Farmani Gallery presents Helen K. Garber and L.A Noir.

Starting February 5 and running through March 1, 2008, Farmani Gallery will present a special exhibition of Helen K. Garber's nocturnal city landscapes, called "L.A. Noir." A multimedia presentation, the exhibition will incorporate Garber's black and white photographs with bebop jazz music and pulpy narration. The age of classic film noir, fueled by the images of Humphrey Bogart smoking his cigarette, or Welles gazing up at the damning finger of the partner who he murdered, are often associated with these images, but Garber casts them in a different light. The images are often tranquil, and the light makes old motels and highway stops look pristine. A top pick for the 2006 Santa Fe Prize in Photography, the exhibition has been shown at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in New Paltz, NY, and the Venice Art Walk in Venice, CA.

A percentage of sales from the exhibition will be donated to the Los Angeles Conservancy, which preserve many of the old spots that have become visually synonymous with film noir from the 1940's and 50's.

Julian Cox, former photo curator at The Getty Center, said:

"This work demonstrates a fresh and distinct photographic vision, one that sparks new understandings and imaginings about the city of Los Angeles and its elusive mythologies. Image and text are woven together with considerable skill and flair, the one informing and complementing the other. Of course many artists have photographed Los Angeles over the years, but none with quite the wit and acuity of vision that is found in L.A. Noir."

Tim Anderson, managing editor of CameraArts Magazine, said of the exhibition:

"Helen K. Garber’s haunting, enigmatic Urban Noir scenes have haunted as well as taunted me. Garber has taken street photography to new depths of the imagination. Rather than viewing stark, in-your-face images, you see visions of things that might be, dreamscapes or landscapes of the mind."

In Farmani Gallery 2, during the same dates, Rose-Lynn Fisher (CameraArts January-February 2008) will be presenting "Liminal Spaces-Morocco." Farmani Gallery is the home of the International Photography Awards, of which Helen K. Garber is a sitting advisory board member. It is also the parent organization that presents the Lucie Awards. Click here for more information on this exhibition.