Written by Brendan Olley
on Sunday 24/01/2010
Magnum Exhibition: ‘Political Landscapes’
Date: 2 December 2009 - 5 February 2010.
Magnum print room London, Gee Street.
Its not widely known that the notorious Magnum group have a gallery tucked away in east London, but they most certainly do and have been using this both as an archival room and a place to show the brilliance of their prolific photographers. Every so often I’m guessing they have the odd print or two lying around and when they decide their stock room is getting a tad full they chuck them on the walls for the rest of us to marvel!
This time, oddly, were talking about 15 - 20 Images that contribute to the genre of Landscape photography. We are often presented with a façade of magnum photographers that they are mainly overtly documentary, up close and personal imagery however through establishment of narrative and place we often see an engagement with their immediate environment or ‘landscape’. By the nature of Magnums foundation, these images are not just the odd landscape here and there but a portrayal of the ghosts that one occupied the landscape, the recording of conflict, controversy and the political aftermath.
The show is dominated by some refreshingly stunning work by Carl De Keyzer’s series Moments Before the Flood. Shot on large format the expanse of the imagery shows us the detail's that the eye so often overlooks, we are presented with the strength of natures abilities and Keyzer makes us see this starkly and honestly. The ever increasing awareness of global environmental change puts these images directly in the realm of political comment which is overtly the nature of the show.
Magnum themselves have recognised the extreme shifts that photography has entered over the past decade. The device itself lending the ability to record and move with our times goes some way to explain the nature of this show. Magnum curator says:
“The lines between art and documentary practice both within and outside the agency are becoming increasingly blurred and landscape photography is a genre at the forefront of these changes”
I found a gentle print amongst these oversized wonders that moved me more profoundly than the bowl over scale of the others. An image by Alex Majoli titled Meeting Point Karaleti, Georgia 2009. I can’t find this image anywhere to show you so you’ll have to go see it! Here’s a short clip by the photographer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbu6q1CevCE
The wonders and brilliance of these Magnum shows is in the variation it offers. Getting the chance to see over 10 photographers in one room is a rare treat. We haven’t missed one!!! It’s reassuring and a bit of an adventure if you’ve had a dull week.
We like. We like, We like!
Photography & Mash.
Written by Brendan Olley
on Thursday 14/01/2010
You should have heard of 125 Magazine if you’ve followed contemporary photography over the past 3 years. If you haven't, then its time to take off your sleeping masks. It's the infamous east-London-fashion-scene-meets-chin-scratching-photographic-gallery, all messed up into a beautiful bi-annual publication.
Apart from being one of very few magazines that devotes its pages to pure photography and imagery, each issue has a theme, which is set in advance so that it’s readership of both emerging and established photographers can submit images, resulting in a constant flux of thematic content. The responses to the themes are varied and compelling and make the magazine a prism, through which a single idea can be broken in to its constituent parts. By enabling this creative dialogue between the theme and the photographer the substance of the magazine is pushed toward the absolute edge of contemporary photography.
Last year, the boys over at 125 thought that we'd like to see some large scale photography in print, so they've branched out from the magazine and opened a pop-up gallery on Great Eastern Street. Viewing the images framed and mounted seems effortless and naturally, if you are a reader, there is a feeling of recognition as you see images from past issues on the gallery wall, poised and polished. The project closes the gap between the published world and the environment of the gallery, realising the potential of selected photographs from the magazine, and demonstrating an alternative route to the gallery wall. Great works by Steve Harris and Finlay Mackay are shown in all their glory and splendour.
There is also an array of amazing photography books that are rare to find in London. Some are from the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in America and there are breathtaking oversized books by Paolo Roversi, with a little bit of Robert Frank thrown in for good measure.
It’s a little gem and a unique chance to see some fresh work. Runs till end of January and even opens late on a Thursday nights 9pm!!!
51 Great Eastern Street, London EC2A 3HP
Open 7 days a week till 7pm and 9pm on Thursday nights.
http://www.125magazine.com/index.php?p_id=300&pg=391
Written by Brendan Olley
on Tuesday 05/01/2010
Exhibition title: It's a Crime to Take Photographs this Good.
Artist: Weegee.
Gallery: The Michael Hoppen Gallery London. Ends Saturday 9th January.
After spending much of the christmas break away from the London galleries I felt a rush of excitement when we scheduled the Weegee exhibition hosted at the Michall Hoppen Gallery this week. Taking his unique name from the dark arts of the 'Ouija' Board, Weegee's work is considered some of the finest and darkest photojournalism to grace the photographic practice. Though he never intended his work to be 'art' imagery, the spontaneity and careless nature of the images pull theses pictures into that exact category of artistic urban documentation. The mere fact that Weegee was commissioned to shoot the photography for Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strange Love 1964 shows just how much Weegee's unique uncanny image making transfers into one of the most successful and iconic films of all time.
I marveled for the best part of the show at the image above. A New York building on fire shot in the 1940's. Everything about the photograph is poetically eloquent, Weegee makes the fire dance and the act of distinguishing artistic, with a long exposure, Weegee captures the awkward movements of the burning heat. Movement, composition and light are the fundamental pieces that bond together to make this image a master class of what can only be said to be photography at it's very very best.
I looked into the distance of the image and saw the side street next to the building is lit so fantastically that in competes against the gradeur of the burning building itself. Just a tiny jewel inside a diamond stone. I never viewed Weegee's images in this way before as so often affiliated with his work are images of grotesque injury and death, the burning building seems to communicate a deep display of sensitivity, shot by a poet of light.
It's pure class.
A perfect introduction to the year
http://www.michaelhoppengallery.com/exhibition,current,2,0,0,0,77,0,0,0,weegee_it_s_a_crime_to_take_photographs_this_good....html
Written by Brendan Olley
on Thursday 17/12/2009
Lynne Cohen - Cover
2009, Publisher - Le Point Du Jour
Price £30 - £35 from - The Photographers Gallery, London.
This is Lynne Cohen’s first book that shows her colour work, a dramatic shift from her earlier black & white photography. The book is titled ‘Cover’ which may literally make the viewer link both the covered and the un-covered possible themes with in the pages.
Cohen’s rendition removes all human presence and concentrates the image of the interior environment. We are never given knowledge of the usage of the spaces although we are offered a peek clandestine look into the aesthetics of the places. A sense of covert secrecy is inherent through-out the project. The interiors often feel like transient places, spaces that change when occupied by the human. We get a deep sense that maybe these spaces seem less friendly when man has left and maybe it is a comment about the reason’s why we make these spaces so banal and equally sterile, in it's reflection on the way we live and places we occupy.
Her work lends itself to large format prints that the book sometimes feels restrictive. Her work can be seen in all its splendor at the James Hyman Gallery on Saville Row until 23rd December.
www.jameshymangallery.com
www.lynne-cohen.com
The book ‘cover’ can be purchased from The Photographers Gallery Bookshop, London.
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Lee Friedlander - MOMA.
2009, Publisher - The Museum of Modern Art
Price £35 from - 125 Gallery Bookshop, London, 51 Great Eastern St.
This book has to be the most value for money object I have purchased in the last decade. A hefty 6kg of 480 pages, celebrating one of the most seminal American photographers since the beginning of the media itself, for the price of a mere £35.
You can buy this bargain book and others at the 125 Gallery on Great Eastern Street until January 31st.
The space also hosts a whole series of images that the magazine has collected since its creation which also have a poignant reflection on the year 2009.
You can view more information here:
www.125world.com/?p_id=300&pg=390
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THANKING ALL THE CONTRIBUTORS TO PHOTOGRAPHY & MASH THAT UPLOADED THEIR HEROIC AND BEAUTIFUL WORK IN 2009
MOVING INTO 2010, WE ARE EXCITED TO CELEBRATE THE LOVE OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE TALENT WITHIN YOURSELFS.
LOVE AND ART WILL CHANGE THE WORLD.
PHOTOGRAPHY AND MASH. X
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Written by Brendan Olley
on Monday 30/11/2009
Pete & Repeat
Thinking, Thinking, Thinking.
What to buy, what to buy, what to buy. What to say, what to say, what to say.
The Zabludowicz collection, Camden 176 Prince of Wales street has given us another treat in an exhibition that balances on the circumference of ‘Repetition’ in this landmark 2009 exhibition ‘Pete & Repeat’. The show has already been going for well over a month and will end on December 13th.Next week!
Without distilling the already eloquently tackled subject of repetition in this exhibition with some kind of profound statement about ideas of modern 21st century mundanity and repetition, the work in show not only reflects a vast post-modernist outlook on the cycle of life and the representation of objects that profoundly makes us reflect on our own boundaries and comfortable routines.In this sublimely exciting exhibition space, which coincidentally is a retired chapel/church, we are presented with room after room after room of a consortium of photography, sculpture and film. It becomes our job to pick through and find the repetition in the concept and when we leave the space we are then left alone to find the repetition in our own self.
Thought of the week:
The gallery created a limited run of 500 handmade screen printed exhibition guides. The contents of which talk about notable artists like Paul Pfeitter - 24 landscapes and Bernd and hilla behar - Water Towers 1979 - 2005.
The book is a charmingly crafted homage to the great work in the show and also celebrates luminary writers that have already commented on the issue of repetition. Essay’s included are Samual Beckett’s - Molloy and the great Friedrich Nietzsche - Of Vision and The Riddle. By displaying these great writer’s the book shifts the experience of repetition from the gallery space to a very real and fluid notion. Making us re-think the simplicity of our life’s as a very automated system.After this read you will go forth and break free from the self expanding foam that is cushioning and impairing our freedom. Apparently we are free! Quote by Nietzsche.
‘Behold this gateway, dwarf!’ I went on: ‘it has two aspects. Two paths come together here: no one has ever reached their end’.‘This long lane behind us: It goes on for an eternity and that long lane ahead of us that is another eternity’.‘They are in opposition to one another, these paths: they abut on on another and it is here at this gateway that come together. The name of the gateway is written above it “Moment”. (Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus spoke zarathustra, Translated R.J, Hollingdale, penguin books, p.176 - 180 )
Website Address - http://www.projectspace176.com/projects/pete-and-repeat/
Love & Peace.
Photography & Mash.
