A Short History of Photography - John Daly-Peoples reviews

Arts writer John Daly-Peoples of New Zealand's National Business Review writes:

Harvey Benge invents a new history of photography.
Most artists are copiers, inspired and guided by other artists. In many cases this stylistic appropriation is obvious as with work by Michael Parekowhai in his borrowings from McMahon, Walters and Moore. However for most artists the borrowing is not intentional and not immediately obvious with influences continually refined and redefined.
Appropriation in its various forms is the history of art. No artist is really free from the ideas, processes and styles of the past.
In his latest book of photographs A Short History of Photography, Harvey Benge has acknowledged his connections to other photographers and the history of photography.
Initially he noticed that one of his pictures reminded him of a Friedlander, another of someone else. Picking out his Friedlander and his Parr and his Baltz he embarked on a collection of contemporary photography featuring some of its biggest names.
So the book lists the names of these photographers on the cover of his own version of the history of photography.
Its generally easy to see the connections although sometimes as with his industrial tower work it is really just a witty reference to the Bechers work.
It is a nice conceit, the idea that one person can embody the history of an art form and Benge pulls it off partly because his own approach and style are still obvious.
In many of the examples where he has seen connections between his and other photographers work the similarity only alerts the viewer to the fact that there are other connections.
So when he uses one of his seascapes to show the similarity to the work of Sugimoto the work could equally well be a nod to the seascapes of Laurence Aberhart.
Similarly when he links his shot of a high flying plane to the work of Tillmans there is as much a connection with a similar work by Peter Peryer.
And his beach scene by Vitale looks like the famous Brian Brake image.
One could probably go through his appropriated works expanding the linkages and connections with a host of other photographers.
The introduction to the book by Gerry Badger makes some perceptive comments about photographic style noting that Susan Sontag believed that “Style in photography… is a function of subject matter. In short it is usually a matter of the style for the job.”
Badger also makes the point that “It is also important that the pictures here did not arise from a conscious stylistic exercise where Harvey Benge set out deliberately to make a Shore or Koudelka. These images emerged from his normal practice as a street photographer.”
While the book is interesting from the point of view of guessing the photographer they real pleasure with this book is that it is another set of the photographers work in which he takes an idiosyncratic look at the world, seeing humour, drama, eroticism, dysfunction and unity in the world about him.

Rome - Posters and Pines

There is something that always hits you in any city and becomes a sort of visual leitmotif. In Rome's case two recurring visual elements would have to be the endless variations of the torn posters that grab you at almost every step. I had to photograph these, even at the risk of producing Aaron Siskind me too, look alike cliches. The variations roll on in their tattered beauty and are a great way of taking the current political temperature, which in the case of Italy is often bubbling if not boiling. Then there are the pine trees, impossible to miss and a constant reminder that Rome is a southern Mediterranean city. They are tall and ragged reaching for the sky and light between the apartment blocks and down the median strips of endless avenues. And what a beautiful green against the ochre yellow earth colours of the buildings. And the smell hits you too, a waft here and there. Here are three torn posters and pine trees with a cross thrown in. A cross because they too are impossible to avoid in this ecclesiastical city.

Rome - Time passing

I can think of no other place where the sense of time past and time passing is so evident. In the streets, in the trees, in the landscape. In the air. Time is on my mind when in Rome.

Rome - polarities

Rome, a city of incredible extremes. Polarities that make this place so special. So profound. The ancient and the modern, the sacred and profane, substance and trivia, the real and unreal. To illustrate, here are three confessionals and a green shed with old stump.

Polish people (are wonderful!)

The wonderful Poles....charming, friendly, delightful, smiling and hospitable. Here are three people I photographed; a guy at the train station, a young woman from Warsaw in Lodz to see the festival, and a gentleman whom I took to be the mayor of a little town outside of Lodz where photography students were showing work in an abandoned prison.

Polish style

My May European travels took me to Poland, mostly in Lodz for the Photography Festival -http://www.fotofestiwal.com/2008/ and with a few days in Krakow with time to take in their month of photography - http://www.photomonth.com.
Although today very much a part of greater Europe there seems to be evident a particular sense of Polish style, a particular visual look in their design. A sort of modernist thing it seemed to me. Here are two photographs that have that look.

A Short History of Photography - Launch in Auckland

Next Tuesday night June 10th between 5 - 7pm at John Leech Gallery in Auckland I will launch my latest book A Short History of Photography.This is published in New Zealand by Random House as a co-edition with my British publisher Dewi Lewis. Gerry Badger, British photography critic and writer in his introductory essay writes: "While looking through his contact sheets, Harvey Benge noticed that one of his pictures reminded him of a 'Friedlander', another someone else. All photographers do this, and if the photograph in question apes another photographer too closely, it's usually a cause for rejection. But Benge did the opposite. Picking out his 'Friedlander' and his 'Parr' and his 'Baltz' he decided to make an 'anthology' of contemporary photography featuring some of its biggest names. Yet they are all genuine, original Benges. They are also all good pictures, not mere pastiches of the 'originals' of which they gently but insistently remind one. This may be a game, but games can be very serious, and this fascinating book is both a serious and light-hearted exploration of photographic style."

Satellite Gallery - They Were Young Once

In the company of Bruce Connew, Marti Friedlander and Gil Hanly I will show at the Satellite gallery in Auckland, this image,
BL Medici, made in 2003. The show opens on Tuesday June 3. Also opening same night is a group show at The John Leech Gallery where I will show images from my new book A Short History of Photography. Work from this book is also showing in Paris at SPREE, 16 rue la vieuville in the 18th.

Paris - Small Anarchies

Back from Paris, just. Here are some preliminary images from random wanderings in the street. No real idea in mind. Chance and circumstance. Looking through what I shot, Paris life seems to have taken on a sub human quality, where humanity, has become secondary to the constructed, the ephemeral, the unreal. A Baudrillard simulacrum, where the hyperreal has become truth in its own right. There are many readings, many pictures and many edits too. What to make of this?

Paris / Lodz / Rome

Next week I leave for Paris where I will show my Short History of Photography work at galerie SPREE. After to Lodz, the second largest city in Poland where I will show my China Story pictures. These are a series I made in 2006 and 2007 when I was a guest at the Pingyao Festival in Shanxi Province China. The International Festival of Photography in Lodz is the biggest event of this kind in Poland. It is organized by Foundation of Visual Education and Lodz Art Center, located in a complex of 19th century factories. Every year in May over 50 exhibitions are presented. There will be shows of contemporary Chinese photography plus a 'Western Eye on the East' which includes my work and among others, shows from friends Nadav Kander (London) and Wolfgang Zurbon (Cologne). After to Rome where I will catch FotoGrafia International. Here is a picture I made in Shanghai in 2006.

Marks of Honour 2008 - 14 contemporary photographers pay homage

Photography in books has not only influenced collectors and curators, but also generations of photographers. Since Robert Frank published his Les Américains in 1958, the photobook is a source for artistic inspiration and creative reference.
Marks of Honour was initiated by Markus Schaden (Schaden.com photobookshop, Cologne) and Willem van Zoetendaal (Van Zoetendaal Gallery, Amsterdam) in 2005.
Then, 41 photographers paid a homage to a publication which was influential to their own work. These editions were exhibited at Van Zoetendaal Gallery and FOAM, Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam.
Now in 2008, the basic concept remains the same. MoH/08 is curated and organized In Cologne by Nina Poppe and Verena Loewenhaupt. Fourteen contemporary photographers have been invited to create a homage to a photo-book that has influenced their own practice. All participating works (limited to three copies), will contain the original photobook and its complimentary homage. Exhibitions and a significant catalogue will follow.
Included among the fourteen are: Antoine D‘Agata, Peter Granser, Mark Power, Alec Soth, and Jules Spinatsch. My entry will be a homage to William Eggleston's Guide published in 1976 by The Museum of Modern Art as a catalogue to Eggleston's ground-breaking exhibition. My contribution consists of an artist's book of 16 pages, with hand written text and four tipped in photographs, one inserted loose. Both books contained in a cloth bound slip-case.
You can read more at: http://www.marksofhonour.com/

Auckland - Dawn Parade

ANZAC day, Dawn Parade at the Auckland Museum. A Beautiful sunrise. A time to remember. Lest We Forget.

Auckland - the importance of what's left out

Here is another Auckland picture I made yesterday. To me it's a good example of a picture working by virtue of what's not in it rather than what is. I like the grassy green negative space and the feeling that something is going to happen soon. Something, somebody is about to intrude. But what? Who? I'm sure there are other readings, but this is mine.....

Auckland and two Hollywoods

Sunday, making pictures on this clear sunny very much autumn day. At Avondale to the old Hollywood Cinema famous for its regular screenings (complete with rice throwing) of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And of course for it's wonderful old Wurlitzer organ. Today The Wurlizter Organ Trust had gathered for a performance. To quote from the program "great music and laughter guaranteed ...includes some short slap-stick silent movie comedies..." I arrived just as the happy audience was spilling out and made this picture of an elegant Wurlitzer fan and her Marilyn bag... key in hand she seemed ready for anything. Later in a pile of abandoned junk I found this single Hollywood shoe, sad and lonely, nothing like the other face of Hollywood that I'd just left.....

Auckland and Albert Einstein

The most wonderful thing we can experience is the sense of mystery. It is the source of all true art and science. Whosoever has never felt this emotion, who no longer knows how to stop and meditate and remain transfixed in fearful admiration, is like a dead man: his eyes are shut. Albert Einstein.

Images made Saturday April 5

Auckland? Or is it?

Here is a picture I made last night of a gas station. Located in a busy main road that's lined with thriving and buzzing ethnic restaurants (mostly Chinese) the station could be anywhere. Unlike the restaurants the station is empty, soulless and corporate. The only New Zealand give-aways are perhaps the two very local looking buildings over the wall... but they could be anywhere too .....

Auckland - strange differences

My verbal attempt to explain and describe Auckland's strange differences to an American photographer friend failed me.
These pictures (which I made last evening on a walk from my house) perhaps speak better about this city. I see in them impermanence, change, emptiness, and time passing.

PLUS BRITNEY - Life Goes On

Here is a wonderful pink rubber glove I recently discovered in Auckland's Grey Lynn shopping area. What gets to me
most is the almost unnoticeable line of text on one of the magazine covers - PLUS BRITNEY. The owner of hand and
glove seems unperturbed, evidence that life does go on, with or without Britney.

Harvey Benge at Zendai MoMA Shanghai

Here is an installation picture of my work Sixty Portraits that is currently showing with MoMA Shanghai's Art and Life 366 programme. The work has been installed in a public location and is part of the museums year long strategy to bring art out of the museum into the public arena. The sixty photographs in this series were made between 2001 and 2007 in France (Paris), New Zealand (Northcote), and China (Pingyao). The images were shot in an intentionally deadpan, uncontrived and democratic fashion. Randomly sequenced, the viewer is left to look for clues as to location and identity. The works purpose is to raise issues of race, multiculturalism and globalisation. The series will also be one of several projection works shown at the opening of the Auckland Photography Festival on May 30.

Think of a tree.....

Nothing has any inherent existence of its own when you really look at it. This absence of independent existence is what can be called “emptiness.” When you think of a tree, one tends to think of a distinctly defined object; and on a certain level it is. But when you look more closely at the tree, you will see that ultimately it has no independent existence. When you contemplate it, you will find that it dissolves into an extremely subtle net of relationships. The rain that falls on its leaves, the wind that sways it, the soil that nourishes and sustains it, all the seasons and the weather, moonlight and starlight and sunlight—all form part of this tree. And too, the particular individual view that each person has when they look at the tree.
As you begin to think more about the tree, you will discover that everything in the universe helps to make the tree what it is; that it cannot at any moment be isolated from anything else; and that at every moment its nature is subtly changing.
This particular tree is in Cologne at the back of the Cologne Cathedral. Somehow despite the importance and wonder of the cathedral this tree seemed to overpower even that. Think about it.....