Nueva Luz Vol 3 Issue 4

N U E VA L U Z •'»

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photographic journal Volume 3 U1 1989

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WDEVA LUZ Volume 3 #1 1989

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pbolo£rapb 1 c j o u r 9 a 1 Editor Charles Biasiny-Rivera Associate Editor Betty Wilde Designer/Art Director Frank Gimpaya Editorial Assistant Maria Teresa Giancoli Translator Amaldo Sepulveda East Coast Distributors Total Circulation Services West Coast Distributors Cornucopia Typography Ortiz Typographies Printing Expedi Press

Nueva Luz (ISSN 0887-3853) is a photographic jour­ nalpublished by En Foco, Inc. 32 East Kingsbridge Road, Bronx, New York 10468, (212) 584-7718. Single issue price is $4.00, yearly individual subscription is $12.00 in the U.S. In all other countries, yearly subscription is $18.00, institutional subscription is $30.00.

Portfolios of at least 15 unmounted prints or copy slides may be submittedfor viewing. Ifmailed, the prints may be no larger than 11"* 14". A self-addressed stamped envelope and appropriate packaging must ac­ company all mailedportfolios to insure proper return. We do not assume responsibility for unsolicited photographs or manuscripts sent by mail. Photographers wishing to deliverportfolios in person must call our office to make ar­ rangements. For advertising rates and distribution contact En Foco, Inc.

Copyright © 1989 by En Foco, Inc. All Rights Reserved Nueva Luz is made possible with funding by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Bronx Bor­ ough President, Fernando Ferrer, New York State Council on the Arts, Bronx Council on the Arts, The National En­ dowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and Art Matters, Inc. All rights reserved. Nothing may be reproduced or published in whole or in part without the written permis­ sion of the publisher, En Foco, Inc.

Editorial Pa £ e

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ulturally diverse photographers would be hardput to celebrate 150 years ofphotog­ raphy that represent ridicule, disfranchisement and exclusion.- For us to realize the level of our achieve­ ments reached over the past fifty years we have to shed the lepers cloak.

One way we have worked to accomplish that is by establishing our own history, providing a vital forum for fine photography produced by artists of color. To date, over half of the photographers pub­ lished in Nueva Luz have since been the recipients of grants and awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowmentfor the Arts. Museum curators and private collectors have expanded their purviews as a result ofour efforts, andwe We heartenedby these many positive responses.

With this issue we take a new step by inviting Sophie Rivera as the first Guest Editor to curate an issue of Nueva Luz. We now feel it's time to expand upon that idea by including curatorial and writing opportunities for individuals who should be heard.

Sophie is a giftedphotographer in her own right who we featured in our Premier issue of Nueva Luz five years ago. We We now proud to present her writing and curating abilities.

Charles Biasiny-Rivera Editor

udo mucho que fotografos de culturas diversas se dispongan a celebrar 150 anos de fotografia. Representan estos el ridiculo, la privacion de derechos y la exlcusion. Para comprender la magnitud de nuestros logros en los ultimos cincuenta anos hay que renunciar al sayo de leproso.

Una manera de lograr esto es fundando nuestra historia propia, ofreciendo aqut un espacio vitalpara la buena fotografia de artistas de todo color. Rasta ahora, mas de la mitad de los fotografos publicados en Nueva Luz han recibido subsidios y premios del New York Foundation for the Arts, la Guggenheim Foundation y National Endowment for the Arts.

Curadores de museos y coleccionistas privados han ampliado sus repertorios a raiz de nuestro trabajo.

Nos anima la recepcion positiva que cosechamos.

Damos un nuevo paso en este numero: Sophie Rivera es la primera persona que, en calidad de Editora Invitada, organiza una edicion de Nueva Luz. Entendemos que es horaya de incorporar la labor de curadory escritural de personas que debenan ser escuchadas. Sophie es una fotografa valiosa por cuenta propia que figuro en la primera tirada de Nueva Luz hace cinco anos. Nos llena de orgullo presentarla como escritora y curadora.

Table of Copteptj; Editorial...............................

Sylvia A. Malagrino...............

Frank Stewart.......................

Kunie Sugiura.......................

Commentary by Sophie Rivera Comentario...........................

.... page 1 . pages 2-11 pages 12-21 pages 22-31 . . . page 52 • • • -page 33

Cover photograph: Kunie Suguira, Daisy, 1982, silver gelatin photogram and drawing, 24" x 20"

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Sylvia A.Mala^ripo

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Silvia A. Malagrino was bom in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She received her MBA in Photography at the University ofIllinois, Chicago. She is currently a visiting artist at the Art Institute of Chicago and has been an artist in residence at the Chyrsallis Women Learning Center and at Latino Youth, through the Illinois Arts Council. Her solo exhibitions include the Museum of Latin American Art, Washington, DC and Artemisia Gallery, Chicago, Illinois. Group exhibitions include Women Photographers, Nexus Gallery, Atlanta andKaterineE. Nash Gallery, Min­ neapolis, MN. Her photographs have been pub­ lished in the New Art Examiner, Afterimage and Heresies. In 1988, she was awarded an Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship.

“I began to take pictures in my native Argen­ tina. A year after the coup d'etat in1976, I turned to photography to resist and elude censorship. It was more of an anarchistic move into the spectacle of pathos—I needed to preserve the imagesfull of pain, humiliation, poverty and helplessness. Most of my photographs come out of some inner pressure, some sort of tension that is not clear even to me. But I do not see my interior world as separate from my social experience; the two nourish each other. I use my dreams and personal memories as the raw material for my images. I approach the image-making process from an interdisciplinary perspective. I use drawing, painting, and sometimes the written word in com­ bination with photography to expand the expressive possibilities of the image. ”

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Sylvia A.MalaÂŁrii)o

Woman Figure, 1987, silver geltain photogram, 40" x 40" x Vi"

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Sylvia A. MalaÂŁrir)o

Untitled\ 1988, mixed media on silver gelatin paper, 20" x 48"

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Sylvia A.Mala^ripo

Men 5 PM, 1987, silvergeltainphotogram, 16" x 40" x Vi"

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Sylvia A.Mala^ripo

Windows, 1987, silver geltain photogram and manipulated images, 48" x 60" x Vi"

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Sylvia A.Mala^rirjo

Dancing in the Fire, 1988, silver gel at in photogram with manipulated images, 60" x 48" x Vi"

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Sylvia A.Mala^ripo

The Origins 1988, silver geltain photogram with manipulated images, 90" x 144" x Vz"

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Sylvia A.Mala^ripo

The Man, 1987silver geltain photogram with manipulated images, 96" x 96" x Vi"

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Sylvia A.Mala^ripo

Solitude, 1989, mixed media on silver gelatin paper, 16" x 20"

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Sylvia A.Mala£rii)o

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Kingdon of the Fathers, silver geltain photogram, 16" x 20"

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Frapk Stewart

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Frank Stewart was bom in Nashville, Tennessee and received his B.F.A. from Cooper Union, New York City. His photographs have been exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem, National Urban League, International Center of Photography, NYC; Cor­ coran Gallery, Washington, DC, and Institute Hait­ ian-American, Haiti. Commissioned to photograph the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, he is also the recip­ ient oftwo National Endowmentfor the Arts Grants (1982-85) and a New York Creative Artists Public Service Grant (1980). He is the Associate Director of Contemporary American Artists Series, Inc., a non­ profit historicalfilm company that documents living African-American artists, and was the Director and Co-Owner of Onyx Art Gallery, NYC.

“Throughout my formal and informal exploration of photography over the last 25 years, 1 have main­ tained a fascination for the way things change through the medium. Stylistically, I see a personal gestalt through the viewfinder, in which sensitivity, lyricism and the ability to take chances, creates visual statements about people, religion, politics and socie­ ty. In the photograms, I usefound objects as symbols to change one reality to another. ”

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Frapk Stewart

Halima's Dream Series, 1989, silver gel at in photogram, 14" x 11"

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Frapk Stewart

Untitled, 1989, silver geltain photogram, 8" x 10"

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Frapk Stewart

Untitled, 1989, silver geltain photogram, 8" x 10"

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Frapk Stewart

May Series #9, 1989, silver gel at in photogram, 14" x 11"

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Frai)k Stewart

May Series U8, 1989, silver geltain photogram, 14" x 11"

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Frapk Stewart

Halima's Dream Series, 1989, silver geltain photogram, 14" x 11"

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Frarjk Stewart

May Series Ul, 1989, silver geltain phologram, 14" x 11"

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Frapk Stewart

Ha/ima's Dream Series, 1989, silver geltain photogram, 14" x 12"

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Frapk Stewart

May Series U4, 1989, silver geltain photogram, 14" x 11"

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Rupie Su£iura

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Kunie Sugiura, bom in Nagoya, Japan, received her BFA at the Art Institute ofChicago. Her solo exhibi­ tions include White Columns, Warren Benedek Gal­ lery, Art City Gallery, NYC; Zeit Photo Salon, Tokyo, Japan. Group exhibitions include the Whit­ ney Museum of American Art, Kenkelaba Gallery, Henry Street Settlement Center, The Drawing Cen­ ter, NYC; The Barcelona Museum, Spain, Foto Kina, Colon, W. Germany, Toehigi Prefecture Mu­ seum ofFine Arts, Japan.

“After many years of doing conventional photog­ raphy, I became interested in searching for a more subjective imagery excluding the use ofcamera and film. Objects, ,drawing, light and chemicals are manipulated directly on the photographic paper in the darkroom. The isolation andspeed ofthisprocess require me to be less self-conscious and more atten­ tive. The resulting monoprint documents my psy­ chological activity as much as a physical state. ”

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Kupie SuÂŁiura

Chief 1982, silver gelatin photogram, 48" x 40"

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Kupie Su^iura

Young Engineer, 1986, silver gelatin photogram, 48" x 40"

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Kurjic SuÂŁiura

Billy, 1983, silver gelatin photogram, 24" x 20"

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Rurjie SuÂŁiura

Athletes, 1986, silver gelatin photogram, 48" x 40"

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Kupic SuÂŁiura

Interior-3, 1986, silver gelatin photogram, 48" x 40"

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Kupie SuÂŁiura

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Exanthema, 1986, silver gelatin photogram, 48" x 40"

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Kupie Su0ura

Idol, 1981, silver gelatin photogram, 48" x 40"

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Kupie SuÂŁiura

Floatation-1, 1986, silver gelatin photogram, 48" x 40"

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Kupic SuÂŁiura

Double Visage, 1986, silver gelatin photogram, 40" x 96"

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camera and the film negative and, in the tradition ofMoholy Nagy and Man Ray, produces photograms. Sugiura likes to work in the darkroom rather than the studio and incorporates found object, fantasy, error andthe epiphenomena ofdaily life directly onto photographic paper. Her realm ofimagery ranges from the symbolic to the narrative. What is further extraor­ dinary about her work, as Malagrino’s, are its dimensions. They average forty by forty-eight inches on a single sheet ofpaper whereas, historically, photograms were produced in an eight by ten inch format.

Young Engineer shows the poetic influence ofjean Coc­ teau. Chief suggests several painted masks, combining both unimaginable nightmare and the caves ofLascaux in a surreallist mode. Double Visages is a more formal version ofthe mask imagery combining limbs and head. It is a contemporary ver­ sion of what Klee might have done—at once simplistic and childlike yet recalling the images of nuclear magnetic resonance. These images are further refined in Floatation, reminiscent of a dream one might have after returning from the underworld; here, a man is compressed into a large flat shape with an angry head on top.

Frank Stewart also produces photograms, working in a positive and negative space to create a multi-layered dualism.

The images appear organic, as ifa vaporous layer is interacting with the paper. Echoing crystallography, rhomboids and trape­ zoids dance in controlled helixes, mimicking rites ofcreation.

Turgid three-dimensional mosaics appear almost holographic­ ally in a nuanced texture. We are staring at sub-molecular formalism in a maximalist mode.

Transcending and utilizing yet not eschewing ethnicity, these three artists possess both a sensibility of the surreal and the ability to recreate past and abandoned techniques in post­ modern incarnations. Ranging farfrom the mainstream ofaca­ demic and fashionable production, they resonate to multi­ modal internal rhythms to produce works at the cutting edge of art. Unencumbered by the vicissitudes of museum traditions, these photographers have liberated their emotive selves to restore new vigor to their art and craft.

Sophie Rivera

s we celebrate photography's one hundred and fif­ tieth birthday, I have chosen the work of Silvia A. Malagrino, Frank Stewart and Kunie Sugiura, three photographers of extraordinary and uncommon precision, beauty, tone and nuance, to usher in the next decade. Unlike traditional photographers whose vision of reality is mediated by a camera, these three artists have essentially no external reference points; their vision is as fragile as a dream—as likely to disappear as to remain. It therefore requires a special type of energy to tap into the dream world and to sustain the images long enough to create them. Because these artists work directly on the surface of the emulsion and because no camera is util­ ized in their production, the resulting photographs are unique and non-reproducible.

Silvia A. Malagrino often works with a photocopy of a found image from which a Kodalith negative is made. Various printmaking techniques are used to alter the Kodalith andpro­ duce an image ofextraordinary size from a composite of many smaller subunits. Her work is a surrealist juxtaposition and amalgamation of discrete entities from culture, history and psychology. Their energies derivefrom deep unconscious erotic andprimitive proclivities; the ideation isfeminist, political and poetic.

Windows, a 1987 work, integrates twelve individual nightmare tableaux into a singular overpowering dream world image. Intuitively graphic, the tableux hover in the narrow, tortuous canyons between fantasy and reality. Dancing in the Fire is a magnificent self-portrait wherein the artist has covered her body with vaseline and made a direct imprint onto the emulsion, composing the rectangles into an enormous grid-like landscape. Chemical and mechanical alterations ofthe surface yield a textural rhythm related to a gender-specific conscious­ ness. The Origin is a composite offorty-eight images from depictions of large-bodied earth mother figures from African cultures. Hauntingly iconoclastic, yet iconographically con­ gruent, this image is transcendingly therapeutic—almost purgatorial.

Kunie Sugiura's quest for purity dispenses with the

Sophie Rivera is a photographer, curator and writer. She is a 1989 recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts’ Individual Artist Fellowship in Photography.

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Ray, desemboca en fotogramas. A Sugiura le gusta trabajar en el cuarto oscuro mas que en el estudio. Incorpora objetos que encuentra, fantasia, error y materiales de la vida cotidiana directamente sobre elpapel fotogrdfico. Su imaginena abarca desde lo simbolico hasta lo narrativo. Lo que es extraordinario, mas aun, sobre su trabajo, y el do Malagrino a su vez, son las dimensiones. Promedian cuarenta por cuarenta y ocho pulgadas en una hoja de papel mientras que los fotogramas solian ser producidos, historicamente, en un formato de ocho por diez pulgadas.

En Young Engineer (IngenieroJoven) se nota la influencia poetica de Jean Cocteau. Chief (Jefe) sugiere mascaras pintadas, y combinapesadillas impensables y las cuevas de Lascaux de manera surrealista. Double Visage (Rostro Doble) es una version mas formal de la imaginena de mascaras que enlaza miembros y cabeza. Version contemporanea de algo que Klee hubiera hecho: simplistay pueril a la vez sin dejar de recordar imagenes con resonancia magneticay nuclear. Diehas imagenes quedan refinadas aun mas en Floatation (Flotacion), que evoca un sueno que hayamos podido tener al regresar de la muerte.

En ella un hombre comprimido se trueca en una forma largay plana con una cabeza llena de coraje en la punta.

Frank Stewart tambien produce fotogramas. Trabaja con espacios positivos y negativos para crear un dualismo de multiples capas. Parecen orgdnicas las imagenes, como si una lamina vaporosa interviniera en elpapel. Haciendose eco de la cristalografia, romboides y trapezoides hacen piruetas de conroladas helices, mimica de ritos de creacion. Abultados mosaicos tridimensionales casi parecen juegos opticos por su matizada textura. Estamos frente a un formalismo submolecular de caracter maximista.

Transcendiendo pero sin dejar de valerse de su etnicidad, estos tres artistas poseen tanto una sensibilidadsurrealista como la capacidadpara devolvemos tecnicas pasadas o abandonasas en terminos postmodemistas. Lejos de la corriente oficial de lo academico y la moda, son fieles a complejos y cambiadizos ritmos intemos para producir un arte en las fronteras del arte.

Estosfotografos, liberados del regimen de los museos, abren su ser emotivo de par en par y restauran vigorosamente el oficio.

medida que celebramos los primeros 130 anos de la fotografia, he escogido la obra de Silvia A. Mala­ grino, Frank Stewart y Kunie Sugiura, tres fotografos de precision, belleza, tono y matiz extraordinarios, para anunciar la nueva decada. A diferencia de fotografos tradicionales en cuya vision de la realidad interviene la camara, estos artistas carecen en lo esencial de puntos de referenda extemos; tan fragil como un sueno es su vision, tan proxima a desaparaecer como a permanecer. Requiere, por lo mismo, una energta especialpara sondearia zona ontricay sustentar las imagenes lo suficiente para crearlas. Ya que trabajan estos artistas sobre la superficie de la emulsion directamente, y sin valerse de la camara, las fotograftas producidas son singulares e irreproducibles.

Silvia Malagrino trabaja a menudo con una fotocopia de una imagen accidental de la que saca el negativo “Kodalith”.

Utiliza varias tecnicas de impresionpara alterar el 'Kodalith”y producir una imagen de tamano extraordinario compuesta de muchas unidades mas pequenas. Su obra es yuxtaposicion y amalgama surrealista de entidades discretas de corte cultural, historico y psicologico. Su vitalidad deriva de propensiones profundas, subconscientes, eroticas y primitivas; el ideario es feminista, politico y poetico.

Windows (Ventanas), del 1987, une doce cuadros individuales de pesadillas en una imagen onirica singular y sobrecogedora. Con grafica intuicion los cuadros (o tableaus) dudan sobre las enganosas grietas entrefantasia y realidad. Dancing in the Fire (Bailando en las Llamas) es magnifico autorretrato: la artista cubre su cuerpo de vaselina y deja una impresion del mismo en la emulsion; los rectangulos se truecan en un enorme paisaje enrejado. Alteraciones quimicas y mecanicas de la superficie dan pie a un ritmo de textguras que implica una conciencia de mujer. The Origin (El Origen) es un compuesto de cuarenta y ocho imagenes de origen africano de la “madre tierra” (la "madre” es abundante). Inquietantemente iconoclasta, pero congruente iconograficamente, esta imagen es, sobre todo, terapeutica, casi expiatoria.

La busqueda de pureza de Kunie Sugiura prescinde de la camara y del negativo y, a la usanza de Moholy Nagy y Man

Sophie Rivera

Sophie Rivera es fotografa, curadora y escritora. Recibio en 1989 el Indi­ vidual Artist Fellowship in Photography del New York Foundation for the Arts.

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