New Works #12by Deborah Willis

En Foco’s New Works Photography Awards (2008-2009) brought together a cross section of photographers and photo-artists whose works range from portraiture and documentary to narrative photography and digitally inspired images. The New Works submissions inform us of En Foco’s mission to promote and encourage new images produced by emerging and under-recognized mid-career photographers and artists. As a curator and photographer, I was honored to participate.

The selection process was inspiring not only because of the number of submissions but also because of the nature of the concepts presented. As I began to identify award recipients, I noticed that the disparate works challenged and excited me. The three winners—Karen Garrett de Luna, Morgan M. Ford, and Isabelle Lutterodt—focus in their work on notions of memory through art historical references, identity, cultural traditions, and the land. I believe En Foco’s mission to nurture works that express a cohesive visual record of the trajectory of contemporary photographic practices is clearly present in the work of these three artists. I am delighted that the images in the Honorable Mention category deal with social issues, landscapes, identity, and religion.

I am equally delighted to see new works that privilege documentary and digital photography. In making my selection, I looked for work that reflects the artist’s ability to visualize ideas and his or her aesthetic sensibility in executing these ideas. The final selection exemplifies the commitment of each artist to their statement and resonates the vitality of other photo-artists working today.

New Works #12An Exhibition of En foco’s AnnuAl

nEw works PhotogrAPhy AwArds fEllows

June 4 - June 25, 2009

Karen Garrett de LunaMorgan M. Ford

Isabelle Lutterodt

Wendy PhillipsCybèle Clark-Mendes

Archy LaSalleViviane Moos

Juror: Deborah Willis

Opening Reception: Wednesday June 10, 6:00 - 8:30 pm

Artist Talk: Saturday June 13, 3:30 - 4:30 pm

Calumet Photographic22 West 22nd Street

New York, NY 10010

www.enfoco.org

© Morgan M. Ford, Beauty Starts Here, Ritualistic Beauty: The [un]Nature of Cosmetics series, 2009. Gelatin silver print & beeswax, 24 x 24”

© Karen Garrett de Luna, Kris with Quartz and Rose Quartz Crystals, Articles of Faith series, 2009. Archival print, 19 x 32”

Currently living in southern California, Isabelle Lutterodt has lived on the east coast of the United States, in the United Kingdom, and West Africa. Her work is informed by memory and a personal photographic archive. Lutterodt weaves community, family history, and the politics of identity into her landscapes and streetscapes. She includes the architecture of small churches, homes, businesses, and historic sites in her photographic studies. Lutterodt’s use of family photographs is central to her dreamlike, diaristic images, and her use of text contextualizes them.

Articles of Faith by Karen Garrett de Luna is a collaboration between subject and photographer. There is a participatory nature to her work whereby she observes, questions and documents: By questioning her subjects, she reveals the words and beliefs her subjects live by, making her portraits spiritual and reflective. Her questions include: What kind of amulet or talisman do you wear? How does it protect you? How does your amulet or talisman represent your beliefs?

De Luna writes: “Life is fragile. Wearing an amulet or talisman is one of the ways in which people seek to protect themselves against death and evil spirits. In creating diptychs that present the objects people wear beside portraits of the people themselves, I am documenting what objects in the physical world make us feel safe; contrasting them with simple portraits show our intrinsic human vulnerability.”

Morgan M. Ford’s Ritualistic Beauty: The [Un]Nature of Cosmetics examines the notion of rituals from personal to collective, private to universal. Ford looks at the performance of ritual in everyday life, and she documents the rituals within beauty. Ford is well aware that the photographic image is as powerful as the written word.

By documenting the performance of beauty rituals, she challenges the viewer to consider the persuasive power of advertising campaigns, especially ones focusing on hair, facialfeatures and body type. Her photographs explore the multilayered subliminal messages found between notions of the “real” and the constructed self.

Ford writes: “From the time girls hit puberty, there is an onslaught of different rituals regularly taught to be practiced. I feel that the media conveys the subtle idea that a woman will not be a woman if the rituals are not practiced—that they will not be beautiful, loved, sexy, or complete. Women burned bras in the 60’s, but it seems that women are now burning cash in retail stores across America in order to be accepted into a society to which they already inherently belong.”

Deborah Willis has pursued a dual professional career as a fine art photographer and as one of the nation's leading historians of African American photography and curator of African Ameri-can culture. She was a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow and Fletcher Fellow, and a 2000 MacArthur Fellow. She teaches at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

© Isabelle Lutterodt, Historical Marker (Eastern, Maryland), Douglass/Brown series, 2008. Gelatin silver print, 21 x 10.25”

She states: “As a bi-racial woman, I am interested in exploring how multiple perspectives are conveyed through image and text. Informed by historical events, literature, personal memory, fantasy, and urban legends, my work explores how culture, place, and identity intersect to imagine a new account or re-envisioning of events. Ultimately, I hope to raise questions that challenge long-held assumptions and urban lore.”

The photographers highlighted in the Honorable Mention category—Archy LaSalle, Viviane Moos, Wendy Phillips, and Cybèle Clark-Mendes—exemplify my dilemma in establishing the notion of winners. Creating a hierarchy such as this one is a daunting task. Many of the submissions engaged me because of the insightful new projects that daringly framed the new works category. Thus, it is critical for En Foco to continue to provide a space for photographers to publish and for En Foco’s audience to view new works.

KAREN GARRETT DE LUNA "Curiosity about the objects people wear next to their skin (especially members of my Filipino Catholic family) sparked my investigation of these personal and ritualized acts of adornment. My aim is to document the objects in the physical world that make us feel safer and contrast them with simple portraits showing our intrinsic human strength and vulnerability.” www.delunatic.net © Karen Garrett de Luna, Bogdan with Russian-Orthodox Cross, Articles of Faith series, 2009. Archival digital print, 19 x 32”

MORGAN M. FORD “The media plays into women’s desire to belong by persuading them if they wear this bra or buy this kind of mascara they will find love and respect because they will then, and only then, be seen as a real women.”www.morganford.com © Morgan Ford, Underwear That Will Get You Noticed, Ritualistic Beauty: The [un]Nature of Cosmetics series, 2009. Gelatin silver print & beeswax, 24 x 24”

ISABELLE LUTTERODT“As a bi-racial woman, I am interested in exploring how multiple perspectives are conveyed though image and text. Informed by historical events, literature, personal memory, fantasy and urban legends, my work explores how culture, place and identity intersect to imagine a new account or re-envisioning of events. “© Isabelle Lutterodt, Douglass/Brown series, 2008. Gelatin silver print, 13.5 x 6.5”

CYBÈLE CLARK-MENDES “My interests as an artist have centered on issues of identity. I have explored my bi-racial background, as well as the meaning within the dynamics of my family history. The older I’ve gotten and the more life I’ve lived, the more that my interest in personal identity has expanded to include womanhood. “ www.cybele.tv © Cybèle Clark-Mendes, untitled #1, Dichotomies series, 2007. Archival pigment print, 5.5 x 9.5”

WENDY PHILLIPS“La Limpia Project was inspired by what I have learned about Afromestizo women’s conceptualization of illness and their rituals related to healing. In this series, my body is the loca-tion of the rituals, and my photographs include the ritual objects and symbols the women use in their traditional practices.”© Wendy Phillips, La Limpia #10, La Limpia series, 2006. Sepia toned gelatin silver print with goldleaf, 15 x 15”

ARCHY LASALLE “At rare moments in human life, strong forms converge in the same instant that time and reality are revealed by movement and gesture. I make a photograph—just then. Moments like these are not found, they are sought after with intense con-centration and purpose.” www.lasallephoto.cjb.net © Archy LaSalle, Two Gentlemen, More Precious than Diamonds: People of South Africa series, 2007. Gelatin silver print, 8 x 12”

EN FOCO

En Foco is a non-profit dedicated to producing exhibitions, publications, and events which support American photographers of Latino, African, Asian heritage, and Native peoples. For more information about our programs, please visit www.enfoco.org

OTHER EN FOCO EVENTS

JUNE 20:Portfolio Review Sessions

JUNE 24:Benefit Party to Kick-off En Foco’s 35th Year

JULY 31:Submission Deadline for New Works #13

A selection of New Works #12 images will also be on view at:

Modernage Custom Digital Imaging Labs1150 Avenue of the Americas (at 44th Street)

New York, NY 10036 www.modernage.com

June 22 - September 30, 2009VIVIANE MOOS “My passion is to be a voice for the voiceless, which is why I work with women and children, bring back their survival struggle in the hopes that people will care and help change the world.”www.vivianemoos.com

© Viviane Moos, David and Xuxa, Brazilian Street Diary series, 1991. Gelatin silver print, 8 x 10”

ABOUT NEW WORKS

En Foco’s New Works Photography Awards Fellowship is an annual program selecting three or more U.S. based photographers of Latino, African, Asian, Native American or Pacific Islander heritage, through a national call for entries. New Works helps artists to create or complete an in-depth photographic series exploring themes of their choice, and provides the infrastructure needed for national visibility and a professional exhibition of their new work in the New York area.

SubmiSSionS DeaDline for new workS #13: July 31, 2009

new workS iS maDe poSSible thankS to the Support of:

En Foco, Inc.1738 Hone Avenue, Bronx 10461 718.931.9311 www.enfoco.org

Installation view of one of the New Works #12 winners, Karen Garrett de Luna , at Calumet Photographic. © Miriam Romais