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Kevin Briggs Photography
  • Aurora Borealis
  • Portfolio
  • Portfolio II
  • Portfolio III
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"Red"

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PBS is also highlighting the Broadway production “Red,” a spirited philosophical and aesthetical ride.

From PBS’s website:

Award-winning stage and screen actor Alfred Molina reprises his critically acclaimed performance as the American abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko in playwright John Logan’s Tony Award-winning 2010 play Red. Under the watchful gaze of his young assistant—and the growing competitive presence of a new generation of artists—Rothko takes on his greatest career challenge yet: to create a definitive series of paintings for the Philip Johnson-designed Four Seasons restaurant in architect Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Seagram Building. Molina is joined by rising star Alfred Enoch (How to Get Away With Murder) as Rothko’s assistant Ken. Original Broadway director Michael Grandage returns to direct this 2018 West End revival, the first U.K. production since the play’s 2009 world premiere at the Donmar Warehouse.

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Saturday 12.07.19
Posted by Kevin Briggs
 

American Masters — Rothko: "Pictures Must Be Miraculous"

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I highly recommend this American Masters production from PBS. I myself will be forever grateful for the privilege of having the opportunity to enjoy a number of Rothko originals (Museum of Modern Art, New York City). It’s an experience to be treasured.

From PBS’ site:

One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, Mark Rothko’s signature style helped define Abstract Expressionism, the movement that shifted the center of the art world from Paris to New York. American Masters — Rothko: Pictures Must Be Miraculous is an intimate portrait of the celebrated painter whose luminous canvasses now set records at international auctions. Interviews with Rothko’s children, Kate and Christopher, as well as leading curators, art historians and conservators present a comprehensive look at the artist’s life and career, complemented by original scenes with Alfred Molina in the role of Rothko. Molina performs segments from Rothko’s diaries, and the documentary features clips from the six-time Tony-winning play Red. 

Over a career spanning five decades, Rothko developed his signature style: large, abstract color fields with luminous rectangular forms that balance depth, shape and hue through the delicate layering of many thin washes of paint. While Rothko’s paintings show close attention to formal elements, he was concerned with the way the paintings could represent philosophical questions. In his words, he was “interested only in expressing basic human emotions — tragedy, ecstasy, doom.”

Born Marcus Rothkowitz in Dvinsk, Russia, on September 25, 1903, Rothko emigrated to Portland, Oregon, with his family at age 10. He was accepted to Yale on a full scholarship but attended for only two years before moving to New York and enrolling in the Arts Students League. In 1929, Rothko became a teacher at the Center Academy of the Brooklyn Jewish Center, a post he held for over 20 years. In the 1930s, he was employed by the Works Progress Administration, where he created haunting scenes of New York subway riders. As he continued to experiment with his artistic voice, his work became heavily reliant on symbolism and mythological imagery, but by the end of the 40s Rothko developed his signature color field style.

American Masters — Rothko: Pictures Must Be Miraculous follows his rise in the art world alongside Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell and others as Abstract Expressionism took the art world by storm. The documentary highlights one of Rothko’s most famous commissions, a series of murals for upscale restaurant The Four Seasons in the Seagram Building in New York City in the late 1950s. Rothko completed the notably dark canvasses, but after dining at the restaurant rescinded the paintings because he found the location too commercial. Despite the failure of that commission, in 1964 Rothko accepted a commission from the de Menil family to create artwork for a new sanctuary, a project that became the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. After the paintings were completed, Rothko took his own life on February 25, 1970. Though he did not live to see the completion of the Rothko Chapel with his paintings installed, the chapel is now celebrated as one of America’s sacred centers and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Tuesday 11.19.19
Posted by Kevin Briggs
 

"Process"

“Process” is a short film about shooting in large format (film as opposed to digital photography). It was a delight to watch because it quickly brought back a flood of memories working with 35mm film in the darkroom and out in the field when I was first learning the craft in the early teen years of my life. (I’ve been shooting in digital medium format for quite of number of years now.)

As Michael Zhang of PetaPixel reports after interviewing the film's writer and directer, Will Campbell:

“It’s a stylish, sensorial exploration into the process and motivation of a large format photographer,” Campbell tells PetaPixel. “The modern digital camera allows us to easily shoot hundreds of frames, edit them, and upload our favorites to the internet within minutes. This is a very different experience to that of the large format photographer."

The same could be said for every medium format photographer I've ever encountered. This is particularly true of landscape photographers. The same sense of painstaking meticulousness goes into every frame, I can assure you.

Wednesday 07.10.19
Posted by Kevin Briggs
 

Pablo Picasso

Photo by Gilles Erhmann | 1952

Photo by Gilles Erhmann | 1952

“Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.”

Tuesday 06.25.19
Posted by Kevin Briggs
 

Earliest known original color film of London

This brief production represents the earliest known original color film of London. It was shot in 1924.

Quite remarkable.

Friday 06.07.19
Posted by Kevin Briggs
 

Ansel Adams

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"A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words."

Wednesday 05.08.19
Posted by Kevin Briggs
 

Seeing in Full Color for the First Time

This touching video documents a colorblind landscape photographer seeing in full color for the first time. The best part of his reaction occurs about 4 minutes in.

Tuesday 04.30.19
Posted by Kevin Briggs
 

Paul Cézanne

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“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.”

Saturday 04.20.19
Posted by Kevin Briggs
 

Aurora Borealis

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Aurora Borealis is my latest color abstract photography work.

Having lived in Alaska for most of my adult life, my latest color abstract photography work represents an homage to that recurrent and gloriously luminous light show I have witnessed in the winter heavens on seemingly countless occasions.

Wednesday 04.17.19
Posted by Kevin Briggs
 

Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O’Keeffe | photo by Alfred Stieglitz | After Return from New Mexico, 1929 | © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

Georgia O’Keeffe | photo by Alfred Stieglitz | After Return from New Mexico, 1929 | © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

“To create one's world in any of the arts takes courage.”

Saturday 04.13.19
Posted by Kevin Briggs
 
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