Curated by amani olu

Artists: Michael Bühler-Rose, Talia Chetrit, Matthew Gamber, Stephen Gill, Adrien Missika, Pushpamala N, Arthur Ou, Noel Rodo-Vankeulen and Michael Vahrenwald

Panel discussion: Wednesday, July 15, 6 – 8

After Color examines how artists employ conceptual black-and-white photography to strengthen their ideas and how such usage comments on the dominance of large-scale, color photography as seen in the contemporary art world over the last 25 years.

In their work, Michael Bühler-Rose, Talia Chetrit and Noel Rodo-Vankeulen raise questions about medium specificity. Bühler-Rose merges a photogram of the word “edition” with hand painted numbers to ask: At what point does a piece become unique, and at what point is it an editioned multiple? Chetrit reverses the photographic process by using Photoshop’s gradient tool to make digitally fabricated images into traditional silver gelatin prints. Situated somewhere between the photographic and filmic, Rodo- Vankeulen’s mystical and pulsating animated GIFs breathe life into banal and often stilted images.

In a reference to abstract expressionistic painting, Matthew Gamber’s photographs of excessively used chalkboards suggest a kinship between the chalkboard and film photography’s recording capabilities. Stephen Gill’s typological still lifes of discarded betting slips are formal studies of composition and shape. Using South Indian female archetypes as her subject, Pushpamala N playfully restages the representation of women in photography, whether it is documentary, anthropological or art historical.

Finally, Adrien Missika, Arthur Ou and Michael Vahrenwald redefine landscape photography. Missika transforms the Grand Canyon into small, quarter sized landscapes that mimic floating planets. Ou experiments with the transparency of landscape photography by adding decorative elements created in the darkroom to prove its flatness. Vahrenwald’s photographs of depression therapy light boxes, explore the relationship between landscape and self, or in this case, create a surrogate landscape.

The exhibition has been curated by amani olu, born in Philadelphia (1980). Olu is a private dealer, independent curator and the founder and executive director of Humble Arts Foundation. He recently produced and designed The Collector’s Guide to Emerging Art Photography, published by Humble Arts Foundation. He is currently organizing Young Curators, New Ideas II, a curator focused group exhibition that opens in August at P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York. He lives and works in Brooklyn.

Michael Bühler-Rose, born in New Jersey (1980), lives and works in New York. He received a Fulbright Fellowship to India, obtained his BFA (2005) from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and MFA (2008) from University of Florida. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Bühler-Rose has exhibited work at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, Delhi; Bose Pacia, New York; Brancolini Grimaldi, Florence/Rome at Art Verona and Paris Photo; as well as with SK Stiftung Kultur/Die Photographische Sammlung at Art Cologne. His projects have been reviewed in The New York Times, Time Out New York, AM NY, Black Book, The Times of India and Rhizome.org and featured in Camera Austria, PDN (Photo District News), and American Photo on Campus. His work is held in the Sammlung Goetz, Munich, and in the Die Photographische Sammlung, Cologne.

Talia Chetrit lives and works in New York. She received an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (2008) and previously earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Chetrit’s recent exhibitions include The Form Itself at Priska Juschka Fine Art and Polamar: Experimental Photography in New York, and Full of Light, an exhibition in Memory of Bruce Conner in Los Angeles. In September 2009 she will have her first solo exhibition at Renwick Gallery, New York. Chetrit’s work can also be seen in The Collector’s Guide to Emerging Art Photography published by Humble Arts Foundation.

Matthew Gamber earned an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University. He is currently an imaging technician with Preservation & Imaging at Harvard University, and Editor-in-Chief of Big RED & Shiny. He has taught at Savannah College of Art & Design, Art Institute of Boston/Lesley University, College of the Holy Cross, and Massachusetts College of Art & Design.

Stephen Gill (born in 1971) lives and works in London. His work has been widely exhibited and is included in various international collections and is the subject of twelve photography books.

Adrien Missika, born in Paris (1981), lives and works in Lausanne, Geneva, and Paris. Missika studied at the University of art and design Lausanne (écal) from 2003-2007 and is the co-founder / co-curator of artist-run space Galerie 1m3, Lausanne, since 2006. His work has been included in recent exhibitions at the Palais de Tokyo Paris, Centre d’art contemporain Geneva, Rencontres d’Arles 2009 and Zoo Art Fair, London.

Pushpamala N lives and works in Bangalore and New Delhi, India. Pushpamala’s work explores alternate ways of viewing, seeing and being seen through her performance photography and video works. An internationally lauded artist, Pushpamala’s work is included in major private and institutional collections of contemporary art and has been recently exhibited at the Newark Museum, Espace Croise in Roubaix, France and Daimler Chrysler Contemporary, Berlin. Her work will next be included in an exhibition scheduled to open at the Centre Pompidou, Paris in 2011.

Noel Rodo-Vankeulen is a photographer and writer born in Toronto, Ontario (1982) and is currently based in Brampton, Ontario. His work has been included in many international exhibitions and his photographs and handmade artist books reside in numerous private collections worldwide. Rodo-Vankeulen has an OCC from Sheridan College and is currently completing his last year in Toronto’s York University BFA program.

Arthur Ou lives and works in New York. Selected solo exhibitions include To Preserve, To Elevate, To Cancel at Hudson Franklin, New York (2007), On Every New Thing There Lies Already the Shadow of Annihilation at IT Park Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2005), and Faces at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2000). His work has been featured in exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, London, Vancouver, Innsbruck, Dresden and Beijing, and featured in publications including Blind Spot, Art On Paper, and Art in America. He is an Assistant Professor at Parsons the New School for Design.

Michael Vahrenwald lives and works in New York. Vahrenwald has exhibited widely at various institutions including the Whitney Museum, The Walker Art Center, The Carnegie Museum of Art and the Yale School of Architecture. He is currently an instructor of photography at The Cooper Union and at Bard College.