Photography art Gallery Friday Round Up - 25 July, 2014|Photography Art Definition

This week on Friday Round Up exhibitions in London and Dubai, photo essays from Ken Schles and Brenda Ann Kenneally and the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize is open for entries plus Picture of the Week and Henri Cartier-Bresson's Here and Now in review.

Picture of the Week:

Jon Nazca's "supermoon" over Olvera, Spain 2014.

Book Review:

Here and Now Henri Cartier-Bresson

This is a weighty tome, in physicality and content. The kind of book you flick through several times before settling on a chapter with which to spend a few hours, for time passes quickly when you immerse yourself in such an exquisite volume.

Cartier-Bresson was a visual artist, a man who loved to paint and draw, passions that developed at a very early age. But he was also a man who loved to explore new forms of artistic expression. Living in Paris, in what is known as the ‘luminous years,’ Cartier-Bresson fell in with the Surrealists and by the end of the 1920s he’d discovered Eugène Atget and turned his attention to photography...(to read the full review please click on the Book Reviews tab at the top of this blog).

Exhibition: London

The Visual Revolution

Russian Avant-Garde Photography, Alexander Rodchenko & the VKhUTEMAS Workshop

Alexander Rodchenko 1891-1956

Zhenshchina s kolyaskoi (Woman with baby carriage), 1928

This expansive exhibition features more than 1500 vintage photographs taken by over 100 Russian photographers including Alexander Rodchenko, Max Alpert, Akady Shishkin, and Gustav Klutsis and is curated from a single collection of works dating from the 1920s to World War II.

Rodchenko (1891-1956) is considered the "leader of Russian Constructivism" and as such his work is pivotal to this exhibition. Inspired by Moholy-Nagy's experimental photographic technique, Rodchenko came to photography in the early 1920s and used his camera to investigate "the discrepancy between high and low culture in Soviet society”. His body of work has "influenced design, architecture and photo-art"and he is still named today as a photographer of influence.

Georgi Lipskerov 1896 - 1977

Paransha. Burka, Central Asia

Max Alpert 1899 - 1980

Untitled (Dnepr Dam)

Georgi Zelma 1906 - 1984

Petrusov and Shaikhet

The VKhUTEMAS Workshop was formed in 1920 when Lenin merged the Stroganov School of Industrial Art and the Moscow School of Painting and was Russia's answer to Bauhaus, although the former never rose to the same prominence. The Workshop only existed for a decade, yet it is considered to have played a major role in introducing constructivism and rationalism in architecture.

The Visual Revolution is part of the 2014 UK-Russia Year of Culture. If you are in London this is an exhibition for your "must see" list.

Until 29 August

Richard Saltoun

111 Great Titchfield Street

London W1W 6RY

Exhibition: Dubai

Max Pam – Ramadan in Yemen

(C) All images Max Pam

Australian photographic artist Max Pam continues to garner an international following for his work with the first exhibition of his collection ”Ramadan in Yemen” currently on exhibition in Dubai. Pam like other Australian artists has had greater success overseas than at home and in France in particular Pam’s work is highly regarded. And it is a travesty that the work of Australian artists continues to receive less than adequate support here from our cultural institutions.

"Ramadan in Yemen" documents Pam's travels through this amazing country in the late 1990s. Pam believes the journal he kept at this time is one of his best and this journal forms the heart to the book "Ramadan in Yemen" published by Éditions Bessard in Paris. Now works from this collection are on show in Dubai, the first time this series has been exhibited.

Of "Ramadan in Yemen"Pam says, "What could I say about Yemen that did it justice. I tried in my journal to work it honestly. I tried with 60 rolls of black and white 120 film to translate the experience. That hot, spare and beautiful Ramadan. No eating or drinking anything between sunrise and sunset. The faithful waiting for the moment. The cannon booms from the mosque in the afterglow of the day. KABOUMMM and a frenzy of quat buying, tea drinking and food eating begins in the suqs and squares and oases and towns all over the country. Everyone is happy, elated, laughing and joking sitting down together as one nation. And you know what? People always wanted me to share and be part of their Ramadan, their community, their Yemen. I travelled all over the country with them. To Shibam, Taizz, Al Mukallah, Sanaa, over the desert, by the sea and into the mountains. The shared taxis were always a half past dead Peugeot 405’s with sometimes 10 or 12 people jammed in. My book gives my version of that unforgettable Ramadan month. An experience freely given to me by the generosity of Yemeni people".

Until 10 September, 2014

East Wing

#12 Limestone House

DIFC, Dubai, UAE

To purchase the book email Éditions Bessard atcontact@editionsbessard.com

Photo Essay:

Ken Schles – A Suspension of Memory

Daylight Digital has published a reimagining of New York photographer Ken Schles’ ‘Invisible City’ and ‘Night Walk’ combining stills and video taken by Schles with text written by Alan Rapp. Accompanied by a soundtrack complete with traffic honking and sirens blaring that transports the viewer to the noisy streets of New York, Schles grainy black and white photographs appear even grittier as if they are literally dusted with the patina of the streets.

(C) All images Ken Schles

Published in 1988 to wide acclaim ‘Invisible City’ was Schles first monograph. This book has been out of print for years, but Steidl will publish an edition later in 2014 together with Schles new book ‘Night Walk’ in which he revisits the period of the ‘Invisible City’ taking the reader on “ a peripatetic walk in the evening air of a lost pre-Internet bohemian downtown New York”.

This Daylight Digital production is a great example of the publishing options available to photographers thanks to digital technology and shows how still images can be transformed into dynamic, interactive narratives that create new opportunities for engagement. Love it.Click here to see the story in full.

Photo Essay:

Brenda Ann Kenneally's

Upstate Girls causes furore

Destiny and Deanna pretending to smoke (C) Brenda Ann Kenneally

In a world where we are subjected to all manner of images depicting all facets of human behaviour it is always interesting to see what the "public" takes umbrage with. American photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally's photo essay "Upstate Girls" is a case in point.

When her project was published on Slate.com recently with the headline “A New Way to Talk About Poverty in Troy, New York,” neither Kenneally or Slate’s editor-in-Chief Julia Turner could have predicted that these images would evoke such ferocious outbursts that were directed at both the subjects and the photographer. Such was the diatribe around one particular image that Kenneally and Slate agreed to withdraw it; not in acquiescence with the hysteria, but in order to protect the subject.

Briefly, Kenneally’s photo essay is part of a ten-year project that documents the lives of seven young women over a decade. These women live in the city of Troy, Kenneally’s hometown, and are beset by extreme poverty as are more than one fifth of that city's population. A number of the women Kenneally befriended and photographed were also teenage mothers forced to give up their children, or to rear them on their own and her photographs depict their struggles.

Heather and her daughter Jada (C) Brenda Ann Kenneally

'Little Jessie' whose been drinking coffee since he was a baby and is now 12 (C) Brenda Ann Kenneally

In her artist's statement Kenneally, who labels herself a digital folk artist' rather than a photographer, says, “I have dedicated my life to exploring the how and why of class inequity in America. I am concerned with the internalized social messages that will live on for generations after our economic and social policies catch up with the reality of living on the bottom rung of America’s upwardly mobile society. My project explores the way that money is but a symptom of self-worth and a means by which humans separate from each other. Poverty is an emotional (rather than simply) physical state with layers of marginalization that cements those who live under them into place”.

You can see the Slate story here. There is also a piece in the New York Times.

Prize:

Moran Contemporary Photographic Prizes

$50,000 first prize

The Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize celebrates ‘contemporary life in Australia’ and is one of the largest and most coveted single photographic prizes in this country with the winner receiving $50,000. There are also a number of student categories and all finalists receive cash prizes.

In addition to this major annual photographic competition, the Moran Arts Foundation is also invested in working with school students and teachers to provide free photographic workshops. Australian photographer Louise Whelan, whose work has featured on this blog in the past, has been working with various schools this year in what is a fantastic program that teaches not only basic technical skills, but most importantly visual storytelling.

(C) Louise Whelan

Entries for the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prizes close September 15. Please visit the website for details including eligibility.

First Prize $50,000

All finalists receive $1000

Judges this year are Getty Images' Aidan Sullivan and Australian photographer William Long

For more information visit the website here

Last year's winner was John Janson-Moore for Nyirripi Girl with Finger (below).

Photography art Gallery Friday Round Up - 3 April, 2015|Photography Art Definition

This week on Friday Round Up it's all about books. Book Review Part One features an in depth interview with Ken Schles (Invisible City & Night Walk), DDR: Remembering East Germany, Photo Compendium Australia II, The Best of Doisneau: Paris, and Architecture, Photography and the Contemporary Past.

Interview:

Ken Schles – Invisible City & Night Walk

American photographer Ken Schles’ seminal work, Invisible City, was re-released in 2014 by Steidl, 26 years after its first edition. There is also a new companion book, Night Walk.

The work in both books was shot in the eighties when Schles was living in the East Village in New York City. At that time New York City was in a state of decay and facing bankruptcy. On the Lower East Side. crime rates were out of control and law enforcement had abandoned the streets. In the late seventies Schles, then a student, moved into a rundown tenement on 12th Street in the heart of the East Village.

(C) Ken Schles Invisible City

(C) Ken Schles Invisible City

(C) Ken Schles Invisible City

(C) Ken Schles Invisible City

During his tenure the East Village was alive with musicians, artists, designers, writers and poets. The underground music scene was exploding and clubs were pulsating to the new wave punk sound, the most famous CBGB’s, a proving ground for acts like Patti Smith, The Ramones and Blondie.

Here rent was cheap, but life even cheaper and frequently the air rang with gunshots. Heroin was the drug of choice and dealers claimed the neighbourhood. Junkies took their last hit in putrid alleyways and apartments became extemporized shooting galleries. Buildings reeked of detritus, reefer, vomit and alcohol. Getting mugged was commonplace.

(C) Ken Schles Night Walk

(C) Ken Schles Night Walk

(C) Ken Schles Night Walk

Living the life of a struggling artist only carries cachet for those who haven’t walked the walk says Schles. “It was not fun, it was scary and dangerous. You felt like you were taking your life in your hands walking down the streets. It was a pretty nasty place....” (to read the full interview and see more images please click on the Feature Articles tab at the top of the blog)

DDR: Remembering East Germany

Augusto Bordato

Publisher: Contrasto

For 28 years the Berlin Wall divided a city, a country and its people. On 9th November, 1989 the Wall ‘came down’. In the days that ensued tens of thousands of Berliners from both sides celebrated. Some climbed on top of the Wall, others clamboured through new openings. Less than three months later, on 10th March, 1990 Berlin celebrated its first day of unification.

Italian photographer Augusto Bordato worked in East Berlin for ten years as an interpreter at the Italian Embassy. In the years leading up to the fall of the wall, Bordato walked the streets with his Leica capturing moments of everyday life, amassing a collection that has become a unique contribution to this moment in history.

Bordato’s black and white images speak to the times, the deprivation, the oppression, the surveillance, the protests, the celebration of freedom and reunification – visual symbols we are familiar with. If his images stopped there then this book would be little more than a collection of news photographs. But in DDR: Remembering East Germany Bordato allows an insight into the lives of the East German people that gives a new perspective.

Here East Germans, young and old alike, those who have never known life outside the Wall, and those who lost their liberty, come together in simple acts that are quotidian - nude sunbathing on windswept beaches, art gallery gatherings, young punks out on the town, parades, fireworks, couples walking in the summer heat, friends drinking coffee at a street cafe. Bordato also takes us to the country with his hauntingly beautiful images of fishing villages and rural vistas where mist cloaks the landscape.

Yet there is no romanticising of the subject matter. These photographs depict a country that is stuck in time. With the majority of images shot in the late 1980s it is evident in the fashions, décor and cityscapes that are still marred by bullet holes and crumbling structures, that modernisation has not been a focus of the Regime. This is also apparent in the patina of resignation, or exhaustion from the struggle to survive, seen on the faces of many East Germans, particularly those who knew a life before the Wall. But there is also beauty, joy and hope and Bordato has captured these symbols that signify the strength of the human spirit with dignity and compassion.

Photo Compendium, Australia II

Bob Kersey & Mary Meyer

Publisher: Black Mountain

I reviewed the first compendium of Australian Photography in 2011, which was a mix of artist portfolios and gallery listings. The new Photo Compendium II bypasses the galleries to focus on the artists with more than 50 featured and is a much more satisfying publication.

It is important to note that this book is not purporting to be an encyclopaedia, or an exhaustive collection. If it were then the pages would number in the thousands rather than hundreds. The artists featured are dedicated to their craft, many are established, others emerging. This is not a genre specific collection either. Here you will find representation across a number of disciplines from abstract and nudes, to documentary, portraiture, landscape and manipulated imagery. Black and white photographs sit side by side with colour – muted, vibrant, garish. There is work from those who consider themselves film purists. Others explore with equal devotion the depths of digital artistry.

Ultimately what this compendium showcases is the great diversity, and talent, that exists in Australian photography. As editor Bob Kersey says, artists need promotion, and audiences need to find new artists. If this book is used as intended then galleries, festivals and scribes like myself have a valuable resource through which to discover artists that are new to us. And the artists themselves have a wonderful opportunity to see what others are creating and to perhaps begin a dialogue that leads to exciting collaborations.

A final word: This book is beautifully produced. The image reproduction is superb, the stock befitting a fine art book and it is gratifying to see an Australian publisher actually printing in Australia. Bravo to all concerned on a really wonderful contribution to Australian photography.

The Best of Doisneau: Paris

Publisher: Flammarion

Born in 1912, photographer Robert Doisneau photographed the city of his birth throughout his life. This compact publication features his black and white photographs taken when he was in his early twenties right up until 1991, three years before his death at the age of 81.

Along with Henri Cartier-Bresson, Doisneau is considered a father of street photography and photojournalism. This book is filled with wonderful images taken on the streets of Paris and in its classrooms, parlours, theatres and cafes.

Doisneau wrote: “A glance in the rear-view mirror tells me that I’ve covered a lot of ground – first on the sidewalks, then on the road. There was nothing systematic in my wanderings: I would move along vacantly, banking on a stroke of luck, using equipment so cheap there was no risk of virtuosity. Thus drifting along, I discovered features of the city that are not to be found in guidebooks”.

This is a glorious collection for those who love Paris, black and white photography, and the eye of a master.

Architecture, Photography and the Contemporary Past

Edited by Claes Caldenby, Julia Tedroff, Andrej Slávik and Martin Farran-Lee

Publisher: Art and Theory

The modern city and photography have evolved together, the latter documenting our material culture, but also contributing to it through visual artefacts that give rise to the opportunity for insights into what has gone before, what exists now, and to theorise on what may come.

The publication of Architecture, Photography and the Contemporary Past was inspired by the workshop of the same name held in 2013 at the Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg, in Sweden. This book approaches the topic of cultural heritage ‘at the intersection between research in humanities and the fine arts’ and features essays by both scholars and artists.

The premise of this book is to discuss ‘what contribution can architecture and photography make to the exploration…of what scholars call…the contemporary past – that is, to modernity considered as an open problem rather than a closed historical period…This anthology can be read as an answer to that question’.

Art and Theory is a new publishing house based in Sweden, dedicated to contemporary art, photography and aesthetics. This is an erudite volume that adds to the conversation of the photograph as evidence, its cultural significance and is a valuable addition to material cultures literature.