Artists who work as a couple

Posted this morning on Andy Adams' Flak Photo network is this list of "artists who work as couples".  This is an interesting resource and worth re-posting. When artists work together they face an array of challenges different from the solitary practitioner. How to define boundaries and responsibilities, and division of process. In the field of photography Bernd and Hilla Becher, seen above,  are probably the best known artist team.

Bernd and Hilla Becher

Pierre et Gilles

Jeff Charbonnea and Eliza French
http://www.sevensistersasleep.com/

Nate Larson and Marni Schindelman
http://larson-shindelman.com/

J. Shimon and J. Lindemann
http://www.shimonlindemann.com/

Robert and Shana Parkeharrison
http://www.parkeharrison.com/

Daniel and Geo Fuchs
http://www.daniel-geo-fuchs.com/

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin
http://www.choppedliver.info/

Trine Søndergaard and Nicolai Howalt
http://www.trinesondergaard.com/
http://www.nicolaihowalt.com/

WassinkLundgren
http://www.wassinklundgren.com/

Louviere + Vanessa
http://louviereandvanessa.com/

Rimma Gerlovin and Valeriy Gerlovina
http://www.gerlovin.com/

Michael and Abigail Mouw
http://mouwstudio.com/

Aziz + Cucher
http://www.azizcucher.net/

Inez van Lamsweerde and Vindoodh Matadin
http://inezandvinoodh.com/

Francoise and Daniel Cartier
http://www.fdcartier.fr.st/

Wilmes and Mascaux
http://www.wilmesmascaux.com/

Michael Boss and Diana Thorneycroft
http://michaelboss.ca/
http://dianathorneycroft.com/

Mike and Doug Starn
http://www.starnstudio.com/

Lucie and Simon
http://www.lucieandsimon.com/

Nicholas and Sheila Pye
http://www.nickandsheila.com/

Diane Cook and Len Jenshel
http://www.cookjenshel.com/

Thomas Dorn and Isabelle Derigo
http://www.dornderigo.com/

Dead Porcupine (Raffaele Capasso and Francesco Claudio Cipolletta) -
http://www.deadporcupine.com/

Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb
http://www.webbnorriswebb.com/

Schilte and Portielje
http://www.schilteportielje.com/

Carlos and Jason Sanchez
http://www.thesanchezbrothers.com/

Montiel Klint
http://klintandphoto.com/

Tribble and Mancenido
http://www.tribblemancenido.com/

Alex and Felix
http://www.alexandfelix.com/

Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz
http://www.martin-munoz.com/

Bleda y Rosa
http://www.bledayrosa.com/

Minimiam (Akiko Ida and Pierre Javelle)
http://www.minimiam.com/

The Hilton Brothers (Christopher Makos and Paul Solberg)
http://www.thehiltonbrothers.com/

Anderson and Low
http://www.andersonandlow.com/

Sasha Bezzebov and Jessica Sucher
http://sashabezzubov.com/

Laura McPhee and Virginia Beahan
http://www.lauramcphee.com/
http://www.virginiabeahan.com/

Araki / Lady Gaga / Bondage

Nobuyoshi Araki has shown the first Polaroids from his shoot with Lady Gaga for Vogue Homme Japan, September 2011 issue.

Martin Parr's THE PROTEST BOX

Martin Parr’s collection of photobooks is one of the finest to have ever been assembled and THE PROTEST BOX is a box set which brings together five books from that collection as facsimile reprints. Parr has selected diverse books which each deal with the subject of protest in quite different ways. From the documentation of various protest movements to the actual book being a form of protest, all these reprints are gems within the history of photographic publishing. A few are known but many are new, even to the connoisseur of photography books. All these books are virtually impossible to locate, so these reprints will make a substantial contribution to our understanding of this sub-genre of the photobook. The box set is accompanied by a booklet which includes an introduction by Martin Parr, an essay discussing the wider context of these books by Gerry Badger, and English translations of all the texts in the books.

Five books in a box with a booklet, including essays by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, and English translations of all texts from the original books.

# Enrique Bostelmann: América: un Viaje a traves de la injustica176 pages, 11.2 x 7.9 in. / 28 x 20 cm, tritone, hardcover # Paolo Gasparini: Para verte major, América Latina180 pages, 9.7 x 8.7 in. / 24.5 x 22.2 cm, tritone, softcover # Dirk Alveramnn: Algeria224 pages, 4.3 x 7.1 in. / 10.8 x 18 cm, tritone, hardcover # Kitai Kazuo: Sanrizuka184 pages, 7.1 x 9.6 in. / 18 x 24.3 cm, tritone, softcover # Paolo Mattioli and Anna Candiani: Immagini del No124 pages, 3 x 3.9 in. / 7.5 x 9.8 cm, tritone, softcover

5 volumes, 888 pages, 20 cm x 28 cm, Softcover, Publication date: August 2011 in a limited edition of 1,000 boxed sets

http://steidlville.com/books/1105-The-Protest-Box.html

 

TODD HIDO at Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery, Cologne

Opening Friday September 9, Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery in Cologne will be showing for the first time in Europe a selection of images from Todd Hido's A Road Divided series. Photographed through the windshield of his car the world is presented through a diffuse veil of water and ice. Some details are sharp while others melt into abstract fluid forms. Haunting ambiguous images that are metaphors for personal feelings. Emptiness, isolation, sorrow and separation.

http://www.toddhido.com/

 A Road Divided, Nazraeli Press (2010)

http://www.ks-contemporary.com/

PIETER HUGO for AUT St Paul St, January 2012 workshop

It was a pleasure to meet Pieter Hugo at the Kassel Photobook Festival back in June. When I talked to Pieter about the AUT workshop series he jumped at the chance to come and contribute.

Pieter Hugo was born 1976 and grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. He is a South African photographer who primarily works in portraiture and whose work engages with both documentary and art traditions with a focus on African communities.

Hugo has called himself "a political-with-a-small-p photographer... it's hard not to be as soon as you pick up a camera in South Africa". He believes that "the power of photography is inherently voyeuristic but I want that desire to be confronted." He also states that he is "deeply suspicious of the power of photography."

Hugo's first major photo collection LOOKING ASIDE consisted of a collection of portraits of people "whose appearance makes us look aside", his subjects including the blind, people with albinism, the aged, his family and himself. Explaining his interest in the marginal he has said, "My homeland is Africa, but I'm white. I feel African, whatever that means, but if you ask anyone in South Africa if I'm African, they will almost certainly say no. I don't fit into the social topography of my country and that certainly fueled why I became a photographer."

This was followed by RWANDA 2004: VESTIGES OF A GENOCIDE which the Rwanda Genocide Institute describes as offering "a forensic view of some of the sites of mass execution and graves that stand as lingering memorials to the many thousands of people slaughtered."

His most recognized work is the series called THE HYENA AND OTHER MEN, published as a monograph and has received a great deal of critical attention.
Hugo has also been working on a series of photographs called MESSINA/MUSSINA that were made in the town of Musina on the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa and also published as a monograph.

This was followed by a return to Nigeria with NOLLYWOOD, photographs of the Nigerian film industry.

PERMANENT ERROR followed in 2011 where Hugo photographed the people and landscape of an expansive dump of obsolete technology in Ghana. Critic Sean O'Toole writes "if NOLLYWOOD was playfully over-the-top, a smart riposte to accusations of freakishness and racism leveled at his photography... PERMANENT ERROR marks Hugo’s return to a less self-reflexive mode of practice."

Pieter Hugo is a fresh and exciting voice is contemporary photography. Those who saw his show of NOLLYWOOD photographs at Te Tuhi in February / March I'm sure will agree.

Joining Pieter at the 2012 workshop will be one of Europe's most influential and highly regarded photography curators. As chief curator photography for a noted and well known contemporary art museum his responsibilities include building one of Europe's most significant and substantial photography collections and mounting year after year stunning photography shows. More about this very soon.......

For more information you can contact either me at: harvey.benge@xtra.co.nz or Neil Cameron at AUT School of Art and Design, neil.cameron@aut.ac.nz

Photographs from Pieter Hugo's NOLLYWOOD series

Pieter Hugo at Yossi Milo

Yossi Milo Gallery New York will show Pieter Hugo's new series Permanent Error, opening Thursday September 8 and running until Saturday October 29.
Permanent Error, depicts Agbogbloshie, a massive dump site for technological waste on the outskirts of Ghana’s capital city, and the locals who burn down the components to extract bits of copper, brass, aluminum and zinc for resale. Tons of outdated and broken computers, computer games, mobile phones and other e-waste are shipped to the area as “donations” from the West, under the guise of providing technology to developing countries. Rather than helping to bridge the digital divide, the equipment is transformed into noxious trash threatening the health of the area’s inhabitants and contaminating the water and soil.
Gray plumes of smoke rise from smoldering piles of disassembled monitors, motherboards and wiring, providing an apocalyptic backdrop for Hugo’s portraits of the workers. The subjects, many of whom are young men sent by their families from impoverished outlying villages, are photographed full-figure and directly engaged with Hugo’s medium-format camera. With each portrait, Hugo draws the viewer into the conditions imposed on this slum community and their effects on individuals. Collectively, the photographs expose consequences of the West’s consumption of ever-new technology and its disposal of outmoded products in poor countries ill-equipped to recycle them.

Pieter Hugo’s work was recently on view at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London; the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia; and the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, Finland. A mid-career retrospective exhibition curated by Wim van Sinderen will open in February 2012 at The Hague Museum of Photography, The Netherlands, and will travel through 2014.
The photographer's previous books, The Hyena & Other Men (2007) and Nollywood (2009) were published by Prestel, which released Permanent Error in March 2011.

525 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001
http://www.yossimilo.com/
http://www.pieterhugo.com/

Douglas Stockdale - Ciociaria, secrets about a place

Douglas Stockdale, well known for his insightful photo-blog The PhotoBook will launch his new photo-book Ciociaria in conjunction with FotoGrafia Festival Internazionale di Roma, which runs September 23rd to 23rd October.

The book is case bound with a page trim size of 20.5 cm x 24.5 cm and has been printed and bound in Italy. With 96 pages, 50 color photographs and an essay by Marco Delogu and text is in both English and Italian. Priced at US$55.00, as a special offer leading up to publication the book will be signed and shipped to purchasers at no cost.

You can email Douglas Stockdale direct to enquire about Ciociaria or the Limited Edition print series he plans to go with the publication.  doug@douglasstockdale.com

Here are some images: 

PHOTOQUAI - 3rd biennial exhibition, images of the world

PHOTOQUAI was established in 2007 at Paris' musée du quai Branly. This year the exhibition will continue to pursue its original mission that of showcasing photographers whose work is little known in Europe.
PHOTOQUAI 2011 is a voyage through the noise and clamour of the world presenting a cultural world view.

Opening September 13 and running until November 11, 2011 this third edition of the exhibition presents nearly 400 works by 46 contemporary photographers from 29 countries: South Africa, Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Togo, Morocco, Tunisia, Bahrain, Iraq, Belarus, Russia, China, South Korea, India, Japan, Taiwan, Cuba, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Colombia, Brazil.

The curator of the third biennial PHOTOQUAI is photographer and director Françoise Huguier who also estabished the Bamako biennial.

Exhibition catalogue: PHOTOQUAI 2011, Co-edition musée du Quai Branly/Actes Sud
19.6 x 27.5 cm; 264 pages; 200 illustrations, In French and English.
www.quaibranly.fr

COLOGNE STOPOVER - June 2011

When I was in Cologne for my workshop at Lichtblick School back in June I was able to make same photographs and from these a bookwork.
This artist's book is 226 x 160 mm, 20 pages with 19 photographs printed on 150gsm art stock. The edition is limited to 50 copies, each signed and numbered.
The bookwork can be obtained directly from me: €15 / £13 / US$22 / NZ$25, which includes postage.

The Photobook - a few thoughts on sequencing

Making a photobook, assuming one has an idea and photographs that work, involves first an edit and then the sequence. That is the construction of a narrative made up of often unrelated photographs. Each photograph in its own right has its own narrative and when sequenced with other images, often juxtaposed, the narrative changes and builds. Changes to fit the idea of the work.

I believe that the reader is smarter than we give credit. Often smarter than we are. Accepting that, it makes sense not to give away too much. What is withheld matters just as much as what is revealed. The best photographs are open ended and leave room for the reader to construct their own meaning.

Screen writer and director David Mamet talks about the idea of uninflected images, those that carry no inflection and are therefore as neutral as possible. These are open to interpretation and will move the narrative along.

Accepting that, all photographs are a balance between form and content. Still however, I see photobook works that seem to be edited and sequenced purely on the basis of the photographs formal characteristics. This to me is sudden death. What is important is not so much what a photograph looks like but what it says, or can say when the readers brings their own intellect and experience to the work. Using only formal criteria robs images of their layers of meaning and stops the work in its tracks. And understandably the reader looses interest when their chance to contribute to the narrative is diminished.

What’s worse photobooks are still being made where photographs are juxtaposed with images echoing each others formal elements. Viewer response, and my response to this is – oh yeh I can see why those photographs were put next to each other, so what.
This sort of reaction is counterproductive. Better to have a response like this – why were those pictures put next to each other, there has to be a reason? Setting this up sustains interest and keeps the reader coming back to the work.

Alec Soth sequences conceptually moving the idea along as he goes. John Gossage uses what I call the slow burn approach, intelligently sequencing images often visually similar but never where the formal link is obvious. Torbjørn Rødland and Roe Ethridge employ what I call a “stream-of-consciousness” strategy, conceptually juxtaposing images that by right shouldn’t go together, but you know there is a reason. Paul Graham has used various sequencing tactics, for example in End of an Age where ingeniously the photographs follow the turn of the heads of the portraits in the book. And in Shimmer of Possibilty, short almost cinematic narrative sequences.

Picture editing is difficult. Sequencing harder still. Hemingway advised,
Write the story, take out all the good bits and see if it still works……
Good advice for both writers and photographers. Oh, and never underestimate the readers desire and ability to contribute to the reading of the work. Don’t make it too easy, make it harder and they will respect you for it. And the bookwork will be all the better for it.

The spreads:
from Torbjørn Rødland's book, I WANT TO LIVE INNOCENT, SteidlMACK 2008

Auckland - Saturday morning in perfect light

Here some photographs I made yesterday in perfect early morning light. Steel grey mist with hard winter sun pushing through. And did I detect a touch of Spring nodding its head?

Florian Habicht's LOVE STORY opened yesterday on 6 Auckland screens

Following its rave reception at the opening night of the Auckland Film Festival, Florian Habicht's LOVE STORY has moved to general release on six Auckland screens.
Set in New York, Florian has made a movie that's an amazing hybrid and a total genre bender. Part doco, part biopic, with a touch of self exploitation, Florian reveals a chest full of ideas. Watch for the kinky breakfast scene! Not to mention hot in the bath action!
A knock out movie not to be missed!

Rialto Newmarket 10:25am, 2:35pm, 6:30pm
Event Queen Street (Skycity) 11:40am, 1:40pm, 6:30pm,
and late night screening at 10:50pm.
Bridgeway 2:00pm, 4:30pm, 8:45pm
Hoyts Sylvia Park 10:40am, 12:50pm, 6:00pm
Event Albany (Skycity) 10:15am, 2:55pm, 4:55pm, 7:00pm
Waiheke Community Cinema 8:00pm

Frontiers of another nature - Contemporary photographic art from Iceland

Opening next week at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, "Frontiers of Another Nature - Contemporary Photographic Art from Iceland". The show is a considered selection of emerging and established Icelandic photo-media artists, artists who draw from unique Icelandic landscape and environment in their work. 

The photographers are,  Bára Kristinsdóttir, Einar Falur Ingólfsson, Haraldur Jónsson, Hrafnkell Sigurðsson, Icelandic Love Corporation, Ingvar Högni Ragnarsson, Katrin Elvarsdóttir, Pétur Thomsen and Spessi.

Curated by  Celina Lunsford, Artistic Director, Fotografie Forum Frankfurt and Christiane Stahl, Director of the Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung in cooperation with Inga Lára Baldvinsdóttir, Curator of Photography, National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavík and María Karen Sigurðardóttir, Director of the Museum for Photography, Reykjavík.

A bilingual catalogue accompanies the exhibition, edited by Celina Lunsford, Christiane Stahl, and Kristján B. Jónasson, with a text by Christiane Stahl. Published by Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg, August 2011.

The Exhibition is a production of the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt in cooperation with the Frankfurter Kunstverein. It is part of the arts and culture program "Fabulous Iceland - Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2011".  www.fkv.de

Frankfurter Kunstverein, Steinernes Haus am Römerberg, Markt 44, 60311 Frankfurt / Main, Germany

The photographs: Bára Kristinsdóttir from the series Calm

Frontiers of another nature - Contemporary photographic art from Iceland

19 August - 18 October 2011

Press preview: August 18, 2011, 11 am
Opening: August 18, 2011, 7 pm

Vanessa Winship awarded Cartier-Bresson Fondation Prize

Just a year after receiving the Descubrimientos PHE prize, photographer Vanessa Winship has received the biannuall Henri Cartier-Bresson Prize. The jury, composed of seven influential figures in the world of photography, has awarded the prize for Winship’s upcoming project entitled “Out there: An American Odyssey.”  The photographer was given 30,000 euro to produce the new work.
Once Winship has completed her American Odyssey project, the photographs will be exhibited at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in spring of 2013.

Winship is an English photographer born in 1960. After studying cinema and photography at Westminster University (Polytechnic of Central London), Vanessa Winship begins teaching photography in London. After that, she works for the National Science Museum and becomes an independent photographer. She joins Agence VU in 2005 and shares her time between United Kingdom and the Balkans where she works on the series “Sweet Nothings” and “Schawarzes Meer”. She won numerous prizes, including the World Press Photo (Amsterdam) and the National Portrait Gallery Prize (London) and her work is exhibited in numerous museums and festivals such as the Rencontres d'Arles, the Kunstall Museum of Contemporary Art in Rotterdam or Photographers Gallery in London.

The photograph: Hakkari, Iraki border, 2007

More here: http://www.vanessawinship.com/projects.php

Auckland - the gray winter days continue

.....some pictures I made this weekend