Wolfgang Tillmans, Installation View. (Photography courtesy of Andrea Rosen Gallery)

In this digital age dominated by free media-sharing and instant mobile uploads, photographer Wolfgang Tillmans restores hope in our fading ability to discern beautiful images. German-born Tillmans, known for his rapturous club photos of British i-D, brings to Andrea Rosen Gallery through March 13 a show with the full intensity and point-and-shoot bravura of those seminal nineties spreads. Pictures in the Place of Others, featuring seemingly extemporaneous snapshots of contemporary life, captures tender expressions, natural phenomena, and shimmering skylines. Witness Heptathlon, wherein Tillmans catches an athlete in momentary abandonment; in Ostgut/December Edit (at the entryway of the installation) he assembles chaos with signature panache. When so many photographs bear the markings of deliberation, Tillmans’ appear purely spontaneous. His work thus retains a captivating, timeless quality (perhaps accounting for the unlikely correlations drawn between his irreverent hipster and the Caravaggio nude). An exercise in unkept formalism, Pictures in the Place of Others finds balance in its unapologetic use of color and premeditated, if imperceptible, exhibition layout.
“In a way, to reconcile or address the randomness of the world today is the biggest task, to let it all in, but still hold course…. I’m interested in the mind being stretched by trying to pull this world of pictures together.”
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San-Zhr Pod Village, Taiwan, 2008 (Photography by Magda Biernat courtesy of Clic Gallery)

In a world subsumed by top tens and to dos, Polish-born photographer Magda Biernat takes aim at our itemized approach to travel. Now running at Clic Gallery through March 2 is her Continental Bounce, culled from a year of transcontinental exploration. Documenting remote spaces through a local lens, Biernat captures Kenya, Australia, and everything in between. Oceanic vistas aside, though, Continental Bounce is no ordinary tourist brochure. Subtly elusive, the exhibit disorients even the most surefooted of jetsetters. Take Tipi Resort in Swakopmund, Namibia, for example, which features an African chalet seemingly plucked from the Sonoran desert. Avoiding major sites in favor of the interstices that define the journey, Continental Bounce is a testament to shifting borders and cultural ambiguity. We sat down with the artist to discover more.

What draws you to interiors and architecture?

Early on, I noticed that I have a good eye for structures and geometrical shapes and combinations of colors. That’s why I decided to go into architecture commercially…. Even though I love good portraits of people, first of all I am taking pictures of spaces.
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All images courtesy of Danziger Projects unless otherwise noted.

Economically, 2009 could be viewed a debacle. Fortunately gallery owner and photography enthusiast James Danziger does not measure achievement in terms of the Dow. Validating 2009 with The Year in Pictures, now on view at Danziger Projects through February 27, Danziger displays sublime photography from his personal blog. The exhibition, aimed to provide exposure to contemporary artists, allocates three walls to “photographers who would otherwise not be known to New York gallery going audiences” and one for legends in the medium. Resulting from a selection process boiling down to two criteria — quality and originality — the show is a highly satisfying group of images spanning decades, nationalities, and aesthetics.
     Featuring work by fifteen photographers — Jowhara AlSaud, Chan Hyo Bae, Thomas Bangsted, Mandy Corrado, Stephen Gill, Joseph Holmes, Alejandra Laviada, Greg Miller, David Schoerner, Patrick Smith, Tommy Ton, Scout Tufankjian, Oliver Warden, Katherine Wolkoff and Tsukasa Yokozawa — representing nine countries — Saudi Arabia, Korea, Denmark, Britain, Mexico, Japan, France, Canada, and the US — The Year in Pictures is a compendium of rich artistic perspectives. United solely by the element of color — a mode of photography almost taken for granted now — works were chosen at Danziger’s discretion to encompass a myriad of subjects and techniques.
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