26/02/06

William Wegman at Brooklyn Museum

William Wegman: Funney/Strange
Brooklyn Museum
March 10 - May 28, 2006

The Brooklyn Museum will be the first venue of William Wegman: Funney/Strange, an exhibition exploring forty years of William Wegman’s work in all media. The first retrospective of this artist’s work in more than fifteen years. Included are more than 200 works, among them the signature 20 x 24 Polaroids, early black-and-white and altered photographs, as well as paintings, drawings, collages, artist books, videos, and film.

The exhibition has been organized by the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, and curated by the independent curator Trevor Fairbrother. Generous support for this exhibition and publication was provided by The Henry Luce Foundation.

After its premiere at Brooklyn, William Wegman: Funney/Strange will travel to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach; and the Addison Gallery of American Art.

An extensive catalogue, written by scholar and critic Joan Simon and published by Yale University Press in association with the Addison Gallery of American Art, will accompany the exhibition.

Underlying all of William Wegman’s work is a light humor that mediates a darker strangeness. The exhibition examines a career that has never been static or predictable yet is woven of interests and explorations that engaged the artist at the start and compel him still. Coming of age in the 1960s, Wegman was an early exponent of Conceptual Art and a pioneering maker of video. He continues to be a video artist and conceptual thinker as well as an adventurous painter, prolific writer, and masterful photographer who is able to create art that amuses and surprises while it challenges and transforms.

Born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1943, WILLIAM WEGMAN received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and an MFA from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. In Illinois and later in Wisconsin, he began to experiment with a wide range of media—film, kinetic sculpture, installation, and performance. While teaching at California State College in Long Beach in the 1970s, William Wegman developed what was to be his mature artistic voice expressed in his signature media of photography, video, and text. It was in California that he acquired his canine muse Man Ray and began to include the dog in both photographs and video. By the fall of 1972, he moved to New York where he has remained ever since, applying his quirky and unpredictable imagination and expansive artistic appetite to a career that has been far ranging and provocative.

Beloved by the general public and held in critical esteem internationally, William Wegman fascinates both audiences for much the same reason: a smart, gently subversive humor that destabilizes the familiar to reveal life’s essential oddity. Throughout his career, he has moved seamlessly from conceptual works to commissioned magazine shoots, from video work to television segments made for Sesame Street and Saturday Night Live; from artist’s books to children’s books, from photographic “landscapes” employing his dogs to his most recent series of paintings that incorporate scenic postcards with drawing, collage, and painting. This exhibition brings classic William Wegman images together with rarely exhibited material and surprising new work to reveal the full range and savvy voice of this remarkable artist’s production.

Trevor Fairbrother is an independent curator and scholar who has worked on a wide range of topics, from Andy Warhol to John Singer Sargent. He has served as a curator of American painting and of contemporary art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and as Deputy Director for Art at the Seattle Art Museum. Joan Simon is curator-at-large for the Whitney Museum of American Art. She has written extensively on contemporary art, including Ann Hamilton and Susan Rothenberg. Marilyn Kushner, Chair of the Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Brooklyn Museum, is the coordinating curator for the Brooklyn presentation.

William Wegman: Funney/Strange is sponsored at the Brooklyn Museum by Commerce Bank. Additional support is provided by the Brooklyn Museum’s Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Exhibition Fund. 

Tour Schedule:
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, March 10–May 28, 2006
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D. C., July 4–September 24, 2006
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, November 4, 2006–January 28, 2007
Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts April 7–July 31, 2007

BROOKLYN MUSEUM
200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238-6052
www.brooklynmuseum.org

25/02/06

Multimedia Image Photo Show 2006

Le Multimedia Image Photo Show se tiendra à Paris, au Parc des Expositions de la Porte de Versailles du 16 au 20 mars 2006. Il est ouvert aux professionnels et au "grand public" que nous formons :) Comme ce blog (mais sans lien avec le salon) c'est l'ensemble de la "chaîne" de la photographie qui doit y être présenté, de la prise de vue à la diffusion en passant par le stockage, l'édition et l'impression...
Affiche copyrighted (c) - Tous droits reservés

20/02/06

Pinnacle Studio nouvelle version 10.5

Le concepteur de logiciels Pinnacle part du constat que "La nouvelle tendance est clairement établie au sein de l'univers des périphériques vidéo multifonctions : les consommateurs veulent pouvoir écouter de la musique et profiter de leurs photos et vidéos dans où qu’ils soient". Pinnacle entend répondre à cette demande avec les innovations apportées à sa gamme de solutions de montage vidéo grand public avec la version 10.5 de son logiciel Pinnacle Studio. Parmi les principales améliorations de cette version figurent en effet des fonctions de mobilité permettant aux utilisateurs d'exporter facilement leurs vidéos et diaporamas au format MPEG4, afin de les afficher sur des lecteurs vidéo portables, tels la PSP de Sony et l'iPod Video d'Apple, et également un grand nombre d’améliorations destinées à décupler les possibilités offertes aux utilisateurs du logiciel. « Avec le développement des périphériques de capture numérique et des solutions de photo et de vidéo personnelles, les consommateurs bénéficient désormais d'un accès immédiat à leurs contenus. Ils ont dès lors juste besoin d'une solution simple, qui leur permette d'optimiser et de transformer leurs contenus afin de pouvoir les regarder et les partager facilement avec leur famille et leurs amis », déclare David Barnby, Vice-président, division Ventes et Marketing pour la région EMEA. Avec Pinnacle Studio 10.5, les utilisateurs peuvent capturer, restaurer, optimiser et créer leurs montages vidéo pour la PSP de Sony ou l'iPod Video d'Apple en sélectionnant simplement des réglages d'exportation prédéfinis. Cette version autorise également l'importation de données depuis les téléphones compatibles 3GP Video. Prix et disponibilité - Pour les utilisateurs de Studio 10 souhaitant évoluer vers la version 10.5, le correctif de mise à jour est disponible sur le site de Pinnacle, pinnaclesys.com. Ce correctif intègre un certain nombre d'optimisations et d’améliorations gratuites du logiciel, qui ne manqueront pas de séduire les utilisateurs de Studio. Pour les clients spécifiquement intéressés par l'exportation de vidéos vers les plates-formes PSP ou iPod Video, ces fonctionnalités mobiles de pointe seront proposées à un tarif fixe directement sur le site pinnaclesys.com

19/02/06

Ryan Humphrey, DCKT Contemporary, New York - Divine Objects of Hatred

Ryan Humphrey
Divine Objects of Hatred
DCKT Contemporary, New York
February 18 – March 25, 2006

For RYAN HUMPHREY’s first exhibition with DCKT Contemporary, the artist shows round paintings made to resemble practice targets in a variety of diameters. At first glance the paintings are seemingly decorative but upon closer examination one sees that they have in fact been riddled with bullet holes.

Ryan Humphrey’s negotiations of the pitfalls of capitalism and his existence within the contradictions of the class system are facets of his life experience. The paintings have been titled to reference adverse events with individuals, the pettiness of the “art world” and engagement with larger entities. Ryan Humphrey questions the assimilation of art within the home decorating industry and the use of artworks as accessories. The paintings are consciously benign and decorative yet wounded, raw, unforgiving and purposely devalued.

Ryan Humphrey will have a solo exhibition, Empty Thoughts, Lame Excuses and Decorative Lies, at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, from April 7 through July 2, 2006. Ryan Humphrey is included in the ICI organized traveling group exhibition Will Boys Be Boys? Questioning Adolescent Masculinity in Contemporary Art, curated by Shamim M. Momin. Upcoming venues include the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University and the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

DCKT CONTEMPORARY
552 West 24th Street, New York, NY
www.dcktcontemporary.com

Tracey Moffatt, Love and Adventures at Steven Kasher Gallery

 

TRACEY MOFFATT is Australia’s most accomplished visual artist. She has exhibited extensively all over the world and has garnered strong support from museums, critics and collectors.  Since 1989, Tracey Moffatt has had 119 solo exhibits and has been featured in over 150 group exhibitions.

 

ADVENTURES SERIES, a collection of 10 large photographic works that play with pop-cultural staples such as comic strips, television and B-movies. Tracey Moffatt says:

          “I love early-1970’s modern adventure stories in comics and movies, especially low-budget American and Australian television dramas.  In these productions ‘adventure’ meant jumping into a speedboat or a small plane to catch a ‘poacher’ and the stories were always set in exotic locations.”

Each work in the series incorporates three “frames” that depict an open-ended story.  Each of the featured characters represents a type; Tracey Moffatt herself appears in the role of the “dark and intense” type.  Tracey Moffatt states:

          “I like constructing narratives in the studio with model-actors and props and painted backdrops…. I have always liked ‘artifice.’ I adore the ‘fake.’” 

As a teenager, Tracey Moffatt aspired to look like these televised adventure characters. Tracey Moffatt pinpoints the allure of these characters when she says:

          “All the men and women looked ‘professional’ as if they were doing something ‘important’ yet at the same time eyeing each other.  To me it was all so sexual and hot.”

 

Tracey Moffatt’s twenty minute video entitled LOVE also explores Hollywood conventions and also turns a critical eye on relationships between men and women.  Tracey Moffatt writes:

          “Love is a rollercoaster montage of some of my favorite Hollywood melodramas depicting love scenes, which in the end turn out to be not so romantic.” 

These love scenes are drawn from recognizable films spanning several eras.  In Love Tracey Moffatt elicits a powerful response in the viewer through editing and music.  The selected film clips, at first romantic and sweet, captivate the viewer and entice her in as the scenes crescendo into the violent and frightening.

Love comes with a disclaimer: If you have ever been in love or ever want to be, do not watch this video!

 

TRACEY MOFFATT is highly regarded for her formal and stylistic experimentation in film, photography and video. Her work draws on history of cinema, art and photography as well as popular culture and her own childhood memories and fantasies. Born in Brisbane Australia in 1960, Tracey Moffatt studied visual communications at the Queensland college of Art, from which she graduated in 1982.  Since her first solo exhibition in Sydney in 1989, she has exhibited extensively all over the world.  In the 1980’s and early 90’s she worked as a director on documentaries and music videos for television.  She first gained significant critical acclaim for her film work when the short film Night Cries was selected for official competition at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.  Her first feature film, bedevil, was also selected for Cannes in 1993.  A major exhibition at the Dia Center for the Arts in New York in 1997/8 consolidated her international reputation.  Her work is in over fifty public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Tate Gallery, London; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.  She is now based in New York and returns frequently to the north of Australia where she works and lives on the beach.

 

The Steven Kasher Gallery is now serving as Tracey Moffatt’s exclusive representative in the United States. Its first exhibition of Tracey Moffatt’s work, entitled Love and Adventures, features both photography and video. It is Tracey Moffatt’s first exhibition in New York since 2001.

 

TRACEY MOFFATT, LOVE AND ADVENTURES
March 7, 2006 - April 29, 2006

Steven Kasher Gallery is located at 521 West 23rd St., 2nd Floor
Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 am – 6 pm
Opening reception from 6-8pm on Tuesday, March 7, 2006

18/02/06

DARK. Art and the Darker Side of Existence at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

DARK
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
18 February - 17 April 2006

The darker side of existence exercises an almost irresistible attraction on society. This fascination is the theme of the international group exhibition DARK, assembled by guest curator Jan Grosfeld and Rein Wolfs. DARK is a presentation of recent developments within contemporary art; a confrontation of differing contemporary artistic visions. The exhibition in the atmospheric spaces of the museum's Van der Steur wing includes work by Luc Tuymans, Marc Bijl, Rita Ackermann, Banks Violette, Angus Fairhurst, Folkert de Jong, Dirk Braeckman, Terence Koh, Avner Ben-Gal and Kara Walker.

Common to each work in the show is an interest in the 'darker' side of life. However, DARK is more than simply 'dim' or 'unlit'. Rather it refers to a particular contemporary state of mind, with a complex of different and sometimes antithetical aspects. DARK is sometimes melancholy, music can play a role, but often does not. Indeed sometimes DARK is actually is even simply radiant white, as in the obsessive 'white powder' installations by Terence Koh.

Impure spaces
Contemporary art is usually presented in so-called 'white cube' spaces, or indeed 'black boxes' for video projections. However, DARK manifests itself in the more 'impure' spaces where the old masters are normally displayed. These galleries are especially appropriate to a project that deals with impurity, with the 'anti-pure'. A contemporary impurity comes to life against the backdrop of its historical counterpart.

A darker state of mind
Luc Tuymans expresses DARK's 'state of mind' through his oppressive images and specific subject choices, whilst Marc Bijl has a sort of rebellious Gothic stance. Terence Koh employs the decadence of gold leaf and 'white powder'. Banks Violette researches the underbelly of American culture with clinical precision. A soundtrack of electronic music brings the visitor back to the present day. This is the authenticity of an artist who understands that today successful sampling must come with a healthy dollop of intelligence. Romanticism is at the heart of Angus Fairhurst's work. A glossy pitch-black gorilla, contemplating itself like an Ur-Narcissus, is an icon of impudent and animalistic subjectivity, which is more than at home in our ego age.

Dirk Braeckman's black on black images eloquently represent the DARK 'state of mind' as does the mysterious concealed aggression of Rita Ackermann and Rachel Harrison. Folkert de Jong explores the darker side of American society, as does Georg Gatsas, whose 'court photography' illuminates the grimy New York cultural scene. In her black silhouettes Kara Walker takes on themes such as race, gender and sexuality. Daniel Hesidence voices the DARK mentality with a Munch-like scream, Avner Ben-Gal with a darker implicit narrative and Jan Lauwers with a painful theatricality. The shameless advertising aesthetic employed by Fumie Sasabuchi is sometimes shocking, much like the bestial narcissism in the work of Angus Fairhurst. Juergen Teller is in search of a singular icon in his son's birth announcement.

Now and then one can find stylistic and formal relations between the works but these are not the dominant concern. Content, emotion and authentic values play a more important role here. DARK is an exhibition that elucidates the current zeitgeist and creates a forum for a new, contemporary form of authenticity.

Participating artists:
Rita Ackermann (1968, Budapest, H)
Avner Ben-Gal (1966, Askalon, I)
Marc Bijl (1970, Leerdam, NL)
Dirk Braeckman (1958, Eeklo, B)
Angus Fairhurst (1966, Kent, UK)
Georg Gatsas (1978, Grabs SG, CH)
Gregory Crewdson (1962, Brooklyn NY, USA)
Rachel Harrison (1966, New York, USA)
Daniel Hesidence (1975, Ohio NY, USA)
Folkert de Jong (1972, Alkmaar, NL)
Terence Koh (1977, Beijing, China)
Jan Lauwers (1957, Antwerp, B)
Fumie Sasabuchi (1975, Tokyo, J)
Juergen Teller (1964, Erlangen, D)
Luc Tuymans (1958, Mortsel, B)
Banks Violette (1973, Ithaca NY, USA)
Kara Walker (1969, Stockton CA, USA)

MUSEUM BOIJMANS VAN BEUNINGEN
Museumpark 18-20, 3015 CX Rotterdam

11/02/06

Nicolau Vergueiro, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles - A Thousand Openings

Nicolau Vergueiro: A Thousand Openings
David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
February 11 — March 18, 2006

David Kordansky Gallery presents A Thousand Openings, Nicolau Vergueiro's second solo exhibition of new, vibrant sculptures and wall works.

Nicolau NiVergueiro's new tapestries and sculptures are reminiscent of ceremonial blankets and totems. Such objects, originating from a mundane source, gain a divine function and accumulate a force beyond themselves. He incorporates elements of the ritualistic and adds Pan-African religious and voodoo flourishes. Bones and voodoo beads commingle with vinyl, nylon and fabric. 

Each piece has an artisan touch; they are hand-made and sewn using a range of found and altered materials from Brazil and Los Angeles. Colorful fabrics are flocked, silk-screened and quilted and combined with plastic, resin, wood and glass pieces. Mirrored boxes look like multi-faceted diamonds and refract light suggesting endless possibilities and multiple openings. Nicolau Vergueiro creates lush opulence from simple scraps of material. This neo-folkloric excess of piecemeal materials evokes a reversal; an alternate sense of post-colonial decadence. Instead of a trickle-down effect, from the waste come the riches. 

Nicolau Vergueiro (b. 1977) lives and works in Los Angeles and Sao Paulo, Brazil. His work was in Follow Me: A Fantasy, curated by Malik Gaines, Arena 1, Los Angeles, CA. He also was a part of New Balance Frontier, curated by Aimee Chang, The Soap Factory, Minneapolis, MN. Nicolau Vergueiro has shown at David Zwirner Gallery, New York, NY, Daniel Reich Gallery, New York, NY, and John Connelly Presents, New York, NY. He will exhibit at Hiromi Yoshii, Tokyo, Japan during the summer of 2006. 

DAVID KORDANSKY GALLERY
510 Bernard Street, Los Angeles CA. 90012
www.davidkordanskygallery.com

Updated 26.06.2019

10/02/06

Bilan de la Foire des Antiquaires de Belgique 2006

Bilan de la Foire des Antiquaires de Belgique 2006

Le 29 janvier 2006, la 51ème édition de la Foire des Antiquaires de Belgique fermait ses portes sur un cru exceptionnel qui, bien qu’auréolé d’une fréquentation stable d’environ 30.000 visiteurs, se démarquait surtout par une nette augmentation de la qualité et du prestige international de la foire. Qualifié par d’aucuns de « petit TEFAF », l’événement semble avoir trouvé sa vitesse de croisière. Quoi qu’il en soit, il s’est avéré de nature à satisfaire l’ensemble des exposants qui rencontrèrent une grande quantité d’amateurs, collectionneurs et professionnels des antiquités. Ce succès s’est principalement concrétisé dans le domaine des objets d’art et des antiquités, fort prisé des visiteurs, certains stands ayant dégagé un volume de vente exceptionnel. Un résultat jugé excellent dans le contexte international, sans conteste, renforcé par le fort contingent d’exposants français (37) et de collectionneurs qu’ils ont contribué à attirer à Bruxelles. Une sélection très pointue, un contrôle rigoureux effectué par des comités d’experts non exposants, tout comme un public très connaisseur ainsi qu’une presse particulièrement élogieuse, ont assis définitivement la place de la foire au troisième rang dans le calendrier des grandes manifestations européennes, derrière TEFAF Maastricht et la Biennale des Antiquaires de Paris.

Depuis 1955, la Foire des Antiquaires de Belgique, la plus ancienne au monde, organisée par la Chambre Royale des Antiquaires de Belgique fondée en 1919, constitue l’événement annuel incontournable en matière d’antiquités et d’œuvres d’art. Alliant qualité et prestige, unique en Belgique, ce superbe salon d’antiquités qui vient de se clôturer une fois encore sur l’exceptionnel site de Tour et Taxis doit beaucoup au Comité, à l’équipe de management qui a su, depuis 4 ans, grâce à un dynamisme hors pair allié à une organisation très professionnelle, développer inlassablement des objectifs dignes d’une grande foire internationale.

Placée cette année sous la présidence de Grethe Zeberg, animée par le désir de susciter l’intérêt d’une clientèle plus jeune, la foire a souhaité s’ouvrir à la création moderne et contemporaine en accueillant des exposants spécialisés dans ces domaines artistiques précis. Pour ce faire, un hall supplémentaire a été adjoint ce qui portait la superficie de l’événement à quelque 12.400 m2 accueillant 125 exposants. Un quota, désormais tout à fait en équilibre, que les organisateurs ne souhaitent pas augmenter.  En revanche, des efforts seront consentis pour améliorer la qualité en matière de tableaux du XIXe siècle, jugée trop faible, ainsi qu’en matière d’art contemporain, présents encore trop timidement. L’édition 2007 devrait également développer le caractère international de la foire et cherchera à attirer plus d’exposants des Etats-Unis, du Royaume-Uni, des Pays-Bas, d’Italie et d’Espagne.

Les superbes et immenses halls du bâtiment A de l’ancienne gare de triage de Tour & Taxis qui, depuis 2004, accueillent le salon, n’ont pas failli à leur réputation d’agrément et d‘accessibilité. L’équipe du bureau Volume, de Nicolas de Liedekerke et Daniel Culot, s’est particulièrement surpassée cette année en rendant aux allées du salon toute leur pleine respiration, par le biais d’ouvertures et d’un dialogue subtil avec l’architecture du bâtiment. Cette touche inimitable, alliant la légèreté à la valorisation de l’espace architectural, fait tout le prestige de l’événement. Comme à chaque édition, la mise en espace fut relayée par le soin tout particulier que les antiquaires eux-mêmes ont veillé à apporter à la conception et à la décoration de leurs stands. En outre, poursuivant la valorisation des grands noms de la mode belge initiée en 2005, les allées du salon étaient ponctuées des robes et créations évanescentes de Kaat Tilley.

Comme toujours, la rigueur de la sélection et l’attention toute particulière portée aux journées d’expertise, le fameux ‘vetting’, effectué par des experts non exposants et, en grande partie, conservateurs de musées et scientifiques issus du monde entier, permirent de rencontrer les attentes qualitatives d’un public exigeant, en quête d’exception. 

Nous avons noté les résultats suivants : Ronny Van de Velde (Anvers), qui proposait l’un des stands les plus remarqués du salon, s’est séparé de trois Dotremont, deux Calder, de dessins d’Ensor ainsi que de plusieurs Félicien Rops dans une fourchette de prix oscillant entre deux mille et quarante mille euro. Les Liégeois du Couvent des Ursulines ont cédé une bonne douzaine de pièces dont une paire de fauteuils, des bronzes, des candélabres, etc. Spécialisée dans l’archéologie et les arts primitifs, la galerie Phoenix Ancient Art (Genève et  New York) s’est dite enchantée de sa foire, elle qui s’est séparée d’une amulette proto-sumérienne, d’une tête de lion en pierre (Syrie), d’un portrait romain du IIIe siècle de notre ère, d’une statuette de bélier (Asie occidentale, fin du quatrième millénaire av. JC) et d’une idole d’Anatolie (2500 av. JC). Pour sa part, la Galerie 146 Autegaerden Rapin, a vendu l’ensemble de sa série de tabourets Le Corbusier ainsi qu’un meuble console de Paul Evans. Quant à eux, Bernard De Leye, Philippe Dufrasne, La Mésangère, Axel Vervoordt, Dartevelle, Chamarande, Artcade, Oscar De Vos, Remco van Leeuwen, Christian Deydier, Jacques Barrère, Flore, Claude Bernard, Tanakaya ou Mermoz se disaient ravi de leur présence à Bruxelles où ils ont rencontré des clients bien informés et connaisseurs, le volume global des ventes étant en progression par rapport à 2005.

Dans un souci de transparence, l’Art Loss Register (Registre des Œuvres d’Art Volées) ainsi que la police judiciaire belge ont été une fois encore conviés par le Comité organisateur de la Foire des Antiquaires de Belgique  afin de vérifier la provenance légale des objets exposés.

On notera dès à présent dans les agendas les dates de la 52ème édition, du 19 au 28 janvier 2007 sur le site de Tour et Taxis.

FOIRE DES ANTIQUAIRES DE BELGIQUE
Rue Ernest Allard 32, 1000 Bruxelles
www.antiques-fair.be

09/02/06

Michael Snow exhibition, Jack Shainman Gallery in NYC

MICHAEL SNOW
Jack Shainman Gallery, NYC
February 9 – March 11, 2006

This solo exhibition by artist Michael Snow consisting in one early and one recent projection works, entitled “Little Walk” (1964) and “Solar Breath (Northern Caryatids)” (2002). Both works were featured in Snow’s exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, during the months of October and November of 2005.

“Little Walk” is a dynamic, 12” silent loop characteristic of the experimental works made by the artist in that decade. Between 1961 and 1967, Snow’s work in all media was based on the naturalistic silhouette of a young woman. Made out originally from the outline or of a cardboard cut-out, the image of the walking woman became both tool and subject in Snow’s work. Many photographic works, films and performance pieces resulted as part of this exploration. “Little Walk”, which belongs to this series, was originally made for an exhibition organized by Jonas Mekas entitled “Expanded Cinema”.  The work, originally shot in 8mm, has now been transferred to DVD.

“Solar Breath...” is a 62” loop of fluttering curtains that reveal and conceal an idyllic landscape in rural Newfounland. The work is a result of artist’s observations of a window of his summer cabin in Canada.  Over the years, according to him, “a mysterious wind performance takes place in one of the windows, about an hour before sunset”. The artist seek to capture in the film the various movements and folds that the window’s curtain creates against the window’s screen, with the interaction of the wind.

This work, according to the artist himself, belongs to a group of film and photographic works who take subjects that were not formed by the artist as “art”, but rather were “taken-by-surprise” by the artist.  In a text about this work, the artist writes:

“What I saw in these sun-and-wind events was their potential as art. I did not record these "events" to share this modest phenomenon from my daily life with others. No, the rich play of light, surfaces and durations said to me: this real, un-staged event contains the elements which are essential for a contemplative time-light-motion work of art, a "motion picture" with "plastic" values and reverberant associations which will reward many viewings.”

The artist adds: “While on one level, Solar Breath is merely a fixed-camera documentary recording, it is also the result of years of attention....Solar Breath (Northern Caryatids) is 62 minutes of the most beautiful, eloquent movements and pliages that the sun, wind, windows and curtain have yet composed.  Chance and choice co-exist.”

Michael Snow is a visual artist, filmmaker and musician originally from Toronto.  He first exhibited in 1956 and in the 1960s became internationally renowned with his film “Wavelength”. His work can be found in many of the most renowned contemporary art collections in the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, and the National Gallery of Canada. He has represented Canada at the Venice Bienalle and has exhibited at most international major biennials.

Jack Shainman Gallery
513 W. 20th St
New York, NY 10011
www.jackshainman.com

06/02/06

X-Rite PerfectPalette for Package and Commercial Printers

Easy-to-use software application builds custom Pantone and spot color libraries in seconds

X-Rite PerfectPalette is designed to provide packaging and commercial printers a quick and easy way to create custom color palettes from PANTONE libraries or spot measurement color values. Developed in partnership with Enovation Graphic Systems (A Fujifilm Company) to meet the requirements for creating spot color libraries for the Fujifilm FinalProof GxT digital halftone proofer, PerfectPalette tackles the challenge of getting the right spot color simulation the first time, avoiding multiple adjustments to make spot colors match the target from prepress to the pressroom.

In the pressroom, PerfectPalette will allow companies with 6 and 7 color presses to produce work that simulates spot colors that would otherwise require additional units or multiple press runs. Designers will now be able to specify more spot colors with greater accuracy and not be limited by standard spot-color conversion tools. PerfectPalette enables the optimized reproduction of corporate colors, serving the client’s color critical needs without having to pay for special inks.

Other key benefits of PerfectPalette

  • Supports various output formats including Adobe® Color Swatch format and the native FinalProof GXT format
  • Advanced palette engine optimizes custom color palettes, yielding more precise matching without sacrificing processing time
  • Custom co-efficients for Delta E 94 and Delta E CMC to allow for the highest level of accuracy and control in building custom color palettes
  • Custom libraries allow users to add corporate colors to pantone libraries, or build color references manually

For more information about Enovation, please visit

http://www.enovationgraphics.com/.

01/02/06

Contemporary Turkish Sculpture – Istanbul Modern

 

With Memory and Scale, Istanbul Modern aims to shine a light on the history of Modern Turkish sculpture with an exhibition that has never been created in Turkey up to date. The exhibition, which covers a historical period in depth, acquires characteristics that will ensure Istanbul Modern to approach its mission for modern museology one step further.

Memory and Scale endeavors to provide an historical perspective of modern Turkish sculpture and determine where it stands today by going beyond a sculptural work’s creative manipulation of volume, space and form to reach the world and concepts that have produced it. It is primarily an attempt at cataloguing and identifying the sculptural idioms developed since 1950, from the early period of abstract-constructivism to the dominance of design over sculptural form, from the opposition in local and universal aspects to the diversity in the choice of materials, and from open air sculpture pieces to the concept of scale, essential to indoor installations.

Aside from a few well-meaning projects and recent catalogues, no exhibition has yet chronicled this process or subjected it to a comparative analysis. Obviously a number of difficulties are involved in such a task. The chief challenge is conceiving an exhibition in keeping with the museum’s intrinsic identity. None of the sculptures included have ever before been exhibited together. For the first time, these works will be presented as part of a coherent whole addressing the relationship between each piece from a comparative perspective.

Thus, in our articulation of the exhibition’s complexity we have attempted to avoid a group exhibition approach. Instead the essential aim has been to present the audience with a satisfying compilation of the individual stylistic expressions of the selected sculptors and, by exploring their creative world, to specify their elected artistic vocabulary and the ways in which they resemble or differ from other artists. Consequently, we have chosen to display the most distinctive works of each from a historical perspective, using a chronological approach to demonstrate the evolution of their styles.

The expressions "Memory" and "Scale", from which the exhibition derives its name, allude to the two basic problematiques of sculpture. In articulating a sculptural work, the artist seeks the most suitable narrative style and material and improvises with whichever scale –large-scale, urban scale, human scale etc.– best fits his purpose. At the same time a sculpture is a multifaceted and mysterious mnemonic record of mankind’s self-representation. The compelling compositions of those original personalities who have succeeded in capturing the spirit of their times constitute some of the most relevant data on human history.

Used in the context of a sculpture exhibition, the term "Memory" simultaneously covers every form of activity conducted by human-beings to assert their physical presence and identity in the landscape they inhabit, and evokes, as well, the different stages of growth and self-realization that actors go through in this process. The term "Scale," on the other hand, applies to all forms of sculptural production or installation in both indoor and outdoor spaces and involves the totality of artistic, technical and economic difficulties that may arise, from the moment the thought of a sculpture is first conceived, to the time of its encounter with the viewer.

The greatest drawback of sculpture, which at the same time constitutes its obvious advantage, is its obligation to share space in a three-dimensional reality with other objects. This is both the reason for its existence and a trial it must undergo. Because of its claims on space and volume, a sculptural work is always perceived to be as much a threat as a privilege. Unlike painting, which belongs to an illusory space, a sculptural work is part of the exterior world. The requirements of modern daily living summon sculpture to museums or open public spaces. In this sense, every sculpture produced has to confront both modern aesthetics and the collective perception generated by the reactions the public shows to it. Accordingly, when viewing exhibited works, the politico-aesthetic judgments and existential concerns that shape our gaze count more than the context in which these works were produced. This cross section of 15 artists offered by our exhibition could well be a starting point for discussion on these topics.

ALI HADI BARA, 1906-1971

In 1950, following the reorganization of the Academy of Fine Arts , Ali Hâdi Bara and Zühtü Müridoglu jointly took over the Sculpture Department from Rudolf Belling. Taken as a whole, the artistic developments and achievements of Bara’s creative production over nearly half a century give a good idea of the progression of Turkish sculpture from a classical pictorial tradition to an abstract approach.

The early 1950s are also a time when the artist experimented with new concepts and methods. Upon his return from a visit to Paris in 1949, he began to create purely geometric pieces –usually assemblages of sheets of metal– whose common features were simplicity of form and a concern with the visual qualities of space. The abstract sculptural works he constructed out of iron sheets in the late 1950s confirm his quest for innovative aesthetic materials.

In these sculptures, metal sheets secured at the corners or at pressure points, intersect and divide each other, demonstrating both his purposeful manipulation of space and his determination to position distinctive geometric planes within it. In the 1960s, the artist eschews, in his own terms, "the sterility of geometric abstraction" and turns to works in which the three-dimensional scrutiny of the cosmos and technological concepts acquire significance.

An emphasis on the volume and space–filling aspects of sculpture always constituted the basis of his work. Instead of embellishing a form with unnecessary details, he chose to focus on a three-dimensional object’s claims on space and on the object as a thing-in-itself.

ZUHTU MURIDOGLU, 1906-1992

A trip to Paris , in 1948, introduced Zühtü Müridoglu to abstract art. Deeply impressed by this new approach, he began constructing abstract pieces, when he returned to Istanbul , using and transforming tree branches. Later, he added terra cotta and copper foil to wood in some of his abstract compositions.

In the 1950s, Müridoğlu also carved wood reliefs composed of stylized figures. He combined pieces of wood from the trunk of trees and right-angled metal constructs, exploiting the opposition between the organic texture of wood with its irregular surfaces and the distinctive qualities and different patinas of metal. At the same time, he explored the relationships between masses through a play of light and shadows and the use of different scales and materials.

From 1963 to 1967, he created a series he named "Gravestone" and in 1967, made the sculpture "Unknown Political Prisoner". From the 1970s on, in addition to the organic-geometric abstract works he produced, the artist began to make figurative pieces in bronze. The most representative of these sculptures are his cast-bronze "Ballerina" series, of which he also produced serigraphs.

Zühtü Müridoglu’s work, especially his abstract wood sculptures, constitutes a unique synthesis of local cultural motifs and sensibilities with the abstract tendencies of the international art scene in the 1960s. This compelling fusion of the natural and organic structural characteristics of wood with geometric abstraction is a striking aspect of his work.

SADI CALIK, 1917-1979

"I don’t believe in a statue, monument, epitaph or bust categorization. Formal arts represent a whole. Sculpture is three-dimensional art but otherwise all arts are fundamentally the same. As in other art forms, "communicability" is the most important quality of formal arts.

Whether or not a sculpture carries significance as a monument, is related to the message it attempts to give and to its connection to the environment. Everything here depends on conditions and possibilities. The artist is the first to create and articulate a prototype. Actually, when we speak of the present, we mean the years after 1945, the post-World War II period. That was a time of radical transformation for mankind. A time of economic, political, technological and artistic change. A time when artists became more individualistic and liberated...

"The words above taken from an interview with Sadi Calik in 1974, summarize his views on sculpture in general, and on the era in which he worked in particular. Adopting a pluralistic approach to both form and material, he renegotiates his powerful expressive vocabulary and symbolic references with each new work and questions his fundamental sculptural conceptions, depending on the proposed location of a piece, its context and the material used.

The wide variety of media and styles the artist embraces in his visual language enhances the articulation of the symbolic forms he presents.

ILHAN KOMAN, 1921-1986

Ilhan Koman’s artistic approach indicates how the boundary between science and art can be shaped in a three-dimensional plane. The delicate relationships between reason and beauty and design and application are at the core of his work. From the 1950s on, he developed an approach to art in which a sculptural work was intended to signify the unknown.

An inventive sculptor interested in technology and space research, the rational and practical functionality of his objects constitutes the crux of his compositions. He includes any material that catches his eye into his field of activity and transforms it to uncover its potential essence. His vision thus transcends the fundamental characteristics of the wood or metal he works in. Similarly, he does not consider form absolute.

In the pieces he calls "Hyperform", he strives to add to a static and fixed form, a plural and potentially cumulative dynamism. Mathematically multiplying and increasing a basic shape, he transforms it into one with infinite possibilities. Going beyond the eye’s faculties of perception, he demonstrates that experiences with the senses have no limits. Ilhan Koman, who lived in Sweden from 1959 to 1973, usually designs functional structures involving either a single movement within the whole and parts, or surfaces multiplying in infinite probabilities.

The 16-faces "Polyhedrons", constructed from equilateral triangles, which he considers useful in spatial engineering, his versions of the "Moebius Band", a symbol of infinity, and the "Rotors" or wind turbines that regulate their direction and speed according to the force of the wind, all point to the rich diversity of his areas of interest.

KUZGUN ACAR, 1928-1976

Winning first prize at the Second Paris International Youth Biennial in 1961 earned Kuzgun Acar a solo exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, in 1962. He was part of a generation who believed art should permeate everyday life. The masks he created for epic theater, where all the elements of classical drama are cross-examined, his costumes for street performances and demonstrations and the pieces in which he manipulated the wire and nails of cages, investing them with functionality, all suggest causality to the viewer.

As a sculptor, Kuzgun Acar was essentially a builder, not a carver. He was not concerned with chiseling out a hidden form within a sculptural mass. Soldering and completing parts, enhancing them with a causal flow and motion and bequeathing the new body into its containing space was a way for him to crystallize his ideas. Shaping raw materials and manipulating their deficiencies and excesses to achieve structural consistency provided him with an area in which his intelligence and intuitions could thrive.

An obvious link exists between Kuzgun’s stylistic expression and the constructivist canon of sculpture, yet his dependence on technology always remains rudimentary, his real interest lies in the juncture between geometric forms and industrial materials. "Motion" is his raw material; the medium is a conveyor of his perceptions. In his artworks, iron exists only as iron, its existence is justified by its own expressive qualities and, not unlike the sculptor working in that medium, iron concedes nothing of its essence.

The notes jotted down in Kuzgun’s drawing pads reveal that he considered the material superior for two reasons: first, owing to the cultural ties that bind it to the human race who has worked it for utilitarian purposes from the iron age on, second, and in contrast to this bond, because in many of its functional forms, such as the nail, it will reject and dissuade any attempts at contact.

ALI TEOMAN GERMANER (ALOS), b. 1934

As he has said in several interviews, Ali Teoman Germaner’s individual sculptural vocabulary mainly serves to express the emotions and reactions suscitated by socio-political events around him. The symbolic creatures he creates also reveal influences from mythological or prehistoric animals.

In Germaner’s recent work, the mythical emerald " Phoenix " bird has become the essential vehicle he uses to formulate his vision. After the scrap iron pieces of his Paris years, he has now returned to the traditional materials he loves; terra cotta, stone, wood or wrought copper. Ali Teoman Germaner is convinced that each material calls for a particular form; he deplores the careless use of materials, the loss of traditional arts and skills and the lack of real craftsmen today.

A less known side to Germaner – aka "Alos," to his friends – and not one to scorn, is his prolific output of drawings and etchings. Particularly noteworthy here are the limited edition multiple color prints he produced using the Hayter technique. The Hittite seal was the starting point for the motifs in his Maya Art Gallery works, and the symbol he returns to in his later sculptures, demonstrating the powerful interaction between drawing, etching and sculpture that distinguishes his work.

SAIM BUGAY, b. 1934

Saim Bugay is an intellectual who has had more than his share of all the good and the bad that can come from having political consciousness and identity in Turkey . He started drawing and carving wood at the age of three or four. Prior to his actual academic schooling, he trained with master tinsmith Mehmed Usta, with Faruk Morel, and with the passionate wood-carver Sami Bey, who all three acquainted him with different materials.

At the age of twenty-nine, he entered the State Fine Arts Academy where he studied under Zühtü Müridoglu, Ali Hadi Bara and Şadi Çalık. Saim Bugay, who says he loves "wood because it is alive," has carved wooden effigies of painter Mehmet Güleryüz with a monkey, sculptor Sadi Calik, and architect Erkal Güngören, countless wooden human figures and a wide variety of animals, as well as abstract pieces. All his works are an invitation to share in his simple but magical world.

"A real sculpture, even small-sized, remains a work of art when you augment its scale," says Bugay, one of the few artists in Turkey who has really strived to make his works public and accessible to large numbers of people, and made hundreds of reproductions of his busts of Şadi Calik, Nâzım Hikmet and Aziz Nesin. The artist’s special affinity for wood played a major role in the selection of works for this exhibition.

MEHMET AKSOY, b. 1939

Mehmet Aksoy’s treatment of sculpture is both exuberant and expressionist. Convinced that sculptural work lies somewhere along the intersection of labor and intellect, he enjoys grappling with a bulky mass and believes the chisel and hammer are a sculptor’s best friend. During the dark political days of Turkey in the 1970s, to demonstrate that a sculptural work should reflect the social context it emerges from, he created a language of symbolic imagery that nevertheless retained its references to social reality.

In the 1980s, he experimented with partially abstract forms based on figure abstractions to create bodies diffused into empty space. He sculpted spare forms celebrating existence and the human condition, and working in marble, sought to draw out of the stone his interpretations of love, death, loneliness and friendship. "Labor Migration," his outdoor work, at Schlessiches Tor, in Berlin , articulates both the exile and antinomy of Turks in Germany , and the emotions and heartbreaks common to all humans.

In the 1990s, he turned to works in which he retraced the cultural identity of Anatolia , and created large-scale pieces and monuments combining the past and present of his native landscape. Following in the footsteps of the mother goddess Kybele and revisiting the legend of Şahmeran, he fused myth and fantasy to create a distinctive stylistic vocabulary. In his most recent work in particular, the artist explores the shaman tradition and the dichotomy of life and death, and expands his unique expressive language with a wide range of materials.

SEYHUN TOPUZ, b. 1942

Ever since the beginning of the 1980s, Seyhun Topuz has relied on an abstract sculptural style to produce geometric works that are devoid of any reference to observable reality. His pieces are measured mathematical structures that invite the viewer into a universe that can be rationally decoded. Using the simplest materials and elementary forms, he constructs ideal structures designed to withstand the vicissitudes of the world.

Both intellectually and aesthetically, he embraces a minimalist understanding of sculpture. In his works, Topuz primarily concentrates on the possible permutations within his spare vocabulary of geometric abstraction. In his latest works, he divides a square into its constituents and, working toward a perfect shape, attempts, through slight surface variations, to instill motion into a form already self-contained and complete.

The smooth surfaces of these geometric components express only their own substance. Freestanding and installed at varying heights from the floor they redefine the ideal shape of the square and are the concrete expression of an unadorned sculptural discourse pushed to its furthest limits.

MERIC HIZAL, b. 1943

Meriç Hızal’s work is a harmonious synthesis of nature and intellect. Her creations have a singular purity in which nature’s impulsiveness co-exists with the wisdom of culture. Adhering to no particular style, she remains steadfastly close to nature. In her approach to art, she seeks to contribute to nature and humanity. Depending on the design, she will use materials as diverse as metal, marble, or wood.

In the early 1990s, she gained acclaim for the sculptures in which she deconstructed her object –usually a pyramid– into geometric cross-sections. Her handling of the sculptural mass implicates a simultaneous knowledge of its exterior and interior so that a common characteristic of these sculptural works lies in her articulation of the parts-whole relationship and the interaction between forms and surfaces. Her recent work asserts her belief in sculpture as a directive, guiding force, and she strives to express with spare geometric forms the basic emotions like love, solidarity and friendship essential to human beings.

A piece on view at this exhibition is her version of a sundial, one of the oldest functional objects in human history. Made "in Honor of Degirmendere", the clock, a symbolic reminder of life’s worth and losses, summons the viewer to sit on the trunk of the tree of life, which rises from its center.

FERIT OZSEN, b. 1943

In a 1997 interview, Ferit Ozsen identified the central themes of his own sculptural work in the following words: "I was touching upon a nine-month pregnant mother; it is shiny and tough like glass and it holds an existence within; a wonder of nature. I was very affected by that. I drew pregnant women. I made sculptures. Slowly the arms and legs started disappearing. I was left with only the sphere. I used it as a symbol of fertility and prosperity.

Just like the Ancient Asian goddess of prosperity, Kybele. I named my later work the "Kybele Series". By splitting the sphere or a piece of sphere I brought out the valuable object inside in the form of contrast. There was always the question of what I could take advantage of if I were to set off from my locality, from the values of my country. I saw the abundance of convex forms in our architecture. The inventors of the arch and dome, namely Mesopotamia’s neighbor Anatolia, liked to use these two forms. They played around with them.

These sculptures made from diabase, bronze, onyx, forged brass, copper and stainless steel, installed on both ceilings and walls, are abstract but have an erotic subtext. "Narrow Door" is a piece, which deviates from his earlier work but can be conceptually linked to this "Mother Goddess" series. At the heart of his sculptural work lies the endeavor to give symbolic expression to powerful basic impulses using clean lines and arresting materials.

OSMAN DINC, b. 1948

What first catches the eye in Osman Dinç’s sculptural work is his combined exploitation of basic geometric forms like the circle, the sphere and the ellipse, with materials such as iron and glass, which have possessed both functional and symbolic meaning from ancient times to our day. The expressive quality and compelling visual impact the artist attains through the replication of a same sculptural unit, at times acquire an even greater potency with his references to artworks from historic times.

The various names he gives his creations –Old Sword Caique, Fountain of Time, Shuttle, Three Objects Unfit for Travel, Voice Instrument, Droplet, The Three Graces, Planet, Iron Age, Oppidum, Black Cypress, Tambur Caique, Mask, Fountain of Dew etc.– bear wide-ranging references to history and the common iconography of human experience. Iron is the vital element for Dinç, and the one he essentially relates to, but he will, on occasion, complement the warm black tones of the material with glass, brass, mirror and wood. With his clear-cut, fundamental pieces inspired from nature and geometry, designed both for wall or ceiling display and to be set upright on their own or on a pedestal, the artist has developed a stunning iconographic idiom of form, material, and thought.

The recurring elements in his sculptures, enhanced by their clearly delineated shadows, combine with his spare personal language to summon the viewer to a purified level of thought and feeling. From the "Iron Age" to the present, Dinç’s sculptures keep evolving for his own personal satisfaction, encompassing both the natural and the mechanical, and simultaneously challenging our reason and our subconscious, to capture a unique thread in the fabric of our perception.

AZADE KOKER, b. 1949

Azade Köker’s interest lies in the human form and the existential and social codes contained in corporeality. Her figures and installations question the existence of the body as a ubiquitous outer shell estranged in the world surrounding it. She seeks to determine how a problematique of the body, perpetually reconstructed, transformed and reasserted fits in today’s visual environment.

With her diaphanous weightless figures, the artist redefines the body objectified by fashion as a ghost-like creature. The transparency of these forms acquaints the viewer with the sustained and simultaneous play between their interiority and exteriority. On the one hand, she affirms her creations as sculptural entities, on the other, she denies them existence turning them into nonbeings devoid of physical substance.

They are both present –as replicas of the persons or mannequins they were modeled on– and absent. This lack of identity invalidates the words that might have described them. The viewer is left only with the impression of the dichotomy of life and death that their appearance suggests.

RAHMI AKSUNGUR, b. 1955

Rahmi Aksungur’s works weld mystical discourses ancient as human history with concepts essential to sculpture. At the heart of his oeuvre lies a preoccupation with design. In his approach to sculpture once the design for a piece has emerged, it is already complete. He then determines the colors and materials in function of this design, selecting them for their capacity to absorb and radiate every form of energy from the environment.

The main reason he returns to black again and again in his sculptures is because the color so effortlessly imbibes the light shed upon it, yet resists its refraction over the surface of the mass. Whatever medium he chooses to work in, his primary aim is to define the in and out flowing domain of his sculptural mass. His creations, evoking hybrid forms of turtles, fish and other creatures, gaze into the viewer’s eyes seeking a spiritual but tangible bond.

Addressing the realm of memory, the artist urges the viewer on an introspective voyage toward the creatures of myths or dreams, to ascertain the meaning of the three-dimensional world he proffers.

Curators: Hasim Nur Gürel, Ali Akay, Levent Calikoglu

 

Memory and Scale: Modern Sculpture

ISTANBUL MODERN

10 February - 30 April 2006

 

Updated 02-2010

Thomas Wrede: New Shores - James Nicholson Gallery, New York

Thomas Wrede: New Shores
James Nicholson Gallery, New York
February 2 – March 18, 2006

James Nicholson Gallery presents an exhibition of new large-scale color photographs by German artist Thomas Wrede.

Thomas Wrede searches for sanctuary within an environment increasingly subjugated to man’s intrusions upon nature. Thomas Wrede’s desire for asylum amidst chaos sends him seeking refuge in the infinite spaces that seem to hover at the remote edges of the world. Adrift upon endless expanses of beach, snow, and sea, Thomas Wrede renders beautiful the quietude of landscape in large-scale images that lure the viewer into their vastness.

On the beach, Thomas Wrede captures large swaths of sand dotted with people—extremely sharp specks frozen in the kind of detail a medium format camera affords. Devoid of any locating devices, it is as if Thomas Wrede has stumbled upon a community of people that have come in search of the same lost paradise that he too seeks.

On the sea, Thomas Wrede captures individuals wandering in stillness across a seemingly unending marsh plain or standing in shallow water that appears to continue forever. Like those adrift upon land, the wanderers at sea seem without purpose or destination, they are simply at home in this place where they have been frozen in time. The same can be said of the ships that Thomas Wrede photographs at sea. Here, he bends the film plane of his view camera, coaxing impossible depths of field into a single image, transforming gigantic sea-faring specimens into toy-like scenes.

Thomas Wrede is based in Muenster, Germany and has won numerous German photography awards. This exhibition coincides with the publication of Thomas Wrede’s new catalogue, Strange Paradise. He has exhibited at numerous museums and galleries throughout Europe and the U.S.

JAMES NICHOLSON GALLERY
547 West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001
www.nicholsongallery.com

Roger Ballen, Dans la chambre d'ombres, Exposition Photo, BnF, Paris

Roger Ballen - Dans la chambre d’ombres 
BnF, Paris
21 février - 21 mai 2006  

Roger Ballen, photographe sud-africain d’origine américaine né en 1950, connaît une renommée internationale depuis la publication de son livre Platteland, Images from Rural South Africa, en 1994. Eblouissant portraitiste, il est avant tout l’homme de l’espace intérieur et de la fusion du sujet et du monde. Par la présentation de cent quatorze tirages, l’exposition organisée par la BnF se propose de faire découvrir à un large public ce photographe très célèbre dans le monde anglo-saxon, qui fut lauréat du prix des Rencontres de la photographie d'Arles en 1995, et qui sera exposé en Allemagne et en Espagne en 2006.

Roger Ballen construit une oeuvre qui dépasse le point de vue documentaire qu’elle semblait tout d'abord adopter, pour s’élever à un style à part entière, à l'écart des modes, troublant et énigmatique. Sa conception de la photographie le conduit à une exploration des recoins de l’âme, à la représentation d’un « lieu sombre, étrange et ambigü en même temps que comique […] un lieu que chacun pourrait identifier, tout en étant dans l’impossibilité de le situer clairement ». La photogénie de son univers naît d’une profonde tension entre la vision tragique et l’instant fugace, le document et la mise en scène, le dérisoire et le non-sens, lieu de présence inquiète ou d’effacement dont on trouve l’équivalent dans les textes de Samuel Beckett et d'Antonin Artaud ou dans certaines oeuvres de Francis Bacon ou de Jean Dubuffet.

L'oeuvre de Roger Ballen fait appel à des personnages rencontrés sur le territoire sud-africain lors de ses missions de géologue. Il les saisit dans leur décor quotidien, et la profonde coopération entre l'artiste et ses modèles aboutit à un type particulier de photographie mise en scène. Si une allusion à leur condition sociale et économique est inévitable, le but n'est pas un constat ou une critique, mais leur appropriation de l'univers plastique qu'ils engendrent et du mouvement créateur dont ils sont les acteurs. Le principe de l'exposition, axée sur une vision transversale de l'oeuvre de Ballen, permet de mettre en valeur les sources de son inspiration et les développements successifs de son esthétique. Elle rassemble aussi bien des photographies des séries Platteland et Outland que ses tout derniers travaux issus de la série Shadow Chamber. Cette sélection de photographies de Roger Ballen est précédée d'une préface consacrée aux oeuvres d'artistes qu'il aime ou qui l'ont influencé. Sont ainsi présentées des pièces de Diane Arbus, Ralph-Eugene Meatyard, Jean Dubuffet, choisies dans la collection du département des Estampes et de la photographie.

Commissariat de l'exposition : Anne Biroleau, conservateur en chef au département des Estampes et de la photographie de la BnF.

Bibliothèque nationale de France 
Site Richelieu - Galerie de photographie - 58, rue de Richelieu – 75002 Paris