Upcoming Exhibit: In leaves no step had trodden black curated by Eric Weeks

I am proud to announce the inclusion of two photographs from the Uncanny Imagination series for the upcoming exhibition at the Visual Arts Museum in New York "In leaves no step had trodden black" curated by Eric Weeks. It is both an honor and a privilege to be showing alongside such talented photographers.

"Borrowing a line from the well-known Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken,” the title of the exhibition suggests the innumerable possibilities of implying narrative with photography, as well as the choices each exhibiting artist has made in their use of the medium. Implied narrative can be constructed, found or merely hinted at through the artist’s process."

Visual Arts Museum
209 East 23 Street
NY, NY 10010
July 6th thru July 20th
Reception July 6, 6pm - 8pm

Exhibiting Artist:
Tracy Baran
Ted Barron
Monica Bradley
Jesse Chan
Lisa Elmaleh
Nicholas Fevelo
Brian Finke
Lauren Fleishman
Ayala Gazit
Sean Gutowski
Barclay Hughes
Danny Kim
Matt Kushan
Greg Miller
Katie Murray
Orit Raff
Grant W. Ray
Katie Nicole Smith
Christina Thurston
Corinne Wilber
Richard Williamson

artXposium Skie Mall (Sky Mall) curated by Anni Holm

I am pleased to announce the inclusion of two of my photographs in Skie Mall curated by Anni Holm. It will be an honor and privilege to exhibit work along side these fellow international and local artist

"On May 15, 2010, in conjunction with the annual West Chicago Blooming Fest, the STUDIO, located at 203 Turner Court behind Main Street, will open its doors to the 4th biannual artXposium. This multimedia art experience, organized by People Made Visible, Inc. featuring regional, national and international artists who will display a variety of art work inspired by the inflight SkyMall catalog.

In addition to the SkieMall, artXposium events and exhibitions will take place in front of the 19th century CB&Q Depot, at the West Chicago City Museum and on Main Street. Saturday, May 15 the exhibition opens at 9am, with an artist reception from 6 to 9 pm which will feature a performance by Alison Rhoades along with food, drinks and a silent auction. (Full program available at artxposium.org.)

New to the program this year is a tent among Blooming Fest vendors hosting the West Chicago International Artist in Residency Program featuring Gitte Bog’s project: Fusion Foods.

Featured artists include: Claus Ankersen (DK), Lise Haller Baggesen (DK/NL/US), Tom Burtonwood (UK/US), Mario Contreras (US), Gemma Correll (UK), Diana Gabriel (US), Aron Gent (US), Richard Holland (US), Holly Holmes (US), Matt Logan (US), Mark Osterman (US), Sara Phalen (US), Grant Ray (US), Alison Rhoades (US), Andrew Rigsby (US), Steve Ruiz (US), Victor Yanez-Lazcano (US) and Matt Austin (US). This year's exhibition has been curated by Anni Holm.

artXposium Hours: Saturday 9am-9pm & Sunday 10am-2pm. This event is free and open to the public. (Suggested donation $2)."

Start Time: Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 9:00am
End Time: Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 2:00pm
Location: 203 Turner Court, West Chicago, IL 60185

A sample...

"New York, New York: MTVs Top Ten Videos 1981, 1991, 2001", from the Uncanny Imagination series received a spot in Feature Shoot "singles" blog section.


Feature Shoot "Singles" section.

The Two Photography’s

Interesting essay by Paul Graham titled "the Unreasonable Apple" about a quote from Michael Fried’s recent book “Why Photography Matters as Art and Never Before”

Carefully constructing his pictures as provocative often open ended vignettes, instead of just snapping his surroundings”
Michael Fried

Graham’s essay “the Unreasonable Apple”, takes issue with Fried’s seemingly sophomoric malaise in referring to straight photography as that of merely “snapping pictures”. Graham sets out to establish that there is more happening in the work of “straight” photographers than merely “snapping pictures”. He posits the question what is that “something” that happens when photographers like Robert Adams, Stephen Shore, Diane Arbus took their photographs. The essay goes on to lament what Graham sees as the absence of “straight” photography from critical attention and ends with a mandate seeking photographers, writers, dealers, collectors, and curators, to write critically about what that “something” is. How ever noble the intent the essay inadvertently manages to establish a dialectic between what he sees as “straight” photographers and those photographers who make/synthesis their subject matter for the camera thus fracturing the photographic medium into two types of photography. One is a serious business with a practice and processes beyond Fried’s “snapping pictures” a point of Graham’s I strongly agree with. The other photography is made, synthesized, constructed, and easily explained to the buyers, collectors, dealers, and curators as simply stuff set up for the camera to be photographed.

It is Graham’s choice of language that complicates his call to action. His style of writing, and structure hints at the old modes of modernist photography. There are ways to write about photographic practice in constructive and culturally relevant ways without the need to inadvertently or otherwise tear down other practices of photography. Sadly, especially given the context for this essay, Graham’s "the Unreasonable Apple" is not one of them. For that question to be fairly addressed we can be thankful for SFMOMA and their upcoming symposium "Is Photography Over".

Four Faces - Review by Michael Weinstein in NewCity

Write up by Michael Weinstein on the "Four Faces" exhibit at Barbara & Barbara Gallery.

"Drawn to the recesses of densely wooded public parks, Jennifer Ray seeks out evidence of male sexual encounters—a spent condom, a pair of briefs, a Styrofoam cup—and shoots the tell-tale details in color, so that they are small, yet obtrusive elements of the larger verdant scene. Eric Bessel takes color portraits of women posed in gestures and sporting expressions that betray distress, bitterness or hostility. Helen Maurene Cooper dolls women up in kitschy costumes, places them against decorative mannerist backgrounds, and snaps them in color as they vogue like fashion models, sometimes tough, sometimes dreamy. Grant Ray puts ordinary objects into compositions suggesting “pseudo-scientific experiments,” as when he goes into the wooded glen, plants an electrical gizmo there, and shoots the scene in color, proving that you can do other things in the park than have sex. You can read the artists’ statements if you want an overdose of cultural theory, but their work boils down to crossing the boundary from the illusory world of normal certitude to the wilderness of the seamy psycho-dramas that surround the islands of sanity that we so painfully attempt to construct. (Michael Weinstein)"

Through February 18 at Barbara & Barbara Gallery, 1021 N. Western

Four Faces exhibition

I am pleased to announce the inclusion of my work for the exhibition “Four Names” at the Barbara and Barbara Gallery. The opening reception is being held on Saturday, January 23rd from 7-11pm.

Four Names
Grant W. Ray
Helene Maurene Cooper
Jennifer Ray
Eric Bessel

Opening Reception
Saturday, January 23, 7-11pm

Barbara & Barbara Gallery
1021 North Western Ave.
Chicago, Illinois

Critical Encounters: Fact & Faith Photography Exhibition

Photograph on post card front by Krista Wortendyke

I am pleased to announce the inclusion of one of the photographs from the Uncanny Imagination series in Critical Encounters Fact and Faith Photography Exhibition at Columbia College Chicago Library. (Sadly due to a typo my name was printed as Grant Wray instead of Grant W. Ray.) The opening reception will be in the Weisman Reading Room, 2nd floor library, 624 S. Michigan Ave.

"Sponsored by Critical Encounters, Center for Teaching Excellence and Alumni Relations. Students, Staff and Alumni were asked to respond to this year's focus, Fact & Faith, and submit images that explore the tension between the need to know and the need to believe. Join us at the reception and see how the artists personally interpreted this theme.
Critical Encounters is a college-wide initiative intended to synchronize conversations between the school and the community, in an ongoing dialogue, around a central, socially and culturally relevant issue each academic year."

Jurors:
Jodi Adams, Photography Alumna and Staff
Stephen DeSantis, Interdisciplinary Arts/Book and
Paper Alumnus, Columbia College Chicago

Show Hours:
Mon-Thurs 8:00am-10:00pm
Friday 8:00am-6:00pm
Saturday 9:00am-5:00pm
Sunday 12:00-5:00pm