Photography art Gallery Friday Round Up - 6 June, 2014|Photography Art Definition

This week on Friday Round Up four new exhibitions for Melbourne; more news from the Auckland Festival of Photography; and an interview with Italian photo-artist Valentina Vannicola in the new Q&A section above. Plus Head On Photo Festival closes this weekend in Sydney and Australian high-end photography book publisher T&G Publishing launches Jean-Marc Caimi’s new book Daily Bread in Sweden and Japan.

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Exhibition: - Melbourne

Three Shows at Edmund Pearce

Christian Pearson – Industrial Graffiti

Photographer Christian Pearson, who is from Melbourne, says the works that comprise "Industrial Graffiti" aim to convey an “unconscious aesthetic created by labourers, technicians and engineers during the construction of our urban built environment”.

(C) All images Christian Pearson

Defining the concept of ‘industrial graffiti’ Pearson says his images capture what appear as random markings on industrial sites, squiggles, letters, numbers, scrawled in different colours on metal, wood, plastic and over paint.

“The marking is an ephemeral part of a process that ultimately leads to the creation of a new, functional and aesthetic objective,” Pearson states. Like some graffiti, these markings appear defacements when in fact they are codes that guide those erecting our cities. This exhibition is an interesting visual study on a form of communication known to few.

Also on show at Edmund Pearce:

Tim Gresham – Reflect

Shannon McGrath - Fraction

Edmund Pearce

Level 2, Nicholas Building

37 Swanston Street,

Melbourne

Until 28 June

Exhibition: Melbourne

Tom Williams – Portside

(C) Tom Williams

(C) Tom Williams

Often the most powerful photographic stories are those you find in your own backyard. Tom Williams has spent years abroad capturing other cultures and building a career in documentary portraiture. On returning to Australia and the town of Wollongong, (near Sydney) Williams turned his focus on the local population and how the failing industrial economy was impacting residents.

In his exhibition “Portside” are images taken in Port Kembla and Wollongong, both places that have made their mark through the mining and shipping industries. Williams says he found Wollongong a shadow of its former self with those formerly engaged in industrial jobs now joining the ranks of the unemployed.

“The postcard coastline parallels one of the highest youth unemployment rates in Australia,” he says. “As a photographer I’m always asking: what do surfaces say about what’s hidden behind them? What attracts me to making portraits is the brief and intense interaction that results in an image that speaks of the subject, the picture-taker; and sometimes, the place. In the end you can only try to guess at the magnificent complexity and consciousness beneath the outer layer – this is something that keeps us looking at photographs.”

Colour Factory

409-429 Gore Street

Fitzroy

Book Launch:

Jean-Marc Caimi – Daily Bread

I’ll say it upfront. I am biased as I was the editor on this new book by Jean-Marc Caimi “Daily Bread”, and of course I love it. Publisher Gianni Frinzi of T&G Publishing has once again done a brilliant job bringing this book to life. It launched in Sweden last week at Caimi’s exhibition of the same name. You can buy Daily Bread by following the link here.

Daily Bread also launches at the exhibition’s opening in Tokyo at Reminders Photography Stronghold (RPS) on June 14. Caimi is the fourth recipient of the RPS Grant, which he was awarded for Daily Bread.

Launch: Saturday, June 14 at 4:00pm

2-38-5

Higashi-mukojima

Sumida, Tokyo 131-0032

Festival:

Head On Photo Festival

(C) Alison Stieven-Taylor

Head On Photo Festival ends this weekend. Check out the website to see what shows are still on

Showing Now for Head On

Valentina Vannicola's Dante's Inferno - until 8 June

Click on the Feature Articles tab above to read Alison Stieven-Taylor's interview with Valentina about this meticulous and thought-provoking work.

(C) Valentina Vannicola/OnOffPicture

Festival:

Selected Exhibitions – Part Two:

Auckland Festival of Photography

Signature Exhibitions - Alison Stieven-Taylor’s Selection

Last week Photojournalism Now previewed some of the exhibitions on show in the first week of the Auckland Festival of Photography. This week Photojournalism Now takes a look at two exhibitions – one showing now and the other opening 12 June. Both present very different approaches to this year’s Signature Series’ theme -memory. There is also a photo-gallery with images from Rob Gilhooly’s “Suicide Forest” and Emil McAvoy’s “Reflections on Lily Pond”.

Showing Now

Auschwitz Revisited

(C) Bronek Kozka

Melbourne-based photographer Bronek Kozka’s “Auschwitz Revisited” is a contemporary portrait of a landscape that will be remembered in the annals of history as the site of one of the darkest moments of humankind. "Standing in the bitter cold looking to a foggy horizon and seeing what looked like columns, but they were chimneystacks for as far as I could see. One chimney, one hut...the magnitude of the horror dawned on me at this moment. I didn’t want to take any photographs at first...however at some point I decided to shoot. It was here that the most frightening and daunting revelation occurred to me. How close my family was to Auschwitz...how all could have ended here." This is how Kozka describes his experience visiting Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland where he found himself on a personal exploration into his Polish heritage. His black and white images weave his own story with the somberness of the landscape and its open wounds.

(C) Bronek Kozka

Auschwitz Revisited

Bronek Kozka

4-21 June

Elam George Fraser Gallery

University of Auckland

25a Princes Street

Auckland

Opens 12 June

Unruly Memoirs: Nature Fights Back

(C) Jane Zusters

In “Unruly Memoirs: Nature Fights Back” Christchurch-based artist Jane Zusters examines the aftermath of that city’s recent devastating earthquakes in a series of “geopolitical montages”. In this collection of digital images Zusters combines images of external and internal spaces to pose unlikely realms where the ceiling of a library may be blue sky and clouds, or the wall to a bedroom open to the street. These images while somewhat surreal are also situated in reality, reminders of the impermanence of structures and their perceived safety especially when faced by the power of Mother Nature.

(C) Jane Zusters

12-28 June

Sanderson Contemporary Art

122 Jervois Road

Herne Bay

Suicide Forest

Rob Gilhooly

(C) Rob Gilhooly

4-17 June

Hum Salon

123 Grafton Road

Grafton

(Read last week's blog post for the story on this exhibition)

Emil McAvoy

Reflections on Lily Pond

(C) Emil McAvoy

11 June - 21 June

ELAM Projectspace Gallery, Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland, 20 Whitaker Place

Photoforum: History in The Taking; 40 years (6-28 June)

Gus Fisher Gallery

74 Shortland Street

For details visit Auckland Festival of Photography

Photography art Gallery Friday Round Up - 4 July, 2014|Photography Art Definition

This week on Friday Round Up photojournalist Tim Page releases his "21" box set, Nathan Miller's new book Somewhere in Jaffa in review, an interview with Melbourne photographer Rod McNicol, and congratulations to Shannon Jensen, Viviane Dalles and Maxim Dondyuk for their award wins. Plus a quick recap of the exhibitions currently on in Melbourne and Sydney.

Pictures of the Week

(Photo: Library of Congress)

100 years ago the world was at war. The Great War, as World War 1 is known, involved more than 27 nations. More than 16 million people lost their lives and another 21 million were wounded. 100 years on and the machinations that drive countries to war are still firmly entrenched. Who says history never repeats? The top photograph was taken in 1916 in Romania. The bottom in Syria in 2014.

(Photo: AFP)

Box Collection:

Tim Page "21"

In 2010 British-born photojournalist Tim Page was named one of the “100 Most Influential Photographers of All Time,” by Professional Photographer magazine. Page, who is now 70 years old, has spent more than half a century immersed in the sometimes heady, often uncertain world of the photojournalist. He’s had books written about him, movies made and numerous international exhibitions. But perhaps one of his greatest challenges has been to select a mere 21 photographs from his archive of more than a quarter of a million negatives to create his limited edition boxed set “21”....(to read Alison Stieven-Taylor's story on L'Oeil de la Photographie please click here). (Photo: (C) Tim Page).

Book:

Nathan Miller - Somewhere in Jaffa

Israeli photographer Nathan Miller lived in close proximity to the port city of Jaffa for more than 20 years. As a young man in Tel Aviv, Miller rarely gave this ancient city a thought; he was more interested in seeing the world, than exploring his own backyard and spent years traversing the globe photographing cultural histories before ending up in Australia where he now lives.

As is often the case when it comes to creative projects, Miller’s ‘Somewhere in Jaffa’ began completely by chance. On a trip to Israel fate played its hand. Unable to find accommodation in Tel Aviv, Miller bedded down in Jaffa for the first time. “Suddenly a new world opened up to me and I fell in love,” he states...(to read the full review and see more photographs please click on the Book Reviews tab at the top of this blog). (Photo: (C) Nathan Miller)

Interview:

Rod McNicol

Australian photographer Rod McNicol has made a 36-year career out of a singular vision; to take portraits in the 19th Century ‘stare back’ style. Now a major survey of his work, ‘Memento Mori’, is on show in Melbourne.

McNicol was one of the early students of the now infamous Prahran College of the Arts in Melbourne. In its heyday in the seventies, and under the tutelage of one of the most creative, and unorthodox teaching staff, Prahran encouraged its students to genuinely think outside the box. But after a semester at Prahran McNicol decided the College environment wasn’t for him. “I knew I’d be locked into this obsession and I was right. Three and a half decades later and I’m still there”...(to read the full interview and see more photographs please click on the Feature Articles tab at the top of this blog). (Photo: (C) Rod McNicol).

Awards - The Winners:

Shannon Jensen wins Inge Morath Award

Viviane Dalles wins Canon Female Photojournalist 2014

Maxim Dondyuk win Rémi Ochlik Award

It is tremendous to see photographers that we've profiled on Photojournalism Now take out some of the major awards in our industry. In the last month three major awards have been announced and here are the winners:

Inge Morath Award

American photojournalist Shannon Jensen has won the 2014 Inge Morath Award. Jensen was selected for her photo essay "A Long Walk," which documents refugees fleeing the violence in Sudan through focusing on their footwear. This has been a controversial work for Jensen who has had mixed reviews. But the endorsement of Magnum Photos in naming Jensen this year's winner will enable her to complete her story, which may become a book. To see more of her work click here.

(C) Shannon Jensen

Canon Female Photojournalist

French photographer Viviane Dalles has been named this year's winner of the Canon Female Photojournalist Award from a pool of over 90 applicants from 26 countries. The competition, which is sponsored by ELLE magazine, carries an 8,000€ prize that Dalles will use to complete her project on teen pregnancy in northern France. To see more of her work click here.

Portrait: Viviane Dalles

Rémi Ochlik Award

Winner of this year's Prix de la Ville de Perpignan Rémi Ochlik Award is Ukrainian photographer Maxim Dondyuk. As part of the prize Dondyuk's work will be exhibited at this year's Visa pour l'Image in Perpignan in September. Earlier this year we featured Dondyuk's intense photo essay on the TB epidemic plaguing Ukraine on Friday Round Up (7 March). To view more of his work click here.

(C) Maxim Dondyuk

Exhibitions: Melbourne

Edmund Pearce - View from the Window until 19 July

(C) Justine Varga

Strange Neighbour - A Window that isn't there until 2 August

(C) Daniella Gullotta

Centre for Contemporary Photography - The Sievers Project until 31 August

(C) Jane Brown

Exhibitions: Sydney

Black Eye Gallery - Germinate until 13 July

(C) Eden Diebel

Art Gallery of NSW - Max Dupain Paris until 24 September

(C) Max Dupain

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).