Please join us for the opening reception on Friday, May 4th from 5:00 – 7:00pm  (artist will be present) and for the artist talk and book signing on Saturday, May 5 at Noon.

Frankie with Shucky Beans, 2002 © Shelby Lee Adams

Shelby Lee Adams was born in 1950 in Hazard, a small town in eastern Kentucky. Although he grew up in the back seat of his father’s car, moving from place to place, he settled near Hot Spot, living with his grandparents while he attended high school. It was there, trapped between the worlds of country and town kids, that Adams found solace in art and photography books.

Then, in the mid 1960s, the Peace Corps and other government agencies descended on Appalachia to document the poverty sweeping the area. When a film crew visited his hometown, Adams took them to his meet his grandparents and his uncle, a country doctor. When the media described them as malnourished and poor, his friends and family felt betrayed. This devastated Adams, who felt he had misled the people he so dearly loved — an experience that profoundly impacted his life and launched a career in photography dedicated to the region.

For more than thirty years, Shelby Lee Adams has been photographing in Appalachia, visiting families within the mountain hollers. Salt & Truth is his fourth book dedicated to the people of this region, and is a testament to his commitment to present his friends and family with dignity and truth. Although he now lives in Massachusetts, Shelby Lee Adams’ heart is forever in Appalachia.

Napier Brothers with Puppies, 1993 © Shelby Lee Adams

James, 2003 © Shelby Lee Adams

Jerry at James’ Funeral, 2009 © Shelby Lee Adams

Shelby’s new book, salt & truth, is available for purchase at CEG & online in our bookstore.
All events are free and open to the public.
For more information visit www.edelmangallery.com

Viktoria Sorochinski
Anna & Eve
January 6  – February 25, 2012

Please join us for the opening reception on Friday, January 6th from 5:00 – 8:00pm  (artist will be present) and for the artist talk on Saturday, January 7 at Noon.

Paths, 2007 © Viktoria Sorochinski

Learning a Lesson, 2009 © Viktoria Sorochinski

Reflection, 2007 © Viktoria Sorochinski

All images are available as 24 x 24″ and 40 x 40″ digital chromogenic prints made in editions of 10 + 2 APs and 5 + 2 APs, respectively.

For more information and to see additional images visit CEG’s website.

Untitled, 2008 © Gary Briechle

Here’s how Gary describes his relationship with his subjects in his forthcoming book with Twin Palms Press:

“I’ve been in Maine close to eight years now and there are some people I’ve photographed for the entire time. A few have died and I’ve shot their likenesses tattooed on the chests of those they’ve left behind.”

“The last time I photographed Arizona (an eight year-old girl that I’ve been photographing since she was one) I did what I always do: I taped a black Wal-mart sheet to the house, set the camera up on the tripod and got her to lean back with shoulders touching to steady herself. I usually put a little flower by the lens, so she can fix her eyes on something during the fifteen-second exposure. This time, the end of October, it was a small, bright, red leaf. A minute later, as I poured fixer over the glass, an image appeared out of a swirl of watery blue-green. Even though I had done this countless times before, what I saw was an image I never saw before.”

Untitled, 2006 © Gary Briechle

Please join us for the opening reception on November 4th from 5:00 – 7:00pm  (artist will be present).

Gary Briechle: Photographs
November 4 through December 31, 2011

All images are 11 x 14″ gelatin silver print made from a Collodian wet plate.
For more information and to see additional images visit CEG’s website.

September 9 – October 29, 2011

OPENING RECEPTION WITH THE ARTIST:
Friday, September 9, 5 – 8 pm

ARTIST TALK & BOOK SIGNING:
Saturday, September 10 at noon

Carnival, 2006 © Kelli Connell

Kelli Connell’s portraits appear to document a relationship between two women. Their idiom looks familiar: a young couple caught up in everyday moments of pleasure and reflection, a picnic in the park, playing pool in a bar, taking a bubble bath together. The first flicker of unease comes as soon as the viewer registers the similarity of the two subjects, who seem to be twins. In fact, Connell has photographed the same model portraying both roles, digitally combining the two images so seamlessly that not a trace remains of their construction. Connell has been at the forefront of artists using digital technologies for the past decade. Through her photographs she addresses complex issues about identity and visual rhetoric. As she states in an interview in the book:

“I’ve always seen identity as something that is very fluid and as such I usually shy away from labels altogether. Still, a larger part of this work explores the nature of identity formation. In my own personal history, the process of questioning my sexuality was confounding, because the conventional categories, and even the need to categorize in the first place felt like…something being pushed on me. Meanwhile the internal experience of my sexual and gender identity was quite natural and yet not a static thing at all. Perhaps this work is trying to figure out why we rely on categories and labels the way we do.”

Kelli Connell received her BFA in Photography and Visual Art Studies from University of North Texas in 1997 and her MFA in Photography, Minor in Art History from Texas Woman’s University in 2003. Her work has been widely exhibited and can be seen in various public collections including Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, TX) and The Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago, IL). Connell currently teaches in the photography department at Columbia College Chicago.

Click here to view the show page.

In 2003, The Chicago Project was created as an online only gallery, devoted to unrepresented photographers in the Chicagoland area. In an effort to promote local talent, Catherine Edelman Gallery put out a call for submission to all local photographers. To date, the site has featured more than 60 photographers whose works range from traditional black & white landscapes to color narratives. The goal of the gallery is to expose local artists to our ever increasing audience, including curators and collectors worldwide.

We are proud to present The Chicago Project IV, our bi-annual exhibition selected from participants in the online gallery. Artists include Matt Austin, Justyna Badach, Jeremy Bolen, Dan Bradica, Troy Flinn, Lenny Gilmore, Wm. Bradley Johnson, Nate Mathews, Bill O’Donnell, TJ Proechel, Charlie Simokaitis and Shane Welch.

Click here for images.

Join us Friday, May 6 from 5 to 7 p.m. for the opening reception with the artists. Also, on Saturday [May 7] at CEG, Fred and Tim will both be giving an artist talk, which will begin at noon. Both events are free and open to the public!

Fighting with Fiction, 2011 © Fred Stonehouse

Eco-Mutants, 2011 © Tim Tate

Click here to see more photos from our booth.

We have finished installing our booth (#12-135) at Art Chicago. The opening preview is tomorrow, Thursday (4/28) from 6-9pm. Hope to see you at the fair! Click here to receive a complimentary admission for two.

Iris and Travis, 1975 © Steve Schapiro

In 1971, Francis Ford Coppola started work on The Godfather, one of the most acclaimed films ever made. Steve Schapiro, then a 37 year old established photojournalist whose clients included Life, Look, Time, Newsweek and film studios, was hired by Paramount as the special photographer for the film. This title gave Schapiro unprecedented access to one of the most stellar casts ever assembled, photographing whichever film scenes he chose, capturing the memorable moments often cited when referencing this film, including the whisper and Marlon Brando with the cat.

Four years later, at the request of Robert DeNiro, Schapiro landed the job as the special photographer on the set of Taxi Driver, one of Martin Scorsese’s most seminal films, which is currently celebrating its 35 year anniversary release with a book published by Taschen. Through Schapiro’s lens, we see DeNiro as Travis Bickle, practicing his firing stance in front of a mirror and Jodie Foster as Iris, standing in the hotel doorway, waiting.

Steve Schapiro is an acclaimed photographer whose photo essays included the presidential campaign of Robert Kennedy and the plight of migrant workers in Arkansas. An activist as well as a documentarian, Schapiro has covered many stories related to the Civil Rights movement including the March on Washington, the Selma to Montgomery March, and the aftermath of  Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, producing some of the most iconic images of that era.

Steve Schapiro’s photographs have been widely published in magazines and shown in museums and galleries worldwide, and can be found in the collections of The Smithsonian Museum (Washington, D.C.), The High Museum of Art (Atlanta, GA) and the National Portrait Gallery (Washington, D.C.) . Along with The Godfather and Taxi Driver, both published by Taschen, Schapiro’s work can be found in American Edge (Arena Editions, 2000) and Schapiro’s Heroes (Powerhouse Books, 2007). We are pleased to present his first solo show in Chicago.

Lori Nix was born and raised in western Kansas, in an area known for its tornados, snow storms, droughts and infestations. As a child, she viewed these natural disasters as entertainment, relieving her of her otherwise ordinary reality. Brush fires and fallen trees became her playground and influenced her first body of work, Accidentally Kansas, for which she garnered much acclaim.

Her newest series, The City, is still greatly influenced by her youth. Apocalyptic in nature, this series imagines a world without people. As she states:

…(in) The City, I have imagined a city of our future, where something either natural or as the result of mankind, has emptied the city of its human inhabitants. Art museums, Broadway theaters, laundromats and bars no longer function. The walls are deteriorating, the ceilings are falling in, the structures barely stand, and yet Mother Nature is slowly taking them over. These spaces are filled with flora, fauna and insects, reclaiming what was theirs before man’s encroachment…I am afraid of what the future holds if we do not change our ways regarding the climate, but at the same time I am fascinated by what a changing world can bring.

Working in her home/studio, Nix combines cardboard, foam, glue and paint to construct small dioramas which she then photographs with an 8 x 10” camera. Often taking up to seven months to complete, these large scale photographs of everyday places – a laundromat, bar, library, aquarium – fall victim to decay, referencing the effects of man. Using humor as her anchor, Nix’s work challenges our perceptions of reality, as she reminds us of our responsibilities.

Lori Nix has received many honors including a 2010 & 2004 New York Foundation for the Arts Individual Artist Grant. Her work has been exhibited throughout the country and is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), The International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House (Rochester, NY) and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, among others.

Study for Flight, 1993 © Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison

Below is a preview of Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison: Beginnings, which opens tomorrow, September 10, 5 – 8 p.m. This is a rare chance to view never-before-seen images that reveal the ideas and concepts that went into making some of the images from The Architect’s Brother. We will also have an Artist Talk with Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison in the gallery on Saturday, September 11 at noon—they will provide insight into their process and the development of their ideas. If you’re coming out for the opening of the fall gallery season on September 10, then please take advantage of the FREE trolley running between River North & the West Loop between 5 & 9 p.m.