LowerEastSide

Extended: December 8, 2022 - February 12, 2023 | Social Photography X _ Carriage Trade, NYC

Social Photography X, the tenth annual group exhibition of cell phone photography curated by Peter Scott and the team at Carriage Trade. All sales benefit exhibition programming at one of New York’s non-profit galleries in the Lower East Side. I have loved participating in this exhibition for the last several years, and meet many of my peers in the art world while visiting the show. Please visit!

Social Photography X
Extended: December 8 - February 12, 2023

Prints available for purchase:
* carriage trade
1 print: $75.00
2 prints: $120.00 (use promo code: 2/$120 at checkout)
3 prints: $150.00 (use promo code: 3/$150 at checkout)

Lisa Blas, Crepusculum hum, 2022

carriage trade

277 Grand St, 2nd Fl.
New York, NY 10002
646-863-3874
Thursday-Sunday, 1-6pm

Presented against the backdrop of the twin meltdowns of a social media platform and a cryptocurrency, this 10th anniversary show of Social Photography comes at a time when the progressive reputation enjoyed by the tech industry might warrant some skepticism. While a neo-robber baron browbeats his newly acquired workforce into submission or exile, ostensibly for the good of a “digital town square”, in the same week a financial guru, after evaporating billions in investor funds almost overnight, shrugs off the staggering losses with a sheepish, "I’m sorry".

Propped up by fawning news stories that celebrate novelty and personality over reason or logic, the insidious effect of the world wrought by the anointed power brokers of tech dictates as much of our behavior as we’ll allow. Embracing consumer friendly devices that subject us to behavioral experiments and perpetual tracking, our “digital exhaust”, largely invisible to us, is magically turned to gold by legions of tech workers guided by the speculative bets of tech entrepreneurs.

Begun before most cell phones in use were considered “smart”, the first Social Photography show took place more or less at the inception of visual information as fodder for the experience economy. In late 2010, with cell phone pictures little more than a novelty stored within the limited technological capacity of flip phones, the gargantuan image mill of Instagram had yet to kick into full gear. Searching for an alternative to the benefit raffle exhibition which asks time and materials in the form of donated artworks from artists while offering little in the way of a collective aesthetic, Carriage Trade solicited a couple of hundred cell phone pictures from its community of artists, writers, curators, students, and neighbors, formatting and printing them and presenting the whole in a grid, with proceeds from sales going to support the gallery’s non-commercial mission.

What began as a novelty eventually became a tradition, with evolving participants reflecting the growth of the gallery’s audience, while many of the gallery’s regular visitors returned for each show. As the societal consequences of social media became more clear, the show started to represent a kind of alternative, a "progressive anachronism" where the pictures we take on our phones are shared online and printed out and shown in a physical space, without suffering the pressure to accumulate visible status symbols in the form of hearts, or doled out based on a corporation’s statistical analysis of our preferences.

Arranged chronologically based on when the gallery receives the emailed image, from the start the goal was not to promote cell phone photography, but to take its measure on an annual basis; an informal assessment of how people (both artists and non-artists) are engaging with this relatively new image technology and its inevitable evolution. Now in its tenth year, and over two thousand unique pictures later, the original emphasis of the show, one of sensibility over professionalism or mastery, seems to have prevailed, while the impressive advances of cell phone technology rival point and shoot cameras, offering immediacy and spontaneity with little compromise in image quality.

carriage trade is a NY-based non-profit art space that was founded in 2009. Through presenting primarily group exhibitions, carriage trade functions not as a means to promote the careers of individual artists, but to provide contexts for their work that reveal its relevance to larger social and political conditions prevalent today. The exhibitions combine well known with lesser known artists, and historical pieces with very recent work, often integrating relevant found (archival) material as a means to broaden the scope of an art exhibition by positioning the "evidence" of everyday experience in direct relation to an artist's mediation of social conditions.

Opening tonight: August 5, 2021 | Social Photography IX | Carriage Trade, NYC

Opening tonight! Social Photography IX, the ninth annual group exhibition of cell phone photography brought to you by Peter Scott and the team at Carriage Trade. Please join us for a celebratory night with peers in support of non-profit galleries in the Lower East Side!

Social Photography IX
August 5 - September 30, 2021
Opening Tonight, 4-8pm

carriage trade

277 Grand St, 2nd Fl.
New York, NY 10002
646-863-3874
Thursday-Sunday, 1-6pm

Online Sales: socialphotography.carriagetrade.org
1 print: $75.00
2 prints: $120.00 (use promo code: 2/$120 at checkout)
3 prints: $150.00 (use promo code: 3/$150 at checkout)

Now in its ninth year, Social Photography brings together cell phone pictures of participants from a wide range of disciplines, generations, and places. In the spirit of broad access to cell phone image making technology, the emphasis of the project leans toward sensibility and the anecdotal over skill and mastery of the medium of photography.

Taking advantage of technologies that allow for images to be sent from anywhere, which are then formatted, printed, and displayed in an in-person exhibition at carriage trade, the range of participants in Social Photography reflect both the gallery’s community in Lower Manhattan as well as those associated with it in other parts of the world. Linking the virtual with the physical through an online display that is then presented in print form, Social Photography IX might be seen as a counterpoint to the increased placelessness of remote exchanges normalized in the pandemic-era.

Spanning nearly a decade, the growing, informal archive of Social Photography cell phone pictures occasionally reflect significant local, national, and international events (Occupy Wall Street, George Floyd protests, U.S. presidential elections, pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong) existing side by side with the everyday, the personal, the urban, and the domestic.

LISA BLAS, Dawn studio (eyelashes), 6:43 a.m., New York

About carriage trade :

carriage trade is a NY-based non-profit art space that was founded in 2009. Through presenting primarily group exhibitions, carriage trade functions not as a means to promote the careers of individual artists, but to provide contexts for their work that reveal its relevance to larger social and political conditions prevalent today. The exhibitions combine well known with lesser known artists, and historical pieces with very recent work, often integrating relevant found (archival) material as a means to broaden the scope of an art exhibition by positioning the "evidence" of everyday experience in direct relation to an artist's mediation of social conditions.

Now Open: August 6, 2020 | Social Photography VIII | Carriage Trade, NYC

I am excited to participate with many friends and colleagues in Social Photography VIII, the eighth annual group exhibition of cell phone photography brought to you by Peter Scott and the team at Carriage Trade.

The rigorous programming at Carriage Trade continues to deliver thought provoking exhibitions and scholarly inquiries into the role of art and culture today. Please consider supporting this unique non-profit institution of the Lower East Side and the art community that sustains it.

Carriage Trade
277 Grand Street, 2nd floor,
New York, NY 10002
646-863-3874

Please Note: 

We're following the standard health protocols (masks, social distancing, etc.) and will limit attendance to four to five people at a time. Appointments can be made via See Saw

If you're nearby and want to know if there's room in the gallery please feel free to call us
at 646-863-3874.

Social Photography VIII

Gallery Exhibition: Now Open
August 5 - September 20, 2020
Hours: Thursday - Sunday, 1 - 6 pm

Online Sales
socialphotography.carriagetrade.org
See details on purchasing below*

Carriage trade is pleased to present Social Photography VIII, the eighth installment of carriage trade’s cell phone photography show. While Social Photography is not guided by an all-encompassing theme, each year’s collection of pictures becomes an informal archive reflecting a range of recent social experience. Taking place in the midst of significant societal vulnerability and political conflict across the U.S., this year’s show presents an opportunity to recognize the importance of the ordinary or everyday in the face of the extraordinary, while also perhaps indicating a certain amount of resilience among the contributors, given the practical and emotional demands of a very uncertain moment.

Cell phones have become a kind of appendage for many, offering the ability to communicate, track, record, and archive every experience, then routinely feed the results into a social media stream. With its scrolling, "bottomless" format encouraging impulsive interaction, a perplexing mix of the anecdotal, the self-promotional, and the politically urgent coexist without perceptible context. Largely indifferent to codes of ethics or aesthetics, all content is subjected to peer rating systems and shifting algorithms that target the user based on their "stimulus patterns", while the split second experience of the social media image guarantees a short shelf life as it perpetually fuels the insatiable appetite of the attention economy.

As an eight plus year project, Social Photography has evolved with cell phone technology and in parallel with the development of social media. What began as an investigation of a novelty medium which simultaneously offered an alternative to the conventional non-profit benefit exhibition has become a kind of tradition, as it sustains and expands carriage trade’s community through its many participants, while helping support upcoming projects. While cell phone images are generally "unstable" through their constant movement within digital platforms, Social Photography links the cell phone picture’s virtual origins to an in-person gallery experience.

Providing a platform for a medium whose relationship to the history of photography remains unclear, Social Photography also exists as an expression of ambivalence towards the professionalization of the image, as well as the hierarchical codes that might restrict our reception of a photograph. While the exhibition has never been thematic and has instead maintained some detachment with respect to content, given the magnitude of current events, the 2020 iteration of Social Photography may reflect the tenor of the times more than most. Considering the degree of uncertainty and tension now present in many people’s lives, we wish to express our enormous gratitude to all who have contributed to this year’s show.

*Preview begins Monday, July 20 at 12 PM / Online sales begin Tuesday, June 21 at 2 PM

1 print: $75.00
2 prints: $120.00 (use promo code: 2/$120at checkout)
3 prints: $150.00 (use promo code: 3/$150at checkout)

socialphotography.carriagetrade.org

Opening: July 9, 2019 | Social Photography VII | Carriage Trade, NYC

I’m thrilled to have contributed to Social Photography VII, brought to you by Peter Scott and the team at Carriage Trade!

Meet me tonight to see the work of many artists, friends, and support future programming for this non-profit gallery in the Lower East Side.

Opening: 6 - 8 pm | Tuesday, July 9, 2019
Carriage Trade, 277 Grand Street, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10002

Prints are available in the gallery and online:
socialphotography.carriagetrade.org


“First presented in 2011, carriage trade's Social Photography exhibitions have become both a tradition and an ongoing survey of cell phone camera use. What began as a novelty medium seven or eight years ago now provides currency for the $100 billion picture mill of Instagram, which funnels 95 million images a day through its social media network via opaque algorithms that determine the order and context of what we see.

Unlike social media formats on our phones which encourage endless scrolling through a "bottomless bowl" of images, Social Photography cell phone pictures exist both online and in the gallery. Faced with a group of photographs in the exhibition space, any of which can draw one's attention or focus, accidental associations present themselves through proximity (their order is based on when images are emailed to the gallery) underscoring the alternative of seeing cell phone images in a physical setting free of social media filters.”

Lisa Blas, detail, Autoportrait, VIVIIMMXVIII, 2018

Opening: November 28, 2018 | Under Erasure | Pierogi Gallery, NYC

Please join us tonight!

For the opening of Under Erasure, curated by Heather + Raphael Rubinstein at Pierogi Gallery. The curators have designed a beautiful website featuring the curatorial text and work of all artists/writers/collaborators. The exhibition will be on view through January 6, 2019. (Catalog available).

Opening Reception:
Wednesday, 28 November, 2018.
5:00 - 8:00 pm.

Pierogi Gallery | 155 Suffolk Street
New York, NY 10002

28 November, 2018—6 January, 2019

Joe Amrhein | Jenni B. Baker | Jean-Michel Basquiat | Heather Bause Rubinstein | Joshua Beckman | Gene Beery | Jen Bervin | Charles Bernstein | Luca Bertolo | Joseph Beuys | Lisa Blas | Mel Bochner | Ariana Boussard-Reifel | Pierre Buraglio | Doris Cross | The Deletionist.com, Amaranth Borsuk + Jesper Juul + Nick Montfort | David Diao | Peter Gallo | Dana Frankfort | Guerilla Girls | Harmony Hammond | Jane Hammond | Ann Hamilton | Matthea Harvey + Amy Jean Porter | Christian Hawkey + Uljana Wolf | Charline von Heyl | Dennis Hollingsworth | Janet Holmes | Jenny Holzer | Emilio Isgrò | Samuel Jablon | Ray Johnson | Ronald Johnson | Kim Jones | Joseph Kosuth | Cody Ledvina | Tony Lewis | Glenn Ligon | Mark Lombardi | Travis Macdonald | Suzanne McClelland | Arnold Mesches | Dan Miller | Donna Moylan | Kristen Mueller | Loren Munk | Bruce Nauman | Joshua Neustein | Nina Papaconstantinou | Bruce Pearson + Mónica de la Torre | M. NourbeSe Philip | Tom Phillips | Niina Pollari | Richard Prince | Edouard Prulhière + Raphael Rubinstein | Sylvia Ptak | Archie Rand | Stephen Ratcliffe | Robert Rauschenberg | Srikanth Reddy | David Reed | Ridykeulous + AL Steiner + Nicole Eisenman | Mary Ruefle | Jerry Saltz + Anonymous Artist | David Scher | Mira Schor | Teresa Serrano | John Sparagana | Antoni Tàpies | Shane Tolbert | Betty Tompkins | Jim Torok | Xiaofu Wang

CATALOG AVAILABLE: Under Erasure | Pierogi Gallery

Opening: July 10, 2018: Social Photography VI / Carriage Trade, NYC

Social Photography VI is now open!

I have contributed a photograph to Carriage Trade's sixth benefit exhibition which meditates on the ubiquitous use of cell phone photography and its connection to the art community. Come view this immersive exhibition in situ, a precise grid of images installed on two facing walls in the gallery.

"While Instagram tends to emphasize the medium's social utility, carriage trade's Social Photography exhibitions have tracked an alternate course, inviting participants and viewers to encounter these images in a format free of peer-generated tallies, while offering the option of a sustained look afforded by a gallery setting."

All photographs can be viewed and purchased online:
https://socialphotography.carriagetrade.org/

carriage trade, 277 Grand St, 2nd Fl. , New York, NY 10002

Lisa Blas, Table(au), detail, 2018

Opening July 11, 2017: Social Photography V / Carriage Trade, NYC

Join us tonight for the opening of "Social Photography V" at Carriage Trade, a non-profit art organization in the Lower East Side. The exhibition will be on view July 11 - August 12, 2017.

I have contributed a photograph along with many others in the art community to support future programming at the gallery. My work, and all other works in the exhibition can be viewed and purchased online:

Hope to see you there!
Carriage Trade
Opening: 6 - 9 pm
277 Grand St, 2nd FL
New York, NY 10002
718-483-0815

https://socialphotography.carriagetrade.org/

Opening: Foundation Barbin Presents Redeux (sort of) / Kai Matsumiya Gallery / January 5, 2016

Excited to participate in Foundation Barbin Presents: Redeux (sort of), opening tonight. Join us! 7 - 10 pm @ Kai Matsumiya Gallery
153 1/2 Stanton Street, New York, NY 10002.

January 5 - February 5, 2016
Organized by: Lucky DeBellevue

 

Image credit: Devon Dikeou "WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?" Foundation Barbin Presents Redeux (sort of), 1991: Ongoing. Lobby Directory Listing Artists, Gallery, Curators, Exhibition Titles, 18 x 24 inches.