Hey, Hot Shot! :: A Jen Bekman Project

Jen Bekman: Jen Bekman owns an eponymous gallery, writes a blog called Personism and is the founder of the international photo competition, Hey, Hot Shot! . Her latest endeavor is 20x200, a place to buy editioned prints and photos at ridiculously affordable prices. Jen Bekman Projects, the gallery, its exhibitions and Jen herself have been featured in dozens of publications including The New York Times, Harper's, Art in America, Foam, Businessweek, Dwell, Der Spiegel and Le Monde. Jen has been a guest lecturer at The School of Visual Arts and the Photographic Resource Center @ Boston University and has served as a reviewer for Center's Review Santa Fe, Houston's Fotofest, The New York Foundation for the Arts and Photo España's Descubrimientos PHE. She frequently lectures and participates on panels about art, technology, media and marketing. 2008 appearances include South by Southwest, The New York Photo Festival and O'Reilly Media's Web2Open conference. She was named an Innovator of the Year by American Photo in 2006 and was recently honored with the Rising Star Award at Griffin Museum of Photography's annual Focus Awards. Her writing has appeared in GOOD Magazine and photo-eye Booklist.
Christine Collins: Born and raised in New York City, Christine Collins is a fine art photographer and educator currently based in Boston. Her work has recently been exhibited at Jen Bekman Gallery, where she is represented, The Griffin Museum of Photography, The Tang Museum, and was published in Adbusters.; Christine has a BA in literature from Skidmore College and a MFA in photography from Massachusetts College of Art + Design. She has been a guest lecturer at University of New Hampshire, Emerson College and Parsons/The New School of Design. Christine has taught at Massachusetts College of Art, is on the summer faculty of the Maine Photographic Workshops and is a member of the adjunct faculty at the Art Institute of Boston, where she teaches photography and art history.
Dana Faconti: Dana Faconti was born in New York City and studied photography and graphic design at Parsons School of Design where she received her BFA in 1998. In 1999 she began working with Blind Spot Magazine where today she is the Editor and Publisher, as well as the Executive Director of Photo-Based Art, the non-profit publisher of the journal. She has presided over the design, production, and publication of several highly acclaimed book projects including: Chronologies and On The Beach by Richard Misrach, Wave Music by Clifford Ross, Guest by Christopher Bucklow, and Yours in Food by John Baldessari. Dana has also worked at Aperture Foundation and with the Time Life Picture Collection.
Caterina Fake: She was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, attended Choate Rosemary Hall, Smith College, and graduated from Vassar College in 1991. After working variously at an investment bank, as a painter's assistant, on a crew shooting interstitials for Seinfeld and in a dive shop in Arkansas, she moved to San Francisco in 1994, where she started working in the nascent Web industry. In 2001 she moved to Vancouver, BC.; She is best known as the co-founder of Flickr, a photo-sharing service developed by Ludicorp in Vancouver and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. Flickr ushered in the so-called Web 2.0 integrating features such as social networking, community open APIs, tagging, and algorithms that surfaced the best, or more interesting content. Prior to founding Ludicorp she was Art Director at Salon.com and heavily involved in the development of online community, social software and personal publishing.; She has won many awards, including BusinessWeek's Best Leaders of 2005, Forbes 2005 eGang, Fast Company's Fast 50, and Red Herring's 20 Entrepreneurs under 35. She appeared with her husband and Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield on the cover of Newsweek on March 27, 2006, and in 2006 was named to the Time 100, Time Magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people. She sits on the board of Etsy, and advises many startups and new businesses. At Yahoo! she runs the Technology Development group, known for its Hack Yahoo! program, a stimulus to innovation and creativity, and Brickhouse, a rapid development environment for new products.
Stephen Frailey: Stephen studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and received his BA from Bennington College. He has had solo exhibitions at 303 Gallery and the Julie Saul Gallery and group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; International Center for Photography, New York; and the National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC. Stephen’s work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Arts Magazine, ARTnews, Artforum, The Village Voice, and The New Yorker; portfolios have appeared in Artforum and The Paris Review. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Art, Houston; the International Center for Photography, New York; and the Princeton University Art Museum.; Stephen has received two MacDowell Colony Fellowships, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant and an Aaron Siskind Foundation Grant. He has been a visiting artist at the Donald Judd Foundation and twice been nominated for a Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant. His critical writing on photography have appeared in Artforum, Print, and Art on Paper. He was the Chair of the Graduate photography program at Bard College from 1998 to 2004, and has been the Chair of the Photography Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York since 1998.; In 2003, he founded the Auction for Photographic Education in Afghanistan to create a photography department at Kabul University. He is a co-founder of the Art+Commerce Festival, and was named one of the 100 most important people in photography by American Photo magazine in 2005. Stephen founded the twice yearly magazine of photography and writing, DEAR DAVE, in 2007 and is its editor in chief.
Raul Gutierrez: Raul Gutierrez has enjoyed an eclectic career in the arts. After receiving an art history degree from Princeton University, Gutierrez spent several years in Hollywood working for producer Scott Rudin on both major motion pictures and Broadway plays. He moved on to become a well known web producer and consultant working primarily with film and television properties. All along, Gutierrez has been a serious photographer whose work has been featured in many group shows (he was a Spring 2006 Hot Shot). Recently he opened a solo show titled Travels Without Maps at the Nelson Hancock Gallery. Gutierrez also authors the popular photography-themed blog Heading East. Last year, Gutierrez began working with Jen Bekman Projects, where he leads the technical team. His technical and production skills, his artist's sensibility and his unique understanding of the online photography community have been made him an invaluable contributor to 20x200's launch and subsequent success. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two rambunctious young boys.
Darius Himes: Darius's work as an editor, publisher, and writer positions him on the front lines of the modern photography book movement. He is a passionate advocate for photography and books and is a much sought-after lecturer on the topic. He is frequently invited to attend portfolio review events including Review Santa Fe, photoLucida in Portland, and FotoFest in Houston.; Darius is one of the founders of Radius Books, a non-profit company dedicated to the visual arts, and his professional experience ranges from editor (photo-eye Booklist and Radius Books) to writer (Bookforum, Blind Spot, FOAM, BOMB, PDN, and American Photo) to occasional professor of photography. He also actively pursues his own photographic image making.
Jenni Holder: Jenni, the daughter of two artists, spent much of her childhood in studios, galleries, museums, and art fairs. After earning a BS in Business Marketing, and serving one year as an Advertising Executive in Chicago, she merged her early passion for art with her career ambitions. In 1990, she accepted an entry level position at the Edwynn Houk Gallery; in 1993, it took her to New York City, where her education in photography was nurtured under the wing of one of medium's most prestigious galleries. As a firsthand witness to one of photgraphy's most fertile periods, she helped create and support markets for vintage twentieth-century photography, as well as various contemporary artists...most notably, Sally Mann. She was the Director of the gallery from 1998 until the day before her daughter was born in September, 2003; by the end of the year she resigned, and left the city to raise her family in France. Since then, Jenni has worked freelance for Galerie Karsten Greve (Paris), as an Art Advisor to private collectors, and as a Contributing Editor to the anthology, Fotolog.Book (Thames & Hudson, 2006). In February of 2006, she and her boyfriend welcomed their second child, a boy. Les enfants terribles keep her busy, but with help of the internet, art fairs, and frequent trips to New York, she manages to keep an eye on the art world. In addition to her children, she is proud to have introduced Jen Bekman to two artists who went on to successful exhibitions at the gallery: Addie Juell and Holly Lynton.
Julia Leach: Having spent her career in the world of visual communications and graphic arts, Julia is always looking. Looking at art, photography, film, and the world around her. After a long tenure as EVP/Creative Director for the American fashion company kate spade, she recently launched her own studio, a brand incubator which will build innovative concepts off and online. Before joining kate spade in 1996, Julia led the team that launched one of the earliest and most successful publishing websites, papermag.com. The early years of her career were spent at Chiat/Day Advertising where she initially worked with Jay Chiat, managing his contemporary art collection, before taking on the responsibility of managing the Virtual Office build-out projects and handling all creative resources. Julia has a growing art collection of drawings and photography that includes a favorite image of a deer captured by Jen Bekman artist Dana Miller.
Nion McEvoy: Nion McEvoy is the Chairman and CEO of Chronicle Books LLC and of The McEvoy Group LLC. Chronicle Books, based in San Francisco, California is known for its excellence in design and production, and the strong popular appeal of its titles. In addition, Chronicle Books creates notecards, calendars, and stationery.; Mr. McEvoy joined Chronicle Books in 1986, and served as Editor-in-Chief of the adult trade division until he acquired the company through The McEvoy Group in February 2000. The McEvoy Group has since acquired becker&mayer! LLC, a dynamic book packager in Bellevue, Washington, and New York-based Spin magazine. The McEvoy Group is also a majority partner in San Francisco's Hartle Media, publishers of 7x7 magazine and California Home & Design magazine.; Mr. McEvoy worked previously in the business affairs departments of the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills and of Wescom Productions. He is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz and Hastings College of the Law. He currently serves on the boards of SFJAZZ, the UCSC Foundation, the Tricycle Foundation, and the Photography Accessions Subcommittee of SF MOMA.
Lesley A. Martin: Lesley A. Martin is publisher of the book program at the Aperture Foundation. She has edited over sixty books of photography, including Reflex: A Vik Muniz Primer; An-My Lê: Small Wars; My Life in Politics: Tim Davis; Istanbul: City of a Hundred Names by Alex Webb; Christian Marclay: Shuffle; Richard Misrach: On the Beach; Beate Gütschow: LS/S; and Paris € New York € Shanghai by Hans Eijkelboom. Martin is also the coauthor of two volumes on design, Graphicscape: Tokyo and Graphicscape: New York; and a contributing editor to Full Vinyl: The Subversive Art of Designer Toys.
Kent Rogowski: Kent Rogowski's works are often provocative and whimsical manipulations of objects and images that surround us in our daily lives. From teddy bears, to jigsaw puzzles, to self help books, he uses and alters mass-produced consumer products as a vehicle for self expression. By transforming the generic into something personal, Rogowski questions what these products communicate and also what role they play in our culture.; In 2000, Rogowski received his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design where he is now a Visiting Critic. His first monograph, Bears, was published by PowerHouse books in 2007. In June of 2007, he had his debut solo exhibition of the same name at Foley Gallery in New York City.; Rogowski's show Love = Love is on display at the Jen Bekman gallery through June 14th.