photography

Chris Marker @ Whitechapel Gallery, Apr 18-Jun 22

8 April 2014

From April 18 to June 22, London’s Whitechapel Gallery will present the first ever UK retrospective of prolific French filmmaker, writer, photographer and multimedia master Chris Marker.

For the duration of the 2+ months, the Whitechapel Gallery will brim with Marker’s extraordinary films and photographs, showing extracts from some of his iconic films – including Sans soleil (1983), Le Fond de l’air est rouge (1977), and La Jetée (1962) – as well as all five of his installation pieces shown side by side for the first time. In addition, the retrospective will introduce newly re-mastered editions of some of Marker’s famous essay films, such as that of Le Joli Mai (1963), as well as a large projection of Ouvroir: the Movie (2010), his guided virtual museum tour.

Find out about some of the contemporary artists influenced by Chris Marker’s work, and re-visit aqnb‘s interviews with Jaakko Pallasvuo and Andrew Norman Wilson.

And to read more about the retrospective, visit the Whitechapel Gallery exhibition page, and access specific event details on our aqnb event listing. **

 Header image: Still from ‘La Jetee’ (1962). Image courtesy Whitechapel Gallery.  

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Open Studios @ YSA, Apr 6

3 April 2014

On April 6, the Yale School of Art, one of the nation’s highest-ranked art schools, opens its doors to the public with Open Studios, an exhibition featuring the master’s degree projects of a large selection of its second-year students.

Spread over three venues, the studios and exhibition spaces are divided into three areas of focus, including graphic design in the Holcombe T. Green Jr. Hall, painting and printmaking at 353 Crown St., and sculpture and photography in the Sculpture Building.

During the exhibit, a free shuttle bus will be running continuously between the New Haven train station and the three studios, allowing easy accessibility. To find out more about Open Studios, visit aqnb‘s event listing.**

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‘Visa pour l’image’ @ Perpignan reviewed

12 September 2013

Visa pour l’image, the world’s biggest festival of photojournalism, just celebrated its 25th birthday in Perpignan. Two hundred thousand visitors and 3,000 professionals descending on the little city in Southern France to visit 23 exhibitions aiming to reflect the state of the world. But no one was in a party mood, especially not the festival’s uncompromising creator-director, Jean-François Leroy, whose discourse seems darker every year. But how could he be optimistic about the future of photojournalism when almost no one believes in its value? When not even magazine editors, once it biggest supporters, do?

But, at this festival that is once a year “the biggest magazine in the world”, photographers are heroes. That’s not just because some of them risk their lives on a daily basis, but because keeping faith in this precarious job should provoke everyone’s respect. The golden age is, of course, over and professional photographers now face fierce competition from basically anyone with a smartphone. But that’s not the worst part. The way photographers work has also changed drastically. Now that the people you photograph (combatants in a war zone, for instance) are fully aware of their image and of the possible impact of its broadcast on public opinion, now that they can see everything you publish on the internet, how can you work objectively as a war photographer and, most of all, what is it worth? While the international community concerns itself with possible military intervention in Syria, the question could not be more topical.

“Photographers are here to make noise in the governments’ ears, so that it is not so easy to send young people to die on the battlefield”, says Patrick Chauvel, 64, one of the most respected French war correspondents, who recently covered the Libyan civil war. Invited with Don McCullin, David Douglas Duncan and John G. Morris to take part in a roundtable discussion on “Photographing War”, Chauvel is a veteran with the rare exception of being not completely disillusioned with photojournalism; one of the few who still looks for new ways of practicing his art. That’s why, when he went to Libya in 2011, he didn’t only take his camera but decided to participate in the Condition One project launched by young war correspondent and videographer Danfung Dennis.

His idea was to change the visual language of video journalism through an app that would make war reporting immersive and interactive: on the battlefield, the videographer uses a near-180-degree wide angle camera instead of the traditional 50mm or 35mm lens. At home, you just hold your tablet or smartphone up as a video scene is playing out on screen, panning left, right, up or down, the perspective of the image moving to match it. Imagine you suddenly hear gunfire coming from the left. You can swivel around in the image, the exact same way you would snap your head in the gunfire’s direction if you were there, in what’s called “augmented reality for war journalism”.

This project is still in its beta-stage and needs to be debated for obvious ethical reasons. The main concern affecting every media professional being, ‘don’t you risk sensationalising war by talking about it in such a ‘fun’ way?’ The question was raised in 2010 when Armadillo, Janus Metz’ documentary about Danish soldiers caught in the war in Afghanistan, was awarded the Grand Prix de la Semaine de la Critique in Cannes. The immersion was incredibly realistic, like in an excellent video game, and several critics accused the film of blurring the divide between fact and fiction. But that was cinema, not journalism, and for a photojournalist the question then becomes, ‘how much moral authority does one have to play with that very divide?’ **

Visa pour l’image runs in Perpignan August 31 to September 15, 2013.

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Photo&Print Salon 2013 submissions now open.

Photo&Print submissions.
16 April 2013

London’s Charlie Dutton Gallery is calling for submissions for its Photo&Print Salon, which this year will be coinciding with the launch of the ‘Back Shop Edition’ space. Deadline for submissions is just before midday on Monday, May 6 and the exhibition of selected works will be held for a month, between Monday, May 29 and Wednesday, June 29.

Photo&Print.

Curators on the selection panel this year are artist John Stezaker, Belmacz and Mayfair gallerist and collector Julia Muggenburg, Charlie Dutton and Kate Saffin. See the website for more details.**

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‘Circulation(s)#3’ @ Bagatelle Park reviewed.

Circulation(s)#3. The Forgotten.
5 March 2013

If tradition carries considerable weight, innovation is present at this year’s Circulation(s)#3 festival of photography at Bagatelle Park in Paris. Dedicated to young European photographers, most of the 43 artists represented express their personality either through the choice, orientation and pedagogy of their subject or a unique and singular aesthetic.

'The Kiss' © Federica De Ruvo.
‘The Kiss’ © Federica De Ruvo.

Continue reading ‘Circulation(s)#3’ @ Bagatelle Park reviewed.

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A Greenberg Breakfast

21 January 2013

A ‘Press breakfast’ doesn’t take place at breakfast time. So last tuesday – at 10.30 a.m. – I turned up to the sneak preview of Howard Greenberg’s exhibition at the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation in Paris.

The exhibition is a selection from Greenberg’s own collection. Some of his favourites, as he explains in an interview with Sam Stourdzé (the director of the Elysée Museum in Lausanne) have been sold, and some he has been able to buy back. Such is the paradoxical nature of being both a collector and gallery-owner, where what you must sell is exactly what you want to keep. Two very different hats.

Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, Californie, 1936 © Library of Congress / Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery
Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, Californie, 1936 © Library of Congress / Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery

Continue reading A Greenberg Breakfast

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Limitless

Post-Space. Limitless.
14 November 2012

Post-Space is a new way to view art. Deconstructing the physical conventions that characterize the gallery space, this progressive venture redefines the way the art object is viewed – and does so with calculated panache. Democratic, anti-hierarchical and refreshingly limitless, Post-Space is at its most essential, an online gallery that does away with the physical nature of the exhibition space. Founded as a conscious reaction to this intrinsic tangibility, the viewer is left with an entirely new experience that is at once personal, social and submerged within a global context. A progressive adaptation to the digital era, this post-medium platform does not simply embrace the viewing potentials of the world wide web but goes on to redefine the opportunities that it opens.

Max Bainbridge, Untitled (2012). Image Courtesy of Post-Space.
Max Bainbridge, Untitled (2012). Image Courtesy of Post-Space.

Continue reading Limitless

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FreshFaced+WildEyed 2012

19 August 2012

22 lucky graduates are part of this year’s FreshFaced & WildEyed photographic exhibition, the annual exhibition that showcases the work of recent graduates from across the UK.

Au centre de la Terre II by Nadege Meriau (2012)
Au centre de la Terre II by Nadege Meriau (2012)

The 5th edition brings like every year the 2-week exhibition @ The Photographer’s Gallery spread across the two major exhibition spaces in the fourth and fifth floors… as well as an online image gallery available from the 15th on this address.

 The lucky 22 should rejoice as this year they’re awarded with a new mentorship scheme offering them some professional development and guidance in the twelve months following the exhibition.

EU Parliament, Brussels, Paul-Henri Spaak Building, Room 03H01 - by Paula Gotazar (Common Space Series)
EU Parliament, Brussels, Paul-Henri Spaak Building, Room 03H01 – by Paula Gotazar (Common Space Series)

This year concentrates again a a wide range of photographic approaches… from David Birkin analysis of the production and dissemination of war photography, to Jonny Briggs’ staged scenes seeking to recapture forgotten childhood memories or Emma Critchley’s underwater images. A 2-week exhibition filled with photographic talent to note in your calendar… we’ll remind you when the site goes live, don’t worry.

Strange Birds (2011) - An installation by Gemma Marmalade
Strange Birds (2011) – An installation by Gemma Marmalade
Suspended By Emma Critchley 2011.
Suspended By Emma Critchley 2011.
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