C’mon now, episode 20!! Let’s celebrate by hopping in the way back machine with Matt Brandt. I still remember what initially thrilled me about his work, bees made of bees!

Last day to see Islands in the Net at @rectangle.room , which includes The Bow by @roeethridge . It’s a seminal photograph, from ’01/02, an allegory for Ethridge’s practice—ideas and subjects return, folding back on themselves, and are packaged in bright kitsch and modern experience. Arguably one of a handful of pictures that kicked off the fraught aughts!

Past guests @robertsonmariah @weistwiley and @saraspar discuss the future of photography at last nights Colloquium on Contemporary Photography and Related Feelings.

Welcome to the first installment of Aught Thoughts, or the first iteration of the Ongoing Colloquium on Contemporary Photography and Related Feelings (presented by Aught Fraught)! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see these three titans of Contemporary Photography together in one room, hashing out the future of the medium in one final, definitive panel. @weistwiley @briandroitcour @saraspar When: Thursday, April 16th, 6pm Where: Rectangle Room at Primary Photographic, 113 Eldridge St, NYC

This Saturday at @rectangle.room , double feature!

Last week to come see this piece, titled SWIM, part of the Islands in the Net exhibition at @rectangle.room . Joshua Citarella made this almost 10 years ago, but it’s just as prescient now as it was then. Objects in the picture are photographed, rendered, appropriated, even drawn—it’s a showcase of the digital tools available (at the time) for manifesting an idea as a still image. Use it all, including the brush tool. Also, another reason to see it in person is that even at scale, he’s completely removed any sign of grain from the image. Grain is an artifact of the past, one of the last links between the image-making tools of the present, and the analogue materials of photography’s bygone era.

- Aught Fraught Presents :  Islands In The Net
organized by Matthew Porter
 Tanyth Berkeley
Phil Chang
Joshua Citarella
Roe Ethridge
Daniel Gordon
Miranda Lichtenstein
Eileen Quinlan
Sara Greenberger Rafferty
Mariah Robertson
Hannah Whitaker

March 19th - April 18th

Rectangle Room
at Primary Photographic
113 Eldridge St.
NY NY 10002
Open Monday - Friday, 9:30-6:30, Saturday, 10-6

Aught Fraught @aughtfraught is an interview series podcast hosted by Matthew Porter about photography in the early 2000s (the aughts), an era that marked a high point in photography’s cultural visibility and market influence. For many practitioners and enthusiasts, the aughts remain a notably fraught, energetic, and formative decade for the medium. Every month it seemed there was another panel, another essay, another exhibition or catalogue that sought to find meaning and hope in what was largely considered to be photography’s moment of “crisis.”

Islands in the Net brings together a selection of Aught Fraught subjects, showcasing works that use myriad material strategies but focus on representation, particularly photography’s ability to frame ideas through various styles of depiction. The keystone work is Joshua Citarella’s large four panel banner, depicting a dystopian future, and showing the medium’s ability to merge image-generating software, digital appropriation, and lens-based pictures.

Matthew Porter @__matthewporter__ is a photographer living in Brooklyn. Rectangle Room @rectangle.room is a bookstore and exhibition space offering books, print editions, artworks & ephemera run by Tim Barber @timobarber Primary Photographic @primaryphotographic ​​is a full-service film lab offering processing, scanning, retouching, printing, and darkroom services.​​

Many, many thanks to @walshy_ny at @primaryphotographic for providing the space for last night’s show at @rectangle.room —he painted the walls, provided the lights, printed some of the work, bought the drinks, and opened the doors so that a lot of my favorite people could stand around and have a good time. Go to Primary Photographic for all your photo needs!

New Sally Mann shirts available at @rectangle.room . Logo on the front and sleeves, Mann telling it straight on the back. Long sleeve, but there are a few ss.

Episode 19! John Houck. He wrote the code that produced it, he photographed it, he painted it. These seem like disparate practices, yet the parts form a whole. The works over his career share color, materials, and the subject of one continues in the next. The process iterates, makes the jump, then iterates again. The result is a fluid transition from binary code to painted canvases. Somewhere in the middle is photography.

1. Broom cam from the @danielgordonstudio 2013 @art21 2. Follow-up episode, 2016.

New episode with Daniel Gordon! Tune in for the origin story, stay for Danny’s generosity and candor. As usual, I left this interview with a much greater understanding and appreciation for Danny’s work and practice. Few artists I know come out of the gate at 18, making the work that will define them for decades, and yet continue to iterate with such imagination and craft.