Amani Olu, a curator devoted to presenting work by emerging photographers, gained considerable name recognition through his exhibition, 31 under 31, at the Humble Arts Foundation last spring. Olu was recently installed as director of Bond Street Gallery, in the growing Brooklyn arts district between the Gowanus Canal and Park Slope. At Bond Street, he will be presenting a mix of cutting edge mid-career and establish artists, and is opening his first exhibition there tonight. He will continue showing emerging artists at the Humble Arts Foundation.

For Young Curators, New Ideas he invited a group of photography-and-web-based curators including Alana Celii & Grant Willing of Fjord Photo; photographer Michael Buhler-Rose, Jon Feinstein of Humble Arts Foundation, photographer Amy Stein, writer and curator Lumi Tan, and Laurel Ptak of I Heart Photograph.

To view the animated GIFs of these images from the Young Curators, New Ideas exhibition, please visit iheartphotograph.com

The exhibition takes a look at trends and perspectives in contemporary art photography. Some of the themes to be explored are magic, otherworldliness, secrets and nostalgia; portrait photography as a conceptual art practice; science, mysticism, astronomy and the unreal in historical and contemporary modes; directorial photography in the manner of Cindy Sherman and Gregory Crewdson; and the performative aspects of chaos, distortion and disorientation; and more.

Laurel Ptak (DART, May 21, 2008) invited 26 photographers, designers, and new media artists to create photo-based animations using the GIF file format. She decided on this approach, she says, because "It's a format that's always fascinated me. Introduced by CompuServe in 1987, it has the distinction of being the very first color compression format widely used for images online.

"One of the beauties of GIF," she went on to say, "is that a single file can contain multiple images shown in a timed sequence, giving the effect of motion, known fondly as an animated GIF. These proliferated onscreen during the '90s in the form of dancing babies and rotating globes, maladroitly articulating a kind of humanist optimism about the internet.

"In the age of hi-def video on the web, the overall effect of animated GIFs is lo-fi, and with its limited color palette, what it does to photos is kind of egregious, which I think is great. Some of the people I invited have made ingenious use of this format and I wanted to see what more can be done with this almost antiquated format today. Plus, we're showing the work on a 44-inch hi-res monitor, which takes GIF format out of its native environment to an interesting effect."

Young Curators, New Ideas is on view through September 6, 208 at Bond Street Gallery, ,297 Bond Street, Brooklyn, NY. The opening reception is August 13 from 6:00 - 9:00 pm. RSVP required: rsvp@bondstreetgalalery.com.