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 content of all kinds for advertising agencies, publications and cultural institutions around the globe. His mediums of choice include video and film, photography and installation. 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.

Somoroff's technical know-how and visual instincts were honed from his commercial background, but the focus of his art is spiritual and philosophical. Somoroff's work, characterized by a high level of craft, creativity and a powerful visual language is an expression of the Alexey Brodovitch model translated into postmodern culture. A conceptual problem-solver, Somoroff has led and counseled the marketing efforts and management of corporations on both sides of the Atlantic. He continues to redefine conventions, pushing the mediums of photography and digital content beyond their usual definitions.

Early life

Michael Somoroff grew up amidst photography's giants in the "Mad Men" age of advertising, which was a great tradition of master craftsmanship and creative exploration that has continues to define today culture. His father, Ben Somoroff, along with Irving Penn and other photographers of the Philadelphia School, is considered one of the pre-eminent American still-life photographers of 20th century.^[1] Ben Somoroff was also a dominant force in the invention of tabletop motion picture making, generally credited as "the originator of the term 'tabletop photography'".^[2] He was a student of art director Alexey Brodovitch, along with the other photographers of the Philadelphia School, at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art. Ben Somoroff's studio, on 54th street in New York City, was where Michael Somoroff spent most of his time in his youth. It was a meeting point for creative, artists, art directors, photographers, designers, writers and fashion society of the era including Salvador Dali, Louis Faurer, Henry Wolf, Robert Frank, Ben Rose, Robert Benton, Vladimir Horowitz, Lou Dorfsman, Truman Capote, Arnold Newman, Andre Kertesz, Art Kane, Eileen Ford. Michael Somoroff 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, under the personal supervision of Cornell Capa, launching Somoroff's career. The show was reviewed in an article of the New York Times in October 1979.^[3] Somoroff had opened his photography studio in the mid-seventies, and started working for magazines such as Life, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, or Stern, in Europe and the US. He worked with a number 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 many friendships that served as the foundation for his artistic efforts. Among his most important mentors was the photographer Gyula Halász, better known as Brassai, Andreas Feininger, Louis Faurer, and André Kertész. He took their portraits as well as of many other master photographers he met early in his career. Thirty five years later, he published these photographs in a book A Moment. Master Photographers: Portraits^[4] that was selected as Best Book of the Year by American Photo.^[5]

Noted for his lighting techniques and composition, Somoroff began directing films soon after and became "a specialist in the little-known world of tabletop directing."^[6] Back 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. Michael Somoroff has created award-winning commercials for clients like Red Lobster, Olive Garden, KFC, Procter and Gamble, Dunkin' Donuts, Burger King, McDonald's, Asahi Beer, Papa John's Pizza, Chilli's, Taco Bell, Pepsi, and Sony, among others.

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."^[7] 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, who worked with artists such as Joseph Beuys, Anish Kapoor, Barbara Kruger, asked Somoroff to create an artwork that could be included in the cathedral's Easter Mass. Somoroff created a series of videos and a massive two story high installation called "The Red Sea," which was made of thousands of pieces of wood. The piece invited partnerships with corporations, resulting in a collaborative installation that was visited by several thousand people over the course of the project. This project brought together the art world, corporate world and religious institutions.

Absence of Subject, Somoroff's "unconventional homage" to photographer August Sander,^[8] 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 (in Milan at the Fondazione Stelline,^[9] in Cork at the Sirius Arts Centre], in Luxembourg at the Villa Vauban,^[10] in Athens at the Benaki Museum,^[11] or in Montevideo at the Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales, among many others.

Somoroff's work is represented in the Museum of Modern Art, New York;^[12] 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; the films debuted at Cervantes Institute in New York in 2011 and were featured in The Evergreen Review online.^[13]

Somoroff is an official "artist in residence" at the Wyss Translational Center Zurich.^[14]

Somoroff lives and works in New York City.

Publications by Michael Somoroff

Two Crowns of The Egg, Michael Somoroff, Donald Kuspit, Giannina Braschi, Damiani, 2014 ISBN 9788862083539 A Moment. Master Photographers, Portraits by Michael Somoroff, Damiani, 2012 ISBN 9788862082112 Absence of Subject, Walter König, 2011 ISBN 978-0983615606 Michael Somoroff: Illumination I at the Rothko Chapel, Rothko Chapel Books, 2008 ISBN 9780979091605 Image of the Not-Seen: Search for Understanding, The Rothko Chapel Art Series, 2005 ISBN 0945472048 Kinder in Europa, Nicolai, 1988 ISBN 9783875842227 The Vegetables Series, International Center of Photography,1985

Exhibitions

2016

• Absence of Subject, Ruth Leuchter gallery, Düsseldorf, Germany

2015

• Absence of Subject, Villa Vauban – Luxembourg City Museum
• Master Photographers, Sol Mednick Gallery at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia

2014

• Absence of Subject, Museo Nacional des Artes Visuales, Montevideo, Uruguay
• Absence of Subject, Encuentros Abiertos in Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Master Photographers, Fondazione Francesco Fabbri, Treviso, Italy
• Absence of Subject, Sirius Arts Centre, Cork, Ireland
• Absence of Subject, Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece

2013

• Absence of Subject, Fondazione Stelline, Milan, Italy
• Absence of Subject, Centro de Arte la Regenta, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
• Absence of Subject, Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, Tenerife, Spain
• Master Photographers, Galerie Julian Sander, Bonn, Germany
• Absence of Subject, Sala Municipal de Exposiciones de las Francesas, Valladolid, Spain

2012

• Absence of Subject, Villa Brandolini F4 Un’Idea di Fotografia, Solighetto-Treviso, Italy
• Absence of Subject, Galleri Image, Aarhus, Denmark
• Tefillah I, Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin, Germany

2011

• Absence of Subject, Piazza San Marco, on the occasion of the Venice Biennale, Italy

2008

• Illumination, OMI International Art Center, Sculpture park, Ghent, NY
• The Red Sea, Kunst-Station Sankt Peter, Köln, Germany
• Genesis, Video Animation during Easter Mass, Kunst-Station Sankt Peter, Köln, Germany
• The Absence of the Subject, Fotofest Houston, Offsite, Houston, Texas

2007

• Illumination, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
• Illumination, BravinLee Programs, Chelsea, New York City, NY
• VITAMIN W, The Wonder Factor, Newark, NJ

2006

• Illumination, Rothko Chapel, Houston, Texas

1985

• Olympus Galerie, Hamburg, Germany

1979

• Vegetable Series, International Center of Photography, New York, NY

References