deutsche borse photography prize

DB Photography Prize 2013 announced

15 June 2013

Back in November we got to know this year´s shortlist to the always surprising DB Photography prize. And just early on this week the Photographer´s gallery announced this year´s winners: Broomberg & Chanarin for War Primer 2.

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Plate 23, 2011 (image courtesy of The Photographers Gallery)
Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Plate 23, 2011 (image courtesy of The Photographers Gallery)

The London-based duo of artists, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin have both been awarded for their publication War Primer 2 (MACK, 2012), a 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 for the poems over Brecht’s originals.

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Plate 26, 2011 (image courtesy of The Photographers Gallery)
Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Plate 26, 2011 (image courtesy of The Photographers Gallery)

Some of those essays have been exposed with the other 3 nominees @ The Photographer´s Gallery since last April, and with only 2 more weeks to go until the expo finishes we think this possibly the best way to discover their limited edition book. You can always go for their free app if not in London.

More info on the prize, nominees and winners this way.

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2013 DB Photography Prize shortlist announced

26 November 2012

It’s only been a couple of months since the winner of this year’s DB Photography Prize was announced (John Stezaker) and barely 4 months since we got to review this year’s shortlist exhibition and today we already know the name of the 3 shortlisted candidates for next year’s edition!

© Chris Killip, What Happened Great Britain 1970 - 1990 (image via The Photographers Gallery)
© Chris Killip, What Happened Great Britain 1970 – 1990 (image via The Photographers Gallery)

The 2013 exhibition won’t happen until next April but at least we know that one of the following will be a happy 2013 winner:  Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Mishka Henner, Chris Killip and Cristina De Middel.

Adam & Oliver are nominated for their publication War Primer 2 (2012, MACK), a book inspird by the pages of Bertolt Brecht’s publication War Primer (1955). In the original, Brecht matched WWII newspaper clippings with short poems…. in War Primer 2 Broomberg & Chanarin choose to focus on the ‘War on Terror’; sifting through the internet for low resolution screen-grabs and mobile phone images, the artists then combined them to resonate with Brecht’s poems.

© Cristina de Middel, The Afronauts, 2011 (image via The Photographers Gallery)
© Cristina de Middel, The Afronauts, 2011 (image via The Photographers Gallery)

Spanish Cristina (based in London) has been working for newspapers in Spain and with NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders and the Spanish Red Cross for almost eight years. Her works combine strictly documentary assignments with more personal projects playing with reconstructions or archetypes that blur the border between reality and fiction… and she’s been nominated for her self-publication “The Afronauts“.

Then there’s multi-awarded photographer Chris Killip and his works of North East England who is nominated for his last summer exhibition What Happened Great Britain 1970 – 1990 at Parisian Le Bal.

And last but not least we get Mishka Henner who has been described as a trailblazer amongst a new generation of artists redefining the role of photography in the internet age. She is nominated for his exhibition No Man’s Land at Fotografia Festival Internazionale di Roma which just closed last month.

© Mishka Henner, No Man's Land, 2012 (image via The Photographers Gallery)
© Mishka Henner, No Man’s Land, 2012 (image via The Photographers Gallery)
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John Stezaker wins DB Photography Prize 2012

3 September 2012

We’re usually good at guessing prizes but have to admit that we didn’t see this year’s DB Photography prize coming. We were so in love with Pieter Hugo’s Permanent Error that failed at our guess, but John Stezaker was our clear second choice of course!

Marriage (Film Portrait Collage (2007) by John Stezaker
Marriage (Film Portrait Collage (2007) by John Stezaker (all images via Saatchi Gallery & The Approach)

The previously-forgotten, now highly sought-after English artist gets this year’s  £30,000 from the annual DB Photography prize (the 2012 exhibition is about to finish and runs until Sunday) for his 2011 exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, focused around his vintage photo schizophrenia compositions.

Untitled (For Angus) Film Still Collage II, 2009 by John Stezaker (via The Approach)
Untitled (For Angus) Film Still Collage II, 2009 by John Stezaker (via The Approach)

John takes classic movie stills, vintage postcards and book illustrations and makes collages to give old images a new meaning by y adjusting, inverting and slicing separate pictures together. His Mask & Marriage series are probably the most well-known and easily recognizable for those glamorous profiles mixed & mashed together creating the ultimate Hollywood star.

Marriage XV (2006) by John Stezaker
Marriage XV (2006) by John Stezaker

If only doctors had attempted to merge Bogarts with Bacalls….  oh wait… nature already did it… never mind, John Stezaker’s photography goes far beyond, and we celebrate his award. Congrats.

Old Mask VIII (2006) by John Stezaker
Old Mask VIII (2006) by John Stezaker
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DB Photography Prize 2012

14 July 2012

Just a few months after the re-opening of that photographic temple in southern London called the Photographers Gallery, their most anticipated and important exhibition of the year is now finally open to the public: The 4 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize nominees are showcasing and willing at the same time to become the winner of this year’s £30.000 prize which will be unveiled next September.

Muse (Film Portrait Collage) XIII 2012. © John Stezaker. Courtesy The Approach (image via Photographers gallery)
Muse (Film Portrait Collage) XIII 2012. © John Stezaker. Courtesy The Approach (image via Photographers gallery)

Pieter Hugo, Rinko Kawauchi, John Stezaker and Christopher Williams are the lucky 4 we’ve already talked about several times here  @ aqnb and whose works showcase a diversity of subject matter and photographic approaches, ranging from documentary photography and the everyday to the recontextualisation of found images and the conceptual.

Fachhochschule Aachen, Fachbereich Gestaltung, Studiengang- Visuelle (image via Photographers gallery)
Fachhochschule Aachen, Fachbereich Gestaltung, Studiengang- Visuelle (image via Photographers gallery)

Works that will then travel to Frankfurt for a quick exhibition from 14 September until 25 October 2012 and then to Berlin’s C/O Forum from 3 November until 13 January 2013. A whole summer to enjoy this free exhibition, Ghana’s capital city dumping grounds, vintage collages or luminous manipulations amongst others, a must visit happening this way.

Yakubu Al Hasan, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana 2009
Yakubu Al Hasan, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana 2009
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