Helen K. Garber

Helen K. Garber (born 1954) is an American photographer known mostly for her black and white urban landscapes of cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Paris, Amsterdam and Venice. Her images are in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum, Museum of the City of New York, Portland Art Museum, Yale University and the George Eastman House.

Biography

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, she earned her bachelor's degree in Theatre Arts, Design at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She moved to California in 1978 and lives in Santa Monica, California with her husband, Dr. Stuart Garber and two Springer Spaniels. Her studio is located at Venice Beach, California.

Helen worked in many different art disciplines including theatre scene and costume design, painting, computer animation and video documentary. In 1991, she produced and directed the video documentary, "Shirley Kaufer, Artist". It was edited by the award winning film maker, Phil Zwickler. "Shirley Kaufer" was shown in Los Angeles at the juried Women's Film Festival at Barnsdall Park and on local PBS stations.

Helen focused on still photography in 1991 after she documented Le Cirque du Soleil in Santa Monica, Costa Mesa and New York.

Since Helen lived in the entertainment capital of the world, she specialized in public relations photography. Her portraits were reproduced in many periodicals such as the New York Times, the LA Times, Playbill, Hollywood Reporter, New York Magazine and the LA Weekly. Her corporate clients included Hachette Filapecci Publications, The Getty Center, CBS, Penguin, Doubleday and the Mayor's Office, City of Los Angeles. In 1997, Helen won the Photo of the Year Award from the Publicity Club of Los Angeles.

The grand prize money from the national 20th Century Photo Contest was used to build out a studio across from Gold's Gym, Venice. Helen spent the next five years documenting the visually extreme members of the gym.

One of Helen's last commercial assignments was to appear on the other side of the camera for the Travel Channel in the 30 minute photo travelogue, "Freeze Frame San Diego". She accompanied TV personality, Bill Boggs on adventures throughout San Diego County, while teaching him photo technique tips. The photos taken during the adventures were reproduced in "American Photo, Travel Holiday" and "Popular Photography" magazines.

Helen was hired by Random House to illustrate the 1998 best selling book, "Parents at Last, the New Pathways to Parenthood". She and her husband Stuart (then on sabbatical), traveled around the country documenting 35 families who were created in non-traditional ways.

Helen switched to fine art photography in 2000 and has had her work exhibited in venues such as AIPAD, NY, Photo L.A., Photo New York, UBS Paine Webber Gallery, NY, The Norton Museum, West Palm Beach, FL, Hermes Gallery, Beverly Hills, Kathleen Ewing Gallery, Washington, DC, Paul Kopeikin Gallery and G. Ray Hawkins Gallery, Los Angeles. She is represented in Los Angeles by Stephen Cohen Gallery, in New York by Marla Hamburg Kennedy, Tiny Fine Arts and in Boston by Tepper Takayama Fine Arts. She won an honorary mention in the 2001 Nikon International Photo Contest. There were over 30,000 entries. [cite web |url=http://www.nikon-image.com/eng/npci/npci2000-2001/list.pdf |title=NPCI 2001-2001 Winners List |publisher=Nikon]

The Santa Monica Arts Commission, The Venice Community Trust, Women In Photography, International, Focus On AIDS and the International Photography Awards [cite web |url=http://www.lucieawards.com/LucieAbout/Advisory-Board.html |title=Lucie Photography Awards Advisory Board] are a number of the organizations that Helen either has advised or sat on the board. In 2006, Helen curated FOH, a show of photography for Ocean Front Gallery at Venice Beach, California. She has also judged a number of photo contests for non profit organizations.

Major Works

"L.A. Noir"
Nominated for the 2006 Santa Fe Prize in Photography, L.A. Noir is a multi-media installation consisting of projected images of Helen's night urban landscapes of Los Angeles, text from pulp fiction based in Los Angeles using the city as character and West Coast Sound Jazz.

The recorded version was first shown at The Venice Art Walk, Venice, CA in 2005 and on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 at Sponto Gallery, Venice, CA, and again at The Venice Art Walk in 2006, CA. [cite web |url=http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3579&IssueNum=149 |title=Screenings |publisher=Los Angeles CityBeat]

"Urban Noir/NY-LA",
A multimedia piece including projected images, text extracted from pulp fiction and mid twentieth century jazz along with 20 of Helen's photographic prints was exhibited at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University at New Paltz, NY, October, 2007. The University purchased the twenty images exhibited for the permanent collection of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art.

"A Night View of Los Angeles, a 360 Degree Panorama of the Entire City of Los Angeles as Seen from the Helipad of the US Bank Tower"

A convert|40|ft|m|sing=on long version of "A Night View of Los Angeles", a 360 degree panorama of the entire city of Los Angeles, taken from the helipad of the US Bank Tower (tallest building in Los Angeles and West of the Mississippi)was commissioned for the 10th Mostra di Architettura di Venezia or Biennale di Architecture in Venice,Italy from September through November, 2006. It was printed with solvent ink on stretched silk. [http://www.artincontext.org/image/image_main.aspx?id=4727 - ] A second version of "A Night View of Los Angeles", also convert|40|ft|m long, but printed with solvent ink on outdoor banner vinyl was exhibited at the front entrance of the international fair, Photo LA, Santa Monica, CA in January, 2007. [http://www.thescreamonline.com/photo/photo7-1/photoLA/garber.html - ] - [http://www.argonautnewspaper.com/articles/2007/01/18/news_-_features/top_stories/1wo.txt -]

"A Night View Collaboration"

Helen's vision was to then invite the most significant Los Angeles graffiti writers of the past twenty years to share her privileged view of the city and "catch" (paint) her convert|40|ft|m|abbr=on. long masterpiece with their own distinctive street art identities (TAGS). To ceremoniously "tag the entire city at once". This will be first exhibited at the annual charity event, the [Venice Art Walk http://veniceartwalk.info] , on May 20, 2007. Helen K. Garber, a noirist, feels a camaraderie with graffiti writers as she and they roam the city after dark while sometimes forsaking their physical safety, to use the urban landscape to create their art. They all share a love for the city of Los Angeles. Despite their differences in age, gender and background, they were able to communicate as equals because of their mutual respect for each other as serious artists.

DuceOneX designed the collaboration and invited Mear, Saber, Gin, Retna, Gzer, Vyal, Revok, Zes, and Cab to join him. This is the first time so many of these significant artists collaborated on the same production. Vyal gave Helen a lesson in good spray can technique and she added her own tag to complete the collaboration. This project opened up a dialogue between Helen and these fellow artists and has given the writers a forum to explain their process. Not only do large corporations support this group's work, the writers are presently in conversation with the Los Angeles Dept. of Cultural Affairs about creating murals for the city. Instead of considering them outlaws, the city hopes to support them for creting the same type of work.

Why? - Young artists rarely tag these artist's murals because their style is well known and respected. The young, ignorant artists generally tag murals that they can't relate to in the hopes that their tag will remain longer on a mural than on a plain wall that can be simply painted over. While most view territorial gang tagging as urban blight, Helen views it no worse than billboards, electric wires, thoughtless development over the years such as fortress-like indoor shopping malls and McMansions created with lots of money, but no aesthic sense. Imagine how more beautiful our cities can be if art programs were re-introduced to the public school system with an added emphasis on the appreciation of the urban landscape. That way future taggers, developers and landlords would create with a better understanding of design and aesthetics.

Photography

* "Griffith Park Observatory" 1997
* "Radio Tower, Empire State" 1997
* "World Trade Center from Empire State" 1997
* "Bike Path Fog" 2001
* "Speedway Alley" 2001
* "LAX" 2002
* "Santa Monica Pier Fog 1" 2002
* "Santa Monica Pier Fog 2" 2002
* "Chinatown Art Opening" 2003
* "Paris Walk Street" 2003
* "Los Angeles Panaromic 2" 2005
* "Disney Hall and Music Center from US Bank Tower" 2005

Books

*cite book |title=Parents at Last - The New Pathways to Parenthood |publisher=Clarkson N. Potter |year=1997 |author=Wendy Wilkinson, Cynthia Peck |others=Helen K. Garber (illustrator) |isbn=978-0609602904
*cite book |title=Venice Beach, California Carnivale |publisher=Xlibris Books |year=2005 |author=Helen K. Garber |isbn=978-1413491081
*cite book |title=Looking at Los Angeles |publisher=Metropolis Books |year=2005 |author=Craig Krull, Jane Brown |editor=Marla Hamburg Kennedy, Ben Stiller, David Ulin |others=Helen K. Garber, Julius Shulman, Elliot Erwitt, Diane Arbus, David Hockney, Ralph Gibson (photographers) |isbn=978-1933045047

Films

* "Shirley Kaufer, Artist" 1990
* "L.A. Noir" 2005
*"Urban Noir - LA/NY" 2007

References

* [http://www.sightphoto.com/sightphoto/garber/ Sight Photo Article with photos]
* [http://www.thenocturnes.com/gallery/garber.html The Nocturnes Article with photos]
* [http://antilipseis.gr/t5/helen_garber_en.html Antilipseis Magazine, September, 2006 Article with photos]
* [http://www.womeninphotography.org/archive06-Apr01/gallery1/gallery1eight.htm Women in Photography Article with photos]
* [http://www.palmspringslife.com/media/Palm-Springs-Life/June-2004/The-Beauty-of-Night/ Palm Springs Life Article with photos]
* [http://www.london-photographic-awards.com/GlobeGall/helengarber/garberfeature.html Globe Gallery, London Photo Awards]
* [http://www.focusmag.info/other/april06.pdf, Focus Magazine Article with photos, April, 2006]

External links

* [http://www.helenkgarber.com Helen K. Garber's website]
* [http://www.teppertakayamafinearts.com/helen_k_garber/0008.htm Tepper Takayama Fine Arts] - Garber's Boston representative