"Compositionally and aesthetically there is a diversity to be found within these pages, from the black and white Cartier-Bresson-esque street photographs of a cat leaping by James Johnson, to Adelaide Ivanova’s unsettling capture of a dishevelled, soaking wet cat with piercing red eyes that match the carpet. Susan Worsham’s, Tamara Kametani’s and Rich Rollin’s quiet images are calming to look at, though without provoking in the viewer what psychology student Rebecca Dyer dubbed as “cute aggression”, i.e. that strange desire to squeeze cute animals to death that we so often feel upon viewing feline celebrities."
Yoffy Press Releases Humble Cats
Humble Cats is a collection of fine art photographs with feline cameos. Originally presented by Humble Arts Foundation as an online exhibition, this updated curatorial masterpiece (from Humble co-founders Jon Feinstein and Amani Olu) now features images by over 70 photographers.
Hardcover, 9x7 inches
148 pages / 100 images
Edition of 1000
ISBN: 978-1-943948-09-3
Trade Edition: $45.00
“And then there’s James Johnson’s Leap Aprés la Souris, an appropriation of Yves Klein’s classic 1960 image Leap into the Void, in which Klein hired photographers to recreate a jump from a second story window he claimed to have taken. In Johnson’s image, he replaces Klein’s likeness with a leaping cat. Johnson’s image is accessible to the meme-hungry and wink-worthy to the art historians and meta-obsessed.”
Mapping the Stage opens at the Galleries at Moore
Curated by Kaytie Johnson
Informed in part by the formal and perceptual qualities of Fra Angelico’s fifteenth-century painting, The Healing of Justinian by Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian, Micah Danges and James Johnson’s window-front installation investigates new ways of making work with tangible, non-photographic materials and celebrates the power of inanimate objects. The project expands Danges’ and Johnson’s mutual interest in the pre-photographic representation of temporality in Renaissance painting, the relationship between images and objects – notably, the point at which the physical world ends and the image begins – and the unconventional use of photographic materials, processes and ideas.
September 17, 2016 – January 7, 2017
Fall Exhibition Bash:
Friday, September 16th, 5:00 - 8:00 pm
The Galleries at Moore
📆 Facebook Event
Publication Release Event:
Thursday, November 10th, 5:30 - 7:00 pm
The Galleries at Moore
📆 Facebook Event
Roberta Fallon Reviews Chewing the Scenery for the Artblog
Situated at Crane Arts’ “Grey Space,” the antechamber to the Icebox, Chewing the Scenery pivots around the center staging of the bright-lit room where midnight-black objects shine like black holes. A modernist clock with no backing ticks the seconds in what seems a profound silence. “the past in the future tense,” by James Johnson, is a simple found-object assemblage, elegant and isolated, that speaks of lives lived, time lost, and a vast unstoppable universe of things, both man-made and natural.
Johnson’s other piece nearby, “Borrowed Scenery,” a dirty white undershirt on which he embroidered some colored doodles, drapes itself to the contours of some stairs like a ghost trying and failing to become invisible. Many of the works in the show imply the human but with few exceptions no humans are imaged in the works, leaving your imagination free to roam where it will.
I guess you the viewer become the human wandering this little universe.
Chewing the Scenery at Crane Arts, James Johnson, “Borrowed Scenery” 2012. Photo courtesy of Meredith Sellers and Jonathan Santoro
Chewing the Scenery Opens at the Icebox Project Space
Curated by Jonathan Santoro and Meredith Sellers
Featuring:
Gideon Barnett
Michael Ciervo
Micah Danges
Will Haughery
James Johnson
Sharon Koelblinger
Paul Koneazny
Lauren Pakradooni
Paul Salveson
Jon Weary
(With quavering voice)
(In a lower tone)
(In an even lower tone)
(Leaving her abruptly)
(As before standing opposite him)
(In an exalted high-pitched voice)
[In the same high-pitched voice)
(Silence. There is a noise as if an immense wheel were turning and moving the
air. A hurricane separates them. At the same time, two Stars are seen colliding
and from them fall a series of legs of living flesh with feet, hands, scalps, masks,
colonnades, porticos, temples, alembics, falling more and more slowly, as if
falling in a vacuum: then three scorpions one after another and finally a frog and
a beetle which come to rest with desperate slowness, nauseating slowness)
(Crying with all his strength)
(He looks at the sky)
(He pushes the Young Girl before him)
(Screaming in high-pitch)
(Plunging her hands deep into her pockets which are as big as her breasts)
(She throws his papers at him)
(He gets up and from each paper he takes a huge hunk of Swiss cheese.
Suddenly he coughs and chokes)
(With full mouth)
(He runs out)
(Like shadows, a Priest, a Cobbler, a Beadle, a Bawd, a Judge, a Peddler, arrive
on stage]
(In different tones)
(Tapping his forehead)
(He runs out)
(As if confessing someone)
(At this moment night suddenly falls on stage)
(With the sigh of one having an orgasm)
(In a terrible voice)
(Boldly and gaily)
(She lifts up her dress. The Young Man wants to run away but he is frozen like a
petrified puppet)
(As if suspended in the air and with the voice of a ventriloquist)
March 10th – 27th
Opening Reception:
Thursday, March 10th, 6:00 pm
📅 Facebook Event
8th Annual Governors Island Art Fair Opens
Morgan Craig and James Johnson have collaborated on an installation of their work at the 2015 Governors Island Art Fair.
New York’s largest independent exhibition enters its 8th year this fall. Explore the abandoned military barracks of Governors Island where 100 of the best creative proposals, from New York and around the world, have a full room each in which to wreak havoc as they see fit -- be it painting, photography, sculpture, installation, video, sound art, or any combination of each.
Outside on the lawn there will be live music, large-scale sculpture, food, drink and GIAF's very own ArtShop!
Admission is free.
Governors Island, Colonel’s Row, Building 408B
September 5 – 27, 2015.
Saturdays and Sundays
11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
📆 Facebook Event
Directions
Governors Island is accessible by an 8-minute ferry ride from the Battery Maritime Building (10 South Street) in Lower Manhattan or a 3-minute ferry ride from Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 6 (at the end of Atlantic Avenue, at Columbia Street) in Brooklyn. The ferry ride costs $2.
🚣🏻 Ferry Schedule
GIAF Website
Governors Island Website
Morgan Craig's Website
Catalogues are available for $20.
John Thornton interviews Other Selections artists
Other Selections Opens at the Center for Art in Wood
The Center for Art in Wood embarks on new terrain with its spring exhibition, a collaboration with young, local artists who work in diverse media – drawing, sculpture, printmaking, video, and photography – everything, in fact, except wood. The 18 Philadelphia-based artists have selected one or more pieces from the Center’s Museum Collection to serve as a point of departure for new artwork, including animation, kinetic sculpture, book art, and large scale installations. In this exhibition and in other initiatives, the Center seeks to make the collection an engine for creative activity.
Artists: Jaime Alvarez, Todd Baldwin, Timothy Belknap, Marc Blumthal, MarkBrosseau, Lewis Colburn, Patrick Coughlin, Marianne Dages, Christina P. Day, Leslie Friedman, Jason Gandy, James Johnson, Ryan McCartney, Alexis Nutini, Joanna Platt, Terri Saulin Frock, H. John Thompson, and Tamsen Wojtanowski
May 1 – July 25, 2015
First Friday Receptions:
May 1, June 5, and July 3, 5:00 – 8:00pm
The Center for Art in Wood
📆 Facebook Event
Gallery Talk and Reception:
Saturday, May 2, 2:00 – 4:00pm
The Center for Art in Wood
📆 Facebook Event
Art Expedition:
Friday, June 5, 5:00 – 8:00pm
The Center for Art in Wood and The 319 Artist Cooperative Building
📆 Facebook Event
Público covers New Cats in Art Photography
As someone once wrote: "There are no ordinary cats."
New Cats in Art Photography featured by BBC News In Pictures
An online exhibition celebrating the photography of cats is being hosted by Humble Arts Foundation (HAF), a non-profit organisation based in New York City.
"New Cats in Art Photography includes 100 images from some of our favourite photographers around the world and varies from larger bodies of work dedicated entirely to cats, to one-off cat photos that find their way into non-cat specific portfolios," says Feinstein.
Most of the images, "are casual, seemingly random photographs of cats that have floated in to their larger projects".
The exhibition "may not answer any of our questions as to why photographers love cats so much, but it gives us some insights into how they continue to serve as a photographic muse", adds Feinstein.
Huffington Post: "This Amazing Contemporary Photography Project Is Devoted Entirely To Cats"
Leap aprés la souris, 2013
Given the art world's penchant for sticking its nose up at low brow trends beloved by internet plebeians everywhere, Feinstein's project is pretty spectacular. "New Cats" shows off the work of artists like Jill Greenberg, Amy Stein and Madoka Hasegawa, and by giving the fur balls center frame for just a moment, Feinstein hopes to redirect admirers to the photographers' non-cat specific portraits. We admire the philosophy: you come for the scintillating cat photos, stay for the genuinely intriguing aesthetics.
Behold, a bunch of f*cking delightful cat photos.
New Cats In Art Photography Goes Live at Humble Arts Foundation
Curated by Jon Feinstein
Humble Arts Foundation is pleased to present group show 41: New Cats in Art Photography, a collection of 100 cat images from some of our favorite photographers around the world, curated by Jon Feinstein.
Why do we love cats? Why are they one of the most viral entities known to post Generation X’ers and Millennials? Why are feline musings simultaneously click-bait dreams and equally one of the largest causes of social media animosity and “de-friending?” This exhibition doesn't answer any of those questions. Nor does it project any theories on the impact of cats in our rapidly shifting contemporary photographic landscape, but it does give you a glimpse into how cats make their way into the work some of today's most challenging (and globally diverse) photographers.
Liminal Sites Opens at Moore
Curated by Kaytie Johnson
A tri-annual exhibition showcasing the diversity of work being produced by Moore College of Art & Design’s faculty. Participating artists include: Stefan Abrams, Alessandro Codagnone (Lovett/Codagnone), Terri Saulin Frock, Robert Goodman, Asuka Goto, Alexis Granwell, James Johnson, Jay Haon, Stephanie Koenig, Andrea Landau, Andrea Miller, Alice Oh, Lynn Elizabeth Palewicz, Sreshta Rit Premnath and Cindy Stockton-Moore.
October 26th – December 14th
Opening Reception:
Friday, October 25th from 5:00pm – 8:00pm
20th Street and The Parkway, Philadelphia
📆 Event Info
Staging and Binding Opens at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery
Micah Danges and James Johnson are excited to announce the opening of a new collaborative effort entitled: Staging and Binding in the Window on Broad at the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery at The University of the Arts.
The installation can be viewed from Broad St., directly in front of the gallery from August 8th through September 8th, 2013.
Reception:
Wednesday, August 14th from 7:00pm – 9:00pm
333 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia
📆 Facebook Event
A limited run of prints will be available at the reception.
Alison Dell Reviews Fiat Lux for Title Magazine
James Johnson is, as usual, killing it with playful criticality as in the reflective Negative (2013) that references the canonical technology of the medium as well as the rest of the show.
Fiat Lux Mentioned in Philadelphia Inquirer
Photography isn't what it used to be. The Print Center's "Fiat Lux" shows just how broad a practice/medium it's become through the works of Stefan Abrams, Micah Danges, James Johnson, Anna Neighbor, and Brent Wahl, all Philadelphia photographers who teach (or have taught) photography at local colleges and universities.
My particular favorites include Johnson's Lacock Abbey, an embroidered image of William Henry Fox Talbot's 13th-century home in England; photographs of clouds by Neighbor onto which she invited her young daughter, Ruth, to draw the clouds' contours; and Dange's large inkjet print on linen of two towels displayed on the gallery floor.
Fiat Lux Opens at The Print Center
Micah Danges, Ilford Shelf, 2012
Curated by John Caperton
Fiat Lux is a group exhibition of work by five Philadelphia artists: Stefan Abrams, Micah Danges, James Johnson, Anna Neighbor and Brent Wahl. While each of the artists trained as a photographer and has taught photography at universities and art schools in Philadelphia, none has a simple or straightforward relationship with the medium. Photography is central to the work of all these artists, but their explorations of the potentials and shortcomings of the medium result in a surprisingly diverse group of works.
April 5 – May 24, 2013
Opening Reception:
Thursday, April 11th, 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Gallery Talk by the artists: 5:30pm
📆 Facebook Event
Panel discussion with the artists, moderated by John Caperton:
Wednesday, May 1, 6:00pm – 8:00pm
📆 Facebook Event
This exhibition is made possible by special project support from the Edna W. Andrade Fund of The Philadelphia Foundation.
Roberta Fallon Reviews Bryn Mawr Exhibition for the Artblog
Less about transitions and more about the idea of a hallowed space, James Johnson’s peephole environment is one part Duchamp’s “Etante donnes” and all parts “Fountain.” The witty work looks like a tall, white-painted pedestal from the outside, and inside, a video plays a loop of a beloved campus fountain it’s water gushing quietly and steadily in the cloistered interior courtyard of Thomas Great Hall. There’s something so still and awe-filled about this piece that it becomes like a religious relic, a piece of the college forever saved in a memory box.
Real Detroit Weekly Mentions Oakland University Exhibition
James Johnson is a Philadelphia artist with an intriguing take on our relationship with the things we possess. No, he has no connection with the tv show Hoarders. He does, however, have a strong connection with the principal theme that supports I Come From a Serious Place. This solo exhibit that Johnson recently delivered to the Oakland University Art Gallery is imbued with a calculated mix of seriousness and bitter humor - the latter, in some respects, being a direct result of the former. Is the accumulated weight of our belongings a convincing or valid verdict on our self-worth and identity? And if it is, have we lost something irreplaceable in the process of "getting and spending?" Johnson posits that question in such a subtle way that it is virtually impossible not to answer it - even if the answer we give is an equally subtle lie.
I come from a serious place opens at Oakland University
Curated by Cody VanderKaay
Philadelphia artist James Johnson explores the varied effects that possessions have on individual human consciousness and society as a whole. Singular sculptural objects coalesce with photographic images to form ever-changing constructs.
Johnson’s work encourages the viewer to create and examine personalized narratives of identity, impulse, ownership and self-determination. With motives likened to that of a magician, he continually reveals and conceals his method of operation. In spite of these clever manipulations, the behind-the-scenes accoutrements invert newly formed notions and undo guises. The title piece of the exhibition, I come from a serious place, is a mesmerizing form with a meaningful statement that preys on the mind’s conscious and unconscious capacity to read words. Undeniably beacon-like, it is a point of departure, contextualization and connectivity between artworks, summoning viewers to revive the memory of their own “serious place.”
Embodied in this exhibition is the artist’s inspired ability to take notice of the world around him and a hope that viewers will do the same. His objects and images further reflect the propensity of contemporary artists to develop a practice that is experiential and multivalent. Departing from, or just arriving to, a serious place requires reflection, and perhaps viewers may ask themselves: is this context of place indeterminate — neither past nor future — and will I engage with the present moment?
October 20 – November 18, 2012
Opening Reception:
Saturday, October 20, 6:00pm – 8:00pm
📆 Facebook Event
Artist Talk:
Forgetting is Really Important
Sunday, October 21, 12:00pm
This exhibition is accompanied by a full-color catalogue.