PhotographyWhat's NEW in NYC Photo?By Carl GunhouseFriday, September 14, 2007Hasted Hunt I feel guilty, but I am just not sure Lisette Model does it for me. Her pictures are brutal and physical, often jamming her 2 & 1/4 camera into people’s faces. Clearly she was an early influence on Diane Arbus, but at the end of the day, the pictures’ brutality often result in awkward, frontal frames with a similar assortment of stocky New Yorkers not doing a whole lot of anything. Aaron Siskind, Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation Through Oct. 6th Julie Saul Gallery Hey, did you every ever notice that the Julie Saul Gallery has a vaulted skylight? No, me neither. The stuff you notice when there is nothing on the wall worth looking at. Through Oct. 6th Steven Kasher Gallery There was a reason that young photographers in the 70’s returned to large format cameras or made highly conceptual work about the nature of the medium. It was that 35mm documentary work like MacWeeney’s was everywhere and often made little artistic headway compared to the greats like Bresson, Frank, and Winogrand. I think MacWeeney definitely owes a heavy debt to Frank or for that matter Bill Brandt (but then again Frank probably owes a little something to Brandt too). Through Sep. 29th Silverstein Photography Well, it was only a matter of time until galleries had their own Annuals (PS: The First Gunhouse Tri-Annual will be opening in my railroad apartment in November). And of all galleries to have an Annual, who would have suspected the Bruce Silverstein Gallery, mostly known for representing dead people like Ernst Haas and forgotten 70’s photographers like Mark Cohen. But it seems of late they’ve been including more and more contemporary photographers and even taking some risks on lesser known photographers like Sarah Stolfa and Zoe Strauss. So I guess Bruce Silverstein is trying to be relevant and it’s hard not to commend their efforts. None of the photographers in the Annual have received much attention, and the work adequately covers a large gamut of what is going on in contemporary photography, from the staged historical narratives of Will Michels to the alternate processes of Curtis Mann. All the work is of a respectable, but average quality. One notable exception is Phillip Pisciotta’s visceral look at the very engaging world around him with, to quote Joshua Chuang’s wall text, “an empathy that prompts us to look and not stare.” Others that rise above the muck are Lisa Robinson’s picturesque images of snow-covered landscapes and Michael Lundgren’s earnest pictures of the desert and one cut-in-half deer. Oh, and if Wikipedia is to be believed, Barret Oliver, maker of boring pictures of trees, is also the boy in the Never Ending Story. Oh when will the nothingness engulf us all? Through Oct. 13th Robert Mann Gallery Robert Mann has my vote for dullest gallery of the year. It is never bad, never really good, just forgettable. Brightly colored interiors, possibly from eastern Europe. Through Oct. 13th Deborah Bell Photographs A nice assortment of prints spanning his entire career, which, if I am not mistaken, were printed after his death, because they are all signed by a representative of the Winogrand estate. Either way, the prints are excellent and appear to be of a higher quality than the vintage prints. Out of twenty or so pictures, the only one picture I hadn’t seen before was an out-take from the Public Relations work that features a bewildered Hugh Hefner, seated next to an elated Jesse Jackson and bemused Rosa Parks. And if you ask nicely, they’ll even break out a box of prints not in the exhibition. Through Oct. 20th Claire Oliver Gallery Dear digital photographers: Let me be the first to say, get out. Stop using the computer to make crappy looking paintings, and you don’t need ten other people and/or multi-versions of yourself in the frame. It just looks silly. I am sorry, but it does. Please stop. Through Oct. 6th Mary Ryan Gallery Well, it figures that a show with the word drawing in the title would feature a series of grainy images printed on some unpleasant hahnemuhle-type surface. Printing aside, they are large dark pictures of incoming storms, not unlike the pre-referenced nothingness from Never Ending Story. You can even check out a live-time version of the work on You Tube. Oh, and there are some drawings too. Through Oct. 13th  
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