Site de production Ilford à Marly en Suisse

L'unité de production Ilford Imaging Switzerland GmbH et la division Digital Imaging and Colour Photo monde ont été rachetées en 2005 par la société japonaise OJI Paper. Ilford opère désormais comme une seule et unique filiale de OJI Communications Paper Division.

La division Photo Noir & Blanc d’Ilford, dont les usines sont basées au Royaume-Uni, a été acquise par Harman Technology Limited qui est autorisée à commercialiser les produits argentiques traditionnels Noir et Blanc sous la marque Ilford Photo.

Le site de production basé à Marly, en Suisse fabrique plus de 100 types de supports différents pour photo imprimée en jet d’encre et autres supports photo couleurs destinés aux professionnels. Marly est par ailleurs, le site de fabrication de la très réputée gamme de papiers Galerie par Ilford. Avec plus de 400 employés, le site produit suffisamment de papier couché par an pour envelopper la planète ! Grâce au soutien d’Oji, Ilford a pu développer son pôle de compétences technologiques et moderniser les processus de couchage du papier.

Ceci a ainsi permis d’augmenter la capacité de production et de rationaliser les opérations de transformation et de conditionnement. Ilford a, par ailleurs, investi dans de nombreux projets stratégiques de Recherche-Développement, dans le but de combiner les forces, les connaissances du marché et le savoir d’Oji et d’Ilford. Ilford peut à ce jour fournir sur le marché une solution à la pointe de la technologie maîtrisée de A à Z : de la plantation d’arbres et production de pâte à papier au Japon, aux méthodes de couchage du papier et aux processus de finalisation qui s’effectuent en Suisse.

« Je suis ravi de constater qu’Ilford prospère depuis son rachat par Oji en 2005 », déclare Dai Jones, le directeur général d’Ilford. Il conclut « cela démontre bien à quel point le nom Ilford est implanté sur le marché de l’image et constitue une référence. Ilford a choisi de répondre aux attentes des consommateurs et grâce au soutien d’Oji, la société continuera à légitimer sa position en répondant à la demande d’aujourd’hui et de demain ».

“La volonté d’Ilford d’améliorer en permanence la qualité de ses produits constituait l’une des raisons majeures pour lesquelles nous avons racheté l’ensemble de la société Ilford Imaging Switzerland GmbH en 2005”, précise Kimiyoshi Uranishi, le PDG d’Ilford Imaging Switzerland GmbH, avant de poursuivre “Nous investissons massivement dans les locaux de l’usine de fabrication basée en Suisse car nous croyons fermement au développement et à l’explosion des produits couleurs et jet d’encre ». Il ajoute « Cette alliance stratégique nous permettra de nous positionner sur le marché mondial comme le premier fabricant de supports photographiques de qualité, ce qui assurera un futur prometteur à Ilford ».

Pour plus d’informations, consultez le site www.ilford.com

Ron Mueck at Brooklyn Museum

Ron Mueck
Brooklyn Museum
November 3, 2006 - February 11, 2007

Ron Mueck, a solo exhibition of ten works by the sculptor Ron Mueck, known for his extraordinarily lifelike, empathetic renderings of his subjects, will be presented at the Brooklyn Museum.

The exhibition includes five major new works, commissioned by the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain in Paris, where they were recently presented to an enthusiastic audience of 75,000 visitors. Five additional works on loan from North American collections are added to the Brooklyn exhibition, the only United States presentation before the show travels to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

Born in Australia in 1958, Ron Mueck began creating his scrupulously detailed sculpture in the 1990s. His works are so lifelike, with veins, wrinkles, sagging skin, and body hair, that viewers almost expect them to breathe. Included in the exhibition is Dead Dad (1996-97), commemorating the death of his father through a somewhat smaller than life-size sculpture, which captivated Brooklyn Museum visitors when it was included in the exhibition Sensation. Among the other works included in Ron Mueck are Wild Man (2005), a nine-foot sculpture of a naked, bearded man clutching the stool he is seated on, and Head of Baby (2003), a more than eight-foot-tall head of a newborn infant.

Through his detailed works, which are always either smaller than life size or monumental, Ron Mueck explores the ambiguous relationship of reality to artifice through strategies of imitation and illusion. His earlier pieces were sculpted with fiberglass, but recently he has begun to work with silicone, which is more flexible and allows greater ease in shaping body parts and implanting hair.

After working in Australian television as a puppet maker, Ron Mueck went to Los Angeles in 1986, where he worked in the film industry, and later moved to London. For a time he worked for Jim Henson on Sesame Street and the Muppet Show. For more than a decade, he has focused on creating his sculptures, which have been the subject of previous solo exhibitions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and the Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, and have been included in several group exhibitions. 

The Brooklyn Museum presentation is organized by Charles Desmarais, Deputy Director for Art at the Brooklyn Museum. A bilingual catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

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

La photographie humaniste 1945-1968, BnF, Paris

La photographie humaniste 1945-1968

Autour d'Izis, Boubat, Brassaï, Doisneau, Ronis...

BnF, Paris

31 octobre 2006 - 28 janvier 2007

Consacrée à la photographie dite « humaniste » et à la phase la plus féconde de ce courant, cette exposition présente plus de trois cents pièces – photographies et supports illustrés. Elle rend hommage au travail de nombreux photographes qui, par leur regard bienveillant et pudique, ont écrit l’une des plus belles pages de l’histoire de la photographie française. 

Le courant dont Boubat, Doisneau ou Ronis sont les représentants les plus célèbres place l’homme au coeur de son propos. Des photographes moins connus mais tout aussi représentatifs de ce mouvement sont également mis à l’honneur : Marcel Bovis, René-Jacques, Jean Dieuzaide, Janine Niépce, Sabine Weiss, Jean Marquis, Jean-Philippe Charbonnier ou encore Eric Schwab.

Ces photographes ont tous en commun d’avoir été des « reporters-illustrateurs » et d’avoir nourri de leurs images le paysage visuel des Français de l’après-guerre. Leurs clichés ont participé après 1945 à la reconstruction symbolique et morale de la France.

Les photographes « humanistes » ont contribué à construire une imagerie nationale avec ses lieux pittoresques et ses archétypes sociaux, mais également à élargir les horizons et les points de vue sur les réalités de l’époque : misère des banlieues, crise du logement, loisirs, ouverture au monde à travers de grandes revues internationales… Animés d’une foi délibérée dans le genre humain et son avenir, ils ont donné à voir leurs semblables avec empathie et se sont engagés dans leurs luttes pour des lendemains meilleurs, à travers des campagnes pour l’éducation, l’hygiène, le bien-être de tous et la paix dans le monde.

Ces reporters ont également développé « un imaginaire d’après nature » - selon l’expression d’Henri Cartier-Bresson - où la figure de l’homme occupe une place centrale. Cette dimension onirique du réel est révélée par la photographie à l’occasion de riches coopérations avec les écrivains et les poètes de l’époque.

Les oeuvres des photographes humanistes n’étaient pas initialement destinées à être exposées. Elles ont pour la plupart vécu à travers des revues, ouvrages, calendriers, agendas, dossiers pédagogiques ou affiches, présents dans les fonds de la BnF grâce au dépôt légal. La BnF rend hommage à ce courant en présentant clichés et supports imprimés regroupés par ensembles thématiques, montrant ainsi à la fois leur participation à la construction d’un pittoresque parisien, leur ancrage dans la réalité, leur vision de l’homme et la poésie dont fait preuve leur regard teinté d’imaginaire.

Exposition présentée dans le cadre du Mois de la Photo à Paris.

Commissaires de l'exposition : 

Laure Beaumont-Maillet, conservateur général, directrice du département des Estampes et de la photographie

Dominique Versavel, conservateur au département des Estampes et de la photographie

Françoise Denoyelle, professeur des Universités à l’Ecole nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière

BnF - BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE DE FRANCE

Site Richelieu, Galerie de photographie

58 rue de Richelieu, 75002 Paris

www.bnf.fr

SF Camerawork Photo exhibits space – San Francisco, California

 

Founded in 1974, SF Camerawork has historically been an artist-driven organization focused on supporting emerging and mid-career photographers. Its mission is to push the boundaries of what constitutes photography and image-making while serving as a launching pad for careers in the photographic arts. While SF Camerawork has been offering exhibitions and programming for the past five years in a gallery space it formerly shared with New Langton Arts at 1246 Folsom Street, the decision to relocate began in 2001 after leaving their previous long-term site at 115 Natoma. SF Camerawork’s 6,500-square-foot new location on Mission at Third Street, designed by Donna Schumacher of X: architecture/Art and with lighting design by Rebecca Foster, features a new 3,000-square foot gallery space, which can be divided into several separate gallery areas depending on the exhibition schedule, nearly doubling SF Camerawork’s previous exhibition and programming spaces.

SF Camerawork 
657 Mission Street, 2nd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105

For more information, visit www.sfcamerwork.org

In The Ring with Colin Jacobson

 

 

An exciting series of photographic encounters

 

HOST gallery announces that renowned picture editor, teacher and photojournalism specialist Colin Jacobson will be the resident host of their new season of gallery talks in London.

The series of talks begins at 6:30pm on Wednesday 8th November with Colin sparring with acclaimed photographer and journalist Nick Danziger. Danziger will be in London to open his new photography exhibition, Behind the Headlines: Afghan Lives, which runs from 7th November - 18th November.

In addition to hosting discussions related to the current exhibitions at HOST, Colin Jacobson will be inviting the best known and most engaging personalities in news, photography and new media to enter the ring with him as he jabs away at the common myths surrounding photo reportage, getting to the heart of the issues behind images and journalism in the digital age.

 

Future guests will include Dutch photographer, KADIR VAN LOHUIZEN, on the occasion of his exhibition about the diamond trade, and British photographer, TIM HETHERINGTON, who will be discussing his unique approach to documentary journalism using still images, film and electronic media. An exciting new development will be the ability for members of the public to nominate the subjects and individuals they wish to see Colin tackle via an interactive voting system on the HOST gallery website. (hostgallery.co.uk)

 

Gallery co-director, JON LEVY, says, “I am both proud and excited that Colin has agreed to be our ‘Master of the Ring’ for HOST gallery talks and discussions going into the next year, he is after all the undisputed heavyweight champion of photojournalism.”

Colin Jacobson says, ”I am looking forward to the sessions being stimulating and provocative, raising important and relevant issues around contemporary photojournalim and its future. The sparring will be a good work-out for my guests and for the audience.”

 

COLIN JACOBSON is one of the world’s most respected picture editors having worked at the Independent magazine during its heyday and the Observer magazine. Colin Jacobson has sat as chairman of World Press Photo and founded Reportage magazine in the 1990s. Jacobson is currently course leader of the Photojournalism MA at the University of Westminster and a member of the World Press Photo UK Committee.

 

NICK DANZIGER is an award winning photographer, writer and film-maker. Nick Danziger has worked in Afghanistan for over twenty years and his latest commission for the Department for International Development gets to the heart of a country often in the news but little known beneath the surface.

 

HOST Gallery, established in 2005, is London’s premiere venue for exhibiting photojournalism. Co-founded by Jon Levy, director of foto8, and Adrian Evans, director of Panos Pictures, HOST pushes the boundaries of story telling.

 

HOST GALLERY

1 Honduras Street
London
EC1Y 0TH

Pinceaux de lumière : Du modèle au vitrail, Exposition au Musée du Moyen Age, Paris

Pinceaux de lumière : 

Du modèle au vitrail

Musée du Moyen Age, Paris

18 octobre 2006 - 15 janvier 2007

Le musée national du Moyen Âge possède la plus riche collection de vitraux en France (230 panneaux, médaillons ou fragments de vitraux, couvrant une période du XIIe jusqu’au début du XVIe siècle). De 2000 à la fin de l’année 2004, cette collection a bénéficié d’une exceptionnelle campagne de restauration dont cette exposition marque l’aboutissement. Choisis parmi les plus beaux et les plus importants vitraux, trente panneaux de la collection sont exposés en regard de trente-cinq œuvres, sur parchemin, papier ou toile. L’exposition s’attache en effet à montrer les liens étroits qui existent entre les peintres-verriers et les enlumineurs, dessinateurs, graveurs, du XIIe au XVIe siècle. 

Le peintre-verrier, dont le métier apparaît au début du Moyen Âge, maîtrisait un savoir-faire particulier : après avoir découpé les morceaux de verre, il les peignait et les assemblait en recherchant les plus belles harmonies de couleurs. Pour les figures et les motifs, il s’inspirait d’enluminures, de peintures ou de gravures d’artistes de son temps. Dans le cas de commandes très importantes, il arrivait que les modèles soient directement fournis par des peintres : ainsi Duccio di Buoninsegna (vers 1225-vers 1319) ceux des verrières de la cathédrale de Sienne. Il semble aussi que certains grands peintres aient pratiqué eux-mêmes la peinture sur verre, Fouquet (vers 1420-vers 1480) et Lucas de Leyde (1494-1533).

Ce qui est sûr, c’est que l’on trouve, dans les grands cabinets d’arts graphiques, des modèles dessinés par des artistes, à partir du XVe siècle, en vue de la réalisation de vitraux ou de rondels. Et, s’il est très probable, pour certaines verrières présentées dans l’exposition (en provenance de Rouen, de Saint-Denis, de Troyes …), que des artistes-créateurs aient fourni de tels modèles, pour d'autres commandes moins importantes, les peintres-verriers ont copié ou imité, plus ou moins librement, des enluminures, gravures ou dessins “ indépendants ”.

Le parcours de l’exposition comprend trois parties :

- XIIe- XIVe siècle. Vitraux et enluminures d’origine prestigieuse (roi, princes, haut clergé lié à la couronne)

Les vitraux des XIIe -XIVe siècles conservés au musée national du Moyen Âge appartiennent aux plus importantes commandes de leur temps. Ils sont le reflet d’un milieu artistique de très haute qualité, celui de la cour du comte de Champagne à la fin du XIIe siècle, celui du roi et de son entourage au XIIIe siècle et au début du XIVe (abbaye de Gercy, château royal de Rouen, chapelles de Saint-Denis).

- XVe siècle. Vitraux et interprétation des modèles enluminés puis gravés

Les panneaux du XVe siècle présentés dans l’exposition proviennent de deux grandes régions où s’épanouit l’art du vitrail : la Normandie, où prévalut l’influence des enluminures parisiennes, et l’Alsace, terre d’élection des graveurs.

- Fin du XVe-début du XVIe siècle. Les rondels : multiplication des modèles et production en série

L’art du vitrail ne pénètre que tardivement les salles des plus riches demeures nobles ou bourgeoises. Dans cette section, l’exposition présente des rondels : taillés dans une seule pièce de verre, ces petits médaillons délicatement peints en jaune d’argent s’inspirent de dessins des Pays-Bas du sud, de gravures allemandes et de livres imprimés à Paris vers 1500, et répondent au goût d’une clientèle nouvelle.

De grandes institutions françaises et étrangères se sont associées à cette exposition (à Paris : Bibliothèque nationale de France, bibliothèque Mazarine, musée du Louvre; musée Jacquemart-André; - en région : Troyes, médiathèque et trésor de la cathédrale ; Bourges, musée du Berry; Rodez, musée Fenaille - à l’étranger : New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung; Stuttgart, Graphische Sammlung; Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum ; Leyde, Universiteitsbibliotheek).

Commissaire : Sophie Lagabrielle, conservateur en chef au musée du Moyen Âge.

Publication : Album : 96 pages, 18 €, éditions RMN

Musée national du Moyen Âge - Thermes et Hôtel de Cluny

6, place Paul Painlevé, 75005 Paris

www.musee-moyenage.fr

Alain, Art, Esthétique et Perception. Un livre d’Ollivier Pourriol, Alain, le grand voleur

Un livre d’ Ollivier Pourriol, Alain, le grand voleur

© Le Livre de Poche, 2006 / avec autorisation

ALAIN, LE GRAND VOLEUR par OLLIVIER POURRIOL
Le Livre de Poche, Collection « Biblio Essais »
Date de parution : Septembre 2006
EAN / ISBN : 9782253083801
224 pages - 6,00 €

En avril 2006, le roman d'Ollivier Pourriol, Le Peintre au couteau, sortait en format de poche. En septembre 2006, Le Livre de Poche a publié un autre livre, inédit, du même auteur, où il est également question d'art (en partie). Il ne s'agit plus, comme le précédent livre, d'un roman mais d'un essai qui trouve sa source dans une réflexion d'Ollivier Pourriol sur trois textes du philosophe Alain.

L'esprit, disait Alain, est un « grand voleur ». Il ajoutait que les grands esprits, vraiment grands, n'ont pas d'idées à eux. Ils sont pour ainsi dire immédiatement universels. Aussi la juste méthode pour penser consiste-t-elle à leur emprunter leurs idées, comme on emprunte des outils, et à se les approprier. C'est ce que l'auteur a fait et invite le lecteur à faire, en le guidant dans cet appropriation d'une pensée philosophique. Une appropriation qui peut n'être que partielle car n'excluant pas, bien sûr, l'exercice par le lecteur se son propre jugement.

Ce livre comporte trois parties dont une, « Art et perception », est consacrée à l'esthétique dont traite Alain dans son Système des Beaux-Arts. Cette partie du livre intéressera ceux qui aiment (aussi) aborder l'art autrement ; ici au travers d'un auteur classique de la philosophie. Et au travers d'une présentation d'un texte philosophique d'Alain qui le rend abordable à un plus grand nombre. Sans doute, certains lecteurs auront ensuite le désir d'aller lire le texte d'Alain lui-même. Par cet essai, Ollivier Pourriol y invite son lecteur.

Les deux autres parties de l'essai sont également très intéressante : « La force de l'opinion » traite de politique  à partir des Propos sur les pouvoirs d'Alain, et « La recherche de l'entendement », qui traite de la connaissance à partir des Entretiens au bord de la mer du philosophe.

Cet essai n'est pas une hagiographie d'Alain. Ce que souhaite l'auteur, c'est introduire à la philosophie d'Alain en sa compagnie en mettant à disposition du lecteur des outils et des méthodes qu'Alain a pratiqués, qu'il les ait empruntés ou mis au point.

Ollivier Pourriol est, à la fois, romancier et philosophe. Son premier roman, Méphisto valse - ainsi que les suivants, Le peintre au couteau et Polaroïd - rencontrent un bon accueil de la critique, du public et... des cinéastes. Mais c'est en tant qu'ancien normalien et agrégé de philosophie qu'il a rassemblé les cours de son maître , Hubert Grenier, dans un autre livre intitulé La liberté heureuse. Hubert Grenier, d'ailleurs, était un « maître à penser » de la famille d'Alain. D'où la cohérence du parcours d'un auteur qui n'oublie jamais de reconnaître ses dettes intellectuelles.

(Parmi les) Messages connexes de Wanafoto :

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discours sur les sciences et les arts (texte philosophique)
Ollivier Pourriol, Le Peintre au couteau (roman)

Collaborations. Nudes from Half a Century by Gerald H. Robinson

Photo (c) Gerald H. Robinson - All rights reserved

A collection of nudes in many kinds of light, and in a variety of styles, made in the course of a long career in photography.

• Publish Date: October 13, 2006
• Dimensions: Standard Portrait - 41 pgs
• Softcover: $32.95
• Hardcover, Dust Jacket: $45.95
• Category: Arts & Photography

Tags: Art, Nudes, Photography

Related post

A Life in Camera Work. Photographs from Five Decades by Gerald H. Robinson

http://www.blurb.com/

Keith Haring - BALTIC Centre of Contemporary Art, Gateshead

Keith Haring
BALTIC Centre of Contemporary Art, Gateshead
21 October, 2006 - 7 January 2007

BALTIC presents an exhibition by seminal artist Keith Haring. Haring’s work responded to the street culture of New York in the 1980s, and he used the directness of graffiti art to make his signature style known. Powerfully combining the voice of the street and the voice of the gallery system, he created a visual language which has become universally recognised.

BALTIC will display a series of drawings created during an extremely immersive time when the artist returned to drawing after his time as a student at the School of Visual Arts (SVA), New York when he experimented widely with video, performance and installation. Though he always maintained a strong commitment to drawing, in 1980 the longing to devote more time, energy and focus upon this medium became overwhelming, and it was during this period that he developed his unique visual language. This is the first time these drawings have been displayed in the UK.

The exhibition consists of 3 series of early drawings, a total of 27 individual works. One of the series was created specifically for the magazine P.I.M - Public Illumination Magazine, ‘the world's smallest magazine of its kind’ (7 cm x 11 cm). Independently produced in New York and still published, each issue has a theme and Haring contributed to issue #13, in 1981, on the theme of Civilization. Here, we see a continuation of his signature vocabulary in these surreal and engaging visual narratives with their direct and appealing comic strip style.

Drawing was Keith Haring’s passion from an early age; the abstract language gave space to more complex and figurative visual language that would characterise the rest of his career. He used a very personal language and style, to communicate basic emotions through creating timeless images. A greatly influential artist, he was able to communicate to many generations and across many cultural boundaries. He was also highly committed to social causes, putting his art to the service of the community to make a contribution towards the arrest of the spread of AIDS, drug addictions, fighting for gay rights and against racial discrimination, but most of all acting on behalf of children.

During a brief but intense career Keith Haring’s work was featured in over 100 solo and group exhibitions. He was highly sought after to participate in special projects and collaborated with artists and performers such as Madonna, Grace Jones, Bill T. Jones, William Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Jenny Holzer and Andy Warhol. By expressing universal concepts of birth, death, love, sex and war, using a primacy of line and directness of message, Haring was able to attract a wide audience and assure the accessibility and staying power of his imagery, which has become a universally recognised visual language of the 20th century.

Exhibition supported by Embassy of United States of America, London

BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
Gateshead Quays, South Shore Road, Gateshead NE8 3BA
balticmill.com

Visions du déluge. De la Renaissance au XIXème siècle, Musée Magnin, Dijon

VISIONS DU DELUGE

De la Renaissance au XIXème siècle

Musée Magnin, Dijon 

11 octobre 2006 - 10 janvier 2007

Episode célèbre de la Genèse, premier livre de la Bible, le Déluge universel a été souvent représenté dans l’art occidental et de nombreuses œuvres sur ce sujet sont bien connues et publiées, mais aucune exposition ne lui a encore été consacré en France. 

L’ambition de l’exposition consiste à mettre en évidence une évolution remarquable où l’on voit un sujet d’histoire devenir un sujet de paysage. L’exposition montre aussi comment une même historia peut recevoir un traitement maniériste ou se prêter à une vision pré-romantique. Esthétiquement, il est intéressant de noter qu’un sujet violent, en adéquation avec le Sublime « horrifique » mis à l’honneur à la fin du XVIIIe siècle - époque d’un regain d’intérêt pour le thème - peut aussi s’ancrer dans un registre classique et relever du Sublime de simplicité d’un Poussin.

C’est pourquoi les catastrophes naturelles sont évoquées ici aux côtés du Déluge : à partir du XVIIIe siècle, ce sont dans les deux cas des visions terrifiantes de la nature qui rompent avec les canons de la beauté classique, deux effets comparables de la Providence ou de l’histoire de la Terre.

Dans le contexte de désacralisation progressive de la première moitié du XIXe siècle, l’intérêt artistique pour le sujet atteste de la persistance du Déluge comme événement fondateur.

L’épisode biblique est un sujet d’histoire fréquent dans les œuvres des XVIe et XVIIe siècles ; Raphaël et Michel-Ange peignent à fresque le moment dramatique de la montée des eaux, et leurs œuvres seront des modèles. De leur côté, sensibles à la dimension morale de l’épisode, les artistes nordiques s’attachent aux causes du déluge – l’humanité corrompue – et à la Nouvelle Alliance qui en résulte. Dans les représentations,  l’évocation de l’Arche de Noé - symbole du Salut, au delà de la fin de la première humanité - tend à gagner les lointains, tandis que les premiers plans sont occupés par des scènes manifestant la détresse humaine. Confrontés à la difficulté de représenter le chaos, les artistes trouvent avec la prolifération des corps des solutions de composition dans lesquelles domine le point de vue panoramique.

Le Déluge de Nicolas Poussin marque un tournant dans le traitement du sujet. Peinte entre 1660 et 1664, l’œuvre (représentée dans l’exposition par une copie ancienne) montre un « paysage tragique »,  où s’inscrit une promesse de renouveau. A la vision des corps accumulés se substitue une atmosphère grise et froide, à l’agitation, le calme et la prière – et la scène familiale prend une valeur exemplaire. Le paysage assume dès lors une valeur allégorique : celle d’une communauté de destin entre l’homme et la nature, qui sera abondamment discutée au siècle suivant.

Lorsque le thème suscite un nouvel engouement, durant les vingt dernières années du XVIIIe siècle,  le tableau de Poussin n’est pas oublié et les artistes continuent d’y puiser. Mais un retournement idéologique s’est produit : la référence religieuse tend à s’effacer au profit de sources littéraires (Salomon Gessner en Suisse, John Milton en Angleterre) dans lesquelles s’exprime la détresse individuelle. Le Déluge tend à devenir le support de scènes de genre tragiques ; elles attestent d’une inquiétude qui n’est peut-être pas sans rapport avec les bouleversements sociaux en cours ou à venir.

C’est ici que les catastrophes naturelles rejoignent le Déluge. L’homme y est également victime d’un décret divin ou d’une nature imprévisible. Si les représentations du Vésuve en éruption donnent souvent dans le pittoresque, celles des tremblements de terre de Lisbonne et de Messine expriment une conscience nouvelle de la précarité de l’existence humaine qui, conjuguée à la curiosité scientifique des Lumières, produit des œuvres dans lesquelles le spectacle « horrible » de la nature tient, comme le Déluge, de la catégorie esthétique du sublime telle qu’elle est définie par Edmund Burke en 1757.

En France, durant la première moitié du XIXe siècle, les scènes duelles ou familiales à tendance mélodramatique dominent l’interprétation du sujet. Le Déluge inspirant des paysages grandioses se développe particulièrement en Angleterre. La renaissance du débat entre science et religion sur l’origine de la terre et de l’homme transparaissent dans l’évocation d’une comète, des animaux antédiluviens ou des anges issus du texte de la Genèse.

Exposition organisée par la Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris, le musée Magnin, Dijon, et le musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne (où elle sera présentée du  2 février  au 29 avril 2007).

Commissaires : Rémi Cariel, directeur du Musée Magnin, et Sylvie Wuhrmann, historienne de l’art 

Musée Magnin, Dijon

4, rue des Bons-Enfants, 21000 Dijon

www.musee-magnin.fr

Ambitious New Yorkers photos by Look Magazine at Museum of the City of New York

Willing To Be Lucky

Ambitious New Yorkers in the Pages of LOOK Magazine

Museum of the City of New York
Curators: Donald Albrecht - Thomas Mellins

October 21, 2006 - January 3, 2007

An exhibition of some 130 photographs portraying dreamers, achievers, self-promoters, and other climbers for whom New York City proved to be transformative will be on view at the Museum of the City of New York. Willing To Be Lucky: Ambitious New Yorkers in the Pages of LOOK Magazine will document many of the city’s celebrated personalities—actor Zero Mostel, Stork Club impresario Sherman Billingsley, and socialite Gloria Vanderbilt in wedding preparations, among many others. It will also celebrate the anonymous strivers in LOOK who contributed to the city’s vibrancy although they never achieved fame. The exhibition takes its title from an essay by E.B. White, “Here Is New York,” first published in The New Yorker in 1949. “No one should come to New York to live,” White asserted “unless he is willing to be lucky.”

Susan Henshaw Jones, President and Director of the Museum, commented: “New York is a city of archetypes; in White’s words:  ‘the gladiator, the evangelist, the promoter, the actor, the trader, and the merchant.’ The LOOK images are engaging because the subjects are colorful and often humorous, but they are compelling because we identify with the hunger for recognition.”

New Yorkers are united by ambition. Dreamers, many of whom could only be happy in New York, have used the city as a stage from which to project their careers. During the middle decades of the 20th century, many such characters were photographed by LOOK staff photographers, and their stories were revealed in the pages of this widely read and influential magazine, which was largely pictorial. Collaborating with LOOK’s editors, art directors, and photographers, these hopefuls strutted, cavorted, and preened their way across the magazine’s pages. They projected their identities through carefully orchestrated poses, clothing, objects, and settings. Those already famous perfected their personae while others struggled for attention by performing off-beat jobs. These figures included, among many others, a flame eater who performed at the Waldorf-Astoria; a statuesque woman posing above the corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street for a monumental billboard advertising Peter Pan bras; competing ballroom dancers; Rosemary Williams, a young woman captured by Stanley Kubrick in stills as she transformed herself into a showgirl. As portrayed in LOOK, New York was a city of winners, yet some of the photographs reveal the darker side of ambition and the cost of failure.

The LOOK Magazine photographs, donated by Cowles Magazines beginning in the 1950s, are a pillar of the Museum’s permanent collection. Totaling more than 200,000 negatives, contact sheets, and prints, the collection is an extraordinary record of New York and New Yorkers between 1938 and 1961, documenting not only the ever-changing city, but also projecting its image nationally during these tumultuous years. Willing to Be Lucky features the work of many LOOK staff photographers, none perhaps more notable than the teenage Stanley Kubrick, who would later become a film director of international renown. His visually and psychologically sophisticated photographs of aspiring showgirls and boxers form the centerpiece of the exhibition. White’s premise is evoked poignantly in Kubrick’s series of photographs portraying a day in the life of Rocky Graziano, boxing’s struggling middleweight champion in the late 1940s; Graziano later turned to show business, finding fame in his amusing use of the English language.  Kubrick’s photographs of another boxer, Walter Cartier (dubbed the Prizefighter of Greenwich Village) are also on view in the exhibition; not incidentally, Cartier was the subject of Kubrick’s first film.

Willing to Be Lucky: Ambitious New Yorkers in the Pages of LOOK Magazine has been supported by the Marlene Nathan Meyerson Family Foundation.

The exhibition is organized by Museum of the City of New York curators Donald Albrecht and Thomas Mellins.  The exhibition is designed by Pure+Applied.

Christopher Wool, Simon Lee Gallery, London

Christopher Wool
Simon Lee Gallery, London
October 11 - December 22, 2006

Simon Lee presents new painting and works on paper by Christopher Wool.

Christopher Wool has punctuated the art world with works that have reinvigorated recent contemporary debate on the changing status of painting. He belongs to a generation of artists (Robert Gober, Jeff Koons and Richard Prince) who in the early 1980s were looking for new possibilities in painting and sculpture. Within his particular oeuvre, Christopher Wool has transposed elements from mass culture such as print media, advertising, music and film as a means to create a collision between painting and printing.

The processes of painting, the physical properties of paint and techniques of reproduction underpin Christopher Wool’s practice. Crucial to Wool is his impulse to exploit the limits of painting. In previous works he has used a plethora of media comprising aluminium, silkscreen, varnish, photography, paint rollers and stencils with industrial procedures and techniques made available by mass production. Wool used these procedures in combination with painting to play with the ideas and techniques of reproduction.

For Christopher Wool’s current body of work he employs silkscreen and spray paint that is meticulously built up and then partly removed. Wool has returned to painting in a reductive format to emphasis elements of painting and erasure, gesture and removal, depth and flatness. Chiefly using black spray enamel Wool draws out the tensions that are at play with form, line and colour. The action and erasure that become apparent highlight Wool’s unique form of mark making on the picture plane. By spraying the canvas, retracing the line with solvent, blending and then erasing the line of spray paint Wool maps out and retraces his line across the canvas. Wool’s medium of choice makes reference to the urban environment and graffiti, however the works sidestep hasty interpretation and the surface qualities allow the viewer focus on the retinal impact of the paintings.

Christopher Wool's work has been featured in numerous exhibitions including, most recently; Christopher Wool, Institut Valencia d’Art Modern, Valencia, Spain (2006), Christopher Wool, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France (2006), William Gedney-Christopher Wool: Into the Night, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island (2004), Christopher Wool, Camden Arts Centre, London (2004), Lyon Biennial of Contemporary Art, Lyon (2003), Crosstown Crosstown, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee / Le Consortium, Dijon (2003 / 2002) and Secession, Vienna (2001).

SIMON LEE GALLERY
12 Berkeley Street, London W1J 8DT
www.simonleegallery.com

Francis Bacon, Milwaukee Art Museum

Francis Bacon in the 1950s  
Milwaukee Art Museum
January 27-April 15, 2007

During the 1950s, painter Francis Bacon began to formulate the iconography of his dark and troubled world in paint. The exhibition, Francis Bacon in the 1950s , opening at the Milwaukee Art Museum, January 27-April 15, 2007, features nearly fifty paintings from the period in which Bacon was at the height of his creative powers. In this intensely fertile time, many of Bacon’s themes-screaming popes, howling dogs, and haunting figures trapped in tortured isolation-began to materialize as the man himself was becoming one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century.

Francis Bacon in the 1950s takes a profoundly personal look at this fascinating period in Bacon’s career and is the first exhibition to examine Bacon’s formative works. Curated by Michael Peppiatt, a close friend of Bacon’s, the exhibition provides a first-person perspective on the artist’s emerging style in the first decades of his career through paintings, drawings, and a selection of archival materials that illustrate the artist’s life and work.

At the core of the exhibition are thirteen paintings collected by Sir Robert and Lady Sainsbury, who were among the artist’s earliest patrons and, eventually, close friends. The works include loans from public and private collections across the world, a number of which have rarely been seen in public.

Throughout his life, Bacon controlled every aspect of his art, from the selection and presentation of his work to the interpretation. He commanded that all exhibitions of his art be classic retrospectives, focusing on his most recent works. As a result, his later work was more visible. In contrast, Francis Bacon in the 1950s brings together paintings from a single decade in that earlier, less visible period.

“The usual feeling you get in a Bacon show is of tortured, strangled human beings alone in a room,” explained Michael Peppiatt. “These paintings have a much more narrative quality, a much more approachable Bacon, of sorts. Someone who hadn’t decided who he was going to be, someone still in search of himself.”

By the 1950s, Francis Bacon had acquired sufficient technical prowess as a painter and expressed his often dark vision with force, but he was not fully in command of his disturbing images. Eager to explore themes and take risks in his early career, Bacon created images that contain a rawness and sense of urgency that would be lost in his later works.

To guest curator Michael Peppiatt, the fifties seemed to hold a lot of the clues to who Francis Bacon was: “That was when he located his biggest themes. He felt that he had to focus on the most important things of all to man…his existence. ”

Francis Bacon is one of the most unique and powerful artistic visionaries of post-war European art. The 1950s were the most fruitful years in Bacon’s career, but they were also the most tumultuous and tortured of the artist’s existence. During this time, the artist was regularly without a fixed address, borrowing rooms and changing studios with incredible frequency. The artist established a pattern of all-night revelry, culminating in a feverish fit of creativity-painting into the early morning hours. Much like Bacon’s approach to life, his approach to the canvas was radical, aggressive, and seething with raw human emotion.

FRANCIS BACON

Bacon’s staunchly Catholic father banished him from their Irish home when he was sixteen after learning of his homosexual activities. Bacon departed for Berlin, where he participated in the bohemian nightlife. Leaving Berlin in 1927, Bacon traveled to Paris where he saw an exhibition of drawings by Picasso that inspired him to become an artist.

The Surrealism of Picasso was not the only influence on the artist; poetry and film had a significant role in forming Bacon’s artistic vision. Bacon described his process: “I am like a grinding machine, I look at everything, and everything goes in and gets ground up very fine.” For example, Sergei Eisentein’s famous film, Battleship Potemkin (1925), had a major impact on the artist. The blood-splattered face of the screaming nurse in this film was an enduring image for the artist, and one that featured in many of his paintings, most significantly, Study for the Head of a Screaming Pope, 1952.

Although he never attended art school, Francis Bacon began to draw and paint in watercolor upon his return to London in 1929. There he established himself as a furniture and interior designer. While Bacon did not seriously pursue painting, he did exhibit a few early paintings alongside his design work. It was not until the end of the war when he began to formulate his evocative style of misshapen figures that reflect his disturbed worldview.

The artist’s work was met with financial success during the 1950s, and the artist himself became an instant hit in art circles, showing work at major galleries and moving comfortably between his aristocratic patrons and the seedy side of society. Throughout this period, Francis Bacon visited exotic places where he engaged in relationships that would shape his life and influence his work. Bacon’s relationships with his lovers were vibrant and interesting, like the artist himself; however, some had violent and tumultuous overtones. Bacon’s personal relationships often bled onto the canvas, and are evident in the violence, intimacy, and passion portrayed in his work. According to the artist: “My work is like a diary. To understand it, you have to see how it mirrors my life.”

In the early 1960s Francis Bacon settled into a studio space in South Kensington, where he resided until his death in 1992. Bacon described the studio: “I feel at home here in this chaos because chaos suggests images to me.” Heaps of photos, bits of illustrations, books, catalogues, magazines, and newspapers provided nearly all of his visual sources. Bacon added: “Images also help me find and realize ideas. I look at hundreds of very different, contrasting images and I pinch details from them, rather like people who eat from other people’s plates.”

The artist utilized the entire space: paint was mixed on the door, and scraps of clothing were used to apply paint. When the artist died, seventy works on paper were found along with one hundred slashed canvases.

Catalogue and Tour

A fully illustrated, 174-page catalogue is available.

The exhibition will be on view at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, UK, October-December 2006. From Norwich, the exhibition will travel to the Milwaukee Art Museum, January 27-April 15, 2007; then on to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, May 5-July 30, 2007.

This exhibition was initiated by the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, with funding from the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Charitable Trust. It was curated by Michael Peppiatt, who is also the author of the exhibition catalogue. The exhibition has been made possible by UBS, the global financial services firm.

Milwaukee Art Museum
www.mam.org

Michel Blazy, La Maréchalerie, Versailles - Animort

Michel Blazy : Animort

La Maréchalerie, Versailles

6 octobre - 16 décembre 2006

Qu'il s'agisse d'un mur enduit de purée de carottes, de bouquets de spaghettis, d'écorces d'oranges empilées ou encore de chiens en mousse à raser, les oeuvres de Michel Blazy relèvent d'une curieuse contradiction. Ces sculptures associent effectivement la notion d'éphémère - d'oeuvres en constante évolution physique - et l'objet final résultant de cette petite fabrique composée d'éléments du quotidien. Cette dualité semble toujours prégnante dans l'objet final, résultat de processus divers et variés expérimentés par l'artiste sur les matériaux organiques consommables. Noyaux, liquide vaisselle, bonbons Kréma, sont ainsi soumis à de multiples transformations qui se développent sur une surface, et Michel Blazy nous conforte ainsi dans l'idée que ces objets sont bel et bien vivants, à l'instar des animaux et végétaux qu'il scrute minutieusement avec ses photographies et ses vidéos.

Si Michel Blazy expérimente à la fois la matérialité et la temporalité des objets qu'il met en scène, c'est avant tout pour soumettre la matière première de ses sculptures à des mutations minutieuses, afin de produire " un basculement dans une dimension autre, dans un ailleurs… ". Lorsqu'il rencontre une oeuvre de Michel Blazy, l'observateur appréhende le dualisme des éléments entre confrontation et cohabitation. Il rencontre à la fois le vivant et le dépérissement jusqu'à la mort, la beauté et la laideur, la fascination et la répulsion, le naturel et l'artificiel, le tout poétiquement énoncés dans cette relation entre la matière et la forme, soumis à l'influence de la transformation naturelle.

A la Maréchalerie, Michel Blazy compose un paysage de sculptures, poules en crème chocolatée : Animort. Ces " chocopoules " apparaissent momifiées dans des attitudes diverses, assujetties au processus du temps, existants dans un décor de flocons de colle. Le centre d'art, logé dans l'ancienne maréchalerie des petites écuries du Roy, représenté par ses caractéristiques architecturales singulières semble alors ressaisi par l'évocation d'une affectation animalière, en adéquation avec d'une part les composants originels, notamment la charpente, et d'autre part les nouveaux réaménagements de l'espace d'art contemporain.

Produite pour l'exposition, cette installation incarne la pluralité et les différentes facettes de l'oeuvre de Michel Blazy alliant à la fois une activité du micro-vivant quasi imperceptible à un décor/environnement /espace à la limite de l'extravagance.

A l'occasion de Versailles Off, organisé par le Château de Versailles, l'intervention de Michel Blazy se poursuit dans la " Galerie des Moulages ", avec une production de sculptures éphémères, boudins de mousses fabriqués durant l'évènement, qui se déploient depuis leurs bacs, origine de la formation, jusqu'à envahir le lieu, dans un système de fin et de régénération constante, parmi les sculptures en plâtres entreposés par le département des Antiquités Grecques, Etrusques et Romaines du Musée du Louvre.

LA MARECHALERIE, Centre d'art contemporain

Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Versailles

5 avenue de Sceaux, 78000 Versailles

www.versailles.archi.fr

Seydou Keita, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco - Portraits

Seydou Keita: Portraits
John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco
October 5 – November 30, 2006

John Berggruen Gallery presents its first solo exhibition of portraits by African photographer Seydou Keïta (1923 – 2001). 

This exhibition is comprised of black and white portraits taken in the 1950s and 1960s in Bamako, Mali. Keïta began his career as a portrait photographer in 1948, a period in time which is marked by the introduction of modernity to Africa. Although his early portraits were not always successful, by the mid-1950s Keïta had established a signature style and a loyal clientele. Having one's portrait taken in his studio was a mark of cosmopolitanism for the newly established "Bamakois," a phrase coined by NYU Africana Department Chair, Manthia Diawara, to describe the inhabitants of the new urban Bamako, which became an important French colonial center in the first half of the 20th century. This particular body of work displays the way in which Seydou Keïta would combine traditional African fabrics with props that signified technology and modernity – including radios, sunglasses, wristwatches, western suits and even a Vespa – of which the clients could choose from for their portraits. One sees in his portraits both the co-existence of and the struggle between the traditional and the modern in Seydou Keïta's Bamako, a struggle which became even more significant after the de-colonization of Mali in 1960. In addition to his usage of props, the artist's use of pattern is remarkable. His juxtaposition of intricately patterned fabrics became a signature of his work.

Seydou Keïta was born between 1921 and 1923 (he was unaware of his exact birth date) in Bamako Mali, and began his career in photography at the age of fourteen when his uncle brought him a camera from nearby Senegal. Although originally a carpenter by trade, Seydou Keïta opened his first studio in 1948. This studio was then closed in the early 1960s after Seydou Keïta was appointed official photographer for the Malian Security Services, a role he took on from 1960 until 1977. In the early 1990s Seydou Keïta's work was "re-discovered" by André Magnin, an African Art curator in Paris, and he had his first American solo show at the National Museum of African Art in Washington D.C. in 1996. He is represented in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the US Department of State Collection, Washington D.C. and numerous others. Seydou Keïta passed away on November 22nd, 2001, at approximately 78 years old. Jean Marc Patras-Delon/N.O.M.A.D.E., Paris, is Seydou Keïta's worldwide agent, and has established a foundation, based in Bamako, Mali, for the preservation, promotion and study of Keïta's work.

JOHN BERGGRUEN GALLERY
228 Grant Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94108
www.berggruen.com

Exposition Yves Klein, Centre Pompidou, Paris - Corps, Couleur, Immatériel + Catalogue

Yves Klein 

Corps, Couleur, Immatériel 

Centre Pompidou, Paris 

5 octobre 2006 - 5 février 2007

Le Centre Pompidou, Musée national d'art moderne consacre une grande exposition à Yves Klein, artiste majeur de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle. 

Longtemps enfermé dans un rôle d’artiste-emblème, internationalement célèbre pour le bleu IKB et ses monochromes, Yves Klein fut peu compris de son vivant. Mort prématurément en 1962, à l'âge de trente quatre ans, après une carrière fulgurante - Yves Klein a réalisé son œuvre en l'espace de sept ans - l'artiste, dont la production dépasse largement le champ de la peinture, n'a cessé d'affirmer : « mes tableaux ne sont que les cendres de mon art » (Le dépassement de la problématique de l’art et autres écrits. Yves Klein. École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts). 

Malgré de nombreuses rétrospectives et notamment l'exposition présentée au Centre Pompidou en 1983, l’œuvre de l'artiste reste encore largement à découvrir ainsi que le révèle la publication récente de ses écrits.

Réunissant cent vingt peintures et sculptures, environ quarante dessins et manuscrits de l'artiste et un grand nombre de films et photographies d'époque, cette exposition propose une relecture du travail d’Yves Klein. Aussi fidèle que possible aux déclarations de l’artiste contenues dans les écrits publiés récemment, la scénographie met en évidence l’importance qu’Yves Klein accordait aux aspects multiples de son activité artistique: peintures, sculptures, mais aussi performances, œuvres sonores, interventions dans les espaces publics, projets d’architecture…

En reconstituant des œuvres telles que la Sculpture aérostatique, 1957 (lâcher de 1001 ballons) ou l’Illumination de l’Obélisque, 1958, de la place de la Concorde, cette manifestation met sur le même plan que les monochromes les actions éphémères de l’artiste. Le travail d’Yves Klein repose sur un équilibre dynamique entre deux pôles : le visible et l’invisible, la matière et le vide, la chair et l’immatériel. Cette tension est au cœur de son œuvre: tout en explorant la non matérialité au point d’exposer Le Vide (Galerie Iris Clert, Paris 1958), Yves Klein continuera à créer des œuvres visibles.

Le parcours de l’exposition s’articule autour des trois couleurs emblématiques d’Yves Klein: bleu, or et rose, citées dans cet ordre dans ses écrits, ou rassemblées dans quelques rares triptyques. Dès 1959 c’est à partir de ces couleurs que se construit l’œuvre de Klein. L’ Ex-voto dédié à Sainte Rita, 1961, déposé par l’artiste au Monastère de Sainte Rita à Cascia (Italie), œuvre inédite présentée dans l’exposition, constitue un témoignage précieux de la valeur symbolique que l’or et le rose représentent au même titre que le bleu dans l’univers de sa création.

Le sous-titre de l’exposition CORPS, COULEUR, IMMATÉRIEL met l’accent sur les aspects du travail d’Yves Klein qui le révèlent éminemment contemporain, proche du regard des artistes aujourd’hui : l’implication physique et quotidienne de l’artiste dans son œuvre, sa volonté d’étendre le rôle de l’artiste par l’intermédiaire de la couleur à une transformation (technique, urbaine et philosophique) du monde, son utilisation de matériaux éphémères et naturels, ainsi que son exploration de l’immatériel.

L’exposition sera également présentée au Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (Vienne, Autriche) du 9 mars au 3 juin 2007.

Commisariat de l'exposition

Camille Morineau, conservatrice, Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou

Alexandra Mueller, Marion Guibert, chargées de projet

Bruno Veret, chargé de production

Katia Lafitte, Pascal Rodriguez, scénographes / architectes

A l'occasion de cette exposition les Éditions du Centre Pompidou publient un important catalogue :

CATALOGUE YVES KLEIN

CORPS, COULEUR, IMMATÉRIEL

ÉDITIONS DU CENTRE POMPIDOU

Directrice d'ouvrage : Camille Morineau

Format 23,5 x 28 cm, 304 pages

250 ill. couleur, 100 ill. noir et blanc

SOMMAIRE DU CATALOGUE

I L’exposition

Denys Riout, Imprégnations : scénarios et scénographies

Yve-Alain Bois, L’actualité de Klein

Camille Morineau, De l’imprégnation à l’empreinte, de l’artiste au modèle, de la couleur à son incarnation

Camille Morineau, Le bleu, l’or et le rose : comment appropriation rime avec sublimation

II Yves Klein en son siècle

Kaira Marie Cabañas, Yves Klein en France : un paradoxe spatial

Marion Guibert, Yves Klein en Allemagne (1957-1961)

Marco Meneguzzo, Klein et l'Italie : entre Nucléaires et Spatialistes

Ming Tiampo, Empreintes de l’immatériel : Yves Klein au Japon

Nuit Banaï, Dangereuse abstraction : Yves Klein à New York, 1961-1967

Catherine Grenier, Moi aussi, j’ai sauté dans le vide : l’influence d’Yves Klein sur l’art de Los Angeles

Eva Badura-Triska, Yves Klein en relation avec l’actionnisme viennois

Vitek Havranek, Yves Klein et l’Europe de l’Est : une oeuvre à l’état d’idée, 1959-1971

III Yves Klein et son image

Albums de presse d’Yves Klein (18 pages en fac-simile)

L’IMAGE ÉCRITE

Rita Cusimano, Les albums de presse d’Yves Klein, la rumeur publique autour d’Yves Klein

Kaira Maria Cabanas, De Klein à Restany : vers le Nouveau Réalisme

L’IMAGE PHOTOSENSIBLE

Alexandra Mueller, Yves Klein et la photographie

Jean-Michel Bouhours, La caméra saurait-elle être le témoin de l'irreprésentable ?

François Albera, Yves Klein vu par le cinéma

L’IMAGE REDÉFINIE DE L’ARTISTE

Emmanuelle Ollier, Yves Klein et le judo : l’impulsion créatrice ou théâtre du « je »

Laurence Bertrand Dorléac, La politique au cœur du vide

Marion Guibert, La collaboration selon Yves Klein, un réalisme spirituel

Didier Semin, Yves Klein, la propriété intellectuelle en question

CHRONOLOGIE

Collectif (Rita Cusimano, Auteurs catalogue, Archives Yves Klein)

Bibliographie sélective

Filmographie

Liste des œuvres

CENTRE POMPIDOU, BEAUBOURG, PARIS

www.centrepompidou.fr

Océ at Post-Expo & IfraExpo 2006: Océ points the way forward with flexible printing solutions

Post-Expo 2006: made-to-measure printing

Océ points the way forward with flexible printing solutions

At Post-Expo 2006 from 10 to 12 October in Amsterdam, Océ is presenting digital printing and document management solutions engineered for enterprises whose print challenges are as varied as their business. Océ’s keynote exhibits at the event include the Color on Demand concept with the Océ VarioStream 9230 high performance printing system, and the Océ CPS900 Platinum  color press powered by software for personalised printing of images. Using the Océ Document Designer Advanced software, Océ experts will be showing efficient ways to personalise, generate and manage business documents for variable data printing.

Direct mail in color featuring personalised images, shipping documents on special paper, individual RFID labels, counterfeit-proof certificates with invisible fluorescent toner, invoices with strategic use of color – at Océ’s joint booth with GMC (hall 8, booth 2040), Océ specialists will be explaining how to produce these documents efficiently. 

  

With IfraExpo 2006 taking place on the site at the same time, visitors also have the opportunity to see the power of the Océ VarioStream 9230 in action (Océ booth 4220). One of the world’s fastest continuous-fed digital presses for 3/3 recto and verso color printing, the Océ VarioStream 9230 delivers prints at a rate of 800 pages per minute in duplex mode. Unlike other continuous-fed presses, it lets users enrich their applications with color on demand, offering variable transitions between plain black & white output and printing with one or two additional colors (also custom colors). With its ability to handle such a broad range of applications, the entire Océ VarioStream 9000 series is ideal for business documents in the banking, insurance and telecoms sectors, as well as for the print providers serving these markets. 

  

The Océ CPS900 Platinum gives users consistent color quality from the first page of the job to the last – without any manual calibration. Thanks to the Océ Direct Imaging technology with seven process colors, the output exactly matches the color definitions on whatever substrate is used, empowering companies to print such documents as booklets, flyers, reports and direct mail cost-efficiently, even with individualised content. The Océ CPS900 Platinum also can also print personalised photographs in superlative quality. 

  

As another focus at the event, Océ is showing solutions for generating and personalising transactional and promotional documents. Using the Océ Document Designer Advanced software, businesses can easily create and manage their own design templates and manage white space – all the while profiting from an efficient, totally integrated workflow for printing personalised documents.

Océ website: www.oce.com

US Océ website: www.oceusa.com

Twilight: Photography in the Magic Hour, Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Twilight: Photography in the Magic Hour

Victoria & Albert Museum, London
10 October - 17 December 2006

 

This autumn, the V&A will exhibit around 50 works by international contemporary artists who have explored the visual and psychological effects of twilight. Twilight: Photography in the Magic Hour includes work by established photographers Robert Adams, Gregory Crewdson, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Bill Henson and Boris Mikhailov as well as emerging talents, Chrystel Lebas and Liang Yue and a specially commissioned film installation by Ori Gersht.

These artists explore the threshold between the familiar and the unknown, the comfortable and the dangerous and show twilight to be a poignant hour when sensibilities change and potential-laden atmospheres emerge. Twilight is used to present or facilitate the subversion of normality, the darker side of fantasies and the fairytale gone awry.

Twilight’s alchemical qualities have long attracted artists. Technically ambitious attempts to record and replicate the ambiguity of twilight can be mapped throughout the history of photography and have been particularly evident in recent years.

Martin Barnes, Curator of Photographs at the V&A and co-curator of the exhibition, said: “This exhibition will reveal the allure of the magic moment of twilight. In recent years, an increasing number of photographers internationally have chosen to explore the subject. It is an area of contemporary art where emotion and romanticism still have great currency.”

Twilight: Photography in the Magic Hour interweaves a range of explorations of the theme and will feature series of works by eight artists:

Robert Adams will be represented by printed black and white photographs from the series Summer Nights (1979-82), which were taken along the Eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Amid urbanisation, Robert Adams focuses on the continuing beauty of trees, sky and the shape of the land. 

A selection from Gregory Crewdson’s Twilight series (1998-2002) will be on show together with his Beneath the Roses series (2003-05). They feature elaborately-constructed cinematic tableaux of bizarre, primeval rituals staged in pristine suburbs.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s Hollywood series (1990-92) reveals the flip side of sunlit Hollywood through portrayals of male sex-workers and drifters along Sunset Boulevard at the brief, visually charged moment when natural light and artificial light are in perfect balance.

Ori Gersht will be producing a specially commissioned new film installation for this exhibition. It will be shown alongside his Rear Window series in which he records dramatic twilight skies above London, referenced by slithers of skyline at the base of the prints.

Bill Henson is a passionate explorer of twilight zones, of the ambiguous spaces between day and night, youth and adulthood, male and female, nature and civilization. This will be the first major showing of the Australian artist’s work in the UK.  On display will be his untitled photographs of landscapes at dusk (2000-03) that show an industrial ‘no-man’s land’ that lies on the outskirts of cities, peopled by androgynous figures.

Chrystel Lebas will show works from her Abyss series (2003) in which she uses panoramic long exposures to capture the eerie atmosphere of forests at dusk in France, Germany and Japan. This is the moment when light is still present outside the confined space of the forest, yet darkness spreads under the trees. Also included will be her triptych made in the Arctic circle, Between Dog and Wolf (2005), ( from the French saying ‘entre chien et loup’) that describes the mystical atmosphere when day turns to night.  An hour-long film, Blue Hour (2005), captures the onset of twilight in a forest in real time.

Boris Mikhailov will be represented by works from his At Dusk series (1993), taken in the artist’s home city of Kharkow in the Ukraine following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Recording this period of transition, the series also references the city’s traumatic experiences during the artist’s childhood in World War II.

Liang Yue’s Several Dusks (2003) will be shown. These images are shot on the streets of Beijing where the haziness of dusk is precipitated by dust, sandstorms and pollution. 

The exhibition was curated by V&A’s photography curators, Martin Barnes and Kate Best.

A new book will be published by the V&A and Merrell Publishers to accompany the exhibition, Twilight: Photography in the Magic Hour by Martin Barnes and Kate Best (£35 Hardback).  With contributions from Steven Connor, Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College, London and Emily Winterburn Curator of Astronomy at the Royal Observatory.

A software improves all major image quality factors

Almalence Incorporated announces PhotoAcute Studio 2.0 - the breakthrough software product that enhances digital photos quality

PhotoAcute Studio processes sets of images taken in continuous mode. It utilizes superresolution algorithms to convert a sequence of photos into a single high-resolution and low-noise picture that could only be taken with much better camera.

PhotoAcute Studio improves all major image quality factors. The features at a glance are:

• Spatial resolution increase
• Noise reduction without losing image details
• Dynamic range expansion
• Geometry distortions and vignetting correction
• Chromatic aberrations correction

PhotoAcute Studio operates for various camera and image types - from mobile cameras to DSLR cameras supporting RAW format and 16-bit color. The greatest leap in quality is achieved on RAW photos taken with DSLR cameras that gives the professional photographers an essential use.

The spatial resolution is one of the most important factors of digital image quality. It is limited by camera's matrix and lens, but this limit can be exceeded by means of superresolution - the method of enhancing the resolution of an image or of an optical system. This can be done by either acquiring more graphic information (e.g. taking and merging several images of the same object) or by reconstructing the details lost due to the faultiness of the optical system (applying the knowledge of the optical system properties). PhotoAcute Studio uses both ways to achieve the maximum image quality. The laboratory measurements of the widely accepted MTF50 parameter, performed with Canon 300D camera, show the doubling of the effective resolution.

The superresolution technology is used in supercomputer data processing in the industries such as satellite imaging and astronomy. Almalence engineers developed new mathematical methods of superresolution processing and implemented them within the software application for personal computers, making this powerful technology available for photographers.

The noise is the most undesirable factor that degrades image quality. The main problem of the noise reduction is the loss of image details. This becomes mostly apparent in the low light areas of the image, where the noise reduction removes both the noise and the details. PhotoAcute Studio combines several photos of the same scene, separating the useful signal and the noise, thus providing strong noise reduction without losing the image details.

Besides resolution enhancement and noise reduction, PhotoAcute Studio corrects common image artifacts: geometry distortions, chromatic aberrations and vignetting. By merging several images taken at different exposures, PhotoAcute Studio expands the dynamic range of the resultant image, revealing the details usually clipped in the highlights and the shadows.

All these features virtually improve the whole camera from matrix to lens, providing the possibility of taking better images even for those who use advanced and professional cameras.

PhotoAcute Studio is useful for wide range of photographers, who are interested in taking high quality images. Professional photographers, for whom the image quality is essential, will find it a good tool for achieving the best results in their work. For amateur photographers this product will be an add-on to their cameras, providing better images without changing the camera itself.

PhotoAcute Studio is Windows based application. The version for Macintosh is to be released in 2007Q1.

Detailed description of PhotoAcute Studio features, online help and examples gallery are available at http://www.photoacute.com

PhotoAcute Studio 2.0 is available for free in trial mode. The price of the full version varies depending on supported camera types: from $19 for mobile phone cameras to $119 for DSLR cameras with the support of RAW format and 16-bit color. Users can get free licenses by contributing to PhotoAcute Studio development.

PhotoAcute Studio 2.0 can be downloaded at:

http://www.photoacute.com/studio/download.html

About Almalence Incorporated Almalence Incorporated focuses on developing the cutting-edge methods of digital image processing and innovative software products for enhancing digital images. Our mission is to provide the photographers with the software tools that will help them to achieve the best image quality. The company was founded in 2005 by the group of professionals with strong background in computer science, software engineering and management.

Almalence Inc. - Press Release - 01.10.2006

Elliott Erwitt Six Decades

© Elliott Erwitt - All rights reserved

"Elliott has to my mind achieved a miracle working on a chain-gang of commercial campaigns and still offering a bouquet of stolen photos with a flavor, a smile from his deeper self."

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Andrew Smith Gallery opens an important exhibit titled Six Decades by internationally renowned photographer Elliott Erwitt, with an opening reception and booksigning for the artist on Friday, October 13, 2006 from 5-7 p.m. Erwitt's photographs of ordinary life, beach scenes, celebrities, children and dogs have delighted viewers for decades. At age 78 he has culled through sixty years of work and chosen what he considers to be his very best photographs. Many have never been published before. These ebullient images reflect the vast scope of the wittiest photographer of our time.

Andrew Smith Gallery will have approximately 25 of Erwitt's classic photographs representing many phases of his long career. During the opening Elliott Erwitt will be signing copies of his newest book, Personal Best (teNeues, 2006). The exhibit continues through November 20, 2006.

Erwitt's superb sense of humor coupled with a deceptively casual photographic technique inspired the eminent photography critic, John Szarkowski, to remark that Erwitt is "one of the few photographers whose work is also identified by extraordinary wit." Traveling around the world on magazine assignments, Erwitt always found time to take the wry and timeless photographs of ordinary people and dogs that have made him famous. His photographs of Hollywood legends like Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe, and political figures like Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon are equally penetrating and insightful.

According to writer, Sean Callahan, survival seems to be built into Erwitt's nature, along with the ability "to be an astute observer of others, highly sensitive to the vicissitudes of life and, when necessary, utterly charming and disarming." Erwitt was born in Paris in 1928, the only child of displaced Russian parents who raised him in Milan. When he was 11 the family fled Europe on the last boat out of free France. For several years he and his parents lived in New York City before moving to California. At age 16, after his parents split up, Erwitt was on his own in Los Angeles, attending Hollywood High while living in a rented bungalow with friends. After Edward Steichen arranged his first commercial job he established himself in New York the 40s and 50s as a leading magazine photographer. His friendship with Robert Capa resulted in his joining the prestigious Magnum Agency in 1953 after he got out of the army.

In his long and successful career as a magazine and advertising photographer Erwitt has used an arsenal of cameras. But the images he shot for himself were usually made with a classic Leica rangefinder and in black and white. He has remarked, "The most important advice to photographers is f:8 and be there." In his most poetic images something wordless and magical happens in a fleeting instant. In Orleans, France, 1952 Erwitt snapped the shutter just as a pigeon fluttered down to a deserted cobblestone street illuminated by a triangular shaft of sunlight.

Erwitt has shot annual reports of Fortune 500 companies, worked on six-figure advertising campaigns for Madison Avenue, and on breaking news for Paris Match. An assignment shooting women's shoes inspired him to take a closer look at dogs as subjects. New York City, 1974, one of Erwitt's most famous photographs, was taken with the camera near sidewalk level of a bug-eyed, rat-sized dog dressed in a knitted sweater and hat standing next to two gigantic pairs of legs, one wearing boots, the other belonging to another dog. The humor lies in the somewhat idiotic expression of the tiny dog which suggests it is the dwarfed product of a canine/human marriage.

In Erwitt's classic image, California, 1955, the reflection of a couple kissing in a parked car's side mirror is like a joyful bubble against a Pacific ocean sunset.

In 1960, on the set of the movie The Misfits, Erwitt photographed a team that included Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, Arthur Miller, John Huston, and Eli Wallach. The cast looks a little haggard, and even Monroe struggles to play her diva role. It was the last film either Gable or Monroe would make before their deaths. Erwitt said of Monroe, "Physically she was surprisingly unattractive; the beauty was manufactured. But she was extremely intelligent and sensitive. And likeable."

In 2006 several touring exhibitions of Erwitt's photographs were shown at New York's International Center for Photography, in Paris, at Japan's Mitsukoshi, and in Barcelona, Spain. Additionally, a major exhibition in Australia is being planned. His photographs have been collected and exhibited at museums including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Smithsonian Institution, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, and the Kunsthaus in Zurich. His photographic books include the comprehensive monograph Personal Exposures/Elliott Erwitt (Norton, 1988); On the Beach (Norton, 1991), and Elliott Erwitt: To the Dogs (Norton, 1992). Elliot Erwitt currently lives in New York City.

Liz Kay

Andrew Smith Gallery - 203 W. San Francisco St. Santa Fe, NM 87501

www.andrewsmithgallery.com