Obscura Gallery is thrilled to debut the unique photo-based portraiture by Mexican artist Lou Peralta in her solo summer exhibition: Deconstructed Portraits. From the fourth generation in a family of studio portrait photographers, Peralta pushes the boundaries and defines new meanings in contemporary portraiture. Peralta’s work deconstructs traditional notions of portraiture to carry viewers deeper into not only the personas of her subjects, but also the broader culture of Mexico. She deepens her photography by combining her portraiture with cultural physical objects referencing pre-Hispanic influences on contemporary culture.

ARTIST RECEPTION WITH THE ARTIST:
Friday, July 8, 5-7pm
Please join us in welcoming Lou Peralta to Santa Fe for the first time and let’s celebrate her solo exhibition!

ONLINE INTERVIEW WITH THE ARTIST:
Click below for an online interview with Lou Peralta – learn more about the work in her solo exhibition, Deconstructed Portraits. Click below to watch.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PRESS RELEASE HERE.

VIEW THE WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION HERE.

Obscura Gallery presents a book signing and intimate exhibition of works from Joan Myers new publication, The Devil’s Highway (published by Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas Press). In this haunting new collection of photographs, gallery artist Joan Myers continues the decades-long journey she began in Where the Buffalo Roamed (with Lucy Lippard, Damiani 2019), in which she documents the changing landscape and culture of the American West. The images in this new collection are more personal, more elegiac––and all black-and-white. They bear witness to the fracturing of the American Dream, the demise of cowboy culture, the shrinking of small towns, ranches, and farms throughout western rural America. The themes she examines are reflected in a powerfully evocative short story by Pulitzer finalist William de Buys, also titled “The Devil’s Highway.” First published in 1992 in Story magazine, the de Buys story is reproduced in Myers’ book for the first time.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PRESS RELEASE HERE.

VIEW THE WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION HERE.

Center415
5th Avenue
New York, NY

As a proud member of AIPAD (Association of International Photography Art Dealers), we couldn’t be more excited to be back in bustling New York City this week celebrating photography after a long pandemic break. Now in its 41^st edition, The Photography Show presented by AIPAD is the longest running and foremost exhibition dedicated to the photographic medium. In addition to the AIPAD Fair, the city is buzzing with other exciting art events including Frieze New York, VOLTA, I-54, and the ICP Photobook Fest in partnership with AIPAD.

In our AIPAD Booth #107 located on the ground floor at Center415, we are showcasing a selection of eight Obscura Gallery artists who represent a wide span in their individual careers, yet all have in common their unique contributions to the history of the medium. We hope you’ll stop by and visit our booth in which three of our artists will be available throughout the fair to chat with to you about their work: Susan Burnstine, Rania Matar, and Rashod Taylor.

Angie Brockey
Susan Burnstine
Paul Caponigro
Coco Fronsac
Colin Jones
Michael Massaia
Rania Matar
Rashod Taylor

We will also have a selection of fine 20th Century photography available including André Kertész, Edward Weston, Gertrude Käsebier, Imogen Cunningham, Gordon Parks, and many more!

VIEW THE WORKS IN OUR BOOTH ON ARTSY HERE.

Please inquire here for more information.

Obscura Gallery presents a book signing with Rebecca A. Senf, Chief Curator at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona, for her recent book Making a Photographer, The Early Work of Ansel Adams (Yale University Press). In conjunction with the book signing, there will be an exhibition of select works by Ansel Adams in our viewing room, to which Rebecca will refer to during her discussion of the book.

Ansel Adams, Mirror Lake, Yosemite, 1935, 7 3/4 x 9 7/8”, gelatin silver print.

PURCHASE THE BOOK HERE.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PRESS RELEASE HERE.

VIEW THE WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION HERE.

Obscura Gallery is thrilled to announce our first exhibition of 2022, “Invisible World,” by Obscura Gallery artist Nevada Wier. Using her own unique palette created from infrared photography, Nevada presents photographs from her global travels through the lens of her camera converted to only render infrared light. While based in Santa Fe, Nevada typically spends nearly 99% of the year traveling the world on assignment and leading workshops, specializing in documenting the various cultures of the world. She is recognized for her creative and intimate approach to photographing people. Grounded due to the global spread of COVID-19, Wier has remained at home during the pandemic probably more than ever in her working life. But she has used the occasion to dive into her years-long archive of inspiring infrared photographs, which form this exhibition. We are excited to present a selection of over twenty images at Obscura, making the invisible visible through Nevada’s use of infrared photography.

Obscura Gallery is honored to debut an exclusive gallery exhibition of vintage, one-of-a-kind Polaroid prints made during Paul’s tenure with the Polaroid Corporation in the 1960’s. In 1959, Ansel Adams introduced the Polaroid Corporation to Paul’s work and that following year Paul became a consultant to the company, testing out their Type 55 negative/positive film, and their Type 53 positive film on his 4 x 5 view camera using a Polaroid back. The 44 images in the exhibition were created in New England as well as Ireland and a majority of the prints in the exhibition were created on Polaroid Type 53, which does not produce a negative and creates a one-of-a-kind positive print. The project came to a close in 1969 with a selection of images created in Ireland, when that same year Paul began his Guggenheim fellowship photographing in that country. Other than exhibiting the work at the Polaroid Corporation and a couple of universities or non-profits this is the first extensive gallery exhibition of this unique work and Obscura Gallery feels privileged to be able to work directly with Paul in selling this collection, and all his photographs.

Obscura Gallery presents a photographic exhibition by Lebanese-born American artist Rania Matar entitled SHE which focuses on young women in the US and the Middle East who are leaving the cocoon of home and entering adulthood, highlighting how female subjectivity develops in parallel forms across cultural lines. Artist and mother Rania Matar’s cross-cultural experiences inform her art. She has dedicated her art work to exploring issues of personal and collective identity through photographs of female adolescence and womanhood—both in the United States where she lives, and in the Middle East where she is from.

The Obscura Gallery exhibition is in conjunction with the Radius Books release of the same name and celebrates an opening reception with the artist on Wednesday, August 25 at Obscura Gallery from 5-7pm. The exhibition is on view August 25 – October 31, 2021.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PRESS RELEASE HERE.

VIEW THE ‘SHE’ SERIES HERE.

There will be a reception with the artist on Friday, August 20, 2021 at Obscura Gallery from 5-7pm. The exhibition is on view August 6 – August 21, 2021.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PRESS RELEASE HERE.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL FUTURE INTERCEPT SERIES.

Obscura Gallery is thrilled to present our 2021 Summer exhibition, Where Shadows Cease: Resonance of America’s Dream, with gallery artist Susan Burnstine. The prints in the exhibition include recent additions to Burnstine’s ongoing color series captured on self-made cameras, which explore the connections between the personal and collective unconscious during an unparalleled period in America. By infusing common dream themes and symbols found within the familiar, Susan Burnstine has observed commonly shared memories and universal representations found at places connected to the ethos of the “American Dream,” which reflect the collective hopes, fears and aspirations found in the social topography of America. Through revisiting iconic locations and landscapes across the United States she has explored corridors of this land through visual metaphor and symbolism as a means to uncover the hidden uniformities that reside within the nations’ collective unconscious in the present era.

The exhibition coincides with Susan’s workshop at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops and the artist reception will take place at Obscura Gallery on Thursday, July 29, from 5-7pm.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PRESS RELEASE HERE.

VIEW THE IMAGES FROM THE SERIES HERE.

We are thrilled to share an exhibition of vintage photographs by Ernest Knee, a well-known photographer and cultural figure who lived in Santa Fe in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Knee is best known for his images of northern New Mexico and other southwestern cultural landscapes, Native American dances, and many other profound Southwest locations which reveal a remarkable visual record of the Southwest between 1930-40, comprised into two books: Santa Fe, N.M. (1942, Hastings House) and Ernest Knee in New Mexico (2005, Museum of New Mexico Press). Also included in the exhibition will be a selection of photographs from Mexico of which were published in his book, Mexico – Laredo to Guadalajara (1951, Hastings House).

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE PRINTS IN THE EXHIBITION

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL PRESS RELEASE

Obscura Gallery launches our 2021 season with a solo exhibition of Kurt Markus’s dune forms photographed in Namibia, Africa, home to the largest sand dunes in the world. These images celebrate the meditative beauty found in these sensual shapes and forms created by the winds and natural forces ever-changing this unique landscape set within the coastal desert of Namibia. This is Kurt’s second solo show at Obscura Gallery focusing on his personal work in the landscape, the first being an exhibition of Monument Valley landscapes in 2018. Markus approaches this landscape with the same respect and admiration, demonstrating his attunement with the natural world as one would be when impacted on a spiritual level. Many of the images included in the exhibition were taken at Sossusvlei, in the southern part of the Namib Desert, which is a salt and clay ‘pan’ surrounded by sand dunes uniquely red in color and which are 5 million years old.

VIEW THE ENTIRE EXHIBITION HERE.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PRESS RELEASE HERE.

HUGO BREHME, Cuernavaca, Mexico, c. 1920, 13.25 x 10.5″, gelatin silver print.

Obscura Gallery is excited to debut a solo exhibition by Hugo Brehme, one of the earliest Modern photographers working in Mexico in the early 20^th Century. This photographic exhibition will include photographs and postcards focused on iconic Mexican subjects from that time period including scenic landscapes, colonial architecture, and the everyday life of indigenous peoples. Complementing the work of Hugo Brehme, we will also have a small selection of work by Manuel Alvarez Bravo, a prominent Modern Mexican photographer heavily influenced by Brehme, as well as Mexican photographer Manuel Carrillo who resonated his predecessor in the beauty and authenticity of photographing his culture in the mid to later part of the 20^th Century.

HUGO BREHME, Amecameca, Mexico, c. 1920’s, 13 x 10.25″, gelatin silver print.

VIEW THE ENTIRE EXHIBITION ON OUR ARTSY PAGE HERE.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PRESS RELEASE HERE