Ed Ruscha: Ribbon Words

artist Denis Brihat</a>, who passed away last month at the age of 96 in Bonnieux in the Luberon region of Provence, where he had lived for over sixty years.</p><p>A pioneering figure in the history of photography, Brihat was one of the first to advocate for photography to be recognized as an essential form of artistic expression in its own right. On the hard terrain of the Plateau des Claparèdes, he built a house, cultivated a garden, and created extraordinary images, prints, and techniques that have left an indelible impact on the medium. Surrounded by nature, Brihat enjoyed solitude and contemplation. Nature became the foundation of his life and a source of spirituality; it also offered him a continuous study of forms. Brihat was especially fascinated with plants and flora, in particular, the flowers, trees, and vegetables found around his home in Provence and in his garden, which he referred to as Eden, an earthly paradise. His exceptional eye endowed him with the power to draw beauty from the quotidian, often overlooked objects like his beloved onions, while his remarkable roses, orchids, and gardenias exhibit a palpable sensuality in both the intimacy of their composition and the exquisite texture of the prints.</p><p>In his darkroom, Brihat conducted groundbreaking experiments in photography and printmaking, resulting in singular stylistic and technical achievements. His aim was to create “photographic paintings.”</p><p>A master printer, he invented a technique of toning traditional black-and-white darkroom prints with the salts of gold, iron, selenium, vanadium, and uranium, among other metals. The reaction of these metals with the silver salts in the emulsion produced hues that are original, one-of-a-kind, and highly archival, in contrast to traditional analog color printmaking. The resulting prints exude a vividness and a luminosity that are unequaled in color photography. He also forged new paths in the field of photographic engraving, adapting a 19th-century practice to develop a new technique known as grignotage (literally, "nibbling" or "whittling away") that etched his images, with unusual permanence, hue, and texture, directly into the paper. Brihat’s momentous body of work teaches us how to see and appreciate nature; they form an Eden of their own, gifted to us by a great artist.</p><p>Brihat was one of the founders of the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie festival in Arles, with Lucien Clergue. He was selected by John Szarkowski in 1967 to be one of the first French photographers exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, alongside his friends Jean-Pierre Sudre and Pierre Cordier. In 1987, he was awarded the Grand Prix de la Photographie de la Ville de Paris.</p><p><br></p>" />

filmmaker Wim Wenders</a> will be on view from January 28 through March 15, 2025 at <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Exhibition/Ed-Ruscha--Ribbon-Words/"/Organization/Howard-Greenberg-Gallery/638CDF45845852FB">Howard Greenberg Gallery</a>. Written Once will showcase images made in the 1970s and 1980s when Wenders was researching locations for his films in the American West or traveling the country for film events. A key element of the exhibition is text written by Wenders to accompany a number of the photographs, which will be featured together with the images in the gallery. Wenders’ poetic stories surrounding the images give the viewer an extraordinary window into his filmmaking as well as his day-to-day life in the film world. The title of the exhibition, Written Once, is a nod to the two photographic series on view: Written in the West (1983-1987) and Once (1977-1984).</p><p>Written in the West</p><p>In 1983, Wenders set out on a road trip of the American West, photographing the unique light and desolate landscape in preparation for his iconic film Paris, Texas (1984). Wenders’ images from Texas, Arizonia, New Mexico and California are transformed by the filmmaker’s cinematic vision as he searches for the mythology of the frontier in the vast landscape. The trip resulted in the series, Written in the West, which was first exhibited in 1986 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.</p><p>“It was another way of preparing for the film, too, a different kind of research that had less to do with locations than with the light in the West. I had never made a film in that landscape and was hoping that taking photographs would sharpen my understanding of the light and landscape, my sense of empathy with it. So although these photos were taken in connection with the film we made in that part of the country, they are quite independent of it, despite the fact that a lot of the photos were taken in Houston, Los Angeles, and other locations in Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico where we did in fact shoot the film. But these large-format photos were my own personal, private way of preparing for the film,” Wenders noted in an interview in his 2015 photography book, Written in the West Revisited (Schirmer/Mosel &amp; D.A.P.)</p><p>Once</p><p>In the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, Wenders photographed his travels and encounters in Hollywood. Using the same command of the art of storytelling found in his films, Wenders presents a written anecdote with each image that often starts out with “Once, I…..” These behind-the-scenes accounts feature stories about his travel experiences often with the extraordinary group of actors and directors that have crossed his path including John Lurie, Jim Jarmusch, Dennis Hopper, Claire Denis, Elia Kazan, Isabella Rossellini, and Harry Dean Stanton.</p><p>Among the highlights is a 1977 photograph, When Martin Scorsese had a flat tire II. Wenders is both the imagemaker and the narrator of an unpredictable moment: while traveling in the remote landscape of the Valley of the Gods in Utah, he encountered a car pulled over by the side of the road with a flat tire. The man underneath the car was Martin Scorsese, who subsequently discovered that the rental car did not have a spare tire!</p><p>Autobiographical in scope with a literary tradition found in his filmmaking, the narrated texts and photographic trajectories provide an intimate look at the making of picture stills and their relationship to moving images.</p><p><br></p>" />

Winant assembled hundreds of stills from films that the artist and her mother each made as teenagers driving across the US. In 1969, Winant’s mother traveled far from her family home for the first time, documenting her trip from Los Angeles to Niagara Falls on Super 8 film. In 2001, with a 35mm camera in hand, Winant chronicled her own reverse journey from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. Each of the 11 compositions shows a different exploration of recognizable landmarks, interwoven narratives, and the horizon line. The resulting montages collapse the two journeys across time and landscapes, unfolding individual experiences of newfound freedom, buoyancy, and the power of self representation. On JCDecaux bus shelters, the exhibition connects to the movement of daily transit, inviting riders and passersby to imagine their own stories of travel, transformation, and connection.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p>" />