Eric Hairabedian, Kris Graves “A Queens Affair” at Farmani Gallery, 111 Front street, suite 212, 6-8pm

A Queens Affair is a culmination of eight years of photographing the development, fixed characteristics and spirited nature of Queens, New York. Both Kris Graves and Eric Hairabedian were born and raised in and around Queens and through their photographic partnership share a visual history of their beloved borough.  A special selection of images from the book will be on exhibit and available for purchase for the duration of the show. After which these images will be available in small editions at the Farmani Gallery web site.

In Soho, Madga Biernat opens at Clic Gallery

© Madga Biernat opens at Clic Gallery

Magda Biernat “Continental Bounce” at Clic Bookstore & Gallery, Soho: 424 Broome street, 6-9pm

MAGDA BIERNAT’s graceful, color-saturated photographs of architectural structures recently won her first place in the Architecture/Interiors category at the 2009 International Photography Awards. CONTINENTAL BOUNCE showcases the photographs taken during the year she spent traveling the world, photographing the built environment and living spaces in 17 countries. Her vibrant, minutely detailed shots are deliberately void of any known geographic or cultural identifiers, and the viewer is left to search out any possible clues of location as they look at an arid South African township, a futuristic Taiwanese diving resort, or the interior of a yurt in Mongolia.

In Chelsea, the Foley Gallery has Lydia Panas opening

© Lydia Panas

Lydia Panas “The Mark of Abel” at Foley Gallery,  27 street: 547 W 27 street, floor 5, 6-8pm

Lydia Panas is an observer of the family dynamic.  In her photographs, she manages to capture subtle hints of those complex relationships that tend to exist within the extended family or circles of friends.  Her photographs examine the way in which these relationships are simultaneously a product of and an influence upon the identity of each member of the family group.  The subjects are arranged similarly in each image; in some verdant setting, they openly face the camera through a narrowly selective depth of field.

And at Gladstone Gallery, Jan Dibbets

© Jan Dibbets

Jan Dibbets at Gladstone Gallery,  24 street: 515 W 24 street, 6-8pm

Born in the Netherlands in 1941, Dibbets trained to be a painter, but turned to the photographic medium in the late 1960s. Harnessing the potential of photography to elucidate the conceptual variables of optics, his witty yet rigorous investigations of the elastic synthesis between object and space resulted in acute queries of vision and reality. Dibbets’ practice often resulted in richly paradoxical photographs such as his “Perspective Correction” series in which trapezoids drawn on his studio wall became perfect squares through the camera’s transformation of three-dimensional space into two-dimensional images.

© Kelsey Bennet

Kelsey Bennet “Hypnagogia” at Christopher Henry Gallery 127 Elizabeth street, 6-9pm

Contemporary daydreams, Bennett’s narrative constructions combine a strong sense of color with an eye for the graphical gesture. Her characters, variations on autobiography, peer out at the viewer from within the cathedrals of their private illusions like children caught at an ambivalent game. Archetypes of the everyday, Bennett’s subjects seem to hover in a liminal world poised between reality and fantasy. Her photos vibrate with a subversive formality reminiscent of Cindy Sherman ‘s film stills or William Eggleston’s documents of Americana.

© Yola Monakhov

Yola Monakhov “Photography After Dante” Sasha Wolf Gallery, 10 Leonard Street, 6-8 pm

For this body of work, Monakhov used Dante’s Divine Comedy as a source and framework for creating photographs in contemporary Italy. Her approach intended to bring together a canonical text and contemporary life, using the poem to investigate conventions of the photographic medium.

© Alex Prager

Alex Prager “Week-end” at Yancey Richardson Gallery 535 W 22 street, floor 3, 6-8pm

Focusing on female archetypes - ranging from the temptress to the tempted – Prager manufactures meticulously staged shots of women both disguised and exposed – using synthetic wigs, heavy make-up and polyester costumes to capture, as she puts it, ‘women on the edge.’

© Michael Kenna

Michael Kenna “Venezia” at Robert Mann Gallery 210 11 avenue, b/w 24 & 25 street, floor 10, 6-8pm

Michael Kenna’s sixth solo exhibition at the gallery, Venezia, marks the premiere presentation of Kenna’s photographs of Venice, Italy. The exhibition coincides with the publication of Michael Kenna: Venezia, available March 2010 from Nazraeli Press. With photographs spanning nearly 30 years, the exhibition reflects the quintessentially patient, quiet method of looking for which Kenna has become legendary.

© Jacob Aue Sobol

Jacob Aue Sobol “Sabine and I, Tokyo” at Yossi Milo Gallery 525 W 25 street, 6-8pm

Jacob Aue Sobol’s series Sabine (1999-2001) chronicles three years the artist spent in the settlement of Tiniteqilaaq in Greenland, his life as a fisherman and hunter, and his intimate relationship with Sabine and her family. The series of black-and-white photographs is a visual diary of a love story and daily survival, capturing private moments with Sabine contrasted with the harsh arctic environment of the east Greenlandic coast.

© Denis Darzacq

Denis Darzacq “Hyper” at Laurence Miller Gallery 20 W 57 street, floor 3, 6-8pm

HYPER refers to the new garish supermarkets in Paris and Rouen where consumer goods, brightly packaged and presented, make for a vivid and contemporary backdrop for his pictures. Darzacq brings street dancers, mostly young men and women in their late teens and early twenties into these stores and asks them to perform their leaps, jumps, twirls, and other gravity-defying movements.