot! is next Friday, October 23rd @ 8 p.m (EDT)! All entrants have their work reviewed by our top-shelf panelists and enjoy the potential to be promoted online, selected for 20x200, and exhibited at the gallery. Entering the competition is the only opportunity for photographers to have their work considered for 20x200, so we hope you'll submit your images! To apply: submit three photographs from a single body of work using the online upload tool, with an entry fee of $60. Our panel will select five Hot Shots for inclusion in a two-week group show at Jen Bekman Gallery in January 2010 and, in conjunction with the exhibition, editions of each photographer's work will be released on 20x200! If that weren't enough, each Hot Shot is awarded a $500 honorarium. At year's end, two Ultras are selected from 2009's ten Hot Shots. The Ultras are represented by Jen Bekman Gallery and slated for solo exhibitions. A Square, the United States solo debut of Hot Shot Hosang Park is currently on view at the gallery through Saturday, November 7th, so if you are in New York, we hope you'll stop by to see his prints in person. Apply here and see some of this round's contenders on our Flickr and Facebook pages. Have questions? Check out our FAQ page.

Edition Announcement #207 - Jason-Jagel

2009-10-13T16:43:57Z

Tuesday Edition: Jason Jagel

Reading & Writing 11"x14"($50) | 16"x20"($200) | 24"x30" ($1000) | 30"x40" ($2000) by Jason Jagel Autumnal Tuesday greetings, my collector friends! I'm actually sitting at my desk at JBP HQ, which is a rare treat indeed as of late. Being able to IM from midair (and everywhere else) means that we're never out of touch for long, but it sure is nice to be hanging out in-person with our fantastic crew. We're all feeling pretty energized by the gorgeous weather and the months ahead, which are full of art and promise. Today's art — Reading & Writing — well... it's rather full itself! Positively bursting, in fact, with complexity, narrative, detail, color and inspiration. Read on for my take, and a bit of background on its talented creator, Jason Jagel. Jason describes Reading & Writing as a manifestation of his "desire to make a novel-length work", correlating his relationship between artist and viewer with that of the writer and reader. His description brings to mind the conversation about the future of books and publishing that I had on Twitter over the weekend. Disjointed by Twitter's nature, thoughts and links were traded, plumbing a variety of perspectives: publisher, bookseller, writer and reader. Bob Stein's statement in his thoughtful post on the if:book blog succinctly summarized the challenge and potential of our reading future. "A book", he wrote, "is a place (where readers, sometimes with authors, congregate)." Jason's composition, chaotic yet contained, also brings to mind my all-time favorite short story, James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues — introduced to me by my high school writing teacher Frank McCourt. It's a brilliant piece of writing and my favorite passage describes the musician's struggle between playing and listening in similar terms. I'll end today's newsletter with where the excerpt starts. I urge you to read the entire passage and get your hands on the full story — it's totally amazing! Hopefully you'll enjoy piecing together the words and pictures and music described here, there and elsewhere as much as I have. All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air.

Edition Announcement #206 - Joe Holmes

2009-10-08T16:48:51Z

Thursday Edition: Joseph O. Holmes

West Nineteenth Street (Yellow Dress) 10"x8"($20) | 14"x11"($50) | 20"x16"($200) | 30"x24" ($1000) by Joseph O. Holmes Thursday greetings, collectors! It's Youngna for the last time this week, bringing you an extra special bonus photography edition from Jen Bekman artist and 20x200 favorite, Joseph O. Holmes. A few weeks ago we introduced West Forty-third Street (Yellow Cabs), and today bring you that edition's sister image, West Nineteenth Street (Yellow Dress). Yellow Dress illustrates why we are glad to have guys like Joe photographing the streets of New York every day: he captures moments that feel like you're looking at the movie-set version of the city we live in. As Joe says in his own words, he is "learning the subtle art of twisting the elements of cliche in something archetypal," and so creates images that are equivalent to the New York most of us see only in our imaginations. Whether at the museum, in the park, or walking down a city sidewalk, Joe's photos embody all the New York-ness that both those who do and those who don't live here, romanticize. While staring at these editions, Sara Distin pointed out that yellow really is a very New York color. Yellow cabs define the streets of Manhattan and the sheen of the evening sun reflecting off the city's many brick buildings during the magic hour, radiates an effervescent golden hue. Joe hones in on yellows of both aura and object in this pair of prints, intended to hang side-by-side. Before we say farewell for the weekend, we want to remind you that the 2009 Second Edition of Hey, Hot Shot! is currently open for entries! The deadline to enter is Friday, October 23rd at 8 p.m EDT. Our panelists are very much looking forward to seeing your work, and we will continue writing about our contenders on the blog and featuring them on Flickr and Facebook until the Hot Shots are announced. Interested? Head over to Hey, Hot Shot! to see what the competition is all about and apply here! It is only fitting that Joe was himself a two-time Hot Shot (Fall 2005 and Fall 2006) before being selected as an Ne Plus Ultra in 2006 and gaining representation by the gallery the following year. We've been fortunate to have the chance to work with Joe on all of the Jen Bekman Projects now, an opportunity that first arose by seeing his work in the competition. We also want to remind you that Jen Bekman Projects is hiring! We are looking for passionate, art-loving people who are the very best at what they do in the following fields: marketing, product & project management, web development and accounting. You must also possess excellent written and verbal communication skills and eat/sleep/breathe social media, the Internet and, of course, art. Sound like you? We can't wait to meet you! Send us your resume and cover letter today. For more information, visit the jobs page, which will soon have detailed descriptions of all open positions. And with that, we'll see you next week!

Edition Announcement #205 - Mike Estabrook

2009-10-07T15:16:59Z

Wednesday Benefit Edition: Mike Estabrook for NURTUREart

Disaster at 1:47 in the Morning, May 4, 2003 10"x8"($20) | 14"x11"($50) | 20"x16"($200) | 40"x30" ($2000) and Google: God 10"x8"($20) | 14"x11"($50) | 20"x16"($200) | 40"x30" ($2000) by Mike Estabrook Greetings, collectors! Youngna here, once again, as Jen makes her way to SFO to board a flight back to New York. Today's two editions come to you from Mike Estabrook, a Brooklyn-based artist who morphs images from popular culture and mass media into politicized paintings, drawings, videos and animations. Disaster at 1:47 in the Morning, May 4, 2003 and Google: God frame the varied, sometimes-humorous, and mostly-absurd image results of Google searches within a painting that can live on your wall, rather than within the confines of your ever-transient web browser. We are pleased to announce that proceeds from the sale of Disaster at 1:47 in the Morning, May 4, 2003, will directly benefit NURTUREart, the Brooklyn-based non-profit founded in 1997 to support emerging artists through exhibitions, educational outreach and community-building initiatives. Mike's two paintings remind us that we're all subject to the temptation of the Google search, whether we are ego-surfing and entering our own names (which usually elicits a humorous and embarrassing selection of results) or exploring larger conceptual terms with loose image associations. Often, discovery of a person who shares your same name invites the imagining of an exciting alter ego: our own Raul Gutierrez shares his name with a Fu-Shih Kenpo knife fighting master. Image searching also speaks to our fondness for making tangible visual associations, whether we are searching for conceptual terms like Disaster and God, or collecting and curating images we like for our blogs, ffffound! accounts, or tumblr logs. In Disaster, we see looming poison clouds (suggestive of a Don DeLillo-like airborne toxic event), disaster preparedness posters, a raging fire, and what appears to be the face of a chimpanzee. These are only some of the first twenty of 62,800 results discovered in 0.28 seconds, and Mike paints the familiar page-scrolling numbers guiding us to see the thousands and thousands more images associated with the search term—if we were to choose to look. That we can never see the remainder of his very temporal results adds gravity to the brushstrokes of his painted thumbnails of disasters. There is also humor in Mike's searches; the first image in God gives us a red-haired Marilyn Manson above a result of a zoomed-in face of Michaelangelo's interpretation of God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It suggests there is delightful randomness to be found in the ever-growing catalog of the Internet, and that our collective visualization of God today is not, in fact, the same as God tomorrow. Speaking of God, if you're in New York, you can currently see Mike's work in person as part of the group exhibit God Doesn't Like Ugly. Within a Catholic church in Midtown Manhattan, Mike is exhibiting Popes, an installation of twenty-one 4'-tall popes made out of post-consumer cardboard boxes and decorated with paint and metal leaf. St. Paul The Apostle Church 405 W. 59th St. New York, NY On view through October 30th Last, but not least: Jen Bekman Projects is hiring! We're looking for passionate people who love art as much as we do. We will have detailed job descriptions available on our jobs page very soon. But if you are the best at what you do in marketing, product & project management, web development and accounting, you might be just the person we're seeking. You must also possess excellent written and verbal communication skills and eat/sleep/breathe social media, the Internet and, of course, art. Send us your resume and cover letter today! But first, please review, and be sure to follow, our guidelines: - Tell us what you're the best at, what you're looking for in a job and what you find most appealing and/or interesting about working at Jen Bekman Projects. - Please include your cover letter within the body of the email. (Do not send as an attachment.) - Include your resume as an attachment. - Let us know when you can start. - Use the subject line: [Your Last Name, Your First Name: Job Inquiry: Related Position (marketing, product & project management, web development or accounting)] and email to jobs@20x200.com. Please don't be terribly formal. That's boring. We'll be back once more tomorrow with a photography edition from a 20x200 favorite.