Michael Somoroff

Michael Somoroff is a conceptual artist, director, photographer, and communication consultant. Whether in moving pictures, still image or through his installation work, Somoroff has directed and created work for advertising agencies, publications and cultural institutions. He is also a teacher and cultural commentator who has worked with academic/cultural institutions including SUNY Stony Brook, The University of the Arts, The Rothko Chapel and the International Center of Photography.

The focus of his art is spiritual and philosophical. Somoroff's work is an expression of the Alexey Brodovitch model translated into postmodern culture.

Early life

Somoroff's father, Ben Somoroff, was a still-life photographer.[1] Somoroff spent much of his youth at his father's studio, on 54th street in New York City. He became his father's studio manager and worked with the many artists who frequented the studio.

Career

In October 1979, the first exhibition of Somoroff's photography was held at the International Center of Photography in New York City,[2] under the supervision of Cornell Capa.

Somoroff had opened his photography studio in the mid-seventies, and started working for magazines such as Life, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Stern, in Europe and the US. He worked with designers and art directors, including Milton Glaser, who got him his first assignment for New York magazine.

He continued to develop his personal work, traveling throughout Europe, forming friendships that served as the foundation for his artistic efforts. Among his most important mentors was the photographer Gyula Halász, better known as Brassaï, Andreas Feininger, Louis Faurer, and André Kertész. He took their portraits as well as of many other photographers he met early in his career. Thirty five years later, he published these photographs in a book A Moment. Master Photographers: Portraits[3] that was selected as Best Book of the Year by American Photo.[4]

Somoroff began directing films and became "a specialist in the little-known world of tabletop directing."[5]

In New York in the late 1980s, he helped to create McGuffin Films Ltd., a tabletop production company where he was a senior partner for 27 years, creating commercials for clients.

In 2006, Somoroff created a large-scale outdoor installation, Illumination I, for the Rothko Chapel in Houston. The New York Times describes his approach as "Madison Avenue meets the Italian Renaissance: big budgets, large teams, high-tech tools and an artist-manager equally at ease with corporate sponsors and Chelsea gallerists."[6] A companion piece to Somoroff's installation Illumination, Illumination (2007) is an album by the American ambient musician Robert Rich. On the occasion of the installation's move to The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT, the audio track to Somoroff's Illumination, was presented as a multimedia installation by BravinLee Programs in Chelsea, New York City during the summer of 2007. The sculpture was last exhibited at Art OMI in 2008.

In 2008, Somoroff was invited by the curator Father Friedhelm Mennekes of St. Peter's Art Station Cathedral in Cologne, Germany, to create the priest's farewell project after more than 25 years of his ministry. Mennekes asked Somoroff to create an artwork that could be included in the cathedral's Easter Mass. Somoroff, in partnership with corporations, created a series of videos and a two story high installation called The Red Sea, which was made of thousands of pieces of wood.

Absence of Subject, Somoroff's "unconventional homage" to photographer August Sander,[7] was first presented on the occasion of the 2011 Venice Biennale on Piazza San Marco. The piece has been traveling throughout Europe and South America since then.

Somoroff's work is represented in the Museum of Modern Art, New York;[8] Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; and Museo Correr, Venice; it has been exhibited at the International Center of Photography, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

Somoroff produced a series of short videos of poet Giannina Braschi reading from her postcolonial work United States of Banana;[9] the films debuted at Cervantes Institute in New York in 2011.

Somoroff is an official "artist in residence" at the Wyss Translational Center Zurich.[10]

Controversy with The Longaberger Company

In 2014 Somoroff was hired as President of The Longaberger Company in Newark, Ohio.[11] He was terminated from his role after six months after declining sales reached an all time low.[12] His relationship with Longaberger's CEO Tami Longaberger led to her termination by Longaberger parent company JRJR, ending the Longaberger Family's connection with the company they had founded.[13]

Publications by Somoroff

Exhibitions

References

  1. ↑ http://galeriejuliansander.de/artists/ben-somoroff/
  2. ↑ Selsin, Suzanne. "One Man's View Of Cut‐Up Vegetables". The New York Times.
  3. ↑ "A Moment. Master Photographers: Portraits by Michael Somoroff Michael Somoroff - 9788862082112". Damiani editore. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
  4. ↑ Beckwith, Carol; Fisher, Angela (June 9, 1941). "The Best Photo Books Of 2012". American Photo. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
  5. ↑ Segal, David. "In Food Commercials, Flying Doughnuts and Big Budgets". The New York Times.
  6. ↑ Bard, Elizabeth (June 17, 2007). "ART; A 50-Year-Old Upstart Redefines 'Emerging'". Retrieved May 31, 2016.
  7. ↑ Terranova, Amber (March 1, 2014). "The Subject of No Subject". The New Yorker. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
  8. ↑ Arts, The Museum of Fine. "The Museum of Fine Arts". MFAH. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
  9. ↑ Evergreen Review video http://www.evergreenreview.com/128/review_us_of_banana.shtml, New York, 2011
  10. ↑ http://www.wysszurich.uzh.ch/people/faculty/
  11. ↑ O’Neill, Patrick (October 24, 2014). "Longaberger has new president, new direction". Zanesville Times Recorder. Retrieved May 9, 2017.
  12. ↑ Feran, Tim (February 9, 2015). "Longaberger president exits after 6 months". Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved May 9, 2017.
  13. ↑ Feran, Tim (June 3, 2015). "Tami Longaberger battles company over exit". Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved May 9, 2017.
  14. ↑ "August Sander e Michael Somoroff. Absence of Subject". Stelline (in Italian). January 1, 2013. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
  15. ↑ http://www.benaki.gr/index.asp?lang=en&id=20205&sid=1425
  16. ↑ Somoroff, Michael (September 13, 2015). "Absence of Subject". Villa Vauban. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
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