Friday, September 30, 2011

Photographers whose work I like - No15/ Christian Patterson


Christian Patterson is an American photographer living and working in Brooklyn, New York. His strange, enigmatic photographs avoid the obvious and their many layers are open to a multitude of interpretations. Just the sort of photography I like.

His second monograph Redheaded Peckerwood, will be published by MACK Books and launched at Paris Photo this year.
Redheaded Peckerwood is a work with a tragic underlying narrative – the story of 19 year old Charles Starkweather and 14 year old Caril Ann Fugate who murdered ten people, including Fugate’s family, during a three day killing spree across Nebraska to the point of their capture in Douglas, Wyoming. The images record places and things central to the story, depict ideas inspired by it, and capture other moments and discoveries along the way.
From a technical perspective, the photographs incorporate and reference the techniques of photojournalism, forensic photography, image appropriation, reenactment and documentary landscape photography. On a conceptual level, they deal with a charged landscape and play with a photographic representation and truth as the work deconstructs a pre-existing narrative.
Redheaded Peckerwood also utilizes and plays with a pre-existing archive of material, deliberately mixing fact and fiction, past and present, myth and reality as it presents, expands and re-presents the various facts and theories surrounding this story.
While photographs are the heart of this work, they are the complemented and informed by documents and objects that belonged to the killers and their victims – including a map, poem, confession letter, stuffed animal, hood ornament and various other items, in several cases, these materials are discoveries first made by the artists and presented here for the first time.
In book form, the work is presented as a sort of visual crime dossier, including pieces of paper which are inserted into the book. The many individual pieces included serve as cues and clues within the visual puzzle. In this way, there are connections that are left to the viewer to be made and mysteries that are left to be solved.





http://www.christianpatterson.com/

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Schaden.com - Friends Collection: A Picture for Home


“A Picture for Home” is made up of works by photographers who are close to the last 15 years of the Schaden photobook phenomenon,  and have been involved in the Schaden.com history. The title is a tribute to the famous project “Pictures From Home” by Larry Sultan and this project will be a pivotal event for photography and Schaden.com.

“A Picture for Home” will bring together 500 members of the extended Schaden.com family (250 photographers and 250 collectors/photobook fans) in a huge event during Paris Photo 2011.

Some of the photographers involved include,  Alec Soth, Anders Petersen, Antoine d'Agata, Donovan Wylie,  JH Engstrom, Jim Goldberg, John Gossage, Lewis Baltz, Mark Power, Martin Parr, Pieter Hugo, Roger Ballen, Stephen Shore, Todd Hido and many more.

Each invited photographer chooses a photograph they’d consider “A Picture for Home.” This term can be interpreted loosely;  the photo is one that, hanging on a kitchen or bedroom wall, might provide a daily inspiration or perspective for an anonymous but universal  “home”. The prints are signed by the photographer “for Schaden.com Friends Collection.”
An important supplement to the project will be a catalogue (to be designed by Greger Ulf Nilson) including reproductions of each print. Each photographer and collector involved will receive this limited edition for free.

“The Schaden-Night of the Year”: The lottery-draw and subsequent pairings (print with proud new owner) will take place during this year’s Paris Photo in November,
MC’ed by Viviane Sassen.

You can jump on board here: join Schaden.com Friends:



Here is my picture for A Picture for Home, which I made in London in June of this year.

Read more HERE

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

David Straight at Satellite Gallery, Auckland


Christchurch born photographer David Straight presents 'Still Here', a photographic documentation depicting suburban Christchurch following the February 22, 2011 earthquake. The images, ‘quiet, contemplative, subtle and located away from the most obvious scenes of devastation, give a sense of the lingering disruption’ to suburban Christchurch (John Savage).

David says this about the work, 'Still Here - A Landscape of an Earthquake' is a series of work showing suburban Christchurch after the February 22nd earthquake, one of New Zealand's most devastating natural disasters. I spent two weeks in the city, over a three-week period, walking for hours around the suburban streets simply recording what I saw in front of me. I set out with no preconceived ideas about what I would photograph, except to record what I encountered honestly without drama or pathos. What resulted is a series of photographs that to my mind speak of the disruption and fragility of the suburban environment. The images are powerful in what they do not reveal. They are subtle in their language and allow the viewer a space to consider the event without being assaulted. They in effect form a landscape of an earthquake.




This is a profound and rewarding show well worth having a look at. It runs until October 22nd.

Satellite Gallery
Cnr St Benedicts St + Newton Rd
Newton, Auckland
http://www.satellitegallery.co.nz/
http://www.davidstraight.net/

Alec Soth's ROME


Every year for the last nine years Fotografia - Rome, has commissioned a major international photographer to portray Rome with total freedom.
Previous photographers have been Josef Koudelka (2003), Olivo Barbieri (2004), Anders Petersen (2005), Martin Parr (2006), Graciela Iturbide (2007), Gabriele Basilico (2008), Guy Tillim (2009) and Tod Papageorge (2010).

This year’s commission went to American photographer Alec Soth, who has presented a series he has called La Belle Dame Sans Merci, inspired by Keats’s famous poem of that name. During his residence he says that its purpose was to show the beauty of the city “But I found it impossible. The city was too beautiful to photograph” he declared. In consequence his visual journey in the “eternal city” deals with myths, symbols, sensuality and poetry. Soth reveals Rome through its details of everyday life.

The choice of Alec Soth is part of the festival's broader research into contemporary American photography. Other activities include, the recent exhibition of Stephen Shore at the Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Joel Sternfeld in the spaces of MACRO Testaccio, the residences of Tim Davis, Montheith Matthew and Nancy Davenport and the second edition of the project ‘A Question of Time’ at the American Academy in Rome, the 2010 Rome Commission of Tod Papageorge and the exhibition of Gregory Crewdson at Gagosian Gallery with photographs taken at Cinecittà.







Fotografia- International Festival in Rome
From September 23 to October 23, 2011
MACRO Testaccio _ Piazza O. Giustiniani 4, Roma

http://blog.fotografiafestival.it
http://littlebrownmushroom.com/index.html

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

PARIS PHOTO 2011


PARIS PHOTO will celebrate its 15th anniversary at the Grand Palais — a major step ahead for this renowned international event, which is not to be missed.

117 galleries from some 23 countries will present the best of 19th century, modern and contemporary photography in the heart of the French capital. To complete this panorama of worldwide photography, a selection of 18 publishers will have a dedicated space in the fair.
PARIS PHOTO will celebrate African photography from Bamako to Cape Town, unveiling the creative wealth of historic and contemporary African artists.These exciting developments put forward the new energy that PARIS PHOTO is displaying by reinventing itself. Four programmes will articulate PARIS PHOTO'S new identity: Institutions - recent photography acquisitions, Private Collection from Artur Walther, PARIS PHOTO conferences platform, focus on the Photography Book and launching of the PARIS PHOTO - Photo Book Prize.

PARIS PHOTO at the Grand Palais 10 -13 November 2011

Visit the PARIS PHOTO site HERE

Rome, Fotografia - International Festival


The International Photography Festival in Rome reaches its 10th edition this year with a project that confirms the event’s growing national and international prestige. Its purpose is to promote contemporary photography in its different forms and languages, and also to support new talents at national and international levels.

The theme of this edition is MOTHERLAND investigated by Alec Soth, Tim Davis, Guy Tillim, David Spero, Leonie Purchas, David Farrell, Tod Papageorge, Paolo Ventura, Antonio Biasiucci, Anders Petersen and Guido Guidi.

The festival, curated by Marco Delogu, aims to stimulate an analysis of the relationship between land and identity and connections between photography and territory. Each photographer has responded in their own way, examining the lands that they can relate to, each with a personal documentation.

The photograph: © Paolo Ventura, Behind the wall-#1, 2011

Fotografia- Festival Internazionale di Roma
From septembre 23 to October 23, 2011
Macro Testaccio _ Piazza O. Giustiniani 4, Rome

http://blog.fotografiafestival.it

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Quentin Bajac in Auckland in January


Paris based, Pompidou Centre chief photography curator Quentin Bajac will be joining South African photographer Pieter Hugo for the AUT St Paul St Gallery photography workshop here in Auckland in January next.
Here is an interesting piece about Quentin from the the Paris based photography newsletter La Lettre de la Photographie.

A few essential facts might be sufficient to describe Quentin Bajac. Photography curator during the early days of the Musée d’Orsay, Senior Curator for the Photography Department at the Centre Georges Pompidou, professor at the Ecole du Louvre, director of several notable exhibitions and author of studies noteworthy for renewed historiography of their subjects, Quentin Bajac stands a perfect example of today’s new generation of curators.

To describe Quentin from a psychological or intimate angle is far more complicated. To avoid the inherent dangers of this type of exercise, we have decided to opt for a parable, using soccer as ground for comparison.

Like overseeing a collection or conceiving an exhibition, soccer is an enterprise that demands collective intelligence. As everyone knows, soccer is a game that opposes two teams of 11 members each, positioned in the field at specific spots, with specific roles. The technical, athletic and psychological qualities of the player will determine whether he plays as a defender, a half back, or a forward bearing in each case a specific number. As such, the goalkeeper wears number 1, the center defenders numbers 4 and 5, center halfback number 9, and so on. But among all the various posts, there is one of particular importance. It is the player with the number 10, the creative midfielder. Without a doubt, on a soccer field Quentin Bajac would be that number 10.

Of all the players on the field, number 10 must invent the game, that explains his nickname “creative midfielder”. He has the complicated task of directing the game and passing the ball to his attackers. He must have a clear vision of the game, knowing how to eliminate his opponents by dribbling, alternating quick steps to counter an onslaught of players, long steps to change the game’s direction, or playing a deep kick to the center striker. He must also have the qualities of a kicker, who scores the goals. He also participates in defense by blocking openings, preventing opposing strikers to gain territory.

Far from the rugged defender or the crazy striker, number 10 is a true game player who must skillfully combine offensive and defensive tasks. The greatest players have worn the number 10. If today’s players tend to favor offensive attacks to the detriment of their defensive skills, Quentin Bajac definitely upholds the “old school” profile. Altruistic, intelligent, skillful, fair playing, humble, these are the many qualities one associates with such legendary players as Di Stephano, Pelé, Platini or Zidane. And if, as we think, the function of an exhibition curator is not too dissimilar to that of a soccer player, there is no doubt that Quentin Bajac will be considered one day as a player of a legend.
Denis Canguilhem

The photograph: Quentin Bajac, 2011 © Yan Morvan

You can have a look at La Lettre de la Photographie HERE

Although there has been huge interest and heavy pre-enrollments  for Peter and Quentin's workshop we are still finalising places. If you are interested in the workshop and would like more information you could contact me at, harvey.benge@xtra.co.nz or Neil Cameron at AUT,

Paris November Workshop

PictureTank presents:
a weekend photography workshop in November with photographer Harvey Benge

Working between Paris and Auckland, New Zealand, photographer Harvey Benge is known for his evocative and mysterious images made in urban environments around the world. With a passion for the photobook, and over 30 bookworks to his name, his picture series have been published prolifically with publishers in France, Germany and the UK.
The workshop will emphasise the photobook and its importance and will deal with practical, achievable outcomes, concentrating on tactics to make a visible, differentiated photography practice in a digital world full of photographers and photographs.

Building on his experience of gallery shows, making photo bookworks and workshops conducted with Antoine d’Agata, Peter Bialobrzeski, Louis Baltz, John Gossage, Alec Soth, Rineke Dijkstra, Paul Graham and Todd Hido, Harvey will talk about photographic "process" and how to make work that has an edge and with a distinctive voice of its own.
Among other things, there will be discussion about what makes a great photograph and why, strategies for evaluating your own work, editing and sequencing and different approaches to arriving at a cohesive, meaningful body of work.

Participants will be required to bring with them portfolios of work which will be reviewed and discussed within the group in a constructive, supportive manner.

“In his search for the absurd and bizarre in the urban landscape…. small moments of everyday life flash with ambiguity and tension, contrasts and conflicts. Part humorous… often he shows disturbing signs of differences, small anarchies… an urban dream at the edges of reality.” Deichtorhallen Hamburg.

"One of the few photographers today who does as much for the poetics as for the philosophy of photography." Markus Schaden, Schaden.com, Cologne.


The workshop, which will be conducted in English, is limited to 12 places and will run over Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th of November. Fee is 250 Euro.

For more information please contact:
Marta Niedzwiecka, martanied@yahoo.fr or Harvey Benge, harvey.benge@xtra.co.nz

Friday, September 16, 2011

TRUTH AND VARIOUS DECEPTIONS

 Book cover and "apple" special offer print.

My new photobook work TRUTH AND VARIOUS DECEPTIONS is now available. The idea behind the book is simply about how we see and evaluate things we interact with in life.

The book-work is in an edition of 100 copies, with 53 photographs. Printed on a 150gsm offset paper with a 350 gsm board cover, it is perfect bound with 52 pages, 216 x 160 mm.

With the first 20 books sold, via my blog or from collectors who follow my book-works I am offering at no additional cost, a  limited edition signed and numbered print (from an edition of 20) of the apple image from the book. This is offered on a first come first served basis.

The bookwork can be obtained using the PAYPAL option at the top of the blog or you can contact me at directly at harvey.benge@xtra.co.nz

€40 / £35 / US$55 / NZ$65, which includes postage.











You can see all the photographs on my website HERE

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Seismic Shift - Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal and California Landscape Photography, 1944-1984


In less than two generations, Ansel Adams to Lewis Baltz, California artists redefined landscape photography in America. This exhibition, which opens October 1st, at University of California, California Museum of Photography, proposes to show how.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Joe Deal and Lewis Baltz crossed paths at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), and the UCR/ California Museum of Photography. This was the period when the exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, which included both photographers, announced the arrival of a radical new aesthetic in landscape. Though the show originated in Rochester, NY, its origins lay significantly in Southern California, and its effect was to shift the epicenter of landscape photography from Northern California to the SoCal region.

Seismic Shift will illuminate the far-reaching consequences of this revolution in landscape photography by tracing its regional history. Beginning with Ansel Adams and Edward Weston—and with the 1946 arrival in San Francisco of Minor White, who would extend the Weston-Adams tradition by transforming it—the exhibition will follow the history in the 1950s and 1960s through the careers of Wynn Bullock, Brett Weston and many others. Then it will examine how the 1970s work of Baltz, Deal, Robert Adams and Henry Wessel—the Western contingent of the New Topographics—created a shock of recognition, an awakening to mutual ideas different from those of their predecessors, that a younger generation of photographers shared. Portfolios of the period, one done by a class Baltz taught at UCR, will demonstrate the immediacy that these ideas had.

October 1st - December 31st
UCR CMP 3824 Main St, Riverside, CA 92501, USA

You can get the catalogue HERE

The photograph: © Lewis Baltz, New Industrial Parks #23, from the portfolio, New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California, 1974

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Robert Rauschenberg: Photographs 1949 - 1962



This new publication from Thames and Hudson for the first time gathers together and surveys Rauschenberg’s inventive uses of photography.

It includes portraits of friends such as Cy Twombly, Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Merce Cunningham and John Cage, studio shots, photographs used in the Combines series, silkscreens, photographs of lost works and works in progress – allowing us to reimagine almost the entirety of the artist’s work in light of his uses of photography, while also supplying previously unseen glimpses into his social nexus of the 1950s and 60s.

Robert Rauschenberg’s engagement with photography began in the late 1940s during his time at Black Mountain College in North Carolina; for a while he was even unsure whether to pursue painting or photography as a career. Instead he chose both. He found ways to fold photography into his Combines, and maintained a practice of photographing friends and family, documenting the evolution of works and occasionally dramatizing them by inserting himself into the picture frame.

As the distinguished curator Walter Hopps wrote, ‘The use of photography has long been an essential device for Rauschenberg’s melding of imagery… [and] a vital means for Rauschenberg’s aesthetic investigations of how humans perceive, select and combine visual information. Without photography, much of Rauschenberg’s œuvre would scarcely exist.’ The artist himself affirmed, ‘I’ve never stopped being a photographer.’

28.00 x 23.90 cm, hardback, 232pp with 167 illustrations in colour and duotone

You can order a copy HERE

Monday, September 12, 2011

Friday, September 9, 2011

Milton Glaser - DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY


In a lecture delivered in London in 2001 designer Milton Glaser, best know for his design of the I Love New York logo, talked of Ten Things He Had Learned. Number eight is that DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY. Glaser said this, and it's well worth remembering....

Everyone always talks about confidence in believing what you do. I remember once going to a class in yoga where the teacher said that, spirituality speaking, if you believed that you had achieved enlightenment you have merely arrived at your limitation. I think that is also true in a practical sense. Deeply held beliefs of any kind prevent you from being open to experience, which is why I find all firmly held ideological positions questionable. It makes me nervous when someone believes too deeply or too much. I think that being sceptical and questioning all deeply held beliefs is essential. Of course we must know the difference between scepticism and cynicism because cynicism is as much a restriction of one’s openness to the world as passionate belief is. They are sort of twins. And then in a very real way, solving any problem is more important than being right. There is a significant sense of self-righteousness in both the art and design world. Perhaps it begins at school. Art school often begins with the Ayn Rand model of the single personality resisting the ideas of the surrounding culture. The theory of the avant garde is that as an individual you can transform the world, which is true up to a point. One of the signs of a damaged ego is absolute certainty.

You can read the other nine points here: http://www.miltonglaser.com/pages/milton/essays/es3.html

Roger Ballen at Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal


Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal has just opened and one of the highlight exhibitions is Roger Ballen's body of work Asylum (2004 - 2010).
For Roger Ballen, a photographer who has worked as a mining expert, photography is a means of drilling down into his own psychological depths. Asylum is the most recent stage that he has reached in his descent into himself. The work features birds in macabre, nightmarish, or lewd sketches, which he composes meticulously with a blend of drawing, theatre, painting, and sculpture. He then photographs these scenes, as if to attest to the fact that the strangely familiar asylum in which these birds live actually exists in our reality, and perhaps in our psyches.

Born in 1950 in New York, Roger Ballen lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. In the early 1980s, he moved to South Africa, where he began to photograph life in neglected white rural communities. In the 1990s, this work provoked strong reactions but also recognition from international photography circles. Since Ballen participated at the Rencontres d’Arles in 1996, which named him photographer of the year in 2002, his works have been acquired by prestigious museums and his list of exhibitions has constantly grown. In 2010 alone, his works were shown at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, the Sammlungsleiter Fotomuseum in Munich, the Sydney Biennale, and the Moscow Centre for Contemporary Art. Ballen is represented by the Clint Roenisch Gallery in Toronto.

ARSENAL
2020 William (angle/corner Canning & Notre-Dame O.) | 438 402 4975
Sept 8 - Oct 9 | Wednesday 12 pm to 6 pm, Thursday 12 pm to 7 pm, Friday to Sunday 12 pm to 6 pm


http://www.rogerballen.com
http://www.moisdelaphoto.com

Thursday, September 8, 2011

La Carte d'après Nature at Matthew Marks, New York



La Carte d’apres Nature, is a group show curated by Thomas Demand currently on view at Matthew Marks, New York. An impressive catalogue published by SteidlMAC accompanies the show which was first shown at Nouveau Musée National de Monaco. The exhibition takes its title from a short-lived art magazine created by René Magritte between 1951 and 1954. Magritte’s publication ran for just fourteen issues and each consisted of a postcard, featuring loosely connected poetry, illustrations and short stories. In a similar fashion, Thomas Demand has selected artworks by eighteen artists that are related to each other in an associative manner. The selected work is connected by two ideas: tamed nature and Surrealism as an artistic form fashioned by Magritte. Just as Magritte himself related ideas from different eras, Demand chose works by different generations of artists: Saâdane Afif, Kudjo Affutu, Becky Beasley, Martin Boyce, Tacita Dean, Thomas Demand, Ger Van Elk, Chris Garofalo, Luigi Ghirri, Leon Gimpel, Rodney Graham, Henrik Håkansson, Anne Holtrop, August Kotzsch, René Magritte, Robert Mallet-Stevens, and Jan and Joel Martel.



You can read a full review here:
http://www.art-agenda.com/reviews/?location=New+York

http://www.matthewmarks.com/

The Photobook, Re-Mix / Re-Think


Joerg Colberg recently made an interesting and thought provoking post on his blog Conscientious about how in his view photobook layout and presentation since the 50's has become stale. You can read the full post HERE. Joerg comments, the world of contemporary fine-art photography has proven to be solidly conservative... blank-page-picture-blank-page-picture layout is still the most commonly employed mode to lay out photobooks. I agree. As a buyer and collector of photobooks how often have I looked through the photobooks in a book store and found there is nothing I want to take home with me. It's all bull, boring.
But what is at the heart of the problem? I suspect not primarily the book layout. Tarting up the layout of a book full of average photographs is not going to make the book better, that's a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. First the pictures have to work. Is the idea strong enough? Have they substance, the right balance of form and content, is there an element of mystery and surprise? Do the pictures work as a series? Are there average pictures lurking in the edit that pulls the whole work down? Where is the authenticity? Are there pictures included we've all seen before, made better by someone else?
A painter friend of mine talks about the need for a stone in the shoe in a work, an element that niggles. Something not quite right. Risk taking in fact. Isaac Stern the maestro violinist did this and used off notes and slides in his playing that added a jarring element. Let's see more risk taking in photography! Having said that let's make sure that risk doesn't equal clever. Not a good look.

All this is currently top-of-mind for me. I've been working on a new book work, TRUTH AND VARIOUS DECEPTIONS, with 52 photographs over 52 pages. Self published under my inprint FAQEDITIONS. All the points I've made above have been going through my head. In the end I've opted for the straight up, a series of 26 pairs with images all the same size. I made this decision for several reasons. First I wanted to show all 52 images and not blow the budget by having additional blank pages. Second, the images work as pairs. Third, I kept the images all the same size simply because I didn't want to privilege one over another. Watch this space!

In the end it's surely a question of horses for courses. Here are some books I like and that break the mold.


Tillmans, here some catalogue spreads where he has incorporated installation pictures and found material.


OBVIOUS AND ORDINARY, America 2006 by the anonymous P&G. Here they mix it up.

The spread at top from, Robert Adams, What Can We Believe Where?  Quite perfect!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Cologne Photography Workshop in October


Following the successful photography workshop at the Lichtblick School in Cologne last May, I will be conducing another workshop there on Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 October. The workshop will concentrate on tactics to achieve a visible, differentiated photography practice in a digital world full of photographers and photographs.

Building on my lengthy experience of gallery shows, making photo bookworks and workshops with Louis Baltz, John Gossage, Alec Soth, Rineke Dijkstra, Paul Graham and Todd Hido, I will be passing on what I have learnt with regard to "process" and the arrival at positive and authentic practice outcomes. Among other things, I will be talking about what makes a great photograph and why, strategies for evaluating your own work, editing and sequencing and different approaches to photobook making.
There will also be an opportunity for all participants to have their portfolios reviewed in a constructive, helpful manner.

It was clear to me that the group at the last workshop came away feeling enthused and uplifted with fresh tools and ideas to take their photography to the next level.

If you'd like to know more you can contact me direct at: harvey.benge@xtra.co.nz
or Wolfgang Zurborn at Lichtblick School.

Steinbergerstr. 21
50733 Köln
fon +49 (0)221 729149
fax +49 (0)3212 5382739
info@lichtblick-school.com
www.lichtblick-school.com

The photograph is of the group from the last workshop, including from the Lichtblick School, Wolfgang Zurborn, Tina Schelhorn and of course me.

Ai Weiwei at Kunsthaus Graz


Ai Weiwei Interlacing, the first large-scale exhibition of Ai Weiwei’s photographic and video work—taken over from the Fotomuseum Winterthur—puts the spotlight on Ai Weiwei the communicator and indefatigable remembrancer, the documenting, analysing, interlacing and multichannel-communicating artist. Even in his New York period (1983–1993), Ai Weiwei took photographs, but especially since his return to Beijing, he has tirelessly documented everyday realities of the urban environment and society in China, and discussed them in blogs and twitters. The photographs of the radical changes to the urban built fabric, the search for earthquake victims, and the destruction of his Shanghai studio are presented along with art-photographic projects, the documenta Fairytale project, the countless blog and mobile-phone photographs. The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive book of material and archives.
and runs from 17th Sept. 2011–15th Jan. 2012.


The exhibition was organised by the Fotomuseum Winterthur and curated by Urs Stahel. From 21st Feb. to 29th April 2102, it will be on show at the Jeu de Paume, Paris.

The image: Ai Weiwei, "Dropping a Han-Dynasty Urn," 1995 (detail).

www.museum-joanneum.at

Sunday, September 4, 2011

PETER DOWNSBROUGH: The Book(s) - 1968-2010


On the occasion of the publication of the book: Peter Downsbrough: The Book(s) 1968-2010, Florence Loewy’s Paris bookstore has organized a retrospective exhibition, to discover or rediscover the work of this conceptual artist, who, since 1968 onwards, has published some 85 books. Peter Downsbrough belongs to the first generation of artists such as, Robert Barry, Sol LeWitt, Lawrence Weiner, John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha and Allan Ruppersberg, who use the book as a real medium.

Peter Downsbrough considers the book as a volume, a space, using words as tools, combining them with a wide variety of graphic elements (lines, punctuation marks, plans, and maps), to constantly create new configurations. Very architectured, from the beginning, his work focuses mainly on the status of location and on the implication of locating something in relation to space and time.

The ensemble presented, collected over the past twenty years, gives a true understanding of not only the importance of the book in the artist’s oeuvre, but also its perpetual renewal and enrichment, starting from what one might call a basic vocabulary.

Peter Downsbrough was born in 1940 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. During the 60’s he studied architecture at the Cincinnati University, Ohio, and at the Cooper Union, New York, first exhibiting his works during the 70’s. Selected group exhibitions include Documenta 6, section ‘Artists’ Books’ (1977), “Printed Art: a View of Two Decades”, Museum of Modern Art, New York City (1980), “Artists’ Books”, Tate Gallery, London (1995), “Reconsidering the Object of Art”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1995) or POSITION, a monographic exhibition, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (2003). Peter Downsbrough currently lives and works in Brussels.

Peter Downsbrough: The Book(s) 1968-2010
10 septembre- 5 novembre, 2011

florence loewy... by artists
9 rue de thorigny 75003 paris
t: 01 44 78 98 45 f: 01 44 78 98 46
www.florenceloewy.com info@florenceloewy.com
ouvert du mardi au samedi de 14h00 à 19h00

The image: Peter Downsbrough, Hors, 2005 Carte postale unique envoyée le 27-11-2005. Vue panoramique de Milano Marritima et adhésif noir.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Auckland - some new photographs

Here are four new images, I made here in Auckland in last few days....