17/12/2014

Through the Lens of Awoiska van der Molen

Awoiska van der Molen, was born 1972 in Groningen, the Netherlands and is currently based between Amsterdam and Umbria, Italy. After studying photography at St. Joost Academy Breda (NL) and architecture the Dutch Academy of fine Arts Minerva in Groningen, van deer Molen became known for her monochrome landscapes, taken throughout the Europe. Her work arises out of a desire to penetrate deeply into the core of the isolated world in which she photographs. She stands out as someone who remains rooted in the riches of analogue photography and printing, playing out these roots in an extreme manner by creating monumental pieces that combine intentionality in choice of subject and photographic craftsmanship.

Images courtesy of Awoiska van der Molen 
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10/12/2014

Nicolò Degiorgis: Hidden Islam

In the introduction to the book “Hidden Islam”, Martin Paar writes: “Consider these facts: in Italy the right to worship, without discrimination, is enshrined within the constitution. There are 1.35 million Muslims in Italy and yet, officially, only eight mosques in the whole country. One consequence is that the Muslim population have accumulated a huge number of makeshift and temporary places of worship. These are housed in a variety of buildings including lock ups, garages, shops, warehouses and old factories. This shortage of places to worship is particularly acute in north east Italy – where the photographer Nicolò Degiorgis lives – home to many anti-Islamic campaigns headed by the right wing party Lega Nord. The dull images of the many and diverse buildings that house the makeshift mosques are printed on folded pages. You open up the gatefold to reveal the scenes inside the mosques, shot in full colour. The size of the gatherings varies, from large crowds who sometimes pray outside to a small room full to bursting, or to intimate groups of two or three Muslims. Degiorgis provides a fascinating glimpse of hidden world and leaves the conclusions about this project entirely in our own hands.” Neither a critique nor a call to action, Nicolò Degiorgis’ “Hidden Islam” reveals the precarious lives that often lie beneath the surface of contemporary societies. In fact, Degiorgis speaks specifically about the human condition of Muslims in Italy, and yet what his photographs reveal the most is the contradictory, regressive and cynic condition of the Italian society as a whole.

Rujana Rebernjak 
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26/11/2014

Through the Lens of Andrea Grützner

Images courtesy of Andrea Grützner
 
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19/11/2014

Ettore Moni: Case Sospese

“Case Sospese” is an architectural and anthropological exploration of the banks of river Po, undertaken by Parma-based photographer Ettore Moni. Attentive to landscape, but focused on housing, the project captures stilts, boats, barges, mobile homes and hanging houses that seem to come from a different world. These constructions are in-between nature that is perpetually on the move and the willingness of man to put down roots. Ettore Moni captures the essence of this suspended landscape, through images taken with a large format camera and left untouched. Moni portrays natural and urban landscapes in search of signs left by man; signs of human intervention that shift the perception of space that surrounds us.

Rujana Rebernjak – Images courtesy of Ettore Moni 
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12/11/2014

Viviane Sassen at The Photographers’ Gallery

Analemma: Fashion Photography 1992 – 2012 at The Photographer’s Gallery is the first London presentation of works by Dutch-born photographer Viviane Sassen (b. 1972), one of the most exciting and creative figures working across contemporary art and photography today. Her highly distinctive style reflects an innovative and dynamic approach to the medium, producing images that foreground an expressive use of colour and tone, unusual viewpoints and a sculptural concern with form and shape that often lends a surreal quality to her compositions. This exhibition focuses on her fashion work and features around 350 images that subvert the limits and conventions of this genre. Sassen has conceived an immersive installation for The Photographers’ Gallery, presenting her images as a series of dynamic looped projections which sweep over and across the Gallery walls and floor. Mirrors and specially defined projection areas dissect the photographed bodies and disturb the viewers’ sense of gravity and viewing expectations.

Rujana Rebernjak 
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05/11/2014

My Belgrade by Boris Kralj

In everyday life, nostalgia is often associated with a warm feeling of subtle longing for the past, typically “for a period or place with happy personal associations”. Yet, in certain contexts, nostalgia can play a more significant role, related to issues of politics, collective memory, cultural and national identity. After the Yugoslav Wars, the citizens of former Yugoslavian countries developed a specific form of nostalgia for their socialist past. Defined Yugo-nostalgia, it has since grown into a real cultural phenomenonin an attempt to justify and cope with the region’s difficult past.

While Boris Kralj, a Berlin-based photographer and son of Yugoslav immigrants to Germany, has not experienced the life within the Yugoslav regime directly, his nostalgic photographic exploration of the former country’s capital, Belgrade, can be seen as a quest for personal identity. My Belgrade, takes the shape of a book that collects images of the city that form a very specific place in the collective Yugoslav memory, even: the neon signs and dull loking cinemas, the overwhelming brutalist buildings and empty roads, the grey skies and occasional pops of red. These are all iconic elements that appear in Kralj’s photographs, telling a story – that is both personal and collective – of nations that tried to forget their common past and are now reclaiming it with a vengeance.

Rujana Rebernjak – Images courtesy of Boris Kralj 
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29/10/2014

David Armstrong’s Eternal Youth

An ode to youth, beauty and love, David Armstrong’s work is both ethereal, fleeting and subtle, yet almost unbearably truthful, timeless and sincere. Part of the so-called Boston-school, for the most of his life Armstrong was known as one of Nan Goldin’s best friends and assistant rather than an artist in his own right. Appreciated for his delicate portraits of young men, Armstrong was only ever able to capture the essence of people he loved or felt connected to, which, perhaps explains why he found it difficult to engage with the fashion sphere of which he only recently became a universally appreciated member. Unfortunately, Armstrong’s newly re-discovered career as a fashion photographer was interrupted last Saturday, when he died at the age of 60. While the youthful characters portrayed in his images cannot escape the passage of time, David Armstrong’s life and work most certainly already have.

Rujana Rebernjak 
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15/10/2014

Under Construction – New Positions in American Photography

In her collection of essays “On Photography” first published 1977, Susan Sontag wrote: “Needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted. Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution.” Nearly forty years later, the over-consumption of images has now turned into oblivion; we are oblivious to the effects of images, they do not reach our consciousness and are, ever more, turning our reality into a bleak, fading experience. The value and significance of photography is often the subject discussed by contemporary photographers who, through their work, question the very principles of the medium.

A new exhibition at the Foam Museum in Amsterdam gives space to this line of enquiry by proposing the work of nine US and Canadian photographers – Sara VanDerBeek, Lucas Blalock, Joshua Citarella, Jessica Eaton, Daniel Gordon, Owen Kydd, Matt Lipps, Matthew Porter, Kate Steciw – whose project pose questions like: in this new world, how can photography or a photograph be defined and what is its value and significance? How are photographic images created? How does photography relate to reality? What is the function of images in a society in which digitisation has so fundamentally altered the way we communicate (socially, politically and commercially)? “Under Construction – New Positions in American Photography” will run until December 10th 2014 at Foam in Amsterdam.

Image credits, top to bottom: This is Tomorrow, 2013 © Matthew Porter / Courtesy M+B gallery, Los Angeles; Silhouette, 2010 © Daniel Gordon; Heads, 2010 © Matt Lipps / Courtesy Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco; Ancient Solstice, 2014 © Sara VanDerBeek / Courtesy of the Artist, Metro Pictures NY and The Approach London; Standing Offer, 2011 © Lucas Blalock / Courtesy Ramiken Crucible, New York; cfaal 379, 2013 © Jessica Eaton / Courtesy M+B gallery, Los Angeles; Composition 008, 2014 © Kate Steciw / Courtesy Neumeister Bar-AmBerlin and the artist.

Rujana Rebernjak 
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01/10/2014

Jan Kempenaers: Enjoy the Process

Jan Kempenaers: Enjoy the Process is a substantial mid-career survey of Jan Kempenaers’ new and recent work at Breese Little gallery in London, introducing the breadth of Kempenaers’ work beyond his most renowned images: from photographic series, such as the iconic Spomenik, and individual images, to recent experiments with screen-printing and a full display of artist’s books.

Kempenaers’ photographic body of work is highly considered and meticulously compiled. Most series are restricted to a few carefully chosen shots of striking compositions, while his archiving procedure shaves down any surplus imagery in favour of crucially representative images. The photographer presents a spectacle of cities and nature linked by understatement such as S.F. – L.A. (2010), a series that documents a road trip down the West Coast of America, privileging plants, trees and cacti along the route, whether in the desert or the central reservation of a highway.

Kempenaers is best known for the stark photographs of his Spomenik series, iconic images charting World War Two memorials commissioned by General Tito in the 1960s and ‘70s in the former Yugoslavia. Crucial to his career and recent development, a number of Spomeniks will feature in the exhibition, alongside new works entitled Ghost Spomeniks, monochrome re-workings of Kempenaers’ original views of the monuments.
Jan Kempenaers: Enjoy the Process will run until October 25th 2014 at Breese Little in London.

Images courtesy of Jan Kempenaers and Breese Little 
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24/09/2014

Man Ray at Villa Manin

History has shown that some of the world’s greatest inventions often happen by chance. According to the artist’s memoir, it was distraction, slight negligence and a good dose of luck that, in 1922, brought to light Man Ray’s famous ‘rayographs’. A continuous experimenter, provocateur and always a step ahead of his time, Man Ray was not only a witness, but the protagonist, agitator and point of reference of one of the most brilliant periods of creative production of the last century. A new exhibition at Villa Manin near Udine, Italy, explores the different spheres of Man Ray’s work and life: from his frequent travels and illustrious friendships – namely the creative partnership with Marcel Duchamp – to his charming muses – Lee Miller, Kiki de Montparnasse or Meret Oppenheim – and obsession with ever-evolving technology. But, most of all, the exhibition traces the richness of Ray’s work that evolved from photography to painting from film to sculpture, from objet trouvé to pure, unconditional sharpness of thought that was, after all, his most brilliant medium.

Man Ray, Rayography, 1922-1923 – Images courtesy of Man Ray Trust 
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