The Philadelphia City Paper art roundup makes a brief mention of Liz Rideal’s new show “Above and Below Ground,” which opened recently at Gallery 339 in Philadelphia. “British artist Liz Rideal’s stark photo-booth images of plants and flowers are on view.” Some of Liz’s work can be seen on her website.
UPDATE: Edith Newhall writes a review of Rideal’s work in the Philadelphia Enquirer:
The photo booth is a strange place. It’s secretive, claustrophobic, and must be a kind of heaven for the narcissist, like a guest bathroom with an immense mirror.
And let’s not forget the thrill of instant gratification. No wonder Andy Warhol, that most voyeuristic of artists, was among the first to explore its potential. It is also a relic of our futuristic coin-operated past, like the juke box, the phone booth, the automat (which originated in Philadelphia) — 20th century inventions that were intended to make life more convenient for all. This is the nostalgic photo booth, the one that Liz Rideal has been using as her studio of sorts for the last 20 years.
If any Photobooth.net readers are in the Philadelphia area, please stop by the show and let us know what you think.
A piece in Nextbook about artist Will Corwin focuses on his portraits of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, but also mentions a work depicting “two lovers kissing in a photo booth.” Though the work isn’t pictured in the article, the author kindly offered a link to Corwin’s Flickr page, where we found a photograph of the piece, entitled “kiss,” described as “Acrylic, crayon and graphite on plaster on wooden panels, 96” x 72″, 2002, collection of Jaime Brieva.” Very nice.
Thanks to a busy few weeks from contributor Ricky Romero, the listings in our Photobooth Locator for the state of California have exploded to a total of 28 booths, the most for any state we currently list. Ricky contributed 19 locations, nearly all in working order as of this winter, from Los Angeles, Burbank, Santa Monica, and other southern California locations.
In December and January, he visited Kmart 3699 in Apple Valley, Downtown Burbank Newsstand,
Boomers! in Fountain Valley,
Lucky Strike Lanes, The Downtown Standard Restaurant , Edendale Grill, Short Stop, Union Station (and again), Bay Arcade in Newport Beach, Golf ‘n Stuff (two booths), Paseo Colorado, Castle Park, Roller City 2001, Playland Arcade, (again, two booths), Café 50s, and Boomers! in Upland. Wow.
Our thanks go to Ricky for all of his hard work, and we encourage readers to submit more photobooth locations to our database, now containing more than 150 locations around the world.
This week sees a new black and white photobooth listed on eBay. The machine, described as “complete except glass that covers front door top flash glass,” has a starting bid of $4500. The machine has also been equipped with a “Mars 2000 series bill acceptor.”
The last photobooth listed on eBay, just a few weeks ago, never made it past its opening bid of $4000, which was then changed to $6500. We’ll see if this one, significantly older and missing the lime green paint job, will make it anywhere.
Also on eBay this week, another copy (second edition) of Billy Childish’s photo-booth, for anyone who’s interested in picking that up. It’s smaller in person, I have to say.
The cover of the Arctic Monkeys’ debut album “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not,” currently garnering accolades and smashing sales records, seems to be an attempt at recreating a photobooth photo, if the rear curtain is any indication.
It doesn’t much look like a real photobooth photo, but that hasn’t stopped a lot of artists, designers, and ad agencies in the past. It’s yet another reason why we’ll be starting a ‘Music’ section of the site soon, with album covers and song lyrics with photobooth references. If you’ve got anything to suggest (besides Death Cab and Liz Phair and the other usual suspects), please send it our way.
Photobooth repairman Humberto Verdeza is the subject of photobooth art exhibition on now at Niagara Bar, at the corner of Avenue A and East 7th in New York City.
Curated by Ethan Minsker and Ted Riederer, the show opened on December 5th of last year and is going on as we speak. We urge Photobooth.net readers in the NYC area to head on over and tell us what you see. The artist statement reads, in part,
Over the years, I noticed Humberto coming in the bar and fixing the photo booth in the back room. When he finished his work, I would sign his slip of paper. One day I asked if he ever found any interesting photos. He said no, but showed me the test shots he did of himself. I asked if I could have them. “I’ll make some kind of art out of them,” I said as he walked out of the bar.
The curators let each artist involved in the show pick one photo of Humberto out of a stack of more than 40 strips, and do what they would with it. Twenty-five artists are listed on the site, and we look forward to hearing what their work is like. Thanks to Sean for the tip and the link.
Also, on an unrelated note, this is officially the 100th post in the Photobooth.net blog. Thanks to everyone who has contributed, commented, and perused the news over the last year. We’re glad to know you’re there, and we appreciate your interest and support.
UCR California Museum of Photography recently opened a new exhibition titled “Create and Be Recognized: Photography on the Edge,” which features the work of photobooth artist Lee Godie.
The program,
curated by independent curators Deborah Klochko, former director of The Friends of Photography at the Ansel Adams Center, and John Turner, a historian and scholar of outsider art, will be the first comprehensive survey of photo-based projects created by untrained visionaries.
The program runs through April 15, 2006. If you attend the show, please let us know what you see, and what you think.
New this week on eBay is a great-looking refurbished Photo-Me booth.
The booth achieves its distinctive look with the help of “1970 Dodge Challenger Lime” automotive paint and diamond plate on the front. The booth, which looks like it might have been something like a Model 20 or 21 in a previous life (edit: a Model 21GB, actually — thanks, Mike), is described as having a “new rebuilt transmission, a new amount adjustable bill acceptor…and new rubber kickpad on the bottom edging.”
The sellers have set an opening bid at $4000, and we’ll be interested to see if anyone bites at that price. It certainly is the best-looking booth we’ve seen on eBay in the last year or so, and we wouldn’t be surprised if some enterprising bar owner or restauratuer took the sellers up on their offer.
Forbes reports on Photo-Me UK’s recent earnings report and the slump in their stock price that followed this week.
Photo-Me International PLC posted a 10 pct decline in first-half profit and warned full-year earnings will fall well short of market expectations after customers put off purchasing digital photo-processing machines.
Shares in the British company, which is the world’s biggest photo-booth operator, slumped as much as 35 pct to a two-and-a-half-year nadir.
Closer to home, Photo-Me reports that due to a series of delays, they “would not be able to supply leading US drugstore chain CVS Pharmacy with equipment this fiscal year,” a failure that made up the bulk of their profit shortfall for the year. Things don’t look great for the company right now — “decline,” “short,” “slumped,” and “nadir” aren’t a great way to be described — so what’s really going on over there? We’ll be interested to find out.
Thanks to my daily perusal of photobooth news and a number of tips from readers, we came across a recent bit on The Tonight Show called the “Phony Photobooth.”
In the episode, a photobooth at Universal Studios Hollywood has been rigged as a “Free Photobooth,” complete with hidden cameras, microphones, and speakers in order capture booth-goers’ reactions to the things they’re asked to do for free photos.
The booth is a digital one, and the photos used on the show aren’t even real digital strips, but it’s a fun piece to watch; you can see the complete bit at YouTube (link dead, thanks Steve) this site.
