Friday Round Up - 19 June, 2015

Dear Readers

There will be no Friday Round Up this week due to a death in the family. My partner's mother, Marian Williams, passed away suddenly on Saturday 13th June and will be sadly missed by all who knew her. I'll be back posting next Friday. Until then, take care and enjoy every moment you have with those you love.

Alison Stieven-Taylor

Friday Round Up - 12 June, 2015

This week on Friday Round Up - the third annual Portrait(s) Festival opens in Vichy, France, the Ballarat International Foto Biennale launches its annual fundraiser, and Yellow Korner's June Pop Up Galleries with Serge Ramelli.

Photos of the Week:

Road melts in New Delhi Heatwave May 2015
(C)Harish Tyagi/EPA

Migrants gather rain water, Myanmar June 2015

(C) Soe Zeya Tun/ Reuters

Festivals:

Portrait(s)

Vichy, France

12 June - 6 September

The third annual Portraits Festival kicks off today in Vichy, France, with a stellar line up. Here's a sample of what's on offer. See full program here. 

Bruce Wrighton - At Home
In 1988 American photographer Bruce Wrighton died at the age of 38 leaving behind an extraordinary series of portraits taken in the small town of Binghampton, in New York State, where he lived. These portraits capture ‘the disinherited of America,’ anonymous citizens who came across Wrighton's path. Around 30 of these portraits are on show at Vichy. Wrighton's work sits amongst some of my favourite street photography. 

Kourtney Roy - Self-Portraits
Another favourite photographer is Canadian Kourtney Roy whose series of self-portraits tackle the issue of female stereotyping. In these highly stylised, almost cinematic images, Roy poses as the pin-up, air hostess and beauty queen amongst others, exposing the farcical notion of the perfect woman.

Alejandro Cartagena - Carpoolers
Dominican photographer Alejandro Cartagena’s series Car Poolers documents thousands of Mexican workers as they cross Mexico City on their daily commute. Using the same framing for each image, Cartegena’s series evokes the monotony of this daily grind. 

There are also works by Mat Jacob, Elliott Erwitt, Ronan Guillou and Martin Schoeller on show amongst others. 

(C) Ronan Guillou

(C) Mat Jacob 

(C) Martin Schoeller

Ballarat International Foto Biennale 

Annual Fundraiser

This year the Ballarat International Foto Biennale will be held from 22 August - 20 September in Ballarat, 90 minutes from Melbourne. 

At the annual fundraising event for the Biennale, to be held Sunday 12 July, 150 prints from 150 photographers will be up for grabs. Buy a red dot for $125 and select your image. If you can’t attend on the day, you can select online. Photographs have been donated by Australian and international artists to help the Festival raise funds. Visit the website for all the details. 

Sunday 12 July

Gallery Eleven40

1140 Malvern Road

Malvern (Melbourne)

Yellow Korner POP Up Galleries

This month Serge Ramelli and his epic black and white works of Paris and New York are in focus at the Yellow Korner Pop Up Galleries - check out the website for details. 

Friday Round Up - 5 June, 2015

This week on Friday Round Up - farewell to Mary Ellen Mark, new exhibitions for Melbourne, Konrad Winkler launches new book and #dysturb in Pro Photo magazine.

Photos of the week:
Australian Adam Ferguson - Nepal Earthquake


(C) Adam Ferguson for TIME

(C) Adam Ferguson for TIME

Farewell to Mary Ellen Mark

Mary Ellen Mark at an exhibition of her work at the Leica Gallery Los Angeles
(C) Todd Williamson/AP 2013

I was fortunate to interview Mary Ellen Mark in 2014 and was greatly saddened to hear of her passing last week. You can read my interview with her on L'Oeil de la Photographie. One of the highlights of my journalistic career. 

Here's an excerpt: Like other notable photographers Mark studied painting and art history before photography came into her life. “When I went to university I wanted to be either an architect or painter, a fine artist; I found being a painter very isolating. As for being an architect, that’s very academic, very difficult and I am not a good engineer,” she laughs.

At graduate school Mark took a major in photojournalism; it was a light bulb moment. “Photography became an immediate love for me. I had always read books about photography and was always fascinated with great photography. But it hadn’t occurred to me that it was something I could do myself until I got to graduate school and picked up a camera in my very early twenties”....

(C) Mary Ellen Mark

(C) Mary Ellen Mark

Exhibitions: Melbourne
Julie Millowick - Before: Photographs from the 1970s

(C) Julie Millowick Love is the Drug on the Jukebox, Kookaburra Cafe, Frankston

A Day in the Life of Australia, 1981

Melbourne photographer Julie Millowick was a student at Prahran Arts College in its heyday. In this exhibition she showcases images captured during the 1970’s, using a Nikon F film camera and one lens - a 50 mm standard.

"With that camera hanging over my shoulder, I walked around St Kilda, where I lived, and Fitzroy, where I did pro bono work for the Brotherhood of St Laurence. And.....I talked to people. Sometimes I made a photograph of them, sometimes I didn’t. 

There seems to be a quietness, for want of a better word, about the photographs that reflects the long ago decade of the 1970’s. A time that was definitely pre-digital. A time that was definitely prior to the daily saturation in our lives of the photographic image."

(C) Julie Millowick Alone on the Lawn, Anzac Day, 1975, The Shrine, Melbourne


(C) Julie Millowick Photographer Athol Shmith photographed with his ever-present 

LunaSix Light Meter around his neck. A Llegendary Fashion and Advertising 

Photographer, Athol had a studio at the Paris End of Collins Street for decades.

He retired from commercial photograhy in the1970's to take up Head of Photography

Department at Prahran College of Advanced Education. Julie Millowick was one of his students.

(C) Julie Millowick Limurru, Fitzroy, 1975

Millowick is now a teacher of the online photojournalism course at Latrobe University and is sharing the gallery space with one of her graduates, Christine Sayer who is exhibiting her work, Deconstructing Dementia. 

(C) Christine Sayer You have Visitors, 2014

Until 14 June
69 Smith Street Gallery

Collingwood  

Group Show - Melbourne Is… 

(C) Mike Reed

Three year old collective Image Chasers, comprises a group of “passionate” Victorian photographers. In the exhibition Melbourne Is… they present their unique views of Melbourne taking the audience beyond the “tourist brochure view of Melbourne to capture a side of the city that perhaps we do not always see”. 

(C) Chris May

(C) Helga Leunig

(C) Roger Arnall

"Melbourne Is…not the place you might think it is. Many stereotype descriptives have been written about Melbourne. ‘The world’s most liveable city’…’Four seasons in one day’…’The garden state’… But underneath all these flowery statements, lies an urban subtext – A city of counter cultures and contradictions. Graceful buildings from our colonial past stand defiant against brave new futuristic visions.

"Melbourne is light and dark and all shades in between. It’s home to a migrant’s tale or a cabinetmaker’s workshop. A stage for lovers’ trysts, lost souls, found treasures and sleeping rough.

Melbourne. A city that is so many things to so many people. A place that is as diverse as its 4 million plus inhabitants."

Until 4 July
Quadrant Gallery
72 Barkers Road
Hawthorn

Book Launch:

Konrad Winkler - Moments of My Life

Specialist photography book publisher M.33 will launch Konrad Winkler’s new book Moments of My Life on Sunday June 14 in St. Kilda. The book contains a number of classic photographs from Winkler’s 45 year career. Interspersed throughout the book are Winkler’s writings making Moments of My Life more an artist’s diary giving insight into the image beyond mere description of time and place. I’m looking forward to reviewing this one. 

4.30pm Sunday June 14
Linden New Art
26 Acland Street
St Kilda
To be launched by Wendy Garden, Curator at the Morning Peninsula Regional Gallery.

New Pro Photo - #dysturb

My feature on #dysturb is in the latest issue of Pro Photo magazine out now. 

Friday Round Up - 29 May, 2015

This week on Friday Round Up - Part Two of the 12th annual Auckland Festival of Photography coverage featuring four diverse exhibitions - The Imperial Body Fiona Amundsen, Oil & Water Murray Lloyd and Peter Evans, California & American Pride Sandra Chen Weinstein and Lisa Reihana's In Pursuit of Venus [infected] 2015. Plus an interview with Festival Director Julia Durkin.

Feature:
Auckland Festival of Photography - Opening Weekend
Until 20 June

Reporting live from Auckland! Last night the 12th annual Auckland Festival of Photography opened with a fantastic event at Silo Park where this year's commissioned artist, PJ Paterson (below), revealed his new work created for the Festival under this year's theme Truth and Fiction. See last week's post for the interview with PJ.

PJ Paterson (C) Alison Stieven-Taylor

At the launch Auckland City Council confirmed funding for the next decade giving Festival Director Julia Durkin and her team much to smile about. In fact the community spirit and local pride in the Festival was truly wonderful to witness. This is first and foremost a festival that celebrates photography in New Zealand and gives local artists a platform on which to showcase their work. The Festival is also an important annual fixture in the region and part of the Asia Pacific Photo Forum. With exhibitions, projections, workshops, portfolio reviews and the Talking Cultures seminar program there's a wealth of activity to immerse yourself in.

Tomorrow (Saturday) there are talks and a panel discussion at the Auckland Art Gallery on photobooks. On Sunday I'm giving a talk on the Future of Photojournalism at 1pm so if you're in town head to the Gallery for these free sessions.

Today Julia played tour guide and escorted the Festival's international guests to no less than eight exhibitions. But we started the day at Mount Eden, a "dormant volcano" Julia assured us, that provided the most amazing 360 degree view of Auckland on a day that sparkled. Auckland Festival of Photography is on until 20 June. Check the website for the full program. 

L-R: Julia Durkin, Libby Jeffrey (Momento Pro - sponsor)  (C) Alison Stieven-Taylor

Tour party on top of Mt Eden: Jackie, Donatas, Doug, Julia, Mindaugas, Alison, Mikolaj, Libby 
Exhibitions:
Fiona Amundsen - The Imperial Body

Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine was established in 1869 in honour of those who died serving the Emperor. For decades soldiers departing for war have uttered the phrase ‘If I don’t come home, I’ll see you at Yasukuni,’ to families and loved ones, and Yasukuni is fixed in the annals of Japanese warfare.

In her series The Imperial Body, New Zealand photographer Fiona Amundsen draws on her academic background in social anthropology to explore “the contentious Yasukuni Shrine” with the aim “to provoke new experiences of historicised narratives that both pay homage to trauma, but resist holding histories as static or fixed”.

Amundsen says, “I am neither Japanese nor Anglo-American, but a New Zealander who brings a perspective to this material that has undoubtedly been shaped by my own experiences of learning about not only WWII, but also Japanese and American military histories. Accordingly, as a New Zealander, while interested in the discourses that surround WWII, I’m also looking for the counter histories that reside within such dominant rhetoric as it is ascribed to both the allied and axis powers. I’m interested in confronting what can be pre-given or non-negotiable fixed ‘images’ (visual and narrative based) of history, regardless of specific cultural origin. Ultimately, my practice aims to produce artworks that continually reflect on their position as being essentially a ‘cultural outsider’ who comes from, and is firmly rooted to the Asia Pacific region”.

2 June - 11 July
Gus Fisher Gallery
University of Auckland
74 Shortland Street

Murray Lloyd and Peter Evans - Oil & Water: Is clean water the new oil? 

(C) Murray Lloyd

(C) Peter Evans

The works of two New Zealand photographers – Wellington based Murray Lloyd and Auckland’s Peter Evans – combine in this exhibition to explore the notion that clean water may soon become a precious, and valuable, global commodity as pollution and climate change influence the availability of this essential resource. 

(C) Murray Lloyd

(C) Peter Evans

Until 24 June
Depot Artspace, Main Gallery
28 Clarence Street
Devonport

Sandra Chen Weinstein – California & American Pride

In the late 1990s Sandra Chen Weinstein moved to Southern California after living in large metropolises in China, Japan and Taiwan. Weinstein says living in Orange County “I became acutely aware of the solitude and the very different and disconnected lifestyle experienced in a community separated by freeways. Californian State highways divide widespread suburban landscapes. Fences divide communities. In their isolation, neighbourhoods are often missed when passing through due to the overwhelming traffic”.

Using photography to understand this foreign landscape, Weinstein took many of the images that feature in her series California while travelling on the highways through neighbourhoods and country areas. “Like most of my photography, my works are un-staged and represent a moment in time; I like to allow the subject to lead us to itself,” she says. 

In this exhibition Weinstein features images from California and her other series American Pride which was shot primarily in San Francisco with the LGBT community in the Bay Area. “I have always been interested in culture and the human condition, including the complexity and controversiality of one’s identity and sexuality," she says. 

Until 16 June
Hum Salon
123 Grafton Road
Grafton

Lisa Reihana – In Pursuit of Venus (infected)

Lisa Reihana, in Pursuit of Venus [infected] 2015, multi-channel video (still), 

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of the Patrons of Auckland Art Gallery 

A multi-disciplinary artist of Maori descent Lisa Reihana often enlists friends and family to create her elaborate, cinematic artworks that draw on the complexities of photographic and filmic languages. "If there is any Maori philosophy that I work with more than any other, it is that sense of community. I love people and the notion of community, friends and places to come together, so I utilise my work, digital and actual, to play around with that idea," she says.

Lisa Reihana, in Pursuit of Venus [infected] 2015, multi-channel video (still), 

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of the Patrons of Auckland Art Gallery 

Lisa Reihana, in Pursuit of Venus [infected] 2015, multi-channel video (still), 

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of the Patrons of Auckland Art Gallery 

In Pursuit of Venus (infected) is a multi-disciplinary project which “challenges the stereotypes developed through the gaze of imperialism and reappraises a widely distributed European representation of the Pacific from the early 19th Century in the form of Joseph Dufour's 1804 scenic wallpaper, Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique.” Here Reihana “refreshes, reactivates and reenergises these ideas from a Pacific perspective using digital technologies to create an immersive experience for audiences. This exhibition marks the world premiere of one of the most ambitious screen-based projects from Aotearoa New Zealand by one of the country’s most admired artists”.

Until 30 August
Auckland Art Gallery
Toi o Tamaki

Interview:
Festival Director Julia Durkin with Alison Stieven-Taylor

Julia Durkin (C) Stefen Chow

In a year when the legitimacy of the photograph as proof is under question once again, the concept of truth and fiction in photography seems an appropriate theme to explore in the 12th annual Auckland Festival of Photography, which runs until the end of June.

Festival director Julia Durkin says the choice of this year’s theme – Truth and Fiction - progresses the conversation around digitally constructed imagery, and also allows for the incorporation of photojournalism, providing the Festival’s audience the opportunity to engage with the new as well as the familiar.

This year’s program combines the fictional and imaginary worlds of international artists like Julia Fullerton Batten (UK) Jae Hoon Lee (Korea) and Maria Kapajeva (Russia) alongside “hard hitting factual photojournalism” including exhibits from Angkor Photo Festival.

There is also solid representation from the local photographic community in New Zealand with individual and group shows including Lay of the Land, which features the works of 11 artists. And there’s the new series by this year’s commissioned artist, PJ Paterson, unveiled on opening night.

“Ninety percent of the work in the Festival is by local artists and we are very proud to support New Zealand photography and promote our cultural identity through photography,” says Durkin. “Within the theme there is a nice balance. I think it’s important for our audience to have exposure to international work they wouldn’t get to see as well as New Zealand work that is part of the cultural landscape, contemporary and also archival. It’s a very New Zealand bias program, and that’s what we’re here for.”

Durkin says the Festival’s program is the result of “discussion, research and referral”. The Auckland Festival of Photography is a member of the Asia Pacific Photo Forum and as such Durkin travels to other festivals throughout the region including Angkor in Cambodia, Pingyao in China, and Head On in Australia. “I get to see an awful lot of photography at these other Festivals. I also do portfolio reviews and that’s another great way to see work, get to know what you like and what might work for the festival. My colleague Elaine Smith is the curator of our annual commission so she’s focused on the local talent. It’s about knowing your craft, understanding what will work with the audience and then programming to fit our budget”.

The Auckland Festival of Photography attracts a diverse audience from professional photographers to enthusiasts, amateurs and those who are not involved in photography per se. This year the Festival has also targeted the student demographic with its Future Projections project that features work from all the educational institutes in Auckland. This runs alongside the professional exhibitions and the amateur shows.

“We are there mainly to generate interest in photography with the general public and that’s a very broad remit,” she says. The Festival attracts both the older and younger demographic with the latter group showing a ten percent increase in attendance last year. 80 percent of the Festival’s audience is local.

Auckland has one of the most diverse communities with more than 160 languages spoken in a city with a population of only 1.4 million. “Photography is a universal language and can engage people no matter their mother tongue,” says Durkin.

“The great thing about Festivals is they are conduits for community engagement for the delivery of cultural experience and the building of cultural currency. We are the only photography festival in New Zealand and we have managed to build and maintain it. I’d like to think there are twelve year olds in Auckland that have never known the city without a photography festival.”

This year the Auckland Council granted the Festival long term funding, a breakthrough Durkin puts down to the increased profile of photography in the Asia Pacific. “There is a change in the air now,” says Durkin who credits the collaboration between regional festivals through the Asia Pacific Photo Forum for shifting the focus away from European, American and Japanese photography and putting the spotlight on the Asia Pacific region.

“We’ve positioned ourselves fantastically to be able to capture this shift because we’ve actually led it with our partners in Australia. It’s nice that we are now in a position where the cultural funding agencies in New Zealand are taking note and are now supporting what we are doing because of that. It’s taken us having this network in place and being able to take New Zealand photography off shore for them to suddenly wake up and say hang on that’s amazing, we want to support it.”

The Auckland Festival of Photography runs 28th May to 20th June.