Ben Marcin

b. 1958, USA
Bio Statement

Last House Standing

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Ben Marcin Bio

Chronology | Awards | Solo Exhibitions | Group Exhibitions | Collections Favorite Photography Books

Chronology
1958	Born, Augsburg, Germany

1985	Bought my first camera, a Minolta X-370, on sale at Sears, for $149. I then taught myself how to take pictures.

1986	My father, who worked in the Rare Book division of the Library of Congress, brought home a monograph of watercolor landscapes by the German Abstract Expressionist painter, Emil Nolde. These watercolors changed the way I look at art - it was a seminal moment for me.

1988	Attended a major retrospective of Josef Koudelka at the International Center for Photography. The same year I became acquainted with the work of Alex Webb. Both photographers became my motivation for pursuing photography in a serious way. Webb is the reason I went with color.

1990	Walked into my first photography gallery holding a page of Kodachrome slides. I met the gallery curator, Lynn O'Sullivan, who eased my landing into the art photography world considerably and gave me my first big start. She became my wife in 1997 and has been my biggest fan and toughest critic since.

2000	Made the move from 35mm to medium-format. Although I was already taking good pictures, I really learned photography on the Hasselblad. It's an incredible format.

2004	As much as I liked working with the Hasselblad, I decided to move up to the 4x5" format, using an old wooden Japanese Ikeda field camera. I could now make very large prints and the slow pace required by the long setups made me look at the final image in a different way.

2006	Bought the Epson 9800 wide-jet digital printer. No more cibachrome chemicals, gas masks and black cardboard duct-taped over the windows.

2009	After several years of debate, I bought the Canon 5D Mark II camera, the best DSLR available at the time. For the great majority of my photographs, the mathematics had finally caught up to the analog format. I was now able to return to the freedom of the 35mm cameras that I had worked with in the beginning while still making large prints.

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Awards
2015	Maryland State Arts Council - Individual Artist Award, Maryland

2013	Review Santa Fe 100, Santa Fe, NM

2013	Critical Mass Top 50 Finalist, Photolucida - Portland, OR

2012	Sondheim Semi-Finalist, Baltimore, MD

2011	Sondheim Semi-Finalist, Baltimore, MD

2010	Sondheim Semi-Finalist, Baltimore, MD

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Solo Exhibitions
2013	Last House Standing (And Other Stories), C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, MD

2003	Crossing the Landscape, Villa Julie College, Stevenson, MD

2002	Walls, World Trade Center, Baltimore, MD

1997	Recent Color Photographs, Montpelier Cultural Center, Laurel, MD

1997	New Abstracts, Chesapeake Gallery, Harford Community College, MD

1996	The New Color Infra-Red, Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, Annapolis, MD

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Group Exhibitions
2015	Exposure 2015, Photographic Resource Center, Boston, MA

2015	Within/Without, C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, MD

2015	Imagining Home, Baltimore Muesum of Art, Baltimore, MD

2014	American Photography X2, Towson State Univ Center for the Arts Gallery, Towson, MD

2014	Critical Mass Top 50, Cordon \| Potts Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2014	Critical Mass Top 50, Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX

2013	Cultural Context, Nepalese Academy of Fine Arts, Kathmandu, Nepal

2013	Musings, Photo Center NW, Seattle, WA

2013	Summer '13, C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, MD

2012	Sondheim Semi-Finalist Exhibit, MICA Meyerhoff Gallery, Baltimore, MD

2011	Sondheim Semi-Finalist Exhibit, MICA Meyerhoff Gallery, Baltimore, MD

2010	Sondheim Semi-Finalist Exhibit, MICA Meyerhoff Gallery, Baltimore, MD

2010	New Normal, Center for Fine Art photography, Fort Collins, CO

	20th Annual Juried Exhibition, Griffin Museum of Photography,

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Collections

Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD

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Favorite Photography Books

The Suffering of Light, Alex Webb, (photo-eye Cat# DQ661)

Koudelka, Josef Koudelka, (photo-eye Cat# DS124)

Ben Marcin Statement

Artist Statement
One of the architectural quirks of certain cities on the eastern seaboard of the U.S. is the solo row house. Standing alone, in some of the worst neighborhoods, these nineteenth century structures were once attached to similar row houses that made up entire city blocks. Time and major demographic changes have resulted in the decay and demolition of many such blocks of row houses. Occasionally, one house is spared - literally cut off from its neighbors and left to the elements with whatever time it has left.

My interest in these solitary buildings is not only in their ghostly beauty but in their odd, almost defiant, placement in the urban landscape. Often three stories high, they were clearly not designed to stand alone like this. Many details that might not be noticed in a homogenous row of twenty attached row houses become apparent when everything else has been torn down. And then there's the lingering question of why a single row house was allowed to remain upright. Still retaining traces of its former glory, the last house standing is often still occupied.

Ben Marcin Books
Available from photo-eye

Favorite Monographs:

The Suffering of Light, Alex Webb, (photo-eye Cat# DQ661)

Koudelka, Josef Koudelka, (photo-eye Cat# DS124)