Benrubi Gallery is pleased to announce Alia Ali’s first solo exhibition with the gallery: “Glitzch.”

Alia Ali is a Yemeni-Bosnian-US multi-media artist. Her work explores cultural binaries, challenges culturally sanctioned oppression, and confronts the dualistic barriers of conflicted notions of gender, politics, media, and citizenship.

Working between language, photography, video, textile, and installation, Ali’s work addresses the politicization of the body, histories of colonization, imperialism, sexism, and racism through projects that take pattern and textile as their primary motif. Textile is central to Ali’s practice. She reminds us of how significant fabrics are to our collective
humanity: we are born into it, we sleep in it, we eat on it, we define ourselves by it, we shield ourselves with it and eventually we are swathed in it as we are put to rest. And while it unites us, it also divides us physically and symbolically. Ali’s work broadens this into immersive installations to move past language and offer an expansive, experientialunderstanding of self, culture, and nation. Weaving us, so to speak, to each other and in
turn back to ourselves.

“Glitzch” Ali’s current project, considers this idea of a potentially minor technological malfunction, the inherent implication of a glitch is that of a surprise mistake or misstep
within a specific framework or system of which it is breaking the rules. The glitch calls attention to that which it disrupts; the system that would have otherwise gone unnoticed and unquestioned. Ali’s “Gltizch” is an activated force, not a passive phenomenon. If an aspect of a system is in conflict with the framework that contains it, then it can attack that framework and call attention to the mistakes inherent in that system. (Zeller, “alia ali….) Glitzch can be a battle cry. Glitzch can be an opportunity.

Ali is a graduate of Wellesley College and the California Institute of the Arts (CALARTS).
She lives between New York and Marrakech and has exhibited numerous solo exhibitions and art fairs across the globe. Her work is in collections at the British Museum, Princeton University, New Orleans Museum of Art, Tucson Museum of Art, Museum of Photography in Chicago, Benton Museum of Art, and a myriad of international private collections. Ali is the recipient of the ARTSY Vanguard Prize 2021-22 and is a NIKON Global Ambassador.

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Featuring works by Matthew Albanese, Jude Broughan, Kang Hee Kim, and Jeffrey Milstein

Benrubi Gallery is please to present a Winter Group Show organized around the idea of the Manufactured Landscape. One could consider the “Manufactured Landscape” to be a norm of our modern world, which it absolutely is, and it is not a new concept for photographers to explore either. It is in this vein that we seek to see what an idea made into a household phrase with the work of Edward Burtynsky in a 2006 world looks like now. We have changed in so many ways since the now seemingly halcyon days of a pre-2008, pre-pandemic society. We have come to fully inhabit our digital spaces, and whereas the integration of technology into fine art was always inevitable, and photography has always been a medium of change, we must still highlight where those changes live and how they are being executed and why. Four gallery artists: Matthew Albanese, Jude Broughan, Kang Hee Kim, and Jeffrey Milstein all using various methods to create these narratives within their picture spaces offer an investigation into the idea of what a Manufactured Landscape in 2025 is. From the use of the intricate diorama to the reappropriation and integration of slices of life, to the use of photoshop as the cardinal gesture of the composition, and Milstein’s use of pure optics to disturb and disrupt, allowing the viewer to question the very nature of their own perception. This is where we find ourselves at the juncture of what is the gesture of the hand and what is engineered, a synthetic reality that at its most impactful is now something we are quite comfortable with. We are even comfortable with the new awareness that we may not know. We find ourselves fluent in the language of what creates these disruptions of perspective, and we find perhaps they are not so disruptive anymore, they are simply our world at this time, in this place.

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Benrubi Gallery is pleased to present “Landscapes Noticed,” a solo exhibition of works on paper by Dennis Powers. A collection of exquisitely rendered views that reveal to us the artist’s gaze unto a rapidly changing world; a world rattled by climate change, and a complimentary inward turn to the life of the interior. The two are meditations on the scenes that make up our days. These are the slices of life that determine the course of our lives, our internal and external selves. Our inner monologues, the spaces that hold us close and the landscapes beyond our walls where the eternal rhythm of change and motion is the one constant.

For Powers weather and all its infinite influence at this juncture of humanity plays a vital role in how he sees the natural world and its subsequent collision with the man made. The turbulence of wind, the heat of a summer’s day, the clouds crossing our sky, the brilliant drama of natural motion is critical to his gestural brushstroke. He then applies this to the domestic world where a floral still life becomes a record not just of the ever changing external but a meditation on line and all its possibilities for expression.

Dennis Powers has been an integral member of the Benrubi Gallery since it’s very inception and we are honored to celebrate his work. His practice has been a life’s journey, and the seeds of these works were planted in the 90’s followed by a period of intensive focus beginning in 2010 through the present day. 
    In 1980, following a career in advertising and Corporate Communications, Dennis started his own production company to direct and produce documentary films and commercials for television, as well as corporate videos. Dennis has produced and/or directed many award-winning TV commercials and films including an hour-long documentary for American Masters Television on The Actor's Studio, featuring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Eli Wallach, Ellen Burstyn, Harvey Keitel, Lee Grant and Norman Mailer; a PBS documentary on Andrew Wyeth's the Helga Pictures, featuring Charlton Heston; and, several award-winning documentaries for the Boys' Club of New York, The University of Virginia, Boys Hope Girls Hope of New York, and The New York Historical Society.
     Dennis was awarded a New York Emmy for his work as director on a project for Gallery HD titled Aperture, featuring Catherine Chalmers and Rosario Dawson. As Director/Producer he has also received awards from the New York Film Festival, the Chicago Film Festival, The Clio Awards, the Houston Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, and the Cannes Film Festival.

In 1987 Dennis married Bonni Benrubi, who established the Bonni Benrubi Photography Gallery in New York City. They have two sons, Sam and Jack. Bonni passed in 2012 after a long battle with lung cancer. The Benrubi Gallery continues to flourish in the Chelsea area of New York City.

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Benrubi Gallery is pleased to present “In Italia” a solo exhibition of new work by Valerio Spada. Valerio Spada's profound social documentary work examined the shifting landscapes and cultural transformations of Italy since his milestone work “Gomorrah Girl” to “I am nothing” with theprecious support of the Guggenheim Foundation now to his new book “Santa Maria del Fiore”. “In Italia” moves in the nuanced changes brought about by socio-economic shifts and over-tourism in one of the most sought after travel destinations in the world.

Inspired by Physics Nobel laureate Giorgio Parisi’s insights into the socio-economic dynamics of historic city centers, Spada’s work delves deep into the cascading effects of depopulation of historic city centers. As Parisi emphasizes, "In large cities, schools in the historic center risk closing because there are not enough students attending, which then tends to amplify the desertification by the residents of the center. Because there are few inhabitants, schools close, and young couples do not move there because there are no schools. And we need schools to talk about imagination, curiosity, the desire to learn, gender equality, the future, but also about the historic center and the need to save it from a fate as "trolleyland”, being only a crowd of trolleys arriving and departing, so it remains, as Parisi says, a vital, hospitable place, rich in humanity. For this, schools are essential, as well as bookstores, theaters, and cultural places that give meaning to the community. That is why the schools in the center must be strengthened and helped to grow."

From 2019 to 2024 Spada observed the most crowded placed in Italy, concentrating his work in Florence most visited spot, Piazza Santa Maria del Fiore, meticulously as Parisi studied the sophisticated flight pattern of starlings, as a study on complex systems proving an illuminating way to understand how we move and live in the world, capturing the emptiness of once-vibrant neighborhoods now deserted as local families move away, and schools shut down. We can find kids rushing out of school not even noticing the gigantic Duomo behind them, but few amongst them just stop, turn around, and even if they see it everyday on their walk to school, they are staring at it and decide to use their phone to take a picture, as thousands of tourist will do.

The images of the Duomo stands amidst a sea of visitors juxtapose with 5am scenes of the piazza, Santa Maria del Fiore, transitioning back to a state of calm as tourists are sleeping in their airbnbs or left already, leaving the city for few hours highlighting the cyclical nature of the piazza’s life and the stark contrast between its historical significance and current transient usage. The swarming of people in the square of Florence evokes the idea of a wimmelbüch, a children’s book filled with intricate scenes bustling with activity. Just as a wimmelbüch invites readers to explore its myriad figures and stories, Spada’s photographs compel viewers to navigate the dense, teeming spaces of Italy, revealing the layers of interaction and life within the crowd.

In one of the exhibition's most evocative images, “Gaiola, 2023 - Diptych” Spada captures a tender moment between two men hiding away from the beach riding on two different kayaks, once they met again around the corner kissing each other away from prying eyes. This photograph not only reflects the quiet yet profound social changes in Italy but also the personal freedoms that still grapple with societal norms and prejudices. It is a testament to Spada’s ability to encapsulate intimate human experiences within broader social contexts.

Through "In Italia," Spada paints a comprehensive portrait of Italy in transition. His work transcends mere documentation, instead offering a profound exploration of the socio-economic forces at play. The exhibition challenges viewers to reconsider their perceptions of Italy, balancing its romanticized image with the stark realities of modern life. As Spada continues to live between New York and Sicily, his art remains a crucial voice in contemporary photography, illuminating the often unseen struggles and evolving social
landscapes within Italian society.

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On February 24, 2022, in a speech by Vladimir Putin announcing his “rationale” for invading Ukraine, queer people made a surprising cameo. The West, he said, “sought to destroy our traditional values,” with attitudes, “that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature.” There was little doubt as to whom he was referring. Thus, for the first time in history, the existence of queerness was cited as a casus belli in the struggle between world orders.

Queer communities in the US and around the world in the summer of 2024 find themselves squaring off against a series of ambient tensions singular in history. The long run of gradually expanding rights that began in the late 1970s and crested with the legalization of US gay marriage in 2015 has come to an end. More recent decisions by the Supreme Court, the legislatures of various states, community libraries and school boards have revealed an organized and persistent hostility to queer art, literature and identity.

Although we have seen counter movements to queer progress before, the piecemeal dismantling of just recently acquired rights is a new form of slow torture. There was a whiff of sadism in the multiple ironies of last year’s Supreme Court decision, 303 Creative v. Elenis, enshrining the constitutional right of a self-described artist not to provide services to queer clients. As with Obergefell, the decision came down at the end of June.

And we have never seen the constellation of illiberal agendas that are now making common cause, braiding together globally with malign efficiency to demonize queer communities. Right wing movements around the world may differ broadly in their specifics and texturally in their rhetoric, but they are identical in one particular: the weaponization of gender and sexuality.

In this context, with the US presidential election looming as a near totalizing event of world historical anxiety, I have assembled a show of works, all by queer artists, in celebration of Gorgeousness. This show is as much a wellness check on a community at the leading edge of the cultural headwinds as an incitement to consider the gravity of what may lie ahead.

Gorgeousness. What is it? A cumbersome word. It’s got those “few extra s’s” that would get “The Kids in the Hall’s” Buddy Cole in trouble. Impossible to pronounce without a hissing sibilance that causes us momentarily to metamorphose into serpents. And don’t you just know, if Disney had animated Genesis, they would have coded the serpent as menacingly queer? Like the source of queerness, there is uncertainty about the origin of the word “gorgeousness.” But must we define everything? Queerness is the freedom to reject the definitions that have never fully served us.

As ever, queer artists are studying and sanctifying the body. And why not? The human body contains the source code of all beauty and evil. Human bodies are the most deadly, compelling and sensuous things human beings have ever created. But the queer body is special: liberated from the expectation of reproduction, the queer body is free to become a site of adaptive reuse and aesthetic activism.

This Pride, we should also remember those in our global community who Western queer freedoms, as fragile as they are, have never reached. As if to underscore the urgency of the point, a contributor to Gorgeousness who lives outside the United States has asked not to be mailed the show catalog for fear its nude images could attract attention from the surveillance state under which he lives and covertly makes his erotic art.

Among the 78 works in the show, a pair of photograms by Derrick Woods-Morrow and printmaker Xander Fischer re-author Eadweard Muybridge’s equine locomotion studies in a light-sensitive emulsion of Woods-Morrow’s own semen. The anonymous Black jockey in Muybridge’s animation is thus re-christened in sperm, revealing what the writer Rebecca Solnit describes as “the erotics of motion.” The images critique the erasure of Black contributions both to the development of cinema and the origins of thoroughbred racing as an American sport. Typically, history has retained the name of the horse, Annie G., but not that of the rider.

In a luminous black and white self-portrait by Ian Lewandowski, the photographer’s fingers splay out delicately across the sole of a foot that looks as smooth as honed marble. Lewandowski’s searching gaze pierces the frame from underneath a table: a space as indeterminate as the relationship between artist and model. An errant photographer’s loupe bridges the line between the two bodies, magnifying the connection between clothed artist and the nakedness he tentatively embraces.

The artist Geoffrey Chadsey gives us an intricate rendering of iconic American villain Clyde Barrow, the victim of prison sexual violence who wreaked murder across the land in retribution. The cold shadow falling across his face reminds us of the sliver of ice lodged at the heart of our national darkness: America’s cruel compact with guns. The inscrutability with which Barrow studies the viewer suggests we have failed his test. We have drawn no lesson from his brief life beyond the lurid.

A trio of dreamily figurative images by the photographer Steven Molina Contreras impart a honeyed viscosity to light as the artist and his equipment appear to float in a medium of warm blacks and gold foils. The barrel of his lens becomes an astronomical object that warps and bends color around it, an event horizon beyond which not even the light from his Mamiya can escape untransformed.

The artist Michelle Schapiro invites viewers into the scene playing out at a sex party in which a nonbinary transmasculine individual is simultaneously held down, caressed and supported by their community of leather dykes. The face of the central figure falls just outside the frame, concealing from view an expression of ecstasy so profound it is not for us to see.

And Duane Michals, our playful elder poet-harlequin who has been reminding us of the reciprocity of beauty and death for longer than most of us have been alive presents his classic image of the hunky Hamlet. Having resigned himself to the ineluctable tension between being and not being, he asks of us only: “So let’s hold tight and touch and feel, for this quick instant, we are real.”

Happy Pride.

Love, Richard

Michael Alago, Vince Aletti, John Arsenault, Geoffrey Chadsey, Robert Andy Coombs, Kelli Connell, Steven Molina Contreras, Felix D’Eon, Angela Dufresne, Jess T. Dugan, Lexi Fleurs, Allen Frame, Benjamin Fredrickson, David Graham, Erik Hanson, Florian Hetz, David Hilliard, J Houston, Scott Hug, Stephen Irwin, Wen Jieding, Michael Joseph, Brian Kenny, Clifford Prince King, Patrick Lee, Zun Lee, Matthew Leifheit, Ian Lewandowski, Gabriel Sapiandante Lopez, Michael Light, Kayleigh MacDonald, Andrew Magnes, Billie Mandle, Roman Manfredi, Keith Mayerson, Michael McFadden, Eric McNatt, Melody Melamed, Duane Michals, Paul Moakley, J. Morrison, Ricardo Nagaoka, Tony Payne, Jack Pierson, Mauricio A. Rodriguez, Sal Salandra, Michelle Schapiro, Sophie Schwartz, David Benjamin Sherry, Pacifico Silano, Linda Simpson, Joey Terrill, George Towne, Wadley, Sam Waxman, Shen Wei, D'Angelo Lovell Williams, and Derrick Woods-Morrow

Featuring works by Natalie Brescia, Scott Offen, and Yulia Spiridonova

Benrubi Gallery is delighted to announce "Lonely Among Us," a group exhibition showcasing the works of emerging artists Natalie Brescia, Scott Offen, and Yulia Spiridonova.

“Lonely Among Us'' explores the multifaceted experience of photographic subjectivity, unveiling how Brescia, Offen, and Spiridonova interpret and convey diverse narratives through their work. Each artist explores a variety of possibilities for visual storytelling, inhabiting the intersection between documentary and fiction. Brescia’s work is in dialogue with the traditional photographic visual language of the American West and seeks to find new ways in which to see and interpret the landscape. Working collaboratively with his wife, Offen immerses viewers in a fictional world situated against the backdrop of rural New England. His over seven year project explores topics of mysticism, character creation, and the relationship between an environment and its inhabitants. Spiridonova's photographs portray the Russian community in Boston depicting themes of displacement, assimilation, effects of war, and fear of political retaliation. The exhibition will present the thesis work of all three photographers who completed the Master of Fine Arts program in Photography at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design this Spring.

Natalie Brescia (b. 1994) is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of photography, handmade books, and installation. Born and raised on the Central Coast of California, Brescia’s artistic research is based on the mythos of the western landscape, exploring the concept of land as a container for personal and collective history, gesture, vulnerability, and associated memory. Brescia holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a Master of Fine Arts from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
Scott Offen (b. 1960) is an American East Coast photographer whose work has been exhibited across the United States and prominently featured online. Scott holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Fine Arts from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. He was selected as a finalist for the Critical Mass top 200 Photolucida award in 2021 and has been chosen as a participant in the Chico Hot Springs Portfolio Review in 2020 and 2021.
Yulia Spiridonova (b. 1986) is a contemporary artist working primarily with photography, collage, and installation. Born in Moscow, Russia, in 1986, she currently resides and works in Boston, Massachusetts. Her art has been exhibited in Russia, the United States, and various countries across Europe. Yulia holds an undergraduate degree from Moscow State University (2008) and a post-baccalaureate certificate from Massachusetts College of Art and Design (2014) and a Master of Fine Arts at Massachusetts College of Art and Design (2024).

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Lauren Semivan (b. 1981) was born in Detroit, Michigan. She received a BA in studio art from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin in 2004, and an MFA in photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2006. 
Her work has been exhibited at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, Blue Sky Gallery, Silver Eye Center for Photography, Paris Photo, The Griffin Museum of Photography, The Hunterdon Art Museum, and Museum of Wisconsin Art among others. 

Lauren's work was recently published in With Eyes Opened: Cranbrook Academy of Art Since 1932, Harper’s Magazine, and Series of Dreams (Skeleton Key Press, 2018). Reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, Interview Magazine, The Village Voice, and Photograph magazine, and is included in permanent collections at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, The Wriston Art Galleries at Lawrence University, and The Sir Elton John Photography Collection. 

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Benrubi Gallery is pleased to present Beautiful Night, curated by Jude Broughan, featuring artists Karen Azoulay, Adler Guerrier, John Lehr, Reiner Leist, Daminico Lynch, Jasmine Murrell, Beuford Smith, Jenna Westra, and Jess Willa Wheaton.

Photography is about light (originally sunlight), and sometimes nighttime photography feels unexpected. Neon lights, camera flash, street lights, spot lights, tungsten lamps, high contrast, misty silhouettes. Nighttime is a restful time, when we unwind, hug each other, and look after ourselves,loved ones. Maybe go out and meet up, have some fun. Night is when we sleep and when we grow,our bodies relax and a time for healing. That inky blue twilight, then the star-filled dark night sky, souls gone before, and an as yet unmanifested void of exciting potential.

Beautiful Night is a synthesis of finely intertwined visual narratives. Jasmine Murrell’s low-light long exposures with halos and glowing light traces, speak about miracles that happen in the worst of times and in the most invisible places, and transformative experience around historical erasures. The car headlights and streetlights glow in Daminico Lynch’s “Lonely City”, a still from his 2022 short film “A Woman in the City”, illuminating modern people in their everyday lives in the streets of New York,focusing on the connection between people and exploring human and universal connections.

In John Lehr’s “Burger King, CT”, street light illuminates the bubbled vinyl graphic sign – a photograph from his Low Relief series depicting the skin of the city, surfaces and facades that have been transformed by human interaction and reimagined through subjective perception. In Adler Guerrier’s photograph “Untitled (Wander and Errancies–memories within; citrus in Saint Augustine”,the camera flash spotlight on a citrus tree is an unexpected focusing, an engagement in poetics of place and landscape.

Karen Azoulay foregrounds botanicals in “Dreaming of the Chamomiles”, where the white and yellow chamomile flowers play across the child’s face, and inky blues of the figure and ground, with floral symbolism and secret messages embedded within. The inky blues flow through Jess Willa Wheaton’s piece “Drawing in the Dark”, where she combines disparate found images in radically unified ways,through a slow complex processes of observation and adjustment - in deep contrast to our widely shared experience of viewing images in rapid succession on screens.

In Reiner Leist’s “Window, 4 DEC 2022” the night exposure is several hours long, perhaps analogous to the time it might take to make a sketch. This photograph is part of a serial ongoing long-term photographic project begun in March 1995 – “Window” involves a ritual of photographing the view from Leist’s New York City apartment with two antique large format cameras making exposures on contemporary film.

Jenna Westra’s “Aperture Self Portrait (Jump)” takes aesthetic cues from performance documentation and postmodern dance, and invites the viewer to re-examine their role in the dynamics of image production and consumption. And of Beuford Smith’s iconic black and white silver gelatin photograph“Two Bass Hit”, the photographer states “Photography is a call and respond medium. The call is the subject and respond is the creative process in capturing the image.”

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Featuring works by Abelardo Morell, Doug Hall, Lauren Semivan, Roger Steffens and The Family Acid

THE READER: Group Exhibition APRIL 10 - June 9, 2023 Including artists: Abelardo Morell, Doug Hall, Lauren Semivan, Roger Steffens, and The Family Acid. Simon Brown Books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.” Plato Visual artists have been making work about books for centuries. The idea of a work of art that memorializes, elevates and sings homage to another work of art is a genre in and of itself. The conversation between art forms is one of the great synergies of human creativity. But what is it about the book form and the camera that creates magical architecture? Is it the power of a line on a page: several dashes strung together that can change the course of humanity? Is it the texture of the paper, the way the ages inhabit and haunt this fragile wisp? Or is it just the form itself? The solidity and organization of these small rectangles that give our life power and meaning and allow us to live forever? It's all of these things. In homage to the books of our lives, the endless giving that they do, and even the dust they may collect....we offer "The Reader," a group exhibition of photographers and their books.

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For press and other inquiries, please email: info@benrubigallery.com

For press and other inquiries, please email: info@benrubigallery.com

For press and other inquiries, please email: info@benrubigallery.com

For press and other inquiries, please email: info@benrubigallery.com

Retro Summer

LeRoy Grannis

Hugh Holland

Roger Steffens/The Family Acid

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Benrubi Gallery is pleased to announce Taken from a Cat, an exhibition which features two new series of photographs by Katherine Wolkoff. In her second exhibition with the gallery, Wolkoff observes migrating birds and contemplates humans’ interaction with the natural world and the looming threat of climate change. Taken by a Cat marks Benrubi Gallery’s inaugural exhibition in its new location, 529 West 20th Street. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, May 12th from 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm.  

Katherine Wolkoff’s new photographs are inspired by the life and work of Elizabeth Dickens, a devoted birdwatcher, school teacher, and conservationist.  Born in 1877, Dickens lived her entire life observing the natural environment of Block Island, Rhode Island, a small New England locale that is a key resting stop for migrating birds on the Atlantic Flyway. Wolkoff considers Dickens both collaborator and muse, modeling her work after the early female environmentalist to herald the importance of birds and land conservation.   Katherine Wolkoff visualizes narratives around migrating birds, the specter of death and the continual danger of extinction. In an array of forty small scale photographs, the artist beautifully details handwritten labels that amateur ornithologist Elizabeth Dickens composed each time a dead bird was found by her or her neighbors. The one-hundred year old tags recall how each bird died, for instance “Taken from a Cat,” “Flew into the Lighthouse,” or “Killed by Telephone Wire.”   Five new large-scale works, made during the fall and spring seasons, offer bird’s-eye perspective of seasonally migrating birds.  Utilizing a lensless camera, Wolkoff presents views of the natural landscape that are simultaneously seductive and disorienting. The large landscapes place the bird tags geographically in Block Island’s natural environment, and allow fleeting glimpses of their habitat. 

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For press and other inquiries, please email: info@benrubigallery.com

Online group exhibition including gallery artists: 
Gillan Laub, Richard Renaldi, Rachel Lena Esterline, The Family Acid, Mel Frank and Laura McPhee.

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For press and other inquiries, please email: info@benrubigallery.com

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For press and other inquiries, please email: info@benrubigallery.com

For press and other inquiries, please email: info@benrubigallery.com

Benrubi Gallery is pleased to present "Trip of a Lifetime" a body of work by Roger Steffens/The Family Acid. The Family Acid presents his often transcendent vision and life as a psychedelic pioneer beginning with his work in Vietnam and moving through his ever revolving circle of friends and characters made up of rastas, beatniks, musicians, artists, gonzo journalists, his family, and himself.  The portraits, scenes, and freewheeling experimentation with the medium of photography coalesce into a body of work that both parallels and defines the countercultural ethos of Steffens’ generation.

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Benrubi Gallery is pleased to present "Indigo Sun/Son" a new body of work by Eric Cahan. In the very early moments of the pandemic, Cahan set out for Mexico. His intention like so many of us was to wait out what he imagined would be a few months. Little did he know that that few months would become a year, and that year would extend into a potential new way of life. He spent much of these early days in the state of Oaxaca. Cahan, a NY native was deeply affected by his new environment: the local fauna, the abundant landscape as well as the folklore of the region. As he scratched the surface he found his way to the story of Maria Sabina, the first contemporary Mexican curandera. There is a deep mystical tradition accompanying her and her community in San José del Pacífico and this new body of work is a study in Cahan's own inner journey as he was welcomed to live alongside this community. It is a journey into the depths of a supported, rich, and ancient method of examining one's own mind through plant medicines in the context of a place where such exploration is a sacred ritual. Cahan's reverence for this is seen in his marriage of the micro and macro views of a land he has come to love and call home. The most intimate moments juxtaposed with the uncompromised largesse and beauty of this landscape.
        
His palette is a reflection not only of his inner musings but the constant consideration of the pain and anxiety of the collective during this time. This blue haze washes over his purview as a birthing occurs out of deep reflection and inner work. Cahan dedicates this body of work to the community that has embraced him with open arms.

Eric Cahan was born and raised in Manhattan. He studied at The University of Southern California and New York University, where he graduated from The Tisch School of the Arts' Film Program. He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. 

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Within photographs there exists a converging of two scales; the physical world - things in themselves as they are - and the interior world lying hidden in all things; a synchronism of the eternal and the everyday. The camera exists as a tool for exploration of the limits of our vision and comprehension, of forces counter to the visible. The images in the series Objective Mysteries are the result of an investigation into the invisible: an identification and interrogation of potential signals. Photography is a tool for escape and an instrument for self-knowledge: a door into the dark.This ongoing body of work has evolved through intense contemplative study and manipulation of an ephemeral sculptural environment. References to the physical world suggest rather than disclose, skewed by our own perceptions and associations.  Color is an emotional descriptor, creating depth within a two-dimensional space. The marks on the surface suggest topographies; roads, rivers, passageways, or impressions from suggested movement; scratches on glass, stains, traces of events.Compositions evolve, are photographed, and then devolve into the next image. Materials and objects photographed are discarded, secondary to the photograph itself. The re-telling of the moment becomes monumental to the moment itself.

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As the snow begins to melt and there is the faintest breath of spring in the air, we have all begun to collectively exhale: we are moving through this time. We are and have always been a New York gallery, a New York family. The toll that this past year has taken on our city and our lives is something we now live with. But we are not the first to walk a tenuous path, as art lovers we can look to our very own for evidence of the strength of the city we love and all of its eternal qualities. This is ever present in the work of Benn Mitchell. These images gather for us the city that holds us and the poetry we have built our lives upon that dwells on every street corner revealing to us who we are and who we always have been.                            

Forever New York, a love letter.

Benn Mitchell (b.1926, New York City) from the age of 13 when he received his first camera, has been producing photographs that capture a particularly American vitality. Born in New York City, he sold his first photograph to Life magazine when he was 16. At the age of 17 he headed west, gaining permission from Warner Brothers to frequent the studios shooting the Hollywood stars on the various sets and sound stages. One of his most valued photographs is one of Humphrey Bogart.

After two years of duty as a navy photographer, he returned to New York City and was employed in a large commercial studio. In 1951 he started his own commercial studio in New York City.

During the weekends and holidays he continued to photograph for his own satisfaction and has won many awards both domestic and international. He was been published in many photo annuals and today his work appears in Fortune  500 companies, and all over the world in advertising, books and major magazines. Collectors buy his fine art photographs.

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Press Release

Featuring works by KangHee Kim, Jeffrey Milstein, Jude Broughan  & Vanessa Albury

BENRUBI PROJECTS: WOODSTOCK

"Winter of Hope" brings together gallery artists KangHee Kim, Jeffrey Milstein, Jude Broughan and Vanessa Albury for a group exhibition at Benrubi Projects: Woodstock. "Winter of Hope" is a collection of work that uplifts us as we move into the new year and a period of our lives unlike any other. These images remind us of our collective desire to look to the future brightly. From KangHee Kim's surreal vision of our human desire to dream into the ordinary and make it extraordinary, to Jeffrey Milstein's celebration of the undying creative output of man and the power of science, "Winter of Hope" gives us blue skies for our first steps into 2021.

For press and other inquiries, please email: info@benrubigallery.com

In this era of service jobs and office work, most of us have never been inside a factory. Several decades of global outsourcing and a flood of cheap imports have decimated American factories and hollowed out once thriving communities. Today we have little idea where, or how, the shirt on our back is made. As we become increasingly immersed in the digital realm, we are losing touch with our analog roots. Yet we still live in a physical world and surround ourselves with material things, and many of these things are still made in America.

For the past ten years Christopher Payne has embarked on a photographic journey to learn more about American manufacturing and the industries that built this country. Payne gained access to a world that continues to thrive, albeit on a much smaller scale and, for the most part, out of public view. Some factories are new and showcase the latest technologies, some have survived by staying exactly the same, catering now to niche markets that value the “genuine article” produced on vintage equipment. Regardless of their differences, they all share the common bonds of craftsmanship and a commitment to quality that can never be outsourced.

This body of work is a celebration of the making of things, of the transformation of raw materials into useful objects, and the human skill and mechanical precision brought to bear on these materials that give them form and purpose. It is a deconstruction of the whole into its unseen constituent parts, revealing hidden moments of beauty in the choreography of production. It is also an homage to the people who do the actual work. They are a cross section of young and old, skilled and unskilled, recent immigrants, and veteran employees whose families have worked for generations in the same industry, sometimes in the same factory. Together, they share a quiet pride and dignity, proof that manual labor and craftsmanship still have value in today’s economy.

Payne carefully selected a handful of factories to communicate a broader view of American manufacturing: what it once was, where it is now, and what its future might hold. Manufacturing has been regarded traditionally as the symbol of the nation’s economic health, and its loss is seen as a threat to our collective soul and identity. Yet not all is so bleak. While there are industries pictured here that are barely hanging on, there are also creative adaptations and altogether new inventions that carve new pathways for American manufacturing.

There is, for sure, a certain romance in the making of things, but it is not only nostalgic. These industries are living, breathing expressions of the American journey. We welcome you to join us online for this exceptional selection that really is a culmination of many years of work by the artist. We will also have highlights from “How to Build a Guitar” at our Woodstock location this winter season! See you there! For press and other inquiries, please email: info@benrubigallery.com

Benrubi Projects
31 Mill Hill Road, Woodstock, NY 12498

Press Release

For press and other inquiries, please email: info@benrubigallery.com

Benrubi Gallery is pleased to announce an ONLINE exhibition of new work by Massimo Vitali.  As the COVID-19 pandemic rendered most public space around the world off limits, Vitali headed back to the beaches he has for so long documented. Since the end of the lockdowns in Italy, "the new normal" has become the go-to term to describe the reality of a world hit by COVID-19. It is a "new" way of living, full of precautions, hygiene measures and habits that seem to have changed our behavior, and eroded the sociability and proximity that characterize the human race. Massimo Vitali went to the beach once more, to observe the new normal. The densely populated environment—one of his favorite subjects—once more proved to be curiously normal.

The urge to be out in the open air, seeing friends, making the most of the sea and sun, diving into the water and leaving behind the worries of the week: all that is still there. A few masks, some nifty footwork to avoid strangers and maintain social distancing, and a mostly Italian rather than international population form the backdrop to these images. Nonetheless, those elements are not what first catches the viewer's eye. Just as the week's worries are left behind, this new normal that everyone is talking about did not make it to the beach. Instead, a sort of collective ritual of rebirth occurred, with the sea and sun seeming to repel the virus that has been mysteriously shadowing us for several months.

For press and other inquiries, please email: info@benrubigallery.com

Press Release