photo by Annabel Graham. New York, December 2011.
Enjoy!
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Spring Thing: Can I Borrow Your Mixtape? #9
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Modern-Day Dandy: Cassius Clay for Pas Un Autre
Thought I'd share some outtakes from my October shoot in New York with the rare and extremely intelligent/fashionable bird that is Cassius Marcellus Cornelius Clay. Read my article and interview with Cassius for Pas Un Autre (with more photos) here.
All photos © Annabel Graham, 2011.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
A Passage to India: January in Coconut-Land
I returned today from one of the most inspiring and fascinating adventures I've ever been on-- to Kerala, in Southern India. The trip was a college graduation gift from my mother, and my first time in India (and, for that matter, Asia). Prior to my departure, I'd been inundated with stories, advice and warnings from different people who had been before. I was told that public restrooms would literally be holes in the floor with no toilet paper (sometimes true), that I should avoid dairy, meat and fruit at all costs, that I would most likely come down with a parasite of some sort, that rabid dogs and monkeys ran rampant on the streets, and that men would leer at me if I didn't wear loose-fitting clothing that covered my shoulders and the outline of my legs (interestingly enough, I found that showing the stomach is considered less risqué in India than showing the shoulders). Though I did find the condition of the public toilets to be rather unappealing, to put it lightly, I ended up eschewing veganism-- how can you go to India and not eat raitha (yogurt with cucumber, mint and other vegetables), paneer (Indian cottage cheese, served with all different types of delicious sauces and curries) or kheer (a milk and rice-based dessert spiced with cardamom)? I didn't even get sick once, and learned that I actually could have brought a few tank tops if I'd wanted to without risking complete public humiliation (the South seems to be a bit more laid-back than the North in terms of dress code for women, probably because it's so incredibly hot-- around 95 degrees Fahrenheit in mid-January)! In my experience, the food was absolutely delicious, the people were some of the friendliest and most genuine I'd ever met, the mountains and coastal areas in which I traveled were stunning (Kerala is known as one of the most beautiful states in India; it is called "God's Own Country" and literally means "coconut land" in Malayalam, the state language), and a mélange of different cultures (Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Parsis, expatriates, etc) seemed to intersect harmoniously for the most part. 
One of the greatest things about traveling in India is that it's insanely cheap once you get past the plane ticket-- one American dollar is equal to approximately fifty rupees, and the prices are low (for example, we found 100% pure silk scarves for around six American dollars, and ate full-course meals, including alcohol, bottled water and dessert, for around 10 dollars per person). We began in the hills of Munnar, where we hiked in the Ghats and walked through a tea plantation, then traveled to Periyar, a slightly hippie-ish walking town full of monkeys, twenty-something backpackers with dreadlocks, Ayurvedic massage centers and Kashmiri shops selling silk scarves, pashminas and spices. In Periyar we walked through a spice plantation, rode an elephant, hiked through a tiger reserve (we didn't manage to see any tigers, but we did see wild bison, elephants, deer, monkeys, and leeches... which, our guide informed us, die when you sprinkle tobacco powder on them-- useful tip if you ever have them on your shoes, which we all did). From there we went to Alleppey, where we stayed for one night on land and then spent the next day and night on a rice boat that sailed through the "backwaters," a brackish, river-like body of water lined with rice paddies and homes. Next we made our way further south to the coastal village of Kovalam, where we discovered, during a morning walk on the beach, that the men of the town customarily use the Arabian Sea as their toilet, intermittently squatting on the beach in plain view of tourists throughout the day. Another memorable moment of the same ilk was when we sat on a five-hour train ride from Kovalam to Cochin, holding our bags on our laps because we were surrounded by tiny cockroaches that crawled up and down the walls and floor of the train (and this was in "first class.") All in all, it was an eye-opening adventure, and utterly different from any of my other travel experiences... and cockroaches/public toilets/men-pooping-on-the-beach aside, I can't wait to return someday and explore other parts of India.
For a more thorough account of a foreigner's experience in India, I would recommend reading Gregory David Robertson's Shantaram (I have slightly mixed feelings about this book, although it is without question a gripping story and seems to be turning into a cult novel as I type this-- rumor has it a feature film based on the book and starring Johnny Depp is in the works), but I wanted to share a few photos I took on my trip. I usually shoot on film, but I received a good digital camera as a Christmas present and decided it'd be less of a hassle (I was right, although I'm still biased towards film and think it generally looks much better than digital...)!!
Outside the post office in Cochin
A colorful storefront in Chowara, near Kovalam
Young boy in Alleppey
A backyard / view of the rice paddy in Alleppey
"Jew Town" district in Old Cochin
A family in Alleppey
Weaving a sari in Cochin
Outside the (purple!) Christian church in Kovalam
Reflection in the water at Alleppey
Men's shirts hanging to dry by the backwaters of Alleppey
Cinnamon for sale in Periyar
A tame elephant and his keeper in Periyar
Drinking chai outside a fruit stand in Periyar
Evening on the rice boat
Monday, January 2, 2012
New Year, New Mixtape: Can I Borrow Your Mixtape? #8
Sherman Oaks, December 2011
Malibu, January 2012
Cheers to 2012...
Monday, November 7, 2011
Portraits of Friends: Round II
Emma. New York, October 2011
Cassius. New York, October 2011
Shane. Malibu, July 2011
Liz. Venice Beach, July 2011
Sarah & Charlie. Los Angeles, August 2011
Allison. Los Angeles, August 2011.
Sebastian. Malibu, July 2011
Claudia. Williamsburg, September 2011
Nathan. Los Angeles, August 2011
Victor. Paris, May 2011
Laura. Los Angeles, July 2011
Rachel. New York, March 2011
Claire & Carl. New York, March 2011
All photographs by Annabel Graham
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Matthew Barney: DJED
Matthew Barney, the ever-controversial art-world darling perhaps best known for his Cremaster Cycle (1994-2002), a collection of highly provocative performance-art films made over a period of eight years, presents his new solo exhibition,“DJED," at New York's Gladstone Gallery. In the exhibition, Barney reworks ancient tropes with a modern hand. The eponymous sculpture on the first floor of the gallery is a sprawling floor installation, much like a hardened black lake, crafted from poured molten cast iron and graphite and containing the actual remains of a 1967 Chrysler Imperial that Barney salvaged from a lake in his Detroit performance piece "KHU.” Secret Name, which resides upstairs in the gallery, includes a slab of rusted copper, a thick winding rope, and a seemingly calcified fragment of what appears to be a door that has been underwater for years, recalling in an eerie and nostalgic manner the remains of a shipwreck. Canopic Chest, a large-scale installation piece of weathered cast bronze that also contains actual automobile parts, mingles the visual elements of a car wreck and an industrial worksite. These relics of accidents, as they appear, are presented individually within a stark, sweeping white room—the silent, still and vaguely apocalyptic counterparts to Barney’s intensely visceral KHU. DJED is named after an ancient Egyptian symbol associated with the god Osiris, whose body was cut into pieces before it was retrieved and reassembled. If KHU parallels the cutting-up of Osiris’ body, DJED is the retrieving and reassembling of those parts—a ghostly panoply of mayhem and destruction. The pieces are primitive yet utterly modern, making the ancient Egyptian themes of the afterlife and mummification relevant within the landscape of an industrial wasteland. Below, a few pictures from the exhibition:
Canopic Chest
Secret Name
DJED is on view until October 22nd at Gladstone Gallery, 520 W. 21st St, New York.
Monday, September 19, 2011
The Poetry of Mistakes: Miroslav Tichý
"If you want to be famous, you must do something more badly than anybody in the entire world."
--Miroslav Tichý
From the early 1960s through 1985, the eccentric, reclusive Miroslav Tichý took hundreds of surreptitious photographs of the women of Kyjov, his hometown in the Czech Republic. His unconventional method involved the use of homemade cameras with crude telephoto lenses constructed from cardboard tubes, tin cans, toothpaste, sandpaper and other found materials. Though his soft-focus, black-and-white images were generally taken through fences or peepholes and are blurred, scratched, under- or over-exposed, stained, spotted and skewed, they exude a profoundly voyeuristic yet tender eroticism.
Tichý, who was trained as a classical painter but left the academy after the Communist takeover forced artists to focus on socialist subjects, was known as somewhat of a pariah who wandered around Kyjov in ragged, disheveled suits with unkempt long hair and a beard. He disregarded societal standards and painted, drew and photographed purely for his own personal satisfaction. Tichý remained relatively unknown to the art world until 2004, when his first exhibition was held. He printed each negative only once, and his works were untitled, unnumbered and undated. He died in April 2011 in Kyjov, Czech Republic.
"A mistake. That's what makes the poetry."
Tichý with one of his homemade cameras
Miroslav Tichý: Sun Screen, a solo photography exhibition, was on view until September 10, 2011 at Horton Gallery; 504 West 22nd St., New York.
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