Connelly La Mar

Connelly La Mar (born 21 July 1980) is a film producer and cinematographer in Brooklyn, New York. His photographic and film work deals with social issues and the context of subcultures including "Colloquial" and "Just Like Paradise."

Work and life

He began his first major photographic series while enrolled at the San Francisco Art Institute SFAI where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2002. The work was done during his trips to SE Asia, while he was working as a journalist for both The Economist, with such articles as "The Girls in the Gucci Shoes," on Prostitution in Cambodia, and The Nation. This work pulled him across Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, and marked the beginning of his series "Just Like Paradise".

The series spanned several years, and dealt with the lives of sex workers mostly focused in the urban metropolis of Bangkok. However, the unique quality of the work rested in the fact that the artist did not take a judgmental stance, rather he built relationships with all participants in the industry. It was unique in its attempt to see all participants reasons for being involved. The work, in a fledgling stage, was shown in 2004 in Bangkok, Thailand by H Gallery.

La Mar at this point embarked on the next phase of his education at Yale University's Yale School of Art in photography. During this period he began his "Colloquial" series of images shot in the United States, which was the beginning of his use of non-traditional installation techniques. He placed images on the wall of varying sizes from floor to ceiling to create a "leveling" effect in terms of the pictures being a map, with some parts simply more emphasised than others. The first instance of this was during a show of his at the space of the now closed Kristen Frederickson Gallery in New York City.

The series "Just Like Paradise" continued, however, during this period as he worked under tutors at Yale University, including, Gregory Crewdson, Roni Horn, Philip-Lorca diCorcia and Tod Papageorge. He struggled to conform to some of the criticism at Yale, but finally mounted a thesis show of his series "Just Like Paradise" at the Green Hall Gallery at Yale University in 2005, as part of the culmination of his MFA program. This was the first use of the map-format in presenting this work, and was used again when it was presented in February 2007 at Place M Gallery in Tokyo, Japan. Images from this series were also included in an abridged version in RE:UP Magazine's Photography issue. He also taught workshops during this period working with founder of the gallery, master portrait photographer Masato Seto.

His work has been featured in recent years in a number of campaigns for Plan International primarily aimed at raising awareness of children's rights issues throughout SE Asia and South Asia. Images he shot were additionally featured in the "Because I'm a Girl" campaign in 2008 launched in countries across the region in 2008. Works by La Mar have also been used by several other charities to promote hygiene, safety and child's rights, including UNESCO Photoshare and Johns Hopkins University.

Curatorial work

La Mar in 2005 agreed to take on the mammoth task of curating and running the international program of a public art festival being jointly created by Nation Group and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration under Governor Apirak Kosayodhin. The final version of the event was set to feature hundreds of luminaries of the art world including Thomas Demand, Janet Cardiff, Sue de Beer, Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama, Philip Jeck, Stan Douglas and others, with specific works already planned with artists when a political crisis hit the nation. The event was postponed indefinitely, however, after Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was removed in a bloodless coup d'état, and the military seized control of the country. The aftermath made things worse, with grenade detonations on New Year's Eve raising further concerns about a public art event. Finally, a scaled-down version of the festival was pushed to fruition by La Mar and staff under the title The Bangkok International Art Festival in February–March 2007. The event created public murals in the city, educational programs for children, public performances by Thai artists and was seen by tens-of-thousands of people despite the turmoil surrounding it.

Following this spell he took over running curatorial programs at H Gallery in Bangkok for a period of two years, and mounted a series of group and solo shows. A major show examining photographer Masato Seto's first two bodies of work in color was mounted with support from the Japan Foundation. He also curated solo shows by acclaimed Thai artists, including Sakarin Krue-on and Kamol Phaosavasdi. Group shows completed during his time at the gallery included artists, such as Leung Chi Wo, Leonid Tsvetkov, Sutee Kunavichayanont, Thakorn Khao-saad, Krit Ngamsom and others.

Working closely with the British Council he collaborated with artist Laura J. Cooper to mount a major group exhibition of contemporary art from the UK at The Art Centre at Chulalongkorn University in February 2009. The show was called "Desaturated" and featured works by Moira Lovell, Seamus Harahan, Simon Faithfull, Ginny Reed, Allsopp & Weir and Elizabeth McAlpine.

Additional Data

• Connelly La Mar Photographs
• Animal Fuckers
• Photoshare
• Place M Exhibition
• Art Festival

Writing

• Article on Bus Pollution in Bangkok
• Kyaing Tung Article
• Naew Culture in Thailand
• MOMA: New Photography Review

References

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