Cool Hunting
Known for her celebrity portraits and more recently for her brilliant portraits of crying children, Jill is an accomplished photographer who became enchanted by our biological cousins and their pure emotional expression. We chatted with Jill today about her upcoming exhibit and new book, Monkey Portraits. Make that monkeys, orangutans, baboons, chimpanzees and macaques. We're offering a signed copy of this amazing book to one lucky CH reader. Read on for details.
CH: So how did this monkey thing start?
JG: Quite by accident. I was shooting a photo for a client that happened to include a monkey as part of a children's party scene a few years ago. When I saw the monkey I realized that I had to take the opportunity to take his portrait. I was blown away when I looked at the film the next day.
CH: It was that simple?
JG: I showed the photo to a gallery here in LA and they were supportive enough to hang one of them in the back of the gallery. People started asking about them, and over the next year or so I would hire monkeys and shoot them whenever I could. The gallery (Paul Kopeikin Gallery) eventually had a show of my portraits in 2004. One thing led to another and I found Simon Green, an agent in New York, who helped sell the idea for Bulfinch Press.
CH: And that led to the new show?
JG: Yes, my first show in New York.
CH: What's the best part about working with the animals?
JG: You dont have to make small talk or coddle their publicist.
CH: Who is more challenging to photograph, kids or animals?
JG: Hmm. They are both really hard. You just have to zen out and hope they hit their mark occasionally. You have to be really patient with your hands on the focus knobs...
CH: Did you bond with any of the animals?
JG: I like Rocky, the 1 year old orangutan that's with me in my author photo. The baby orangutans are the most friendly. They are really sweet, like little kids. (See photo, right)
CH: Do you have a favorite portrait from this series?
JG: I love Josh, the celebes macaque on the cover. I love his black hair and gold eyes and crazy facial structure.
Jill has graciously offered a signed copy of her book to the CH reader who sends in a photo of either their best monkey face or their favorite photo with a monkey. Send your entries to leti [at] coolhunting [dot] com with the subject "Monkeys" in the title of your email. All entries must be received by Monday 25 September 2006. We'll review the entries with Jill.The winner's photo will be posted on CH and they will receive a signed copy of her book. We will announce the winner later next week.
Jill Greenberg: Monkey Portraits
12 October-11 November 2006
ClampArt
521-531 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10011
+1 646 230 0020
Monkey Portraits is available from Amazon
|
previous entry Plantraco Carbon Butterfly |
next entry Cool Feet |
It's clear that in recent years the Chinese contemporary art market (like the rest of the art market) has experienced an explosion of prosperity. This Thursday, 10 May 2007, two openings in New York City feature the works of various Chinese artists gaining recognition in the international art world. Li Wei (above left) is just one of over 50 photographers exhibited at ChinaSquare in...
Jill Greenberg was tagged The Manipulator in the early '90s when she became known for transforming photos into surreal portraits by tweaking colors, cutting and pasting and otherwise distorting images. The work she created at the beginning of her career took advantage of Photoshop before it was a household name and became iconic of the collaged, multi-colored look of the time, forming the groundwork...
Fascinated with how many young Koreans construct lives online, Emil Goh started photographing users of Cyworld, a virtual community that allows users to create rooms using various skins and other icons of furniture and appliances. In Goh's work, these imagined universes are perfect counterpoints to explore the many different living situations in Korea. He describes "regular 3-4 bedroom family apartments to cupboard sized "goshiwons"...
Neil Young has a song called "Country Home" about a city boy who goes home to the country. Every time the photographer Peter Sutherland goes home, he takes pictures of what was always around when he was growing up. Now, his new citified perspective allows him to notice things in a new light. What seems normal to people in Colorado Springs, through Sutherland's lens,...
Many of the photographers represented by Paul Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles are defining photography’s emergent stylistic tendencies. In two years, magazines will be filled with celebrity portraits aping Jill Greenberg’s techniques. It will take two years to purge the photos of screaming children from her upcoming exhibition, End Times, from your head. The artist uses the wailing distress of the children as an...
Widely known for his off-the-cuff Marc Jacobs ads featuring candid portraits of celebrity friends, Juergen Teller's photographs tap into the current zeitgest of intimate, spontaneous, unstructured, and cleverly voyeuristic image-making. But in his current solo exhibition at Foundation Cartier pour L'Art Contemporain in Paris, Teller shows a body of work called Nürnberg. Taken over four seasons, the images document an abandoned Nazi propaganda site...
The Pharos Project
Hank and Matlok
Neon Shoes
Radio Village Nomade
Ghostly Swim: Interview with Sam Valenti
Creative Index
Interview with Maarten Baas
A Paper Tiger
Von Totebags and T-Shirts
