Daniel Cooney Artist Auction

Daniel Cooney's "Late Summer Emerging Artist Auction" is going on now through September 2nd. Works are priced at $200.00. Please help support the gallery and all the emerging artists in the auction. Happy bidding.

Artists include:
Samantha Cohn, June Glasson, Mikael Kennedy, Toni Pepe, Rafael Soldi, Sarah Sudhoff, Grant Willing among others.

Image credit:
Sarah Sudhoff
Cowboys and Indians (2008)

New Q&A with photographers Tribble & Mancenido

I just finished a new Q&A with collaborative photographic team Tribble & Mancenido who also happen to be husband and wife. I had the pleasure of seeing their work first hand and meeting them at the recent Houston Center for Photography exhibition.

I can truly appreciate the sacrifice and dedication they put forth to bring this series to life.

Please find the full interview on the Austin Center for Photography blog.

Image credit:
Moto Mart, Perryville, MO 2008

Student Work

This summer I am teaching two 10 week courses at the Houston Community College as well as a number of courses at the Houston Center for Photography. Needless to say I am in the thick of it and hoping to inspire my students even though the classes are long–nearly five hours at a time and its hot as hell. On top of it my HCC classes have to bring in their own water to process their black and white film since the tap water is coming in at almost 100 degrees.


I have a few standard assignments I have students complete at the start of each new session. I introduced the LIGHT assignment to my teen intro digital photography class at HCP and have attached two of my favorite images created by one student. This was a four session course and this was their second assignment. The images are Uta Barth inspired, as if you couldn't tell.

Who Knew

I have my sorority series syndicated through Redux Pictures in New York. Out of the blue I'll receive a check in the mail for an image or two running but I'm not always sure where it ran(I don't google myself enough) or when. Just today I got an email from someone who saw one of my images in Forbes magazine. Sure enough it ran in April 2009. I always have mixed feelings whether to allow my personal work to be used out of context but for editorial purposes. I can say the money I have made from it being published a number of times in the last few years has paid for the project–film, two plane tickets, processing and scanning. The first major running of the work was in iO Donna an Italian magazine which ran 10 or so images. Of course since its syndicated I only make half of what Redux is paid for the images.

Highs and Lows

Its been nearly a month since I've posted anything. In that time I had a quick trip to New York to visit friends and I was lucky enough to see the American debut of Sophie Calle's Take Care of Yourself show at Paula Cooper Gallery.

Displaying a unique approach to what might otherwise inflict emotional trauma, artist Sophie Calle rose to challenge an ex's breakup email suggestion to "take care of yourself" by asking 107 professional women to analyze and interpret the email's content. Calle's voyeuristic sleuthing and disclosure of intimate details — delving into explorations of public-versus-private life — has made her one of France's most renowned conceptual artists. Take Care of Yourself exhibits these personal responses to a painful message (ranging from live performance to academic discourse), which leaves viewers both uncomfortable and reflectively empathetic.
– Renata Christen

Ironically while at the exhibition I got the call I had been waiting for from the University of Akron that I had not been offered the full time tenure track position. Honestly it was quite the let down. Ironically though later that night my father called after finding a medical photographer position open in Texas which I immediately applied for. Still waiting to hear if I'll get an interview there or not.

Last week I moved to Houston for the summer to teach two courses at Houston Community College and a number of short courses at the Houston Center for Photography. Classes began today and I'm excited about teaching for the next two months.

In the realm of my own work I found out I did not win an award at the NY Photo festival, get in to the HCP annual member show or receive the Women in Photography grant however the winner will be announced this Wednesday. Sometimes you just don't get any slack.

But to end on a positive note I had the pleasure of meeting Alec Soth for the first time last week. The non-profit I helped start, The Austin Center for Photography had its second 'Icons of Photography' lecture on Thursday evening at the Blanton Auditorium. I was the chief organizer for this event and was able to spend a good deal of time with Alec and his wife. I'm happy to report, Rachel bought boots and we took her and Alec to the Broken Spoke for a night of country dancing. And yes they both hit the dance floor. No, no photos to prove it.

New York Photo Awards Nominee

I know its been a while since I've posted. I've been swamped with end of the semester grading, applying for jobs and interviewing.

I just found out today I was selected as a nominee for this years New York Photo Festival Photo Awards. I wish I could attend the festival which begins tomorrow. I will be in New York but not for another two weeks. I wanted to submit work for all the categories but at the time I only had $30. So I entered a self-portrait I did last year, Not Like My Mother (2008).

Winners are announced on Friday at the gala in New York. I'll keep you posted.

New feature on ACP Blog

For those of you who don't know I'm a founding board of trustees for the Austin Center for Photography and also the ACP blog editor. I'm very excited to announce a new feature to our blog. I recently interviewed the collaborative team of Benjamin Drummond and Sara Steele and their on going project, Facing Climate Change.

To see the entire interview please check out the ACP blog.

I'm always looking for new features as well as blog contributors from experts in the field of photography including: professors, curators, artists, editorial and commercial photographers etc. Please contact me at sarahsudhoff@gmail.com regarding writing for the blog.

Rx

I am pleased to announce my first international exhibition, Rx, opens this Saturday, April 18th at IPS (In Plain Site) Gallerie in Montreal.

I wish I could afford to attend since its a three person show and meet the other two artists but that's the life of an artist. Constant sacrifice and disappointment.

I'm hoping to attract an international audience for my work. It always seems that European artists are much more in line with my aesthetic than most of my American peers.

A little about the show:

IPS is pleased to present Rx, featuring works by Chantal Gervais, Cindy Stelmackowich and Sarah Sudhoff.

April 18 – May 23, 2009
Vernissage -Saturday, April 18 3 p.m.
******************************************************
Once the body has been deemed "ill", what was personal necessarily becomes public, beginning with the fact of the illness itself, which must be shared with medical professionals and others, and continuing with the invasive scrutiny of medical testing and the possible indignities of intervention.

The three artists whose photographs are featured in Rx work to control the representation of the self within the medical context, a context which has so often functioned to strip patients, particularly women, of agency. In constructing collages from MRI scans of her own body, including a re-gendered, technologically contemporary Vitruvian, Chantal Gervais willingly offers up what is ordinarily personal, interior and unseen, to the gaze of the viewer. The digital collages of Cindy Stelmackowich bring together lithographs that illustrated 19th-century anatomical atlases and illustrations of shipwrecks and other disasters from journals of the same era. In these re-colourized images, the internal torment the study of medicine may repress is returned to the patient, as cavities opened up for examination are made to reveal the panic and struggle within. Sarah Sudhoff began to produce self-portraits, films and performances in hospitals, morgues, medical museums and offices after undergoing surgery for cervical cancer in 2004. Her work focuses on the emotional as well as physical impact of illness, and includes images of the vulnerable body faced with the intractability of medical machinery, and of the residue of treatment on the flesh, and the sad beauty of medical waste.

Chantal Gervais is the recipient of the 2002 Duke and Duchess of York Prize in Photography. She received an M.A. in Art and Media Practice from the University of Westminister in London, U.K., and teaches photography and media at the University of Ottawa.

Cindy Stelmackowich’s work has been shown in solo and group exhibits in both Canada and the U.S. She teaches art history at Carleton University, and her writings have appeared in numerous journals and publications.

Sarah Sudhoff, a Texas-based photographer who has exhibited internationally, is a founding board member for the Austin Center for Photography in Austin, Texas and was recently included in Hysteria: Past Yet Present at Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey.

Capsule Art Review

A recent review in the Houston Press by Troy Schulze.

"Sarah Sudhoff — Repository" San Antonio-based photographer Sarah Sudhoff's first solo show scores for its bravery in depicting something as emotionally loaded as cancer treatment with bold austerity and subtle humor. The artist underwent surgery for cervical cancer in 2004, survived it and began examining medical environments through photography and video. Included are nicely saturated color photos of sample cups, bloody gauze, uninhabited examining rooms and tissue samples, along with large-scale, elegantly composed self-portraits in varying examination poses. One, Exam 2, in which Sudhoff sits upright on an exam table dressed in a plaid smock and bright green stockings, her feet resting in the stirrups, references the portrait series for Matthew Barney's overtly masculine Cremaster films, but from a feminine perspective. Sudhoff extracts herself from the photo's accompanying video — in which she passes time going through drawers and medical tools (she eventually administers her own pap smear and reads The New Yorker) — to pose for a picture. In another video, she bathes in a stainless steel basin. The clinical and stark nature of the work sustains an earthbound, taut tension that suggests stifled emotion ready to explode. Sudhoff is keeping it together while ugly, bloody reality lurks in the hospital's various repositories. Through April 17. Art League Houston, 1953 Montrose, 713-523-9530. — TS

Real Body Art

Just received this article this morning from a former professor of mine. I happen to have my own 'body art' project in progress. Luckily mine does not involve waiting for people to die like this Russian artist. And you thought I was weird......

TILL DEATH DO US SCULPT: RUSSIAN TO RENDER HUMAN BODIES INTO ART MATERIALS

Andrei Molodkin has made moulds of praying hands and a brain which eventually will be filled with the boiled down crude oil from the body of the BBC reporter Sasha Gankin. It gives a grim new meaning to the term body art. A leading contemporary Russian artist says he has perfected a technique to boil human corpses into crude oil from which he will create permanent
sculptures, and he has already signed up willing volunteers. Andrei Molodkin, who will represent Russia at this year's Venice Biennale, claims that after spending three to six months in a high-pressure machine, a corpse becomes oil that can be used to
power cars or be moulded into a permanent memorial statue to sit on the mantelpiece. His work is the ultimate extension of a growing trend for artists to use human bodies as art materials. The sculptor Marc Quinn made a study of his head from his frozen blood; Gilbert and George regularly use bodily fluids in their art, and Günther von Hagens's Body Worlds exhibition
of preserved corpses is on at London's O2. Paris-based Molodkin, 43, has already signed up the BBC reporter Sasha Gankin, who wants to be rendered into a sculpture of a brain, as well as a French porn star, Chloé des Lysses, who wants to be turned into a model of praying hands. Conscious he may have to wait several decades before putting these plans into action, Molodkin
has also signed up some HIV sufferers in New York, whom he expects to die "in one or two years"._IndependentUK

I live in the wrong country

A BIZARRE hospital-themed restaurant in Latvia is serving food resembling body parts with surgical utensils.

Decked out in a sterile, modern medical environment and boasting scantily clad nurses, the Hospitalis in Riga serves hearty Latvian dishes and a macabre cake topped with realistic-looking body parts such as fingers, noses and tongues.

Owned by a group of local doctors, Hospitalis also has a trendy cocktail bar where bartenders in white lab coats mix drinks into beakers and test tubes.

Guests are treated to disturbing dinner entertainment including morbid tunes on violins, while deranged patients are escorted through the restaurant in straightjackets and wheelchairs.

My they would like to purchase some of my photographs???

Mary Ellen Mark and the Austin Center for Photography

This Thursday marks the first official Austin Center for Photography event with a lecture by Mary Ellen Mark. Although we have co-sponsored events such as slideluck and a panel discussions at the Austin Museum of Art the 'Icons of Photography' lecture series was conceived by ACP in one of our first board meeting over a year ago. I first met with a group of photo enthusiasts in January of 2008 and since then we have meet every month sometimes two and three times during a month for the last year.

Thursday will be the culmination of all our efforts to date to create an intelligent dialogue about photography and create a cohesive photography community in Austin, Texas. I am speechless that its all happening and that we are so lucky to kick off the lecture series with Mary Ellen Mark.

It was in Austin over a decade ago when I was a photojournalism student at the University of Texas that I first studied Mark. My favorite image to date is of a young woman in a mental institution who is almost fully submerged in a soapy bath. The water frames her face, and her dark hair is a nice contrast to the sterile white claw foot tub she is in. The gaze of the woman is distant. The image is haunting and beautiful. I always wondered if Mark simply stood over her or if she needed a ladder to create the image. Is there a frame in which the woman meets Mark's gaze? The image is part of a longer series titled Ward 81.

In 1975, photographer Mary Ellen Mark was assigned by a magazine to do a story on the making of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, shot on location at the Oregon State Hospital, a mental institution. While there, she met, briefly, the women of Ward 81.

Ward 81 is the women's security ward of the hospital, the only locked ward for women in the state. The women on this ward are considered dangerous to themselves or to others.

In February of 1976, Mary Ellen and Karen Folger Jacobs, a writer and social scientist, were given permission to live on the ward in order to photograph and interview the women. They spent thirty-six days on Ward 81.

I will have to pinch myself several times this week. I am fortunate to be able to attend the lecture at the Blanton Auditorium Thursday evening, a Texas Monthly Talks taping on Thursday morning and a private ACP dinner with Mark.

If you haven't yet become an ACP member its not too and don't forget to RSVP for the event. The lecture starts at 7 with a book signing to follow.

Ward 81, Oregon State Hospital, Salem, Oregon, USA, 1976 Copyright Mary Ellen Mark

A Little R&R

The show successfully opened Friday. Despite three other large openings in Houston we had a steady crowd all night. I can't say a piece sold of the wall just yet but most people picked up a catalogue and were sweet enough to ask me to sign it.

On Friday, a few hours before the opening I was interviewed on KPFT as part of the segment called Living Art. Our segment starts 25 minutes in. It was the first time I got to meet Michael Galbreth and Sandra York–two cancer survivors and local Houston artists. Both will be participating in the panel discussion March 21 at Art League.

The biggest shock of the night came when my grandparents from Florida walked in to surprise me. Thank you to my family for making it happen and to the friends and family who made it out that night. Your presence meant the world to me. A special note goes to Gary Schott–my partner and biggest fan for supporting me in so many ways during the last few months.

Its somewhat surreal to be on the other side of the opening. I worked so hard for so many months to produce the show and the catalogue I can't quite get over the fact the big night is behind me. However I am gearing up for the panel discussion.

If you didn't make it out that night the show runs through April 17. I'll be posting installation shots and more photos soon.

Repository: Photographs and Video by Sarah Sudhoff Opens Friday

My long anticipated first solo show opens Friday March 6, 2009 at Art League Houston in Houston, Texas. The reception begins at 6 and runs till 8 or later. I will be giving a brief artist talk at 6:15 so arrive early.

Monday I traveled to Houston and along with Sarah Schellenberg, exhibitions coordinator at AL and Tommy Gregory a friend and preparator at Blue Star Contemporary Art Space in San Antonio, hung 14 photographs and one flat screen. Two large pieces had to be re-framed at the last minute and one of the two flat screens we ordered arrived late. So I'm driving back to Houston Thursday evening to start bright and early at the gallery on Friday to hang one 40x50 and one 30x40 along with the second flat screen all before my interview with a local radio station for a segment called Living Art.

I wish I could say this has been an easy process but not having a team to work with and coordinating the printer, framer, designer and offset printer and working with several deadlines was overwhelming. And of course there are last minute snags and the issue of funds. Since the show is at a non-profit most of the expense for producing the show as well as curating and installing lies with the artist. Luckily Art League offers a stipend and some assistance. I look forward to the day I have a team which can handle printing and framing. Another team which focuses on promotion and grant writing and another team which takes care of installing and selling of the work.

I don't feel the show looks or is perfect. Given an unlimited budget there would be more small pieces or a few more large scale photographs. Like I've been told over and over by friends who have recently had their first solo shows its not going to be perfect. You learn and you move on.

The Catalog is Here!!!

I have never before produced my own catalog to accompany an exhibition. It was quite the learning process from what offset printing really costs to paper selection, turn around times and the series of color and press proofs. My designers at Wyattbrand: Rachel, Pam and Teddy and my contact Betty at Capital Printing all made the process so easy. I had enough stress with printing 14 new pieces and framing them as well as securing two flat screens and one large projector all for the exhibition opening this Friday.



The catalog is 24 pages including 10 images, two new images created for the solo exhibition. Anonda Bell, director and curator at Rutgers University wrote a two page essay titled 'Unapologetic Aesthetics'. The catalog also includes a short cv and acknowledgements.

The limited edition catalog will be available for purchase at Art League Houston for $15 during the run of the exhibition as well as here on the blog for $20 which includes shipping. Payments are accepted through Paypal. Please contact me if you prefer to mail a personal check.