Friday Round Up - 1 August, 2014

This week on Friday Round Up new exhibitions for Melbourne and Sydney, a new book on photographer John Deakin in review, a photo essay on women mine workers in Poland and Photojournalism Now's Alison Stieven-Taylor invited to curate a month of photography for Your Daily Photograph.

Picture of the Week:

China: These bars are designed to keep the children at a distance to their books to help prevent nearsightedness. Lucky they don't have mobile phones and tablets. Photo: Reuters

Your Daily Photograph - Los Angeles

Australian Guest Curator for August

For the month of August Alison Stieven-Taylor is the guest curator for YourDailyPhotograph.com, an initiative of the Duncan Miller Gallery in Los Angeles. Each day subscribers receive an email – YourDailyPhotograph – that features curated photographs that are available for sale. This daily email is sent to the Gallery's subscriber-base of around 3800 dedicated photographic art collectors. Registration is free. Sign up today to see Alison's selection that features 30 photographers. Click here.

Book Review:
Under the Influence

John Deakin, Photography and the Lure of Soho

“Being fatally drawn to the human race, what I want to do when I photograph is to make a revelation about it, so my sitters become my victims.” John Deakin
English photographer John Deakin’s reputation as a boorish drunk largely eclipsed his talent during his lifetime and at the time of his death in 1972 at the age of 60 he was virtually destitute and his photographs forgotten.

Yet Deakin was an enigma. An artist whose considerable potential was squandered by drink and self-indulgence, Deakin was reportedly “loved and loathed in equal measure”. At one turn he was described as a “nasty little man” and at another, deeply insightful, with his compassion for his fellow man (sic) evident in his startling portraiture. Deakin’s images still stand today as a marker to what truly great portraiture is all about, but it is not due to his care and diligence that his archive remains. When Deakin died friends found piles of prints and scratched negatives under his bed...(to read the full review and see more images please click on the Book Reviews tab at the top of this blog).

Portrait of Francis Bacon by John Deakin 1952

Photo Essay:

Arek Gola - Kobiety Kopalnia

(Women in Mines)

This photo essay by Polish photographer Arek Gola turns the camera on the women who work in the mines in Poland. Here Gola has created a series of portraits that give a view to a world that few see.

All images (C) Arek Gola 2012

Exhibitions: Sydney
Paul Blackmore – One

Photographer Paul Blackmore is one of the most insightful documentary photographers working today, yet while much of his imagery falls into the reportage category, Blackmore's work translates across both photojournalism and fine art genres as is evidenced in his most recent book At Water’s Edge and now in this new collection, ONE.

In ONE, Blackmore's treatment of the human body evokes abstraction in distinct forms. Shot in studio in black and white Blackmore's nudes are reminiscent of the minimalist nudes of the likes of Erwin Blumenfeld, where the eye is drawn by the simplicity, the fall of the light and the interplay of shadows. Where Blumenfeld often used props such as venetian blinds and fabric and shot through diffused panels of glass, Blackmore has stripped back to the basics – one light source, one subject, one background – freeing the images of clutter and allowing the eye to roam.

All images (C) Paul Blackmore

5-17 August
Blackeye Gallery
3/138 Darlinghurst Road
Darllinghurst

Exhibition: Melbourne
Ruth Maddison

Australian photographer Ruth Maddison's series of work "In Residence" features photographs that were created during a three-month residency at Artspace in Sydney in 2013.

Maddison came to photography in 1976 in Melbourne at a time when women in particular were pushing artistic boundaries in the medium and using photography to explore the personal in a way their male counterparts largely had not. Of her artistic practice Maddison says, “I’m documenting the passage of my life via my image making. I’m recording what it is that makes me want to go on and on with the camera. Anything can interest me and it may not relate to anything I’ve done before or anything I’m working on. Everything I do and see and know somehow becomes included in what I want to translate into images”.

.

All images (C) Ruth Maddison

Until 23 August
Edmund Pearce
Lvl 2 Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Melbourne

Exhibition: Melbourne
Kelvin Skewes - Nauru: What was Taken and What was Given

The island nation of Nauru, in Micronesia, is the world’s smallest republic. Many Australians know Nauru as an offshore processing centre for asylum seekers under Australia’s Pacific Solution policy; a continual source of contention and debate within Australia.

Melbourne photographer Kelvin Skewes says the work in his exhibition - Nauru: What was Taken and What was Given – “examines questions about extraction industries, the viability of the nation state, 20th century colonialism, 21st century paternalism, as well as our translational and intergenerational responsibilities".

All images (C) Kelvin Skewes

Until 24 August
Counihan Gallery
233 Sydney Road
Brunswick
(inside Brunswick Town Hall)

Friday Round Up - 25 July, 2014

This week on Friday Round Up exhibitions in London and Dubai, photo essays from Ken Schles and Brenda Ann Kenneally and the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize is open for entries plus Picture of the Week and Henri Cartier-Bresson's Here and Now in review.

Picture of the Week: 

Jon Nazca's "supermoon" over Olvera, Spain 2014. 

Book Review:

Here and Now Henri Cartier-Bresson

This is a weighty tome, in physicality and content. The kind of book you flick through several times before settling on a chapter with which to spend a few hours, for time passes quickly when you immerse yourself in such an exquisite volume.

Cartier-Bresson was a visual artist, a man who loved to paint and draw, passions that developed at a very early age. But he was also a man who loved to explore new forms of artistic expression. Living in Paris, in what is known as the ‘luminous years,’ Cartier-Bresson fell in with the Surrealists and by the end of the 1920s he’d discovered Eugène Atget and turned his attention to photography...(to read the full review please click on the Book Reviews tab at the top of this blog).

 

Exhibition: London
The Visual Revolution
Russian Avant-Garde Photography, Alexander Rodchenko & the VKhUTEMAS Workshop

Alexander Rodchenko 1891-1956
Zhenshchina s kolyaskoi (Woman with baby carriage), 1928

This expansive exhibition features more than 1500 vintage photographs taken by over 100 Russian photographers including Alexander Rodchenko, Max Alpert, Akady Shishkin, and Gustav Klutsis and is curated from a single collection of works dating from the 1920s to World War II.

Rodchenko (1891-1956) is considered the "leader of Russian Constructivism" and as such his work is pivotal to this exhibition. Inspired by Moholy-Nagy's experimental photographic technique, Rodchenko came to photography in the early 1920s and used his camera to investigate "the discrepancy between high and low culture in Soviet society”. His body of work has "influenced design, architecture and photo-art"and he is still named today as a photographer of influence. 

Georgi Lipskerov 1896 - 1977

Paransha. Burka, Central Asia

Max Alpert 1899 - 1980

Untitled (Dnepr Dam)

Georgi Zelma 1906 - 1984

Petrusov and Shaikhet

The VKhUTEMAS Workshop was formed in 1920 when Lenin merged the Stroganov School of Industrial Art and the Moscow School of Painting and was Russia's answer to Bauhaus, although the former never rose to the same prominence. The Workshop only existed for a decade, yet it is considered to have played a major role in introducing constructivism and rationalism in architecture.

The Visual Revolution is part of the 2014 UK-Russia Year of Culture. If you are in London this is an exhibition for your "must see" list. 

Until 29 August
Richard Saltoun
111 Great Titchfield Street
London W1W 6RY

Exhibition: Dubai
Max Pam – Ramadan in Yemen

(C) All images Max Pam

Australian photographic artist Max Pam continues to garner an international following for his work with the first exhibition of his collection ”Ramadan in Yemen” currently on exhibition in Dubai. Pam like other Australian artists has had greater success overseas than at home and in France in particular Pam’s work is highly regarded. And it is a travesty that the work of Australian artists continues to receive less than adequate support here from our cultural institutions. 

"Ramadan in Yemen" documents Pam's travels through this amazing country in the late 1990s. Pam believes the journal he kept at this time is one of his best and this journal forms the heart to the book "Ramadan in Yemen" published by Éditions Bessard in Paris. Now works from this collection are on show in Dubai, the first time this series has been exhibited.

Of "Ramadan in Yemen"Pam says, "What could I say about Yemen that did it justice. I tried in my journal to work it honestly. I tried with 60 rolls of black and white 120 film to translate the experience. That hot, spare and beautiful Ramadan. No eating or drinking anything between sunrise and sunset. The faithful waiting for the moment. The cannon booms from the mosque in the afterglow of the day. KABOUMMM and a frenzy of quat buying, tea drinking and food eating begins in the suqs and squares and oases and towns all over the country. Everyone is happy, elated, laughing and joking sitting down together as one nation. And you know what? People always wanted me to share and be part of their Ramadan, their community, their Yemen. I travelled all over the country with them. To Shibam, Taizz, Al Mukallah, Sanaa, over the desert, by the sea and into the mountains. The shared taxis were always a half past dead Peugeot 405’s with sometimes 10 or 12 people jammed in. My book gives my version of that unforgettable Ramadan month. An experience freely given to me by the generosity of Yemeni people".

Until 10 September, 2014
East Wing
#12 Limestone House
DIFC, Dubai, UAE

To purchase the book email Éditions Bessard at contact@editionsbessard.com

Photo Essay:
Ken Schles – A Suspension of Memory

Daylight Digital has published a reimagining of New York photographer Ken Schles’ ‘Invisible City’ and ‘Night Walk’ combining stills and video taken by Schles with text written by Alan Rapp. Accompanied by a soundtrack complete with traffic honking and sirens blaring that transports the viewer to the noisy streets of New York, Schles grainy black and white photographs appear even grittier as if they are literally dusted with the patina of the streets. 

(C) All images Ken Schles

Published in 1988 to wide acclaim ‘Invisible City’ was Schles first monograph. This book has been out of print for years, but Steidl will publish an edition later in 2014 together with Schles new book ‘Night Walk’ in which he revisits the period of the ‘Invisible City’ taking the reader on “ a peripatetic walk in the evening air of a lost pre-Internet bohemian downtown New York”.

This Daylight Digital production is a great example of the publishing options available to photographers thanks to digital technology and shows how still images can be transformed into dynamic, interactive narratives that create new opportunities for engagement. Love it. Click here to see the story in full.

Photo Essay:
Brenda Ann Kenneally's
Upstate Girls causes furore

Destiny and Deanna pretending to smoke (C) Brenda Ann Kenneally

In a world where we are subjected to all manner of images depicting all facets of human behaviour it is always interesting to see what the "public" takes umbrage with. American photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally's photo essay "Upstate Girls" is a case in point. 

When her project was published on Slate.com recently with the headline “A New Way to Talk About Poverty in Troy, New York,” neither Kenneally or Slate’s editor-in-Chief Julia Turner could have predicted that these images would evoke such ferocious outbursts that were directed at both the subjects and the photographer. Such was the diatribe around one particular image that Kenneally and Slate agreed to withdraw it; not in acquiescence with the hysteria, but in order to protect the subject.

Briefly, Kenneally’s photo essay is part of a ten-year project that documents the lives of seven young women over a decade. These women live in the city of Troy, Kenneally’s hometown, and are beset by extreme poverty as are more than one fifth of that city's population. A number of the women Kenneally befriended and photographed were also teenage mothers forced to give up their children, or to rear them on their own and her photographs depict their struggles.

Heather and her daughter Jada (C) Brenda Ann Kenneally

'Little Jessie' whose been drinking coffee since he was a baby and is now 12 (C) Brenda Ann Kenneally

In her artist's statement Kenneally, who labels herself a digital folk artist' rather than a photographer, says, “I have dedicated my life to exploring the how and why of class inequity in America. I am concerned with the internalized social messages that will live on for generations after our economic and social policies catch up with the reality of living on the bottom rung of America’s upwardly mobile society. My project explores the way that money is but a symptom of self-worth and a means by which humans separate from each other. Poverty is an emotional (rather than simply) physical state with layers of marginalization that cements those who live under them into place”.

You can see the Slate story here. There is also a piece in the New York Times.

Prize:
Moran Contemporary Photographic Prizes

$50,000 first prize

The Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize celebrates ‘contemporary life in Australia’ and is one of the largest and most coveted single photographic prizes in this country with the winner receiving $50,000. There are also a number of student categories and all finalists receive cash prizes. 

In addition to this major annual photographic competition, the Moran Arts Foundation is also invested in working with school students and teachers to provide free photographic workshops. Australian photographer Louise Whelan, whose work has featured on this blog in the past, has been working with various schools this year in what is a fantastic program that teaches not only basic technical skills, but most importantly visual storytelling. 

(C) Louise Whelan

Entries for the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prizes close September 15. Please visit the website for details including eligibility.

First Prize $50,000
All finalists receive $1000
Judges this year are Getty Images' Aidan Sullivan and Australian photographer William Long

For more information visit the website here

Last year's winner was John Janson-Moore for Nyirripi Girl with Finger (below).

 

Friday Round Up - 18 July, 2014

This week on Friday Round Up new exhibitions for Edmund Pearce and Blackeye Gallery, Awards and Finalists and the Picture of the Week. Plus photographs from three iconic documentary photographers – Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand and William Eggleston. And check out the Danube Revisited: Inge Morath Truck Project, which is currently underway.

Picture of the Week:
In Beijing the parents of Internet addicts are sending their children to military style boot camps to try to combat their online obsessions. There are more than 250 of these boot camp programs in China. Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon

Exhibition: Melbourne
Out of the Closets, Into the Streets
Gay Liberation Photography 1971-1973

(C) Phillip Potter

This group show presents works that document the early rising of the gay liberation movement in Australia. These photographs not only record the societal shifts of the time acted out in public rallies and protests, but also capture private moments as seen in the intimate portraits of photographer Barbara Creed. The show features a number of photographs by John Englart that capture 1973’s Gay Pride Week in Sydney. 

 Anon
 (C) Barbara Creed

(C) John Englart

At a time when Australia is debating the issue of gay marriage, this exhibition demonstrates that many of the phobias around sexuality and gender that existed in the 1970s are still present now. Yet it also shows the power of a united voice, and reminds us that the protests of the 1970s, and the courage of those who were prepared to stand up for their rights, directly impacted the lives of many who identify as GLBTI.

Out of the Closets, Into the Streets features work from Barbara Creed, John Englart, Phillip Potter, Ponch Hawkes and Rennie Ellis.

Edmund Pearce Gallery
Level 2 Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Melbourne

Exhibition: Sydney
Stephen Dupont – White Sheet Series

(C) Stephen Dupont

This week photojournalist Stephen Dupont’s “The white sheet series No. 01” exhibition opens in Sydney at Blackeye Gallery. This exhibition, which was shown earlier in the year at Edmund Pearce, Melbourne, features a series of portraits Dupont took of visitors and pilgrims to Kumbh Mela, the most important Hindu Festival held in India four times every 12 years.

With this series Dupont, who is best known for his hard-nosed photojournalism work, has used Indian textile stamps to decorate the borders of the images, creating intricate patterns that frame the portraits in rich reds.

Until 3rd August
Black Eye Gallery
3/138 Darlinghurst Road
Darlinghurst (Sydney)

Looking Back
Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand and William Eggleston
As I dive into research for my PhD I’ll be sharing snippets of information on the world of photography, both past and present. This week while we look at the new work that is being showcased in galleries and competitions, I thought it pertinent to share images from three iconic photographers who challenged documentary tradition in the 1950s and 1960s - Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand and William Eggleston.

(C) Diane Arbus

(C) Diane Arbus


(C) Garry Winogrand


(C) Garry Winogrand


(C) William Eggleston


(C) William Eggleston

Prizes:
Melbourne
The Bowness Photography Prize – Finalists

Forty-eight photographers have been named as finalists in the 9th annual Bowness Photography Prize valued at $25,000.

Both emerging and established photographers can enter this competition, which is considered one of Australia’s “most open prizes for photography” as it has no thematic restrictions either. As such the finalists’ works are truly diverse with classic portraiture styles up against conceptual and abstract work.

Some of the finalists’ works are from larger series or bodies of work. In my opinion, often single images do not translate when they are removed from context and there are several images in this collection that fall into that category. But hats off to the judges – artist Siri Hayes, MGA Director Shaune Laikin and National Portrait Gallery Director Angus Trumble - for being able to whittle the entries down to only 48 – having been a judge this year for Head On Photo Festival I know what an enormous task it is to critically assess thousands of images.

This week images from four of the finalists are featured to give readers an indication of the breadth of work submitted for this coveted prize. 

(C) Lee Grant

(C) Georgia Metaxas

 (C) Matthew Newton

(C) Darren Sylvester

The winner will be announced on 4th September. In the meantime you can check out the finalists’ images at the Monash Gallery of Art website – www.mga.org.au/bowness-prize

Finalists for the 2014 $25 000 Bowness Photography Prize:

Todd Anderson-Kunert, John Bodin, Jessica Brent, Ross Calia, Andrew Chapman, Danica Chappell, Rowan Conroy, Nici Cumpston, Tamara Dean, Shoufay Derz, Marian Drew, Lesley Duxbury, Cherine Fahd, Sean Fennessy, Gerrit Fokkema, John Gollings, Lee Grant, Mike Gray, Janina Green, Kristian Häggblom, Petrina Hicks, Shane Hulbert, Ingvar Kenne, Mark Kimber, Aldona Kmiec, Katrin Koenning, Christopher Köller, Annika Koops, Agata Krajewska, Ashlee Laing, Owen Leong, Georgia Metaxas, Graham Miller, Sarah Mosca, Harry Nankin, Matthew Newton, Zorica Purlija, Clare Rae, Kate Robertson, Julie Rrap, Emily Sandrussi, Vivian Cooper Smith, Darren Sylvester, Salote Tawale, Claudia Terstappen, Justine Varga, Anne Wilson and Yiorgo Yiannopoulos.

San Francisco:
Kellicut International Photography Show
2014 Winner – Goran Jovic

The Kellicut prize was established in 2008 on an open call basis. This year more than 1200 entries were received from across 15 countries with the winner Croatian photographer Goran Jovic for his work “Home Alone” (below). 

Started by photographers Jeff and Kirsten Klagenberg, the Kellicut International Photography Show prize and exhibition are designed to promote the concept of photography as art to new audiences and to introduce new artists. To date the Kellicut trophy and cash prize ($US2000) has been awarded to photographers from Australia, Italy, Spain, Croatia and the US.

Kellicut International Photography Show
Exhibition Until 31 July
Coastal Arts League
300 Main Street
Half Moon Bay
San Francisco

To find out more about the prize and exhibition visit the website here

Other Exhibitions worth seeing:
Melbourne:

Michael Prideaux
Sea & Sky
Fortyfivedownstairs

Until 2 August
45 Flinders Lane
Melbourne

The Sievers Project
Group Show
Centre for Contemporary Photography

(C)  Zoe Croggon    

Until 31 August
404 George St
Fitzroy

Project Update:
Danube Revisited
Inge Morath Truck Project

Last month Friday Round Up featured an interview with Australian photographer Claire Martin, one of the winners of the Inge Morath Award, about the Danube Revisited project. To quickly recap, this project involves the nine recipients of the Inge Morath Award who are now travelling along the Danube River from the Black Forest to the Black Sea in a large truck that has been converted into a mobile photography gallery. Along the route they will host artist talks, photo forums and cultural exchanges with local institutions and organisations. Following the tour they will embark on the creation of new works to be exhibited in 2015. 

(C) Inge Morath 

To follow the progress of these nine inspirational women photographers visit their blog here