Art Openings: Teacups Get Handsy, Ruminations on the Grid, Photography Galore

Analog v. Digital
Opening Wednesday, August 16 at Foley Gallery, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through August 26.

Nowadays, it’s common to hear that film photography is dead and that anyone can be a photographer who has enough money to get the iPhone with that fancy Portrait Mode built-in. Nothing like automated depth of field to convey the illusion of skill and craft! However, this group show at Foley Gallery seeks to uplift both analog and digital forms of photographic art.

The gallery defines “analog” as “the photographer using light sensitive paper or film in the process” and “digital” as “using hardware requiring a digital component (point and shoot, cell phone or dSLR cameras) regardless of how it was printed.” Fifty artists in total, approximately 25 in each category, will demonstrate the wide range of photography that’s still out there. It’s one of the rare times that focusing on the merits of “both sides” isn’t a totally useless thing to do.

Implicit
Opening Friday, August 18 at Miranda Kuo Gallery, 7 pm to 9 pm. On view through September 8.

What do you think of when you think of “the grid”? Is it your National Grid bill, your high school math homework, your friend who decided to move into a van and go “off the grid” only to turn this venture into a job making #sponcon for Instagram? No matter what grids might mean to you, you’ll have plenty of time to ruminate upon the matter at Implicit, a group art exhibition utilizing grids as a jumping-off point to “convey a sense of wholeness, of similar forms, and of continuous surfaces.”

The show’s title is rather appropriate, as the only explicit and overt content in this show is a particularly affinity for subtlety and a monochrome color palette. Some of the artists appear drawn to texture, others to fine lines. Some of the grids are more laid-out, others you have to squint to decipher. Either way, you’ll have no shortage of grids. Yay?

Embraced
Opening Saturday, August 19 at Booth Gallery, 7 pm to 10 pm. On view through September 9.

Ceramics, clay, and china are typically thought of as smooth, delicate, breakable, domestic, especially when fashioned into usable shapes like cups and saucers. Israeli artist Ronit Baranga breaks from this mold in her new solo show Embraced, which combines the typical inventory of your grandma’s china cabinet with disembodied appendages and other realistic-looking body parts. This imbues the inanimate objects with a life of their own, giving them the agency to interact with other, similar objects. Maybe you were planning on holding that teacup, but it looks like some other fingers got there first, and they don’t seem to be going anywhere.

Women in Colour
Opening Saturday, August 19 at Rubber Factory, 6 pm to 9 pm.Are you tired of looking at women and stuff made by women and seeing no color at all? Only black and white or maybe some gray here and there? Speaking of gray, I watched 50 Shades of Grey for the first time yesterday and it was even more ghastly than I thought it would be. If you’ve also seen an awful piece of media and want a palate cleansing, or are just looking for something nice to gaze at for a while, perhaps check out Rubber Factory’s exhibition of color photography by women, opening this Saturday.

The exhibition digs into the history of women’s representation in the art world (spoiler alert: they haven’t always been included or acknowledged) and honors the work of Anna Atkins, said to be the first woman photographer and color photographer. Atkins produced a handwritten book documenting British algae with cyanotype prints, which create a dark blue color on paper. In addition to curator Ellen Carey’s research-based dive into Atkins’s contributions, the show also showcases other notable women photographers, such as Cindy Sherman.