MELISSALAND

(Geosans Light - my new favorite font and the most kick-ass Q ever.)

I am exhausted, but really thrilled about the show. Hope to see everyone tomorrow night!

Show opens next Saturday…..hope you can make it!

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Through the ages, the Horse has remained inseparable from man as a symbolic element of the sublime within the spirit of humanity. As representations of strength, devotion, wisdom, divination and freedom, the equine form projects not its own beauty; it reflects instead the beauty – or horror – of man’s unconscious power. Equus, opening January 22, 2009, at Carrie Haddad Photographs in Hudson, New York, spotlights the multi-layered relationship between people and horses. The exhibit will include the work of local and international photographers Tim Flach, David Seiler, Ida Weygandt, Juliet Harrison, Paul Solberg and Christopher Makos.

More info here

I don’t watch a lot of television these days, so I miss out on a majority of commercials (I happen to like commercials and movie trailers as part of me used to want to get into advertising and marketing) - anyway, I came across this spot that Zig Toronto created for Best Buy for this past holiday season:

Totally fantastic ad. Here is another

I just love them. I was thinking recently about how to engage people more at the gallery and this ad reminded me of exactly the same reason why someone would buy a piece of artwork (well, most people) - because it gets you EXCITED. It inspires you. It gets your emotions going. We want things like that in our lives. Its been great to watch the few people who have returned to see the Such Great Heights exhibit two, sometimes three times now - and with each subsequent visit bringing a new friend along explaining, “you have to see this piece…”

What exhibits or shows have gotten you excited lately?

I am so completely excited about an upcoming retreat I just found out about: The Creativity and Collaboration Exhibitions Retreat in Monterey California. It takes place May 31- June 2 and is put together by the American Association of Museums.

Over two and a half days, we will experiment, discuss, and work together in small and large teams to foster creativity and collaboration. We will be working with three leading instigators from diverse creative industries: Kate Shaw from Lucasfilm, Harley K. DuBois from Burning Man festival, and Key Eklund, video game designer and creator of the collaborative online game World Without Oil. From inside the museum field, Mike Petrich and Karen Wilkinson of the Exploratorium’s Learning Studio will be sharing their experiences facilitating creative, multi-person art/science workshops for staff and visitors alike.

Registration is not too bad ($425 for non-members, which I am), + 3 nights in a hotel (and of course travel expenses to Cali and food for the 3 days) - It sounds like a great time and worth every penny. It is just what I am looking for right now. Three days of creativity near a beach with some pretty incredible people. Sign me up!

Quiet but productive day at the gallery today….staying late to get some extra work done for the upcoming Equus exhibit and stumbled across this wonderful song by Sarah Jaffe:

Two Intagibles Can’t Be Had by Sarah Jaffe

Enjoy!

Last night was the big opening reception for our brand new photography gallery in Hudson. I can’t thank everyone enough for their support. We had an amazing turnout. A completely fun, crazy opening where at one point, you literally could not move in the sea of people.

This is my favorite photo from the night

*update: new photos from Heather*

If you would like to stop in here is the info:

Carrie Haddad Photographs - 318 Warren Street, Hudson NY www.carriehaddadgallery.com. I’ll be open every day from 10-6 except for Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Friday and Saturdays I will be open till 9pm.

You can see more photos from the opening on my Flickr photostream

Here are some before photos of the new gallery space taken just 3 weeks ago when we began construction. It is absolutely amazing how different the space looks now.

If you want to see how it turned out….come by Saturday evening for the big opening!

My first curatorial efforts at the new gallery – hope everyone might be able to make it to the opening – Saturday November 29 from 6 to 8pm. Formal invites in the mail soon!

Photo by: Vincent Laforet, Grand Central Station

The inaugural exhibition at Carrie Haddad Photographs borrows its title from The Postal Services’ song, Such Great Heights. The song romantically proclaims that, “everything looks perfect from far away” and the six photographers featured in this show explore a world seen from this same spectacular vantage point. Whether they attempt to transmit a narrative or not, they radiate a sense of great magnitude; the world appears immense and yet wholly intimate and personal. Standing on the edge of the photograph, the viewer feels fierce and full of possibility. The unbounded horizon has always stood as metaphor for the limitless nature of personal experience, inviting explorers and wanderers betokened by the grandeur of the expansive landscape.

The song, Such Great Heights, speaks of an idyllic euphoria, a dizzying love affair, always aggressive, leaving you on a peak you are reluctant to depart: “They will see us waving from such great heights/ ‘come down now,’ they’ll say / But everything looks perfect from far away, / ‘come down now,’ but we’ll stay…” . The photographs included in this exhibition share this same intoxication.

In his essay, ”Truth and Landscape” Robert Adams states that landscape art is important because it can meet our need to experience the world as comprehensible: ”We rely, I think, on landscape photography to make intelligible to us what we already know. It is the fitness of a landscape to one’s experience of life’s condition and possibilities that finally makes a scene important or not.”

Photo by: John Griebsch

John Griebsch photographs of American aerial landscapes depict the pattern, color and design of natural and manmade landforms. Most of the aerials have been made from Griebsch’s vintage 1952 Cessna 170B aircraft. He explains, “I find the need to make geographical sense of the earth, as well as the need to make visual sense of a photograph. I work with ambiguity of scale, and the strong graphic quality of nature, and the hand of man on nature. These characteristics have motivated my work from the time I started flying and photographing as a teenager.”

Photo by: Jefferson Hayman

Photographer Jefferson Hayman’s New York City sky is punctuated by a lone dirigible or airship floating, dreamlike, almost as if pulled from some noir film. Hayman says, “I tell all of my friends in NYC, whenever you see one, call my cell phone and tell me where it is. I then go find it and wait for it to fly into a proper composition, and hopefully I get the shot. I sometimes try to sound intelligent and liken this process to Ahab chasing the great whale.”

There is a certain romance and adventure around airships and Hayman’s photographs evoke a nostalgic journey to an obscure and imperceptible time period. Inside his world, the viewer dreamily contemplates the comfort and resonance of the images which induce inexplicable moments of déjà vu. The frames that Hayman creates are almost as important as the images they contain and are either period or reflect the designs of the early 20th century & late 19th century American aesthetic.

Photo by: Kahn & Selesnick (click for larger image)

Photographers, Kahn & Selesnick have been collaborating to produce multi-layered exhibitions for the past 20 years, and their most recent project Eisbergfreistadt, tells the story of the post-World War I Baltic port town of Lubeck, which was struck by a monumental iceberg in 1923. Townspeople imagined the eventual flooding, thought it was a sign of the apocalypse, and created Eisbergfreistadt, an “Iceberg Free State.” In their signature style, Kahn and Selesnick tell their story by blending together fact and fiction in masterfully staged photographs. Two large works (7 feet long by 1 foot wide) will be on view. Their odd proportions, coupled with such fantastical imagery, make for larger than life dioramas of fictional horizons.

Photo by: Vincent Laforet

Vincent Laforet, a New York based commercial and editorial photographer, previously recognized for his striking aerial shots, has been trying out a new technique utilizing tilt-shift lenses. A tilt-shift lens allows the photographer very exacting control over the depth-of-field in an image, much more than any regular lens could provide. Focus can be restricted to a single, narrow band, with everything else rapidly blurring away. This distorts the appearance and makes the eye think that distances are far smaller than they typically are. When applied to a large scene like a city or a museum, everything appears miniature.

Bathtub II from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Also employing this same approach, but this time in motion, is Australian photographer Keith Loutit. His recent videos featuring the Sydney Harbor and its environs have garnered much interest through such websites as Vimeo, and YouTube. Loutit says, “By combining tilt-shift & time-lapse photography I help audiences to distance themselves from subjects they know well. My goal is to present ordinary subjects, which once treated by this technique become more curious. My process combines thousands of photographic stills into short films that each last less than 3 minutes.” On exhibit will be both Loutit’s video works and still photographs.

Carrie Haddad Photographs is located at 318 Warren Street in Hudson, NY.  For more information please call the gallery at 518-828-7655 or email melissa.stafford@carriehaddadgallery.com (please note: the gallery does NOT officially open until the 29th of November)