LANDFALL Issue 225 - My Auckland

 

Landfall is New Zealand's oldest extant literary journal. First published in 1947 by Caxton Press, under the editorship of Charles Brasch. It features new fiction and poetry, biographical and critical essays, cultural commentary, and reviews of books, art, film, drama and dance. Additionally, the journal showcases original works of art in full colour.
Landfall is published twice annually, in May and November by the Otago University Press, the journal is currently edited by writer and poet David Eggleton.

Issue 225 has just been launched, its subject - My Auckland. In it are eight of my photographs, all made in Auckland of course.

Ed Ruscha at The Getty

1018 S. Atlantic Blvd., 1965 © Ed Ruscha

The J. Paul Getty Museum presents Ed Ruscha, an exhibition from April 9th to September 29th, 2013 at the The Getty Center, West Pavilion.

Photography has played a central role in Ed Ruscha's artistic practice, most notably in the photobooks he began publishing in 1963. Highlighting important recent acquisitions by the Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute, this exhibition features a selection of prints and materials related to Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1963), Some Los Angeles Apartments (1965), and Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966). Also on view for the first time are contact sheets from his shoot of the Pacific Coast Highway (1974–75), one of the many streets he has documented extensively since 1965. The exhibition offers a concentrated look at Ruscha's engagement with vernacular architecture, the urban landscape, and car culture.

Standard, Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, 1962 © Ed Ruscha

Auckland - Recent Photography

It's not often that I get to do a blog post about what's happening on my Auckland doorstep. At last there is something to talk about, a milestone photography show - Recent Auckland Photography.

The show and bookwork features twelve photographers each with a connection to the Auckland region. Some of the photographs capture aspects of that region’s culture and landscape, while others testify to the mobility and ambition of the artists – their familiarity with other places and people. The images reveal distinctive identities and characters, Auckland’s place in the Pacific, the influence of history on the contemporary environment, the wonder of the commonplace, and much more. Most of all, they are personal statements; they are about how the artists see the world.

Unusually, the exhibition is supported by a stunningly well conceived and produced hardback catalogue.
PhotoForum, the publisher says this:  Included in the book are some of New Zealand’s most acclaimed photographers, as well as a number of exciting emerging artists. For each artist there is a full page of text followed by representative examples of their work, while an introductory essay establishes the case for looking beyond the more easily recognisable aspects of subject matter to the different effects and feelings of the images themselves. Ron Brownson, senior curator at Auckland Art Gallery has contributed the introduction.

Recent Auckland Photography would not have happened but for the extraordinary vision, and dogged persistence of photographer Chris Corson-Scott and arts writer Edward Hanfling. These two are to be congratulated for mounting and producing a museum quality show and book. This should have been the opportunity and responsibility of any one of a number of public art museums who for the most part seem happy enough to drift along ignoring the healthy, wealthy vein of current photographic practice that exists in New Zealand.

Recent Auckland Photography opens this Sunday May 19th, at Auckland's NorthArt and runs until June 12th. Ron Brownson will speak about the show, 3pm Saturday 8th June at NorthArt.

The book: 270x295mm, 176 pages, 100+ color images

Chris Corson-Scott, Ian Scott Painting, Whangaparaoa, 2013

Ngahuia Harrision, Elizabeth, 2011

Mark Adams, Mangungu, Wesleyan Mission, Hokianga, 1997

Ian Macdonald, Pohutukawa, Te Muri Urupa, 2013

After word: Chris Corson-Scott talks to D-Photo about the show and book. HERE.

DEVELOP PHOTO - an amazing photographic video resource

Vimeo's DEVELOP PHOTO photography video channel is an educational resource which features interviews, multimedia, lectures & films, everything photographic - photojournalism, documentary & fine art photography and more, for every taste. Subdivided into various albums, the channel has something for everybody. In the "best of" album there are 374 videos alone. You can go there HERE.

Robert Adams - Turning Back

 

Here is a wonderful 13 minute interview with Robert Adams. A photographic journal of re-exploration. All projects begin with a gift... Well worth a look HERE.

Mark Power - amazing print offer!

To mark the 21st anniversary of the BA in Photography at the University of Brighton, a book will be published with work from some of the school's successful alumni.

The University recently held an online auction to raise funds for the book, now in an effort to reach the funding target Mark Power is very generously offering five stunning limited edition images from his 1992 The Shipping Forecast series.

Mark says this about the series and the offer: I began 'The Shipping Forecast' in 1992, also 21 years ago. That time was important to me on two levels: the start of a teaching job I'm still enthusiastically doing, and the beginning of the project that has probably defined my career.

Recently I've been re-editing 'Forecast' because, with the benefit of hindsight, there are pictures I'd put into the book now that I didn't include in the original. I've chosen five of these and made an edition of ten of each, with the forecast for that place and date printed underneath. On the back of each print I've handwritten a little 'story' which explains something about when, where and occasionally how the picture was made.

Each is a beautiful, handmade object sold on a strictly first-come, first-served basis. The price has been kept so low in the hope that we can quickly raise the extra £5,000 we need to make the book.

Proceeds from sales of the book will be kept to one side to fund a prize for next years Brighton students. Please support us to make the book happen. Thank you.

And wait for it, the prints are offered for just £100 plus postage. Each is a beautiful, handmade object sold on a first-come, first-serve basis.

You can go to Mark Power's site HERE to see the prints in greater detail and there is a PayPal link for easy purchase.

I've just looked at the site again.... and a number have already been sold. Don't wait!

ICP, NYC - A Different Kind Of Order

Sam Falls

The ICP Triennial - A Different Kind of Order - is a a global survey of contemporary photography and video. The show will be on view at the International Center of Photography (1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street, NYC) from May 17 to September 8, 2013. 

Filling ICP’s entire gallery space as well as its exterior windows, the exhibition will feature 28 emerging and established artists from 14 countries whose worksspeak to and illuminate the newvisual and social territory in which image making operates today. Artists include Nayland Blake, A.K. Burns,Thomas Hirschhorn, Elliott Hundley, Gideon Mendel, Wangechi Mutu, Sohei Nishino, Lisa Oppenheim, and Nica Ross. A complete list is on the ICP site HERE.

Starting from the premise that most photography is now produced, processed, and distributed in digital form, A Different Kind of Order explores the sometimes unanticipated consequences of this shift as revealed in the work of a wide range of international artists. For the younger artists in the Triennial, the digital revolution is something that happened during their childhood, and dealing with its ramifications has occupied most of their creative lives. For artists of this generation (such as Sam Falls, Andrea Longacre-White, and Oliver Laric), mixing the new idioms of digital imagemaking with the existing visual language of painting, sculpture, and collage is almost second nature. Other Triennial artists, wary of the advent of “screen culture,” emphasize the handmade qualities of their work, yet even they recognize that their efforts are situated within the spaceof a fully digitized, networked world.