Artful Fundraiser
February 4, 2010
During the summer of 2007, Upper West Sider Omri Bloch returned from the second of two six-month trips around the world. His itinerary included developing countries like Cambodia, Malawi and Zambia, an experience he said was both interesting and moving.
That fall, he combined lessons from his travels with a budding interest in photography to co-found the Nuru Project, a non-profit that holds one-night photography exhibitions and auctions to benefit various organizations in developing countries. The project has previously held fundraisers benefiting the United Nations World Food Program and the non-profit Acumen Fund. [Read more]
LUSTFUL VISIONS, WITH A POLITICAL EDGE
March 12, 2009
It’s startling to learn that Hans Bellmer’s grotesque dolls were crafted in the heart of Nazi Germany. Throughout the 1930s, Bellmer fashioned female mannequins from his studio in Berlin. The twisted bodies had detachable limbs, which he rearranged and photographed obsessively.
Several of the doll photographs can now be seen in Octopus Time, a show of Bellmer’s work at Ubu Gallery. They are uncommonly disturbing. Legs merge into arms, joints bend into impossible positions, torsos swell with ambiguous protuberances. Human forms often merge with inanimate objects; “The Machine Gunnerress,” a photograph from 1937, shows fleshy plaster affixed to metal limbs, like an interwar Terminator. [Read more]
