Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin |

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)

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)

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.

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)

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)

Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin

DB Photography Prize 2013 announced

2013 DB Photography Prize shortlist announced