UN-REVEALED

Ruth, Adela and Ana are pleased to present an exhibition of photography at the Cafe Grove Gallery by artists exploring some of the deepest and most ingrained aspects of what it is to be human: notions of identity, faith, belonging, taboo and the subconscious. Working in a variety of genres including portraiture, landscape, still life and staged photography, these artists are bound by a desire to illuminate the un-revealed aspects of life.

Photography has long been used as a medium of self-expression, the works in this show raise questions around what it can reveal. Can it be a physical expression of a psychological state, can it contain truth or be a vehicle for self-revelation? The photographers offer you a glimpse into their worlds by exposing their hopes, fears and dreams and by doing so invite you to recognise shimmers of your own life and experiences through the work.

The exhibition showcases new work from exciting emerging photographers alongside photographers who have recently exhibited in venues including the PM Gallery, Liberty’s, Proud Central and the Viewfinder Gallery. The artists have diverse backgrounds, coming from Spain, Bulgaria, Sweden, Albania, Poland and Iran as well as the UK.

Take a look at the website for full details including the private view which we hope you will be able to come along to and examples of work in the show. 

http://www.wix.com/unrevealedrevealed/exhibition

Wim Wenders photography at Haunch of Venison London

Wim Wenders is mainly known as a film director, if you have seen his movies Paris Texas or So Far Away So Close, you get a pretty strong feel about his passion for photography though. He came to work in photography rather late, after filming Paris-Texas, the movie that won him a price in Cannes. The story is about an errand man in the Texas desert and his brother helping him to get his memory back, 4 years after he walked out of his marriage.  This movie is one of my favorite, there are a lot of red focal points in this movie to counter balance the bleakness of the desert and I am still haunted by Nastasia Kinsky's red lipstick and red dress. I find this movie deeply influenced by William Egglestone photography and I am not surprised that Wim turned towards photography. His favorite themes are documentary photography and giving a sense of the place he is exploring, he has mostly been taking pictures of places he was researching for movie settings. His images, I do feel have a very strong sense of place and look like they have been haunted by lost  and errant souls, his forthcoming exhibition at Haunch of Venison in London is a unique opportunity to view his photographs in an exhibition called "Places, strange and quiet" this is only the second time that he is exhibiting, so don't give this one a miss.

Haunch of Venision 15th April -14th May London

International photography festivals

Check out this guide to the best of the fests...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/7634593/International-Photography-Festival-Round-up.html


Posted by Clare Lynch

Affordable Art Fair

The Affordable Art Fair is on this weekend in Battersea. There is a fantastically wide range of artwork suitable for homes, offices, collectors.

Affordable Art Fair



My particular highlights this year are:

The Drugstore Gallery

Flaere

Capital Culture

Enjoy!

Posted by: Clare Breheny Lynch

Ida Kar...

Portraits of the artists
Unlike many of her famous subjects,

Ida Kar

, a once sensational bohemian photographer, has slipped into obscurity. Margaret Drabble previews a forthcoming exhibition...

Road to 2012: Setting Out - Bettina von Zwehl

Here's a link to Bettina talking about how she went about her Road to 2012 portraits. It gives a great insight into her process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-0J8Ww0TDU&NR=1

If you are interested you could also check out the NPG's website of 2012 related projects http://roadto2012.npg.org.uk/

Barry Cawston

http://www.closeltd.com/artist/barry-cawston/
http://www.barrycawston.com/

Barry Cawston is exhibiting at 3 Bedfordbury in Covent Garden till 7th of March and will also be at the Affordable Art Fair at the Drugstore Gallery stand http://www.affordableartfair.com/london/home/ . He is a very friendly enthusiastic guy with great stories to tell. He shoots mainly large format but more recently also brings a Nikon D3x along. If there's a chance you can get to the exhibition b4 the 7th I'd recommend it.

music videos + photography

Collodian

http://www.kristenhatgi.com/

Amelie and Alchemy

Amelie and Alchemy from Konstantin Brazhnik on Vimeo.

Inspirational artists/ photographers

Just wanted to post some photographers/ artists that i have come across whose work/practice has influenced me for my project. First off is John Stezaker - below is a video interiew and some info on his practice - theres a lot if you do a search.

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John Stezaker’s work re-examines the various relationships to the photographic image: as documentation of truth, purveyor of memory, and symbol of modern culture. In his collages, Stezaker appropriates images found in books, magazines, and postcards and uses them as ‘readymades’. Through his elegant juxtapositions, Stezaker adopts the content and contexts of the original images to convey his own witty and poignant meanings.

In his Marriage series, Stezaker focuses on the concept of portraiture, both as art historical genre and public identity. Using publicity shots of classic film stars, Stezaker splices and overlaps famous faces, creating hybrid ‘icons’ that dissociate the familiar to create sensations of the uncanny. Coupling male and female identity into unified characters, Stezaker points to a disjointed harmony, where the irreconciliation of difference both complements and detracts from the whole. In his correlated images, personalities (and our idealisations of them) become ancillary and empty, rendered abject through their magnified flaws and struggle for visual dominance.

In using stylistic images from Hollywood’s golden era, Stezaker both temporally and conceptually engages with his interest in Surrealism. Placed in contemporary context, his portraits retain their aura of glamour, whilst simultaneously operating as exotic ‘artefacts’ of an obsolete culture. Similar to the photos of ‘primitivism’ published in George Bataille’s Documents, Stezaker’s portraits celebrate the grotesque, rendering the romance with modernism equally compelling and perverse.

This is Allison Diaz whose not quite as famous yet but does something similar in here chosen set of images. 

* Will post some info on her practice/ work when I get a reply back from her.

Flickr account for more inmages:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/allisondiaz/sets/72157625456519066/

And lastly Claire Pestaille - not much info on her but you can follow her on twitter. I will also try and contact her and get a response on her work/ practice.

* Twitter: http://twitter.com/clairepestaille

Wilbert

Accomodating Nature: The Photographs of Frank Gohlke

Following a short introduction by the American Art Museum's Curator of Photography, Toby Jurovics, photographer Frank Gohlke discusses his body of work spanning more than 30 years. His photographs capture the tension between humanity and the natural world, exploring how people adapt to the forces of nature both great and small, even within the confines of their own backyards.

IMPOSSIBLE Project + 20x24 Studio

Perhaps no other Levi's® Photo Workshop collaborator personifies the idea of 'work' more than the IMPOSSIBLE Project. Founded in 2008 to salvage the medium of analog photography in the wake of Polaroid's closure, IMPOSSIBLE has essentially had to rebuild the beloved film from scratch. It's a slow, arduous process—but one that Dave Bias and Anne Bowerman (of IMPOSSIBLE USA) haven't shied away from at all. Jennifer Trausch and the 20x24 Studio, meanwhile, maintain and operate one of the only large-format Polaroid cameras in existence. It seems that the two instant film entities have much to offer one another, and IMPOSSIBLE is currently attempting to create its own brand of large-format instant film for 20x24's supercamera. Their futures would appear to be inextricably tied together, and the Levi's® Workshop is happy to have been a part of their story.

Category:

The "Unnatural Nature" exhibition

The 'unnatural nature' exhibition in the Cob Gallery looks good if you are around camden this weekend but finishes on monday 28th Feb...

Irina Werning

Something I came across via various links... Irina Werning's Back To The Future. 

Mark Denton

2010 UWL MA Graduate Mark Denton will be showcasing his series 'Domestic Fables' in the Non Fiction show at the Viewfinder gallery March 3-20. Well worth a look!
View Finder Gallery  

Bettina Von Zwehl

Bettina Von Zwehl will be in the V & A till the ed of June. I recommend popping in on one of the open days for a chat. She is lovely and its a great chance to discuss her work with her.

5, 13, 16 & 27 March

16 & 27 April

7, 18, 22 & 25 May

!2:30 to 14:30

Bettina Von Zwehl at the V&A

Hrair Sarkissian

I saw an intriguing photographic exhibition, called Out of Place, at the Tate Modern (Level 2 Gallery) this week.  The exhibition is created by four artists from different social, economic and political backgrounds who have used their art to consider their environment.

One artist in particular stood out for me, Hrair Sarkissian.  He has 3 large scale images from a project entitled In Between.  The photos loom silently and eerily in front and above the viewer, one can't help but be in awe of their beauty as they transport you to their very heart.  The derelict and unkempt buildings of Armenia,  "register the paradox experienced by this Syrian artist of Armenian origin of ‘returning’ to a land which he had only known from family stories, as the reality of the region replaced the country he had imagined." (Tate Modern)

Worth a visit...

Street Photography

FORMAT was established in 2004, by Louise Clements and Mike Brown, and is now one of the UK's leading non-profit international contemporary festivals of photography and related media.

www.formatfestival.com

'Right Here, Right Now' 

Exposures from the public realm

4th March - 3rd April 2011

Derby, UK

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The Museum of London is showing an exhibition of London Street photography.

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/Special/London-Street-Photography/Default.htm

from 18th February to 22nd September.

Yaron Lapid

Yaron Lapid @ The Muse

Yaron Lapid held an informal discussion on his current project, Original Stories From Real Life (Part 1), currently being shown at The Muse @ 269 for the MA Photography students this week.  

This discussion revolved around Yaron Lapid's love of found photography and its use in his multilayered project currently on display.  Lapid states that the project "reflects upon the redundancy of photographs in contemporary visual landscape, and poses the question of whether a single image can still maintain photography's primary ability - to be simultaneously individual and symbolic - in a world constantly exposed to visual stimulation and overproduction."


The exhibition is on display at The Muse @ 269, Portobello Rd, from until Sunday 20th February 2011.