Friday Round Up - 20th February, 2015

This week Alison Stieven-Taylor's interview with #Dysturb's Pierre Terdjman and Benjamin Girette, Alexia Sinclair's Rococo opens in Sydney and 2015 FotoEvidence Book Award winner is announced today.

Feature Article:
Creating a Dysturbance

Pierre Terdjman and Benjamin Girette in interview


L-R: Benjamin Girette, Alison Stieven-Taylor and Pierre Terdjman 
(C) Marty Williams

In the main, photojournalists are a resourceful bunch and many are undeterred by the so-called ‘crisis’ in journalism. This is especially true of freelancers who by the very nature of their work are adept at finding ways to tell the stories that are important to them, and to seek new ways to engage the public.

(C) Alison Stieven-Taylor

One of the most exciting examples of this ingenuity is #dysturb, an initiative that sees large black and white posters featuring a single image with caption and credit pasted on walls around some of the world’s largest cities including Paris and New York. Now it's Melbourne's turn.... (to read the full article and see more images please click on the Feature Articles tab at the top of the blog).

2015 FotoEvidence Book Award
And the winner is...

Marcus Bleasdale
Inferno: Central African Republic 

Marcus Bleasdale is the fifth recipient of the FotoEvidence Book Award. FotoEvidence publisher Svetlana Bachevanova said Bleasdale’s “personal commitment and courage in documenting the humanitarian crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR)…embody exactly the values that FotoEvidence has sought to recognize and support during the last five years”.

(C) Marcus Bleasdale

(C) Marcus Bleasdale

Bleasdale, who is with VII Photo agency, shot this particular story over 18 months, but he has trained his camera on the long term crisis in CAR for more than 15 years. For his winning story he worked closely with Human Rights Watch travelling to areas that had not seen journalists or photographers for some months. His photographs provide evidence of atrocities that few outside the country had any knowledge and as such have become important factual documents. The FotoEvidence Book Award adds to a raft of international accolades Bleasdale has garnered in recent years. Inferno: Central African Republic gives light to an ongoing conflict that has caused and continues to cause, countless trauma for those living in its shadow.

Finalists:
Fabio Bucciarelli: On the Brink of an Abyss 

Matt Black: The Geography of Poverty 

Jan Garup: Somalia in Transition 

Daniele Volpe: Guatemala - Ixil Genocide

For more information visit the FotoEvidence website.

Exhibition:
Alexia Sinclair - Rococo


One of the most exciting fine art photographers at work today, Australian Alexia Sinclair's new show 'Rococo' opened in Sydney this week at Blackeye Gallery. For those living in Oz, check out my feature article on Alexia in the Australian Financial Review Weekend, tomorrow, Saturday 21st February. Alexia will be giving artist talks this Saturday and Saturday 28th February at 3pm. 

Blackeye Gallery
3/138 Darlinghurst Road
Darlinghurst
Until 8 March

Links: www.blackeyegallery.com.au

www.alexiasinclair.com

Watch the Rococo video here.   

Friday Round Up - 23 January, 2015

This week on Friday Round Up Chobi Mela opens in Bangladesh, two historic exhibitions in Melbourne, the winning entries in Getty #RePicture and Alexia Sinclair's new work for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Festival:
Chobi Mela - Bangladesh

The 8th installation of Chobi Mela, Asia’s first and largest photography festival, opens today in Dhaka, Bangladesh and runs until 5th February. This year’s programme, with the theme of “Intimacy,” features more than 30 photographers from 22 countries. 

(C) Denis Dailleux

(C) Jana Romanova


(C) Jannatul Mawa

(C) Malcolm Hutcheson

(C) Max Pinckers

(C) Nepal Picture Library

An initiative by Drik Picture Library and supported by the South Asian Media Institute, Chobi Mela combines “big name” artists with lesser known and emerging, presenting a comprehensive selection of exhibitions, talks and workshops.

A key feature of Chobi Mela is the exhibitions that are mounted on rickshaw vans, which travel around Dhaka City literally taking photography to the masses.

Festival Director, Shahidul Alam, who is also founder of Drik and a renowned photographer in his own right, says, “It is time Bangladesh began to take pride in itself. We are now a role model in the world of photography. The world is looking up at Bangladesh. The nation needs to respond”. 

(C) Paolo Patrizi

(C) Yusuf Sevincli

(C) Abdollah Heidari

(C) Anwar Hossain

This year’s festival is curated by Munem Wasif, ASM Rezaur Rahman and Tanzim Wahab with guest curators Salauddin Ahmed and Mahbubur Rahman.

Until 5th February
Various venues and locations
For more information visit the Chobi Mela website

Exhibitions: Melbourne

Bohemian Melbourne

Liz Ham, Vali Myers in her studio in the Nicholas Building, 1997

Bohemian Melbourne shines a light on the city's cultural bohemians from 1860 to today, tracing individuals who have pushed against convention in their lives and art, from Marcus Clarke, Albert Tucker and Mirka Mora to Barry Humphries, Vali Myers and Nick Cave. The exhibition, which is currently on at the State Library of Victoria, features photographs, artworks, books including artists' journals and multimedia presentations. Well worth the visit. 

Mirka Mora in her studio, 1978 © Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive

Nick Cave, 1973 (C) Ashley Mackevicius & National Portrait Gallery 

(C) Albert Tucker, Self-portrait with Joy Hester, 1939

Bohemian Melbourne
State Library of Victoria
Swanston Street, Melbourne
Until 22 February

Dreams and Imagination: 

Light in the Modern City

(C) Mark Strizic - 1967 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

In "Dreams and Imagination: Light in the Modern City" curator Melissa Miles has selected a diverse range of artists and images through which to explore what she terms “the myths that surround light in the history of Australian photography”.

Miles, who is an Associate Professor at Monash University, has come to this exhibition through her larger research project into Australian light and photography. In ‘Dreams and Imagination’ it is the urban space and how photographers have responded to the changing modernist city, which draws Miles’ focus. Artists include Max Dupain, Mark Strizic, Olive Cotton, Arthur Dickinson, David Moore and Harold Cazneaux with works dating from 1920s through to 1971. Many of these images are important documents in the visual history of Australia and it is rare to have the opportunity to inspect these treasures at leisure.

(C) Mark Strizic

(C) Max Dupain

(C) David Moore

Dreams and Imagination: Light in the Modern City
Monash Gallery of Art
860 Ferntree Gully Road
Wheelers Hill
Until 1 March

Competition Winners:

Getty #RePicture

Australian photographer Ben McRae has taken out second place in Getty Images inaugural #RePicture competition for his image #RePictureFamily. McRae was one of more than 2500 photographers from 85 countries who entered the global competition that is premised on "challenging how we look at the world and exploring how we can change the paradigm around stereotypical imagery currently used to describe people and communicate concepts". US photographer Braden Summers took out the top prize for his image "All Love is Equal" (see below).

(C) Ben McRae

(C) Braden Summers

To see more visit the #RePicture site here

New Work:

Alexia Sinclair - Art of Saving a Life



Australian photo-media artist Alexia Sinclair is known for her penchant for historical figures so it comes as no surprise that her latest artwork for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s project Art of Saving a Life, is situated in 1796. In this work Alexia celebrates the invention of the first smallpox vaccine discovered by Dr. Edward Jenner. You can see the behind-the-scenes video here and watch how Alexia painstakingly creates this image right down to growing the flowers she needed! 

Friday Round Up - 15 August, 2014

This week on Friday Round Up the 25th Melbourne Art Fair, Daniel Berehulak, Ballarat International Foto Biennale fundraiser, exhibitions and more.

Picture of the Week:

By the light of the supermoon - Madrid 

(C) Andres Kudacki

Fair:
Melbourne Art Fair

(C) Marty Williams

The 25th Melbourne Art Fair opens today at the majestic Royal Exhibitions Building. More than 20,000 people are expected to view the 70 galleries that feature in this year’s Fair with solid representation from local curators as well as international galleries from Asia, Europe and South America. The Fair also features a bookshop and art making spaces. 

With a philosophy of public engagement, this year’s Art Fair is also spilling into the streets of Melbourne with day and night events and pop-up shows in the city’s major art spaces such as the National Gallery of Victoria and the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) as well as other arts hubs including the Heide Museum of Modern Art in Bulleen and the Linden Centre for Contemporary Art in St. Kilda.

(C) Marty Williams

“Good art needs to be seen in the flesh to be appreciated, ” says Barry Keldoulis the Fair's director, who believes the Art Fair is the “physical manifestation” of the Internet – a twist on thoughts that tend to see the Internet as the interloper as opposed to the catalyst for driving people into galleries.

This year a number of galleries feature photo-media art as well as documentary photography including Galeria AFA from Santiago, Chile with an exhibition of black and white portraiture from renowned photographer Paz Errazuriz (below). (Photojournalism Now's interview with Galeria AFA director Camila Opazo will feature on next week’s Friday Round Up).

(C) Marty Williams

Keldoulis says that with the emergence of video art, collectors had initially “leap frogged” over photography, but he believes that photography is now most definitely on the radar of art collectors. However he doesn’t see “any merit or honesty in creating a distinction between photography as art and other visual art forms”.

 (C) Marty Williams

Fair Director Barry Keldoulis

(C) Marty Williams

To that end Keldoulis doesn’t see the need for photo curators either claiming that art curators who understand image making can curate photography also. Nor can he see the point of galleries specialising in the medium. His comments definitely provide food for thought and will hopefully spark some enlightened debate on the topic of photography as art.

15-17 August
Melbourne Art Fair
Royal Exhibition Buildings
Carlton

Stills Gallery at Melbourne Art Fair

(C) Trent Parke*

Sydney’s Stills Gallery, arguably Australia’s most respected photography-dedicated gallery, will feature a number of its artists works at the Fair including a selection from Trent Parke's The Camera is God series, Narelle Autio, Pat Brassington and Glen Sloggett. View the Stills Gallery catalogue here. 

*The above image is not in the catalogue, but representative of the work in The Camera is God.

Feature Article:
Daniel Berehulak

The latest issue of NZ Pro Photographer magazine features Alison Stieven-Taylor’s interview with award-winning Australian photographer, and really nice guy, Daniel Berehulak. Download the iPad App for the magazine to read the story, or lash out and subscribe to the print version - it's a sexy, full colour glossy magazine that does justice to the amazing photographers it features.

Fundraiser:
Ballarat International Foto Biennale

On Sunday 31st August the Ballarat International Foto Biennale (BIFB) will host a fundraising event at Eleven40 Gallery in Malvern where photography lovers will be able to view and purchase photographs donated by some of Australia’s leading photographers and photo-media artists.

More than 200 photographers were invited to submit an image for consideration in the BIFB 2015 Collection, which is curated by Festival Director Jeff Moorfoot. The final selection of around 125 photographs, including one of Alison Stieven-Taylor's photographs, will feature in the BIFB 2015 Collection book also and the “first edition” will be auctioned at the fundraiser around 3pm.

Photographs are displayed anonymously with collectors purchasing a red dot for $125. On the Sunday those holding red dots will be able to select the image of their choice in a “first drawn” basis in the Print Selection Lucky Dip.

Moorfoot says the event provides “a fantastic chance to purchase a one-off archival print for a price perhaps well under the value of what an artist might normally sell his or her work for.” All works are offered “anonymously” so purchasers won’t know whose work they have bought until the provenance on the back is revealed. 

Come along, enjoy the art, food and wine and help support BIFB.

Sponsors: Eleven40 Gallery, Kayell, Epson and Blurb.

Sunday 31 August
from 12noon
Eleven40 Gallery
1140 Malvern Road
Malvern

Check out the website for more information 

Round Up of Exhibitions closing soon:

Melbourne:

Until 23 August
Shara Henderson – London Edit
Edmund Pearce

Sydney:

Ends Sunday 17 August
Paul Blackmore – ONE
Blackeye Gallery

Your Daily Photograph

If you haven’t signed up already, check out Your Daily Photograph to see Alison’s curated selection of 30 photographers, which runs through until the end of August. Already a number of photographs have been sold, and it's fantastic to see Australian photographers getting some well deserved attention on the international photography market.  Today’s photograph is from Alexia Sinclair (above). Follow the link here to see more images.