Photography art Gallery Friday Round Up - 12th September, 2014|Photography Art Definition

This week on Friday Round Up the festival season continues with Unseen Amsterdam Photo Fair opening next Thursday. Read Alison Stieven-Taylor's interview with Fair General Manager Sasha Stone about the new developments for 2014. Also this week new exhibitions for Melbourne and Sydney and the first exhibition in Australia of Don McCullin's work opens soon.

Fair:

Unseen Amsterdam

Last year while I was in Amsterdam, I interviewed Sasha Stone the General Manager of Unseen Amsterdam Photo Fair (pictured below). Now in its third year, Unseen is dedicated to showcasing new and emerging photographers alongside more established artists. With the emphasis on new and “unseen” works, this year more than 60 photographic artists will show work never before shown anywhere, including online.

Photography is a space that is constantly evolving. As a photography commentator, and scholar, I believe Unseen is one of the industry events that acts as a barometer for contemporary photography and as such, it is as much an example of what’s happening now, as it is a prediction of what’s to come...(Read the full interview under Feature Articles at the top of the blog).

Exhibitions: Melbourne

Robert Ashton – Into the Hollow Mountains

A Portrait of Fitzroy 1974

I saw this exhibition last week. There is something nostalgic about this series of photographs that make them more than just a record of the time. Perhaps it is the familiarity of this suburb; Fitzroy is an iconic inner Melbourne enclave and its rich history maps the migration of Melbourne – here blue-collar workers, indigenous Australians, migrants and artists converged. Yet there was still a sense of community within such diversity. People said hello on the streets or nodded their head in greeting. There was time to stop for a chat at the Milk Bar. Neighbours knew each other by name and if they didn't "mate" or "luv" sufficed. Pubs like the Builders Arms and Champion Hotel were local watering holes and there were always stories to be told.

There is one photograph that epitomises, for me, what Fitzroy was like back then; the Greek women sitting outside a house on kitchen chairs surveying the street (above). This image took me back to the days when I rented a house in the area. Even though it was the mid-80s, every afternoon I would see my elderly migrant neighbours out on the footpath with their chairs and radios. It always gave me a sense of being part of a village, rather than living as an addendum to a big city. They were the neighbourhood watch; nothing got past them. And they were always happy to give the "girlie" a toothless grin and offer me a seat or a pickled onion!

The ability to induce personal reactions, to make us think of times gone by, to wander the streets of inner Melbourne before there were mobile phones, gridlocked traffic, and gentrified homes, this is the power of Ashton’s images. “Into the Hollow Mountains” is a really wonderful exhibition, one that will resonate with all, regardless of whether you have personal knowledge of Fitzroy or not. For it is in the spirit of humanity that this story is told.

All images (C) Robert Ashton

Until 27 September

Colour Factory

409-429 Gore St

Fitzroy

Tom Evangelidis – Façade

In contrast to Ashton's black and white images are Sydney photographer Tom Evangelidis' dramatic exhibition of large format photographs that features iconic architecture from some of the world’s most visually stunning cities including Prague. Hanoi, St Petersburg, Sofia, Istanbul and Havana.

Havana

St. Petersburg

Moscow

Shot over a ten-year period, Evangelidis says his large format photographs “are not romantic, stylised commercial representations of architecture but rather community streetscapes complete with the aberrations and flaws travel photography would typically avoid”.

There is also a beautiful high-end photography book of the same name available.

Until 27 September

Edmund Pearce Gallery

Level 2, Nicholas Building

37 Swanston Street

Melbourne

Exhibitions in Brief:

Melbourne:

Unsensored 14 - Group Show

Collingwood Gallery

292 Smith Street

Collingwood

Sydney:

Miki Nobu Komatsu – Light Moods South

Until 27 September

Stanley Street Gallery

1/52-54 Stanley Street

Darlinghurst

David Manley - Ambivalent Structures

Until 28 September

Black Eye Gallery

3/138 Darlinghurst Road

Darlinghurst

Exhibition: For Your Diary

Don McCullin – The Impossible Peace

State Library of NSW

Opening 27 September

Photography art Gallery Friday Round Up - 31st October, 2014|Photography Art Definition

On Friday Round Up this week it’s all about exhibitions. In London, New York, Berlin, and Sydney there’s a host of fantastic photographic exhibitions currently on and about to open. Plus check out the photo essay on the changing face of Harlem. More than 30 photos feature on this week's blog.

Exhibitions:

London

Constructing Worlds: Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age

(C) Andreas Gursky

This comprehensive exhibition at London's brilliant Barbican showcases the works of 18 photographers spanning the 1930s to today. With images from New York's soaring skyline to post-war California, contemporary Venezuela and the colonial era of the Congo, Constructing Worlds gives an extraordinary insight into the architectural designs that have shaped our cities.

Dutch photographer Iwan Baan's images (below) are among my favourites, but there are so many amazing images, and structures, in this exhibition. If you are in London this is a must-see exhibition, as the stories these images tell go far beyond the physical to make comment on the changes to our communities in the wake of progress.

(C) Iwan Baan

(C) Iwan Baan

(C) Iwan Baan

(C) Nadav Kander

(C) Berenice Abbott - New York City 1932

Until 11 January, 2015

Barbican

Silk Street

London

New York to Chattanooga

The New York Times Magazine Photographs

Curated by the magazine’s longtime photo editor Kathy Ryan and Aperture Foundation’s Lesley A. Martin

Gregory Crewdson, Julianne Moore, from “Dream House,” 2002

This traveling exhibition showcases photographic projects that have appeared in the New York Times Magazine spanning the past 15 years. The show closes this weekend in New York and its next stop is the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tennessee 24 November to 29 March 2015.

Lars Tunbjörk, 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue, published May 18, 1997

Ryan McGinley, Emily Cook, 2010 Olympic freestyle skier (aerials). From “Up!,” published February 7, 2010 (cover image)

Roger Ballen, Actress Selma Blair. From “The Selma Blair Witch Project: Fall’s Dark Silhouettes Have a Way of Creeping Up on You,” published October 30, 2005

Malick Sidibé, Assitan Sidibé in Marni and Christian Lacroix. From “Prints and the

Revolution,” published April 5, 2009

Berlin

Cordelia Beresford - Night Watchman

Cordelia Beresford, the daughter of Australian film director Bruce Beresford, has carved a reputation for herself as an accomplished director and award-winning cinematographer, and she is also a highly collectible photo-artist. This exhibition features her still photography, recent works that echo cinematic qualities and also draw on her work with leading choreographers. It's a curious collection, but shows her diversity as an artist.

Until 21 November

Michael Reid Berlin

Ackerstraße 163

D-10115 Berlin

Sydney

Steve Greenaway - A City Unpolarised

In this series, Sydney photographer Steve Greenaway layers images of mannequins and shopfronts over urban streetscapes to create a multidimensional look at iconic cities including London, New York and Sydney. By choosing to portray these photographs in black and white, Greenaway has managed to slow down what are busy, complex images and allow the eye to be drawn in.

November 11-30

Blackeye Gallery

3/138 Darlinghurst Road

Darlinghurst

Anne Ferran – Shadow Land

This 30-year retrospective features the largest collection of works by Australian photo-media artist Anne Ferran to be shown in Sydney. Ferran also currently has two works on show at Monash Gallery of Art as part of the Photography Meets Feminism group exhibition.

Opens 7 November

Australian Centre for Photography

257 Oxford Street

Paddington

Photo essay:

125th: Time in Harlem

Capturing the changing face of Harlem in New York, photographers Edward Hillel and Isaac Diggs walked the length of 125th Street from the Hudson to the Harlem River in 2009 to document the neighbourhood. Here are some of their images, which the pair hope to publish in a book in the near future.

This is important work. Our cities and suburbs are changing rapidly, not just physically, but socially as well. The gentrification of suburbs that were once deemed unfashionable, or unsavoury, has resulted in the homogenisation of the urban landscape. Photo essays like this will become visual time capsules, our only link to the past. Once the wrecking balls have done their work, and the multi-national brands have visually cloned our cities, these photographs will take on historical import and allow future generations to see what was lost. This may be a romantic view, but I firmly believe that in the rush for progress and the rapid evolution of technology, communities are losing their individuality and vibrancy to the hollow promises of the corporate dollar.

All images (C) Edward Hillel and Isaac Diggs

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.