© Helen Maurene Cooper, Trying Them On at the Hendershot Gallery

Trying Them On – Curated by Jon Feinstein
Presented by Humble Arts Foundation and Hendershot Gallery, 547 West 27th Street, Suite 504 (6-8 pm)

“This group exhibition includes five photographers whose work explores fascination with “the other” through gendered, sexual, racial and subcultural costuming. The exhibiting photographers depict white Europeans and westerners who glamorize and vilify other cultures, at times presenting them as the enemy, while at others declaring them a cultural muse. On the surface, the latter appears to be an attempt to understand or elevate them, but in many cases this actually leads to further complication by turning their identities into caricatures. This exhibition also explores the motivations for this role-play: is it an act of mere flattery? What does it mean to try on the skin or cultural signifiers of another?”

© David Maisel, "Library of Dust 28"

David Maisel, Library of Dust
Von Lintel Gallery 520 West 23rd Street, Ground Floor (6-8 pm)

“David Maisel’s Library of Dust features copper canisters in varying states of metamorphosis.”…”The canisters, once stored in a dilapidated outbuilding of a state-run psychiatric hospital, hold the cremated remains of people—more specifically, the unclaimed ashes of the asylum’s patients. The Oregon State Hospital, inaugurated as the Oregon State Insane Asylum in 1883, interred the canisters in an underground vault in the mid-1970s. As the vault flooded repeatedly, the canisters—some containing remains more than a century old—underwent potent transformations. The chemical composition of each cremated body’s ashes has caused unique and colorful mineralogical blooms to form on its individual copper surface.”

© Anne Collier

Anne Collier at Anton Kern Gallery, 532 West 20th Street (6-8pm)

“It takes more than a first glance at Anne Collier’s photographs to understand what you’re looking at. Books, magazines, and other media sit upon neutral, boldly geometric backgrounds, setting up an uneasy contrast between the found image and the composition. A book open to a close-up of a woman’s eye rests on a black background; nearby, two German photography mags from the ’70s betray the prurient undertones of early amateur photography.”– H.G. Masters

© Joe Pflieger at Monya Rowe Gallery

Joe Phlieger, Photographs
Monya Rowe Gallery, 504 West 22nd St, 2nd Floor  (6-8 pm)

“Pflieger presents a series of photographs mostly taken in museums in cities such as St. Petersburg, Venice, Milan, Copenhagen and New York depicting historically accurate reconstructions of interiors. The surface, a vital part of the work itself, of each photograph is approached with a strong kinship to painting and organically captured, without the aid of computer manipulation, with a digital camera.”

© Mandy Corrado, from The Year In Pictures

The Year in Pictures – from the blog pictureyear.blogspot.com
Danziger Projects,  534 West 24th Street, NYC (6-8pm)

Featuring the work of: 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, Tsukasa Yokozawa

And in remembrance of: Evelyn Hofer, Helen Levitt, Irving Penn, Julius Shulman, Bettie Page, and Charis Wilson

“The exhibition “The Year in Pictures” presents a selection of photographs featured in the blog “The Year in Pictures” (pictureyear.blogspot.com). Begun in 2007, the blog has been a platform for my personal enthusiasm about the medium – a place to share good and new work that is sent to me or that I see on my travels; alert readers to new exhibitions, books, and other photography events; and reflect on ideas and issues. Since it’s inception, the blog has posted over 500 stories, received over a million visits, and is viewed an average of 50,000 times a month.”