João Silva, photographer wounded in Afghanistan, how you can help...

On October 23rd, accompanying U.S. troops in Afghanistan, while on assignment for The New York Times, photojournalist João Silva lost both of his legs below the knees when he stepped on a land mine.

Friends of João have set up a website to sell his photographs and accept donations with proceeds to benefit him and his family.

You can find the site here: http://joaosilva.photoshelter.com/

The photograph: João Silva

Alec Soth, Broken Manual

It was a pleasure to make a book swap with Alec Soth at Paris Photo and come away with a copy of his latest book, Broken Manual. This book is a collaboration with the mysterious Lester B. Morrison and in this new work Soth reinvents himself and the photobook.

Looking like something you might find in your Father's workshop under a pile of old Popular Mechanics, Broken Manual is ostensibly about escape and transformation. This many layered book deals with options and possibilities, chance and circumstance. It's what I would call a "what the fuck" sort of book.... what is going on here and why? The book is like having a stone in the shoe which niggles and irritates but is a reminder as to exactly where your feet are even if you don't know quite where you might be going. Makes you keep coming back to the problem to try and work it out.

Pleasingly there are some wonderful signature Soth large format colour pictures in the book and these are countered with more intimate black and white photographs, images like pocket pussy, and Frank's view. Different notes that push and pull as you struggle to fill in the gaps.

This is a photobook for our times where particularly right now in America so many things appear to be broken. But not Broken Manual, this photobook is about as close to perfect as you can get. So far my favorite photobook for 2010.

Anders Petersen and JH Engström talk about rabbits

"please be horrible!
tear down your photography into pieces.
don't bother about glamour,
destroy the surface,
take care of your innocence,
your fantasy is more important than reality

remember, your pictures are jumping like rabbits into your
camera when you understand
photography is not about photography"

Anders Petersen

"for me workshops are about starting a bigger process.
a workshop should not end when it ends.
maybe it doesn't even start until it ends.
and that's a great thing.

during the week we all together should open up and
embrace each other's fears and weak spots

to push the button is not that difficult.
it's much more difficult to have the courage to
make photographs that are talking about things
that really matter to one and each one of use.

let's be courageous!"

JH Engström


Two simple but enlightened quotes from Petersen and Engström setting the tone for a workshop they will give together in Las Palmas, March 2011.
You can find out more by going to:
http://insightsproject.com/en/insightsprojects/island-workshop.html

The photograph: Anders Petersen

Paris Photo, Photo Madness, Photo Magic!

Entering Paris Photo at the Carousel du Louvre you first encounter the world of Photobooks as you meet Markus Schaden and team with their hot-off-the-press new book offerings. And in my view that's how it should be, Photobooks first with the work on the gallery walls an added bonus.

Paris Photo this year as packed and frantic as ever. Very hard to focus on work when you keep seeing friends and colleagues not seen since last year. Perhaps as a counter to the photo madness it's the quiet thoughtful works I gravitate to, Kertesz of course and at Max Estrella Gallery Madrid, pictures from Duane Michals from his René Magritte series. At Cologne Galerie Priska Pasquer sublime Japanese work including Rinko Kawauchi. Paris gallery Les filles du calvaire with an impressive image from Paul Graham from his End of an Age series 1996-1998, this work in an edition of three, all sold at Euro 24,000 a piece. Nice.

Then there were the book signings, including Tina Barney, Gerry Badger, JH Engstrom, Anders Petersen, John Gossage, Susan Meiselas, Martin Parr, Todd Hido, Bruce Davidson and more....

This years focus at Paris Photo was on Eastern Europe. It was particularly pleasing to see friends from Poland at their gallery space with a no-compromise display of contemporary work.

Paris Photo 2011 will look at African photography: from Bamako to Cape Town. Put it in your diary, 17th to 20th November 2011. Six platforms will be created to spotlight the diversity of both historical and contemporary creativity in sub-Saharan Africa.

The photograph: Markus Schaden and team, Paris Photo 2010

Paris then, Auckland now...

Back in Auckland as of late last week. Departed Paris as the snow fell. Paris and the madness of Paris Photo week was amazing. Managing to shoot some frames. Here are a preliminary few.....

Brian Brake, one of the most celebrated photographers of the 20th century?

While in Paris I received an email from Auckland auction house ART + OBJECT inviting me to their book and exhibition launch of Selected Vintage Photographs from the Estate of Brian Brake.
In the mailing they announce that Brian Brake was one of the most celebrated photographers of the 20th century.

Later back in Auckland I was sent the magnificently produced hard back and slip-cased catalogue, surely a first for any New Zealand auction house. The auction includes all the usual Brake photographic chestnuts that we have all seen before with work that could be attributed to any photo-journalist at the top of their game.
Much of the success of the work relates to the subject matter. Who could go wrong finding Picasso and entourage in front of ones camera. And the sacred Maori objects, beautifully made photographs that most commercial studio photographers could readily turn their hand too. As for the Tasman Pulp and Paper portraits they are simply average.

Brian Brake's greatest achievement was his Monsoon Series. India is an extremely difficult place to make photographs, there is potentially a great picture everywhere you turn and they tend to cancel each other out. Brake's achievement is that he made the work on painfully slow Kodachrome film and he had a good idea, but never-the-less his pictures often reflect a distance and remoteness that was part of the man's personality.

ART + OBJECT make the most of Brake's MAGNUM membership. Of course he left MAGNUM, not the first member to do so, more than likely in the knowledge that he could make more money working freelance than paying the photo cooperatives percentage. Sadly today MAGNUM have written Brian Brake out of their history, I suspect a fate reserved for all defectors. I would doubt very much if today any of the new, younger members would even know his name.

So with the passage of time, the death of the photographer and auction house hyperbole, solid tradesman like reportage has become art.

I wonder though, given that ART + OBJECT rate Brake as "one of the most celebrated photographers of the 20th century" why their sale price estimates are so low.

The photograph: Indian girl in early monsoon rain.

The auction takes place at 6.30pm Thursday December 9

Duane Michals, on what we feel

"The best part of us is not what we see, it's what we feel. We are what we feel. We are not what we look at. We're not our eyeballs, we're our mind. People believe their eyeballs and they're totally wrong. That's why I consider most photographs extremely boring, just like Muzak, inoffensive, charming, another waterfall, another sunset. This time, colors have been added to protect the innocent. It's just boring. But that whole arena of one's experience, grief, loneliness, how do you photograph lust? I mean, how do you deal with these things? This is what you are, not what you see. It's all sitting up here. I could do all my work sitting in my room. I don't have to go anywhere". Duane Michals

The photographs: Chance Meeting (1970) and self portraits of unknown date

Paris, more thoughts on the Eiffel Tower

I've made my own re-take on a clichéd Eiffel Tower picture postcard, turning the image into my version of Foucault's Pendulum.

Foucault's pendulum is named after the French physicist Léon Foucault, who conceived the device as an experiment to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. Foucault made his most famous pendulum when he suspended a 28 kg bob with a 67 meter long wire from the dome of the Panthéon in Paris. The plane of the pendulum's swing rotates clockwise 11° per hour, making a full circle in 32.7 hours.

The photographs: My pendulum and Foucault's Pendulum in the Panthéon, Paris

Paris in November

I will be in Paris for all of November, so please excuse a slow down in my blog postings. But lots to report on my return to Auckland in December.

On the subject of Paris here is an artist's bookwork that I really like. It's from Hans-Peter Feldmann published in 2005 by Salon Verlag Cologne. Simply 30 "found" photographs of the Tour Eiffel. A nice way to turn the picture postcard cliché on its head.

White Press is cooking!

With Christoph and Markus Schaden in the kitchen White Press are bound to cook up some innovative and tempting new photo books with the freshest of ingredients. With nine great custom-made books since 2008 this is an imprint to watch. And collect!

They say this about themselves, "The White Lines follow new directions in print, focusing on the paramount discipline of the photo book. Coming from photographing, collecting, designing, producing and selling, here is where it all comes together. White Press Editions start off with a white piece of paper in mind. Then we begin to think and create — always in close coop with the author/photographer. Boosted by the Schaden.com community and carefully guided by Christoph Schaden, each book carries the individual features it deserves in the end. It’s a bit like cooking: Almost all possible ingredients are widely known. The combination and balance makes the recipe."

You can check out White Press here:
http://www.white-press.com/

William Eggleston at LACMA

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents William Eggleston: Democratic Camera—Photographs and Video, 1961–2008, the most comprehensive U.S. retrospective of the Memphis-based contemporary photographer. The exhibition traces the artist's evolution over a five-decade-period and brings together more than 200 photographs, including his iconic images of familiar, everyday subjects in addition to lesser-known, early black-and-white prints and provocative video recordings. A key figure in American photography, Eggleston is credited with nearly single-handedly ushering in the era of color photography. His inventive use of color and spontaneous compositions have profoundly influenced subsequent generations of photographers, filmmakers, and viewers. LACMA's presentation is the first Los Angeles retrospective of the artist in more than three decades. On view until January 16, 2011.

The photograph: William Eggleston, "Untitled," from Los Alamos, 1965–68

Paris Diary, May 2010

When I was in Paris in May / June this year I made a diary. Photographs of course.
It's 226 x 160 mm, 24 pages with 19 photographs printed on a 160 gsm coated art stock. The edition is limited to 75 copies, each signed and numbered.

The book work will be available from ABC Artists' Book Cooperative and Schaden.com at OffPrint Paris during Paris Photo, November 18 -21.

Alternatively you can obtain a copy direct from me via email: harvey@harveybenge.com
The edition is 10 Euro plus postage.

JR wins TED

The TED Conference has awarded its 2011 TED Prize to the street artist known as JR, who has plastered enormous photos on slums, industrial sites, office buildings and demolition sites in Brazil, Nigeria, Kenya, Cambodia, France, Spain, the US and elsewhere. The TED prize , awarded annually to an individual who exemplifies innovation, includes a $100,000 cash award and the chance to see “a wish to change the world” realized. Previous winners have included President Bill Clinton, singer/activist Bono, chef and anti-obesity advocate Jamie Oliver and photojournalist James Nachtwey.

JR, who calls himself a “photograffeur,” dramatically transforms the neighborhoods where he posts images, sometimes at the risk of arrest or police harassment. In his best known project, “Women are Heroes,” JR and a crew of local volunteers posted large, close-up portraits of women on the walls and roofs of favelas in Rio De Janiero.

JR’s photo displays are usually a form of protest. In Shanghai, he is now plastering a historic neighborhood that is being demolished with his portraits of the area’s elderly residents. But earlier this year, he created a purely artistic statement in Vevey, Switzerland using images by other photographers. According to JR’s web site, jr-art.net, he displayed images by Man Ray, Helen Levitt and Robert Capa.

Auckland, the Springtime light continues...

... some photographs I made yesterday.

Luc Tuymans at Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

The first U.S. retrospective of the work of Belgian contemporary artist Luc Tuymans, and the most comprehensive presentation of his work to date is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago from October 2, 2010 through January 9, 2011. The show features approximately 75 key paintings from 1978 to the present and reunites works from important series as initially set out by the artist, thus restoring intended dialogue among the works.

Luc Tuymans (born 1958) is considered to be one of the most significant painters working today. While addressing issues of history and memory his distinctive visual style and approach emphasizes the tensions between the handcraft of painting and the mechanical eye of photography. Interested in the after-effects of the most traumatic events of the last and present century and their representation in the mass media, Tuymans uses a muted palette to create paintings that are at once sumptuous and subtle, enigmatic and disarmingly stark.

Born and raised in Antwerp, where he continues to live and work, Tuymans draws on the historical traditions of Northern European painting as well as photography (with his use of polaroids as source material), cinema and television. He appropriates images from a variety of sources and makes use of cropping, close-ups, framing and sequencing to offer fresh perspectives on the medium of painting as well as larger cultural issues. Whether interiors, landscapes, or figural representations, his works might initially suggest relatively innocuous depictions of everyday life, but there is almost always another meaning lurking beneath their surfaces. Like veiled memories, Tuymans's paintings oscillate between coherence and illegibility, challenging viewers' certainty about not only what they are looking at but also how they should be looking.

Surely it is against these considerations that any substantive art practice should be measured and evaluated.

The painting: Bridge 2009

Larry Sultan on failure

"When it comes down to making work that really sings, I don't know if I can teach any of it. I don't even know if I can do any of it half the time. It's so much about failure, it's so much about making pictures that are so utterly boring and overstated, you're endlessly disappointed. And in that process you hopefully find something that draws you back and calls to you." Larry Sultan.

The photographs: Girl on bed is from Larry Sultan's series and Scalo bookwork The Valley (2004) and the portrait of Larry Sultan was made by Kelly Sultan.

LE BAL BOOKS (and more) Paris

Taking it's name from the fact that the space was once a ballroom, LE BAL has recently opened behind the Place de Clichy in Paris. Devoted to the "image document", which includes photography, film, video and new media, there is a book shop, exhibition space and you can get a coffee. The book shop is directed by Sebastian Hau who comes direct from Cologne with impeccable Schaden.com credentials and a sharp eye. With around 2000 titles, including sought after classics, rare contemporary editions and self published books LE BAL is a welcome addition to the Paris photo scene.

Photographers whose work I like - No 8 / Damien Lafargue

Damien Lafargue is the driving force and brains behind the Paris based photographers collective, Get The Picture, of which I'm pleased to be a member. Damien is also a photographer whose work I admire.

He writes, ""I became a photographer in my early twenties. For several years, making ends meet meant shooting what I was told to: people, events, things ; a whole lot of crap on its way to be printed in the pages of the press. I'm done with that. Nowadays, I'm more like a backpacker, freely strolling the world and paying attention to what I did not have the time to discover before. I don't know where I'm going, I'd be lying pretending the opposite. I know it's not a very consistent artists statement, but this is where I stand. I'm just a guy taking his camera on a tour."

Auckland - the light last night

LEWIS BALTZ WORKS

I was blown over this morning when an unexpected courier arrived with a delivery from Steidl in Germany which turned out to be a complete set of LEWIS BALTZ WORKS. Number 189 from an edition of 1100. Blown over at this unexpected generosity but even more at the substance and enormity of this set of work.

Lewis Baltz's vision has a sense of quiet inquiry, an almost forensic investigation into the nature of things, a close look at the ISness of the World. Baltz's work is an unflinching example to anybody who has even chanced to hold a camera in an attempt to make a serious picture.
The work is an antidote to the current flood of photography that pretends to be art but is only arty. Work that decorates and doesn't challenge. Work that shouts a lot but says nothing.

Baltz's photographs ask the hard questions, knowing that there are no answers. His pictures meditate on issues of control, power and influence yet find beauty amidst
desolation and destruction. Wonder amongst the common place.

And of course Baltz's pictures coalesce here into ten individual volumes. Ten works in their own right. Because Baltz is also a book maker, an author who knows the power of the book. Included are four as yet unpublished projects together with reissues of classic rarities such as Park City (1979), which just by itself is worth the price of admission.

Gerry Badger speaks of John Gossage's book THE POND as "an artist's book, a book by a photographic artist, and a work of photographic literature at the highest level". I'm sure Gerry would agree and wouldn't mind me saying that the books in LEWIS BALTZ WORKS are of the same order.