Visiting the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize 2014

One of my favourite exhibition  events is the Deutsche Borse Exhibition, not least because it always makes me stand infront of the winner and ask myself 'why?'  as I never seem to agree with the judges decision.

The Deutsche Borse Photography Prize 2014 is awarded to a living photographer for a specific body of work in a publication or exhibition format which is judged to have 'significantly contributed' to photography in Europe between
1 October 2012 and 30 September 2013.

Four artists were shortlisted; Alberto Garcia-Alix, Jochen Lempert, Richard Mosse and Lorna Simpson. And the winner? Richard Mosse for his exhibition 'The Enclave' - a multimedia installation at the Irish Pavilion at last year's Venice Biennale.

His photographs portraying  war-scarred landscapes in eastern Congo are eyecatching,intriguing and unsettling. They have an almost psychedelic appearance derived from a pink hue - he used out of date military infra-red film which used to be used to identify camouflaged targets. Reading Mark Brown's article in the Guardian at
http://goo.gl/NR4fjo   it seems the colours were all about attracting people and keeping their attention so that they watched all the films in the exhibition. Obviously the Deutsche Borse prize  exhibition can only show a small part of the prize winning body of work but what I did see may me wonder whether what Mosse's audience drew from this work. For me the colours were 'magical' but drew my eye away from the subject matter - more natural colours or even black and white would have worked better for me, allowing a greater opportunity to consider the complexity of war without the distraction of his colour scheme.

So what about the other contenders? The shortlisted works  of Alberto Garcia-Aliz, Jochen Lempert and Lorna Simpson  were all in black and white. 

Lempert has used photography to study humans and the natural world since the 1990s; his work ranges from everyday views to abstracts. I liked what I saw but it did

engage me emotionally..

In a series called 1957-2009 American Lorna Simpson took images from a late 1950s photo album and re created them featuring herself.It is difficult to work out which images are the originals and which the re-enacted ones.Is this what she intended as the outcome or rather emphasising themes such as gender, identity through the contrasting versions? Hard to say, other than it raises the question of what is actually real here.

Lastly, Alberto Garcia-Alix's publication 'Autorretrato/ Selfportrait' - black and white self portraits offering insight into his life over four decades. Standing in front of images reflecting a junkie's life,I could see the intended 'drama' of the subject matter clearly, though again I didn't feel engaged.

So this year's Deutsche Borse photography prize did not disappoint as yet again I came away wondering how you can judge such a diverse range of work..and again not entirely agreeing with the outcome - though this time I could not choose a winner myself.

Looking for light Jane Bown

Came across reference in the Guardian ( 27 April 2014 ) to a documentary about Jane Bown who worked as a photographer for the Observer. Mark Kermode's review can be found at  http://goo.gl/BROzS

I hadn't heard of Bown but I discovered that she was a portrait photographer of some renown and legend. Thought I'd check the film out as her work is in monochrome , an area of photography which I am increasingly drawn to. Her photographs are presented without aural accompaniment - as Kermode says, ' allowed ( indeed demanding) to speak for themselves'.

As you might guess, I also discovered that cinemas were not queuing up for this film, certainly not in the south east outside London. However, I'm told there will be a DVD coming out soon ..and I will be buying it!

Andy Warhol and William S. Burroughs

More delights at the Photographer's Gallery...

Andy Warhol: Photographs 1976 - 1987
How great to see some of Warhol's black and white photographs in front of you.

While photographic imagery permeated his work as  a painter, filmmaker and colourist, it seems that it was only later in his life that he began to focus on photography in its own right. This coincided with a developing acquaintance with the compact cameras of the 1970s. Apparently he carried a camera with him most of the time and often took more than 36 black and white frames a day. His subjects ranged from the  everyday detail of the street, interiors , signage and cityscapes to people and celebrity parties.

I was delighted to seem some examples of his interest in serial  and repeated imagery..a series of 'stitched' photographs. These  show identical images arranged in grid form and stitched together with a sewing machine.

Turning to the photography of William S. Burroughs ...


Here I have to confess my ignorance of this, I now understand, very influential twentieth century author American novelist, essayist, 'spoken word performer' and painter. The exhibition notes indicate that Burroughs' work as a photographer is rarely acknowledged but this doesn't make me feel any better.

'Taking shots: the Photography of William S. Burroughs is the first exhibition worldwide to focus on his 'vast photographic oeuvre and offer important insights into his creative processes'.

The images above are very small black and white photos reminiscent of those in my parent's family album taken in the late fifties. These and other similar ones strike me as aide memoires for work in progress or at the pre or current planning process...

One series did have significance for me ..

 



The above is part of the Series : What Was , What Isn't - 'these photographs record the before and after of a sexual encounter.The bed becomes a scene in which action, unseen, leaves traces which are then concealed.

Burroughs was concerned with the relation between experience, absence, and presence, and how the camera could evoke something that no longer exists - but also how photographs work to influence and construct memories and desires'. This resonated with me as it is at the very heart of what I am exploring through my personal project

David Lynch : the Factory Photographs

I can never give up a trip to the Photographer's Gallery when in London and this time I struck lucky with three exhibitions.
David lynch's exhibition featured black and white interiors and exteriors of industrial structures taken at various locations including London, Germany, Poland, New York and New Jersey.

I am always attracted by black and white photography and these had the lure of Lynch's cinematic style as well.

His images are dark and brooding depicting the decay of man-made structures, hinting at a bygone industrial age.

My partner asked me what made these images special i.e. warranting such an exhibition - were they here through real merit or because of the person who took the images or a combination of both. It was a good question. I liked his work -there were some images I personally found eyecatching; they drew my eye through the composition,use of light to reflect mood and enhance design. Whether they were 'special' is I guess in the eye of the beholder...but I think  deserving of a wider audience which of course an exhibition can bring even to a well known name...  

Peter Jarvis - Australian photographer

I wanted to come back to Pete Jarver as I was very much drawn to his work which I came across by accident in Kuranda, NT, Australia when trying to get away from the tropical downpour outside. Disappointingly for the Gallery Manager his work was financially out of my league but she didn't hold this against me being quite happy to get out the last of a limited edition for me to look at more closely.

Many of his images had the technical detail displayed alongside which I find particularly interesting - more so this time given I had seen some of the dramatic landscapes that he favoured and had tried to take photographs myself. Think I was somewhat reassured when told that he often took over two months to get the image he was looking for..I can understand that given the way light can impact dramatically on the architecture and sculpture of the Outback landscapes.  I found it very frustrating to see what I wanted to capture at Uluru but knowing that the light was not yet right to bring out the dramatic lines of the eroded rock and that the coach was waiting to take us away. Definitely a question of going off to take photos on your own...

Peter Jarver ( 1953-2003) was completely self-taught award winning photographer who travelled Australia for 20 years capturing the landscape. His work can be found at http://www.peterjarver.com . Some might say it is very commercial in its appearance and maybe some of the images have that look or maybe are 'packaged' that way but I liked many of his interior landscape shots which look deceptively simple but are obviously not.

How lucky can you get - Lee Friedlander's 'America by Car'

During an amazing birthday weekend with friends in Amsterdam, I had tremendous luck in coming across an exhibition of Lee Friedlander's 'America by Car. I always try to  check out whether there are any photography museums / exhibitions in cities visited on holiday and I struck gold in Foam, the photography Museum in Amsterdam.

I really like his work and to come across such a comprehensive collection of hos photographs was fantastic and particularly timely as I have just completed my monochrome assignment.

America by Car is Friedlander's great road trip..a series of images where he is looking out from cars as opposed to the earler body of work that he did for Harpers's Bazaar in 1060s.

This earlier assignment commissioned in 1963 by Ruth Ansel and Bea Feitler was all about photographing a fleet of next year's car models for a preview portfolio to be published in the November issue. They asked only that Friedlander produce his work on time.
This was the era of very memorable classic car design; cars were coming off the factory line symbolising 'American cool' - sleek, smooth curves and elongated bodies. So not surprisingly, Friedlander's take as someone who could not be called an car enthusiast in any way and who pushed the cars well into the background almost relegating them to very subsidiary roles did not go down well with Harper Bazaar's editor, Nancy White. She pulled the feature concerned at how the car companies might react.

The reason for mentioning this is that looking at the exhibition before me in Amsterdam, I could see his provocative approach again.. juxtaposition of the ordinary and regarded by some as awkward intrusions encroaching on the composition.

Lee Friedlander California 2008

Trying to work out what I like about his images here has been a real test. On one level, I just love the idea of looking at the view from inside the car where the car interior shapes the outcome as much as the camera. We usually look out unconsciously ignoring the 'car frame' to see the view but here the car is part of the view. Reading about the exhibition it seems that Friedlander often chose rental cars according to the pictorial potential of the interior door panels, centre consoles and steering wheels. On the other hand I like the use of the wing mirror to add a 'second layer'; an extension of and contribution to the image . And then there are the visual jokes...

Lee Friedlander Montana 2008

I was interested to learn from the exhibition notes that in the early 1990s, Friedlander began to use a Hasselblad Superwide camera. This produced a square negative  more than four times the size of that yielded by his 35mm Leica. What seemed to result here was a larger field of vision and the camera's ability to compress space so that things both very far and very near could be rendered in the same frame with the same clarity.

These are beautiful monochrome images. I like the compositions; I like the 'architectural dynamism of the images. I admire the creativity and skill that produced such work.. Shall be definitely looking to discover more of Friedlander's work. 


Footnote:   Would recommend anyone visiting Foam while in Amsterdam. One of the other exhibitions there was Cristina De Middel's 'The Afronauts' ; again a fortunate discovery as I had been telling a friend travelling with me all about the Borse Deutsch Photography Prize 2013 the previous evening!  

Foam
Keizersgracht 609
1017 DS Amsterdam
www.foam.org

Arundel Gallery Trail 2013

This year was the 25th year of the trail. The 65 venues were scattered around the historic town of Arundel and offered a wide range of painting, ceramics, photography, jewellery, furniture, textiles, illustrations and sculpture.

For me this year's trail was an opportunity to talk to some of the photographers exhibiting their work. I came across Darrell Gale's exhibition 'scandelight' early on. He focuses on architectural photography and I was interested to learn that he did not use Lightroom or Photoshop believing it better to limit the amount of post production processing.

More interesting was the discussion I had with Celia Henderson about one particular image she had amongst her exhibition. It was an interesting abstract but what drew my attention was the colour and play of light within the image. She described to me the commission that led to the image and the need to conjure up the colours of a peacock's feathers. This was done by casting a few drops of petrol onto a puddle of rain water, then using curves and levels in the processing of the image. An amazing image!

I also took the opportunity to chat to Christian Doyle, a photographer who was exhibiting   some very good images of school life. What struck me was the impression that came over from the pictures that the subjects were not conscious of the camera. Thinking about Chris Killip's techniques of immersing himself in the community he wanted to capture and over time taking images that avoided the self consciousness of many subjects having their photo taken, I wondered what technique she used. It turned out that as you might expect with a commercial commission that time was limited which meant that the results came from skill, technique, imagination some degree of luck!!

Patrick Caulfield and Gary Hume at Tate Britain

I enjoyed both these exhibitions run in parallel at Tate Britain.

Starting with Gary Hume's exhibition first...the exhibition was designed to highlight Hume's
' innovative approach to colour and composition, developed over the last 20 years'  so said the Tate guide.  This was the first time that I had seen his work and I found that some works resonated better with me than others. His colour combinations are often very strong and sometimes dissonant  and for me some worked better than others.

P 588

The above image taken outside the exhibition shows the entrance doors  created for the exhibition by Hume. These doors recall his earlier work on graduating from Goldsmith College in 1988, when he  began creating paintings based on hospital doors produced in high gloss on aluminium.

Later work moved away from doors to focus on various subjects from birds to flowers, people and motifs. I particularly liked the work below:



Older 2002  Gloss on aluminium  Private collection Gary Hume

I think the composition works well here; the silhouetted figure standing sideways can be interpreted looking away or towards the viewer. The shape of the figure conjures up old age ; a concept emphasised by the use of colour - a simple but at the same time complex interpretation. 





Window at night 1969 .Oil paint on canvas. Private collection Patrick Caufield ( 1936-2005) 

Patrick Caulfield's work was an interesting and in a sense complimentary exhibition. Early on he opted to use a more anonymous technique of painting derived from commercial sign painters producing work that has simple outlines and areas of  flat colour. I enjoyed looking at his 'signature use of black outlines ' and simple colour backgrounds. I thought the painting above, 'Window at night', very striking ; the angled lines somehow giving it energy and drawing the viewer in. I could see this composition as a photo image but then wondered whether this would as well as the painted de-cluttered version?

Later in the 1970s, he began to explore the concept of combining different styles of representation in the same painting. This interested me as the next part of the course focuses on reality and intervention  - see below :




After lunch 1975 Acrylic on canvas  Tate. Patrick Caulfield 

I suspect that part of the appeal of Caulfield's work for me is the abstract simplicity and I do wonder how this could be done as effectively using a camera.

Mass Observation : This is your photo exhibition

This was a fascinating exhibition at the Photographers' Gallery which demonstrated the role of photography in the Mass Observation Archive. I have read some of the Mass Observation material set out in Simon Garfield's Our Hidden Lives ( Ebury Press 2004) which set outs some remarkable diaries from post war Britain which provide a fascinating insight into the lives of ordinary people just after the Second World War. So I was attracted to this particular exhibition as I was intrigued to see what part photography has  played in the Mass Observation ( MO) since the experiment began in 1937.


The images chosen spanned decades from the 1940s to more recent Directives set in the 2000s including black and white as well as colour images with contributions from such as filmmaker Humphrey Jennings and photographer Humphrey Spender as well as members of the public. Alongside these images there were examples of anecdotal evidence from people's everyday lives. The first part of the exhibition covers 1937 - 48.

Humphrey Spender : Parliamentary by-election - children hanging around outside 1937/8 c Bolton Council

Researching Humphrey Spender ( 1910-2005), I found that he was a pioneer of the documentary style of photography who joined the MO team in 1937. I was interested to learn that he felt images of people worked bet if they were unaware of the camera. Certainly it seems that he took very little equipment with him and often concealing it with a mackintosh. I wonder if street photography has become even more of a challenge these days given people's increasing concern about personal space and the intrusiveness of photography into people's everyday lives  i.e. when out and about the high street...and suspicion that images could be taken for the wrong reason or used against them e.g. by the 'authorities'. Again I wonder how much time was actually spent amongst the subjects being 'studied' by MO given the approach Chris Killip took in getting to know the people who became the subject of his work What happened, Great Britain 1970-1990.

The second part of the exhibition features photographs, many snapshots, that come from questionnaires called Directives.

Image taken by Observer no. 2203 , a reply to the 2007 summer directive ( You and Gardens )

The above image is an example of how photography started to become a more central part of the narratives sent in by people about their lives. Understandably the images seem far more personal, maybe more directly emotional  than the earlier ones taken by such as Spender.

I had never heard about the MO Directives and wondered how people got to hear about them  - obviously many people did find about them judging from the many individual 'home' photographs on display. Looking at the MO website, it seems that you can apply to be an observer ( i.e. writer ).They are currently only recruiting male writers aged 16-44, living in all regions except the South East...see http://alturl.com/4pzti

I was also interested in  this link takes you to the Photographers' Gallery and a current project inspired by the MO:

http://goo.gl/OulP1Y


A great idea and all in all a very interesting exhibition..

Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life exhibition - 13 July 2013

 

 

 

 

This exhibition at Tate Britain displayed an extensive collection of LS Lowry's work throughout six rooms : each room representing a different aspect of the artist:

1. Looking at Lowry
2. The Idea of Modern Life
3. Street Life : Incident and Accident
4. Ruined Landscape
5. The social Life of Labour Britain
6. The Industrial Landscapes

I remember seeing  Lowry exhibition at the Lowry in Salford many years ago but this new showing has more paintings which are hung alongside other artists such as Pissaro and Utrillo ... it seems he showed earlier and more often in Paris than London with Parisien critics understanding the link between his work and their own tradition. I had always felt that Lowry, a painter of the working class, was sympathetic to the working conditions and grim reality of everyday life of the people  he saw in front of him. Seeing such a collection  of works it seems to me that he is almost an unmoved observer and there is little within the paintings to really engage the viewer and draw them in. In some respects they seem paintings reminiscent of ' documentary' photographs  - the rule of thirds carefully observed - the image with its often white background slightly over exposed. People talk about Lowry's appetite for the crowd but I feel it is his pictorial capture of 'poverty and gloom' through his images of industrial buildings and landscapes that convey the harshness of working life and living in the 20s,30s and 40s. His crowds veer towards the grotesque / comic in his later work.

Revisiting the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize 2013

I chose to join the OCA study visit to this exhibition on 15 June 2013 as I wanted to be able to enjoy and participate in discussion  and comment with fellow photography students and tutors at an exhibition which I had previously visited and which left me with some questions about what photography actually constituted. The visit was made more interesting by knowing the outcome of the judges decision re the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2013  ( a prize awarded to a living photographer, of any nationality, for a specific body of work in an exhibition or publication format, which has significantly contributed to photography in Europe between 1 October 2011 and 30 September 2012).
 
On my previous visit, I came to the view that I preferred Cristina Middel's offering  closely followed by Chris Killip's work to the work of Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin and that of Mishka Henner. Reflecting on this and spending more time looking at the various works, listening hard to the audio interviews and discussing the work with fellow students and tutors while standing in front of the work itself brought about a change in my thinking. This was reinforced afterwards when we retired to talk over as a small group what we had seen over coffee. Understandably, the four finalists polarized views significantly which made the discussion all the more enjoyable and interesting.

Many thought the work of Chris Killip a surprising entry given the photographs were taken some decades ago i.e. in the 1980s. I disagree as I feel they have a distinct value in expressing what is happening around us today in terms of a historical echo of the economic and social decline of  the 1980s. I have of course a real liking for street photography and black and white images which no doubt colours my view here. But I have a great admiration for the skill of subject selection and composition realising that it is very difficult to achieve this results without the subjects having a strong degree of trust in and acceptance of the photographer in their lives. Not something that happens overnight.


There will always be a need for  street photography in my view both from a documentary point of view but from a social and cultural perspective... social networking shows how much people want and like to capture the moment when out and about ...socially and politically..

All of which brought me to reflect again on what I thought of Mishka Henner's work, No Man's Land'. I still feel that the concept is not original and an uncomfortable feeling of overt voyeurism runs through it for me. His video commentary can be found at :  http://vimeo.com/64393166
Some folk feeling quite adamant that this was not photography and should not be there in the exhibition since its contribution to photography was not that significant. This triggered in my mind to check out the criteria for this award. There was an interesting discussion afterwards about using Google earth for photographic projects. One student having had experience of seeing his wife captured by Google looking out of the window of their house years after she had died.
 Cristina De Middel's project ' The Afronauts' , a self published book, had been my favourite of all the finalists previously but I was struck by one fellow student's adamant view that it was  racist and had no place in the exhibition for that reason. I did not see it that way. Yes, it is  tongue in cheek, a fantastical story but not racist.



On a second look I still enjoyed the creativity of the idea. She is a photo journalist but says in her exhibition video ( http://vimeo.com/64393165 ) that using a photograph doesn't  imply that it is true: that photos taken for  and appearing in newspapers are not always true. This links in directly to part four of this course ( Reality and intervention) and will be a subject worth revisiting then. 

Some of my fellow students felt that she went too far using settings outside Africa and finding or rather 'casting' people to play roles for the images. But I think this falls within her project remit. What she wanted to do with this project is the opposite of photo journalism and play with fact and fiction; to break down the direct digestion of images. I think she is successful in this.



However, to my surprise, my second consideration of Broomberg and Chanarin's War Primer 2 changed my view of this work. I don't think this was because it won the £30,000 prize since I had been disappointed on hearing who the prizewinners were that Cristina De Middel had not taken the prize. I took more time to look at this work and mull over what I was seeing.  

'War Primer 2 is a limited edition book that physically inhabits the pages of Bertold Brecht’s remarkable 1955 publication War Primer. Brecht’s photo-essay comprises 85 images, photographic fragments or collected newspaper clippings, that were placed next to a four-line poem, called ‘photo-epigrams’. Broomberg and Chanarin layered Google search results realting to the 'War on Terror'  for the poems over Brecht’s originals'.

 

Again it was useful and interesting to listen to their exhibition video ( http://vimeo.com/64393163 ).


Interestingly, this body of work did not trigger any detailed discusion afterwards in my n group... whether this was because people felt that the prize was well deserved or felt more quizzical about why the other finalists had been shortlisted.

Reading the exhibition catalogue, it seems that Broomberg and Chanarin want us to reflect on 'photo opportunities' i.e. the visual clichés that inform the self promotional activities of politicians. In this, I think they have achieved something. Certainly the image over a portrait of Goebbels overlaid with the image of nuclear missiles taking off struck a chord with me. I also read that this piece of work has re -opened debates regarding Brecht and radical photography in the 70s and 80s - debates that shared a hostility towards photographic naturalism...something to follow up I think.


All in all, I enjoyed the study trip which triggered a lot of thoughts afterwards. This was my first study visit and well worth joining in. I shall certainly look out for more trips in and around London over the coming year.

NB It is possible to Download the free War Primer 2 app via mappeditions.com

Looking at the view - Tate Britain exhibtion 29 May 2013

This exhibition was an interesting use of pairing items from the Tate collection that allows us to look at the 'view' from a different selection of vantage points e.g. inside a room looking out, taking in a view outside from a hill , across a landscape or seascape. What drew me particularly was the juxtaposition of painting and photograph in some instances and the positioning of paintings from different centuries alongside each other allowing an opportunity to see how subjects were treated across the centuries. The works included were also an interesting selection coming from such as Tracey Emin, Paul Graham, J.M.W. Turner, Lucien Freud, Gilbert & George, Spencer Gore, Tacita  Dean...

What struck me was the similarity of patterns of looking at and composing an image that stretched across the centuries:

Tacita Dean Disappearance at Sea 1996 (film still)

The exhibition showed Tacita Dean's 16mm colour anamorphic film 'Disappearance at sea' which was taken inside Berwick lighthouse. She was inspired by the story of Donald Crowhurst who realising that he was not up to taking part in a single-handed non-stop round -the-world yacht race eventually jumped overboard. The sense and feel of the immenseness of the sea comes over in the film and gives some idea of what Crowhurst must have experienced.
Placed close by I found John Brett's painting  which explores the effects of light and colour but to my mind also gives a similar sense of the vastness of the ocean. Both images using a similar composition referencing light within the image. Both works struck a real chord with me.




John Brett The British Channel seen from the Dorsetshire Cliffs 1871

When I first looked at Paul Graham's photograph below, I wondered what it was that made it stand out from the crowd so to speak. At first glance it looks almost pedestrian but a closer examination of the composition made me realise how much it lent a dynamism to the subject matter and a depth of meaning coming from the juxtaposition of affluent housing and elements of urban disruption i.e. the broken edge of the roundabout and the damaged lamp post; the man calmly crossing the road apparently oblivious of the running soldier. Normality set against a disruption of everyday life. It was paired with a painting by Tristam Hillier which portrays a similar sense of calmness rural life and the everyday ( man walking with dog along the road ) disrupted by progress of modernity ( the march of pylons etc. across the landscape and ruined buildings in the distance). Interestingly the composition in both images shows similar focal points.. i.e. the curve of the road and the lampposts/ pylons reaching to the sky ( the future?).




Paul Graham Roundabout, Andersonstown, Belfast 1984. From Troubled Land. 





Tristam Hillier La Route des Alpes 1937 

These last two images below are linked over two centuries through composition and subject matter:

Joseph wright's painting of Sir Brooke Boothby shows the subject  alone and deep in a wood holding a book inscribed with Rousseau's name. It seems that Rousseau had given his manuscript ' Dialogues' to Boothby for safekeeping during a visit to Paris in 1776 and Boothby has subsequently published the work. Exhibition notes suggest the scene here is very much in accordance with Rousseau's ideas i.e. shunning 'the 'civilised' world for contemplation alone in nature'.

Joseph Wright of Derby Sir Brooke Boothby 1781

And almost two centuries later...



Tracey Emin Monument Valley(Grand Scale (1995-7)

Tracey Emin is captured here holding her book 'Exploration of the Soul' in an amazing location. Interesting that overhead cables intrude at the top right hand ?


NOTE: All of the images above are scanned from postcards purchased at Tate Britain.

Project Space: Ruins in Reverse - Tate Modern exhibition 29 May 2013

Ra di Martino No more Stars ( Star Wars ) 2010
33deg 50'N 7deg46'E Chot El-Gharsa, Tunisia copyright courtesy of the artist and Monitor, Rome
(Cover to exhibition notes)

In going to view this exhibition at Tate Modern, I wanted to see the photographic work of Ra di Martino specifically. The exhibition brought together six artists to consider the divide between historical monuments and disregarded urban ruins. The remains of the Star Wars sets in the North African desert were the focus of Di Martino's series of photographs 'No More Stars ( Star Wars ) and so, fitted well with the exhibition's theme. What we see in the images are the detritus of the film industry left behind - structural monuments left behind and consequently expressing archaeological evidence of the industry's activity.

Over a period of time the structures have in a sense gone back to the desert in that they blend into the landscape much as ancient Roman/ Greek ruins can do. I felt that some images worked better than others in this respect and this left me looking at the series from two angles; one the technical composition viewpoint and secondly the creative / interpretative aspect. One image still stands out which I cannot reference here visually but it showed a particular structural arrangement with the imprint of some disturbed footprints leading up to the crest of the structure. This to my mind conveyed more an impression of abandonment and in a contrary fashion the feeling of visit to an archaeological site than many of the other photographs.

John Riddy exhibition - Sicilian cityscapes

In London last week I took the opportunity to view John Riddy's series of cityscapes at the Frith Street Gallery. We see the Sicilian capital through his eyes as a stage empty of players or inhabitants.as Morgan Meaker says on 24 April  in Time Out  ' Absence and ruin linger here, hinting at our own mortality in the face of an enduring urban landscape'. 

Certainly the  cityscapes show a range of dereliction laid out in dark narrow streets. Using greyscale the images capture a certain quality of light and shadow that does also allow a degree of  romanticism to creep into the composition. To my mind, some scenes worked well and took you beyond the surface of the image asking questions as to how you felt looking at the dark urban decay and what the future might hold in such an environment .. a sort of post capitalist life on and in the street. ...was this due to the emotional feel coming from the use of greyscale in this kind of landscape? It needed no characters such as Chris Killip found in the north of England in the 1970s and 1980s to convey urban neglect.

Deutsche Borse Photography Prize 2013

I went to see the shortlist for this prize last week at the Photographer's Gallery. I was then pleased to see that OCA will be doing a study trip to see these shortlisted works in June which I shall aim to join since I felt the shortlist such that I'd like to revisit it and discuss the entries with other students.

There are four candidates for the prize and their appearance on the shortlist immediately triggers the thought - what constitutes contemporary photography ? Three candidates  are artists who use photography as part of their work; one, Chris Killip  is a documentary photographer  with a body of work stretching back over a number of decades.

Chris Killip

Black and white images of working class life produced in the north of England in the 1980s. Killip is being nominated for his show at Le Bal in Paris which he called 'What Happened/ Great Britain 1970 -90 . This body of work proposed to show the Thatcher years through the eyes of a camera lens. Reading a little about Killip in the exhibition's catalogue indicates that he very much sees himself as an artist. Where other social documentary photographers of the 70s were concerned the photography was used to drive forward the politics but in Gerry Badger's piece in the catalogue for Killip, 'the photography was an end in itself, although not exclusively so.
I really appreciated these photographs for their composition and strong emotional driving force. Black and white photography is not an area of photography that  I have explored as a photographer but  looking at these images really whets the appetite for Part three of this course.


Christina De Middel   'The Afronauts and other works'

This is an imaginative  reconstruction  of the 1960s Zambian space programme comprising photographs, drawings and re-photographed letters originally presented in a self published book but in this case displayed over a number of walls in the gallery. I really enjoyed this work on an initial superficial level. Having looked at the catalogue now and read the articles below, I want to go back and take a second longer look to try to understand what it is that strikes a chord here with me.


Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin  'War Primer II'

This is a re-examination of Bertolt Brecht's War Primer ( 1955) which repositions it within a contemporary dialogue about war and its representation. The original photographic images are overlaid with more recent photographs from later arenas of war such as Iraq and Afghanistan. It was published as a book and what we see here are pages from the book which presents very powerful juxtapositioned images  on a small scale..


Mishka Henner

Photographs taken from Google Street View which explore the subject of sex workers in urban and rural environments. Having have seen other work taken from Google street View by such as Michael Wolff, I have to admit that I found this  piece of work uninspiring ( uninspiring from the point of view of composition and emotional  standpoint rather than the questions they trigger ) do not make contact with me  emotionally or intellectually ...I found myself at the end of the piece of work rather distanced from the work rather than engaged with what Henner was portraying or asking of his audience.

I was also interested to read the four articles listed on the OCA website which show how opinions can be polarised.

Adrian Searle in The Guardian :   http://goo.g/Xz4TH

Searle believes Killip should win.

Brad Feuerhelm  1000 words :  http://goo.gl/mYY0V

Feuerhelm favours  War Primer 2 and Afronauts

Richard Dorment in The Telegraph :  http://goo.gl/KtMgL

Dorment feels War Primer II deserves recognition.

Sean O'Hagan in The Guardian :  http://goo.gl/XWBzD

O'Hagan favours War Primer II as well!

I shall come back to this posting at a later stage to add further reflections after a re visit to the exhibition and some followup reading as i think he does highlight a key debate..

Man Ray Portrait Exhibition March 2013

I have never seen any examples of Man Ray's work other than in books so I took the opportunity to visit the current exhibition in London last week.

Knowing that he was anything but a conventional photographer, I was interested to see his approach to portraits. The exhibition was arranged chronologically which was helpful in terms of seeing the development of his work over time. Images included classic celebrity portraits ( Elizabeth Duquette in 1948), fashion shoots and examples of magazine work, for example, Gertrude Lawrence in Harper's Bazaar (1936).The descriptions alongside each image were disappointing however, in that they concentrated on biographical detail pertaining to the subject and as always, I wanted to know more about the photographer's intention and the technical side of the image. Also, many of the images were extremely small ( less than postcard size ) which made viewing difficult.

That said, I found some images  that really intrigued me. His solarised portrait  of Lee Miller  taken round about 1929 was very striking and drove me to find out more about the process of solarisation. Interestingly he returned to this process for a portrait of Leslie Caron in the 1950s.

I discovered that solarisation is a phenomenon in photography in which the image recorded on a negative or on a photographic print is wholly or partially reversed in tone. Dark areas appear light or light areas appear dark. It was usually caused by accidentally exposing an exposed plate or film to light during developing.The effect is one of the earliest known effects in photography and certainly known to Daguerre. Apparently Man Ray perfected the technique after it was accidentally discovered in his darkroom by his assistant Lee Miller.
'Noire and Blanche' (1926) was a very good example of his series of female faces made up in a mask-like way and placed in an unusual composition. Here he placed an African mask from the Ivory Coast next to the head of Kiki, resting with her eyes closed creating a very memorable evocative surrealist image.

His first colour portrait of Genica Athanasiou ( 1933 ) was beautifully composed and the colours very evocative of the period. He used the time consuming tri-colour carbro printing process. This involved the printing of three negatives taken through red,green and blue filters on casbon tissue that are then transferred, one after the other onto paper to form the final print.

Coming away from the exhibition, I felt my appetite whetted for more Man Ray images and I would like to take a wider look at his work and the interplay between his photography, painting and sculpture. More reading needed..