Obscura Gallery presents a book signing and intimate exhibition of works from Joan Myers new publication, The Devil’s Highway (published by Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas Press). In this haunting new collection of photographs, gallery artist Joan Myers continues the decades-long journey she began in Where the Buffalo Roamed (with Lucy Lippard, Damiani 2019), in which she documents the changing landscape and culture of the American West. The images in this new collection are more personal, more elegiac––and all black-and-white. They bear witness to the fracturing of the American Dream, the demise of cowboy culture, the shrinking of small towns, ranches, and farms throughout western rural America. The themes she examines are reflected in a powerfully evocative short story by Pulitzer finalist William de Buys, also titled “The Devil’s Highway.â€Â First published in 1992 in Story magazine, the de Buys story is reproduced in Myers’ book for the first time.
As a proud member of AIPAD (Association of International Photography Art Dealers), we couldn’t be more excited to be back in bustling New York City this week celebrating photography after a long pandemic break. Now in its 41st edition, The Photography Show presented by AIPAD is the longest running and foremost exhibition dedicated to the photographic medium. In addition to the AIPAD Fair, the city is buzzing with other exciting art events including Frieze New York, VOLTA, I-54, and the ICP Photobook Fest in partnership with AIPAD.
In our AIPAD Booth #107 located on the ground floor at Center415, we are showcasing a selection of eight Obscura Gallery artists who represent a wide span in their individual careers, yet all have in common their unique contributions to the history of the medium. We hope you’ll stop by and visit our booth in which three of our artists will be available throughout the fair to chat with to you about their work: Susan Burnstine, Rania Matar, and Rashod Taylor.
Huge congratulations to Obscura Gallery artist Rania Matar for receiving the 3rd annual Leica Women Foto Project Award!
As part of Leica’s initiatives to expand diverse & inclusive representation in the photography industry, The Leica Women Foto Project is an ongoing commitment to elevating marginalized voices while empowering the female perspective.
Acclaimed Lebanese photographer and 2018 Guggenheim Fellow, Matar traveled to her home country to produce her stunning work-in-progress project Where Do I Go? لوين روظ inspired by the young generation of Lebanese women whose resilience and hope shine through the complexities of living in a country ill-prepared for COVID- 19 and ravaged by corruption and an ongoing financial crisis. As part of her larger initiative and best-selling photography book, SHE, Rania’s winning project explores issues of personal and collective identity through female adolescence and womanhood. A gripping and beautifully-shot examination of subjectivity and the female gaze, Matar portrays the raw beauty of her subjects: their age, individuality, physicality, and mystery, photographing them the way she, a woman and a mother, sees them, beautiful and alive.
Hasselblad Heroines shines a light on talented female photographers from around the globe as they make their mark in the photographic industry. Through these spotlights, each Heroine shares their experiences in their career, challenges they’ve encountered in the industry and inspiration in their art through short video interviews.
By putting a spotlight on these creatives, Hasselblad Heroines hopes to encourage the next generation of female photographers to go against the grain and bring their creative visions to life.
Obscura Gallery presents a book signing with Rebecca A. Senf, Chief Curator at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona, for her recent book Making a Photographer, The Early Work of Ansel Adams (Yale University Press). In conjunction with the book signing, there will be an exhibition of select works by Ansel Adams in our viewing room, to which Rebecca will refer to during her discussion of the book.
Ansel Adams, Mirror Lake, Yosemite, 1935, 7 3/4 x 9 7/8â€, gelatin silver print.
The small grant contributes to Blatchford’s ongoing Anti-Uranium Mapping Project which is documenting stories by those impacted by uranium mining along with the 500 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation and from when nearly 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted from Navajo lands between 1944 and 1986.
SHAYLA BLATCHFORD, Radiation sign at Ambrosia Lake uranium mining area, New Mexico
The destructive impact from mining toxic resources like uranium and coal has endangered the Reservation’s natural resources, and gravely impacted the people who lived and live here. Blatchford wants to bring awareness to the ongoing environmental catastrophe created by poorly run government projects and unchecked corporations, and to advocate for and preserve her Native heritage.
SHAYLA BLATCHFORD, Looking down from the mesa where relatives once lived before the McKinley Coal Mine relocated residents in the early 70’s in Tse Bonito, Arizona.
This interactive photo documentary map is very personal to me. It holds the story of my heritage and the stories of my own family facing the impacts of living near a coal mine. Ultimately, this project serves as historical documentation of the uranium mining era, from a Native perspective. – Shayla Blatchford
Growing up in Long Beach, California, Shayla had little exposure to her Native heritage; this sparked a curiosity that continues to propel her work today. Her mother’s genealogical investigation was a launching pad that started her journey to establish a connection with her ancestors and their ways of life. Often we don’t know how to share our stories. It can be difficult to take a vision from paper to finished project. Shayla has the ability to help people tell their stories, cultural or commercial, and sees providing that service as a way to share instances of beauty with the world. Photography is about capturing moments. It is about seeing the smallness in the bigness of the world. She wants to subtly craft these moments into art while allowing the images to speak with their voice and not her own.
SHAYLA BLATCHFORD, The road up to the Lukachukai Mountains where 24 of the 32 abandoned uranium mines are not covered by the Kerr-McGee Corporation/Tronox cleanup settlement in Cove, Arizona.
While earning her BFA from Santa Fe University of Art & Design, Shayla’s primary focus was social documentary and photojournalism. Recently, her practice expanded to commercial photography for luxury product space Santa Fe Dry Goods, and fine art product photography for form & concept gallery, where she served as in-house photographer and creative director. Today, Shayla balances her time between freelance photography, ranging from portraiture to architectural and interior design photography, and her ongoing, major photo and storytelling series, The Anti-Uranium Mapping Project.
Donations directly help bring this project to life by covering costs for audio equipment and travel while in the field. If others want to contribute to Blatchford’s project, she has a Patreon page here in which to donate: https://www.patreon.com/shaylablatchford
SHAYLA BLATCHFORD, Jennie Yazzie walks down the old road from her childhood home that was covered in mounds of gravel by the McKinley Coal Mine in order to prevent her family from returning to their land in Tse Bonito, Arizona.
About the Grantor:
Manuello Paganelli offers a small photojournalism grant each year to a deserving individual and for the second year in a row, he wanted to focus on giving the grant to a young Native American photojournalist based in New Mexico. In addition to the monetary grant, Paganelli and Obscura Gallery offer the grantees feedback and review of their portfolio as well as advising on the project. Last year in our grantee research we discovered Shayla Blatchford’s work and for this year’s grant we introduced her work to Paganelli who found it equally important work. The 2020 grant was given to Sharon Chischilly last year for her photographic work on the Navajo reservation during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Manuello Paganelli of Italian-Cuban descent, grew up in Santo Domingo, Italy and Puerto Rico. After a mentorship with Ansel Adams, he worked as a photojournalist at the Chattanooga Times. In 1989, he began to explore Cuba, its land, its people, and its complex relationship with the USA. The work culminated into his first photo book, Cuba a Personal Journey 1989-2015 and was published in 2016. In 1995, he had his first solo photo show of this work on Cuba and that same year earned him a fellowship grant. The Washington Post wrote “Manuello Paganelli’s Cuban photographs are a brilliant window on a land and people too long hidden from North American eyes. Working in the tradition of Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, Paganelli brings an artist’s eyes and a native son’s sensibility to his superb photographs.†In the early 1990s, he started work on his Black Cowboys series with a selection being featured at the Annenberg Space for Photography. In the summer of 2012, this same series was selected for the Photo Vernissage at the Manage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. His award-winning work has graced the covers and pages of many well-known magazines including GQ, LIFE, Bloomberg Business Week, Forbes, Newsweek, Men’s Journal, People, Time, Reader’s Digest, ESPN, Sports Illustrated and many more. Since 1996 Paganelli has been working on a documenatry across the Americas capturing indigenous people and their cultures.
Obscura Gallery is thrilled to announce our first exhibition of 2022, “Invisible World,†by Obscura Gallery artist Nevada Wier. Using her own unique palette created from infrared photography, Nevada presents photographs from her global travels through the lens of her camera converted to only render infrared light. While based in Santa Fe, Nevada typically spends nearly 99% of the year traveling the world on assignment and leading workshops, specializing in documenting the various cultures of the world. She is recognized for her creative and intimate approach to photographing people. Grounded due to the global spread of COVID-19, Wier has remained at home during the pandemic probably more than ever in her working life.  But she has used the occasion to dive into her years-long archive of inspiring infrared photographs, which form this exhibition. We are excited to present a selection of over twenty images at Obscura, making the invisible visible through Nevada’s use of infrared photography.
Our visual familiarity is limited to the colors of visible light. Beyond what our eyes can see is the iridescent world of the infrared (IR) spectrum. Twenty-four years ago, I began exploring the challenge of making the invisible visible: photographing remote places using the unusual, haunting light of infrared. These images explore my favorite subjects of different cultures and less frequented lands. The subjects may be recognizable, but they are transformed by infrared light – more than meets the eye.   – Nevada Wier
Watch the recording of our Zoom webinar interview with Nevada below!
2021 Hall of Fame Induction and Award Celebration
Virtual Ceremony Online
October 29, 2021, 6pm CST This year, IPHF will host a virtual induction and awards ceremony.
We congratulate Obscura Gallery artist Paul Caponigro for being the 2021 Lucie Award Honoree for the Lifetime Achievement in Fine Art Award!
The Lucie Awards is the premiere annual event honoring the greatest achievements in photography. The photography community from around the globe pays tribute to the most outstanding people in the field. Each year, the Lucie Advisory Board nominates deserving individuals across a variety of categories. Once these nominations have been received, an honoree in each category is selected. The Lucie Awards is the signature program of Lucie Foundation.
The honorees are presented with the Lucie statue during a spectacular evening at the Lucie Awards gala ceremony in New York. Â This year the Lucie Awards is held online October 26th, 2021.
“In SHE, the artist gives power to the young women who are the subjects of her images. Photographed in cityscapes, fields, forests, and bodies of water, they are in dialogue with their environments and own stories of empowerment.”
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Obscura Gallery is honored to debut an exclusive gallery exhibition of vintage, one-of-a-kind Polaroid prints made during Paul’s tenure with the Polaroid Corporation in the 1960’s. In 1959, Ansel Adams introduced the Polaroid Corporation to Paul’s work and that following year Paul became a consultant to the company, testing out their Type 55 negative/positive film, and their Type 53 positive film on his 4 x 5 view camera using a Polaroid back. The 44 images in the exhibition were created in New England as well as Ireland and a majority of the prints in the exhibition were created on Polaroid Type 53, which does not produce a negative and creates a one-of-a-kind positive print. The project came to a close in 1969 with a selection of images created in Ireland, when that same year Paul began his Guggenheim fellowship photographing in that country. Other than exhibiting the work at the Polaroid Corporation and a couple of universities or non-profits this is the first extensive gallery exhibition of this unique work and Obscura Gallery feels privileged to be able to work directly with Paul in selling this collection, and all his photographs.
ZOOM WEBINAR WITH PAUL CAPONIGRO
Hear Paul Caponigro in discussion with Jennifer Schlesinger, the Owner of Obscura Gallery, about his tenure with the Polaroid Corporation in the 1960’s. Event took place Saturday, November 20, 2021 at 10am MST.
Obscura Gallery presents a book signing with Rebecca A. Senf, Chief Curator at the 
