Hamburg based photographer Petra Herbert did a lovely photo project in Pforzheim, the city she lived until she turned 18. This series was a special discovery for me as I grew up near Pforzheim in Southern Germany and lived in town for a few year at the beginning of my 20s . Check an interview (in German) and photographs from her artist book “What we’ve got is Gold” on the pages of SZ Magazin online.
Deeply impressive: W. Eugene Smith‘s Retrospective at Martin Gropius Bau that was shown for the last time yesterday in Berlin. The exhibition showed several complete reportages in different rooms and a little bit of miscellanious work at the end. Contact sheets and the comparison of different prints evidenced how hard he manipulated his pictures sometimes to get those dark and strong results. Nearly every photograph is cropped in one way or another and every picuture seems to have its very own aspect ratio.
„I think the web has turned photographs into caricatures. You look at them quickly, gain the easiest visual features, then move on. What I wonder is how much that’s shaping the actual image making, if people are making simpler images just because those are the ones easiest to digest in a small jpg.“
Blake Andrews in a conversation with Bryan Formals worth reading on his blog.
This year’s Ostkreuz Schule für Fotografie und Gestaltung graduates are presenting their work in a an exhibition called “Schau” that will open tonight at 7pm. Check www.schau2011.de for location details and opening hours. The website provides a promising preview on the works that will be shown. Among them – hurray! – our dear fellow Thomas Lobenwein with his new series Floria and Fjodor.
Unfortunately it’s „only“ a website but what a nice idea! A photography magazine that focuses on photographers who love to capture their neighbourhoods. That is backyard (subtitled “encouraging photographers to stay at home since 2011″). The first issue is about London and features the work of Jonathan Goldberg, Katherine Green, George Plemper (a phantastic collection of workers Portrait from 1978-1982), David Solomons (with his well known Up West series), Paul Tucker and Graeme Webb. Great combination and editing!
My neunplus colleague Mirjam Siefert is exhibiting parts of her long time project Heaven Is Under Construction together with the painter Gabor A. Nagy at an exhibition titled “The Wasp and the Jar” at GHYCZY Galerie, Knaackstraße 96, Berlin. Opening tonight at 7pm.
After the release of Henrik Verning’s book Berlin – Die Stadt und die Beute in 2008 I asked him if he would like to exhibit some of his photographs at FENSTER61. He exhibited some new work there in 2009 and some of the pictures are now part of his new publication Sampler.01/Berlin:Crash. Verning shows a collection of photographs with hard contrasts in grainy black and white. A wild mixture of steet impressions, close-ups, portraits, animals and night visions that drag you through a dark, rough and blurry version of the city.
The magazine is planned to be published as a limited edition of 100 on a regular basis. Here’s a video on vimeo that gives an impression about the first issue.
There’s been a lot of talk about Andreas Gursky recently because of the price that one of his photographs achieved at some auction in (was it?) London. And of course there’s the usual “is this still photography!? and Is that photograph really worth 4 millions?” debate going on… As far as I know, Gursky considers himself an artist, not a photographer, so much of the debate is obsolete anyway. I think it’s nice if someone spends 4 millions for a photograph. Why not? Just imagine what nonsense is usually bought with such an amout of money. Yachts, palaces, big cars, weapons… So I think it’s really nice to imagine that someone prefers a photo instead.
There’s a really nice and humorous feature about the Gursky World from the early 2000s. At the end of it, Gursky explains the making of “Rhein II”, that is now the most expensive photograph in the word.
Exactitudes is a project by Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek from Rotterdam. “Inspired by a shared interest in the striking dress codes of various social groups, they have systematically documented numerous identities over the last 16 years. Rotterdam’s heterogeneous, multicultural street scene remains a major source of inspiration for Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek, although since 1998 they have also worked in many cities abroad.” (quote from their website)
I first saw parts of the images somewhere at an art fair in Berlin many years ago. There’s also a book and an very special website that shows the enormous broadness of this fantastic portrait project.
FENSTER61 is having a break. No planning in the summer => no exhibitions in the autumn. As simple as that. FENSTER61 will be back with monthly changing photo exhibitions in January 2012. Expected to be among the next photographers are Wenke Seemann, Thorsten Strasas and Torsten Schumann. Submissions are always welcome as long as they fit to the concept.
Kickoff for the weekend – two promising openings in Berlin I won’t miss tonight:
Charlie Jouvet at Pavlov’s Dog and
Ute & Werner Mahler at Dittrich & Schlechtriem (former pool gallery)
Sol Neelman from Portland released a funny photobook called ‘Weird Sports’ which contains a collection of his photographs taken on freaky sports events in the US during the last eight years. His long term project ist documented with a lot more photos on his blog.
There are interviews with Neelman about how he ist working on The Image, Deconstructed and on the aperture blog.
‘Within Shadows’ by Susan Burnstine is the first exhibition of the American photographer in Berlin. Susan Burnstine works with homemade film cameras to get a very blurred and unfocsed styles which suits perfectly to her dream-like photographs. Burnstine usually sets her black and white pictures up but the result is still supposed to be a matter of some “magical” chance. Along with the exhibition comes her frist book with the same title.
There’s a slideshow of ‘Within Shadows’ and and interview about her work on Youtube. Susan Burnstine is also running an interesting blog called underexposed with interviews and thoughts photography.
The exhibition in Berlin is hosted at Galerie Hiltawsky until December 23th.
Four more opening days, then the Fascination Street exhibition in Berlin will be closed. This Sunday at 7pm we’ll be having a public finissage. Everybody’s invited to come along (again) and have a drink with us. Siegfried Hansen, Thorsten Strasas, Guido Steenkamp, me, and maybe some more exhibiting photographers will be present. Eventpage on facebook.
Btw: meanwhile my ALEX book was sold out at the gallery. They now have more copies – and it’s still possible to order it online – signed or unsigned.
RSS
twitter
G+