The Fall (and Rise) of Jennifer Lawrence

This was the visual that stuck with me long after the disappointment of a boring (and puerile) Oscars, and after checking in on Facebook I see I was not the only one. Via Trey Speegle, a post on how artist P.E. Sharpe challenged other artists to do their own interpretation of the fall of Jennifer Lawrence. Top - the original photograph by Kevin Winter of Getty Images. Middle - Peregrine Honig's response; and bottom - Sharpe's own version.

If you're going to trip and fall in front of millions if not billions of viewers, probably best to do it on your way to picking up an Oscar!

The Storm

This is what the gallery looked like at 9:30 p.m. last Monday when Sandy caused the Hudson to spill over onto West 23rd Street. Amazingly, we only took in about 4 inches of water, but as we have learned over the last week, that's enough to cause havoc and require a virtual re-building of the gallery.

Our plan for now is to re-open with a show of selected works by gallery artists as soon as the space has been put back together. We did this during the summer when we were only open by appointment and trust me - we know how to make it interesting. After that we will resume with Hendrik Kerstens whose planned opening was so rudely interrupted.

Hendrik - who proved himself a prince among men by helping to save not only his own work but that of every other artist in the gallery - was staying at The Standard Hotel downtown and had to be evacuated to our home. A wonderful experience that made me feel that as long as my son is at college and his room empty it's a great way to get to know your artists!

Stay tuned for news of our re-opening. And I hope all those less fortunate than we were are on their way to recovery.

Fame High this Friday

"FAME HIGH" QUAD CINEMA 34 WEST 13TH STREET October 12 - 18

Outside of my gallery life, I am a passionate film lover and I recently became a co-executive producer of the documentary FAME HIGH.

The film opens tomorrow at the Quad Cinema in New York for one week in order to qualify for the Academy Awards and has already received a rave review from the L.A. Times.

FAME HIGH, captures the in-class and at-home drama, competition, heartbreak, and triumph during one school year at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA), also known as "Fame High", a place where talented teenagers reach for their dreams of becoming actors, singers, dancers, and musicians.

In FAME HIGH we follow a group of novice freshman and seasoned seniors struggling to find their voice - not only in their art but in life - with the help of, and sometimes in spite of, their passionate and opinionated families. Each student has sacrificed countless hours to become artistically good...but will they become excellent and be satisfied both personally and professionally?

"Are our dreams worth the sacrifice?" This questions is as relevant to these young artists as it is to their parents. In a time when performance-based entertainment is commonplace, it is safe to call FAME HIGH, "the facts behind the fiction." Overnight success is a myth, and FAME HIGH shows that the reality is nothing trumps endless hours of hard work.

Producer/Director Scott Hamilton Kennedy and cast members will be present for brief Q & A's in the LOBBY following the Fri. 10/12 6:15 show.

You can buy tickets for the screening here.

I hope many of you can make it.

One Year ...

It's hard to believe it's been a year since Steve Jobs died. With his ubiquitous presence in our lives and the omnipresence of his image and products and the continued growth of Apple he seems to hover above us like The Wizard of Oz.

To those of us in the visual world life simply wouldn't exist in the way it does without Apple. I would guess most of us spend more time on some kind of Apple device than we do with most humans and that our interactions with these devices are more productive than most other hours of the day. This is not an endorsement of withdrawing from human interaction! My one (and only) beef with my wife is how much time she spends checking e-mail on her iPhone, but again I'm not a Conde Nast editor-in-chief!

But Steve Jobs was not only a visionary and a business man - he was as great a friend to photography as the medium has ever had. Today, on the one year anniversary of his death, Apple put up this moving tribute on their landing page with nothing else to distract the viewer. In case you're not going to apple.com today I'm sharing the video.

Carly Ries

For anyone who has visited the gallery, you know how great my two associates are. However, you might not know that my associate director, Carly Ries, is also a talented photographer in her own right who has been working in her off hours on a photographic project making moving portraits of breast cancer survivors.

The first publication of a picture from this series appears in next month's Fitness Magazine (see above) but more of this work can be seen on Carly's website. Half the job of taking a good picture is when you press the shutter. But as this picture attests, the other half is everything you have to do to be in the position to press the shutter.

The Sartorialist at Danziger Gallery

Because you can't have too much of a good thing, tomorrow we open our second show of photographs by Scott Schuman - The Sartorialist. The opening is on Friday and all are invited.

Comprised of 37 pictures taken since our last show - most of which appear in Scott's new book "Closer" - the work shows his continuing evolution as a photographer. The compositions are more varied, the human element more pronounced, and the work now seems to belong as much to the ethnographic school of photography and the tradition of August Sander, Penn's "Worlds in A Small Room", and Avedon's "American West" series as the world of street fashion.

Scott - who is both modest and smart - told me recently that he didn't really think his work would be appreciated until 40 years after the pictures were taken. It's a short show, due to previous commitments we had made for the fall but from today through September 15 you can judge for yourself. But I'll post more pictures tomorrow.

And yes. That's me in the picture above taken from The Sartorialist's blog. Proud to be seen in all my finery!

Instagram

I don’t know what took me so long but I’ve now become a huge fan of Instagram. I was never much of a Facebook type – a little too self-referential for my taste – and I would rather read a blog if you have something to say. But for those of us who like to look at pictures and communicate visually Instagram is both eye candy and soulful at the same time. It takes a combination of the eye, the heart, and the mind to compel you to post a picture. And then your friends can not only see what you're up to but what kind of a snapper you are.

Your more knowledgeable Instagram friends will tell you who might be worth following. Nick Knight, The Sartorialist, Tim Barber, and Tierney Gearon are just a few of the serious photographers using Instagram as well as companies like Alexander McQueen, LOVE Magazine, and Chanel. Every company will soon have their own Instagram account. It's so much less intrusive than any other form of social media.

Now of course I want to get more than the meager 26 followers I have after one week – so please follow me. Just search jamesdanziger. And I’ll look forward to following you!