" Ζωγραφιζω εκεινο που δεν μπορει να φωτογραφηθει και φωτογραφιζω εκεινο που δεν επιθυμω να ζωγραφισω...Δεν με ενδιαφερει να γινομαι κατανοητος ως ζωγραφος, ως δημιουργος αντικειμενων ή ως φωτογραφος".... "Δεν ειμαι φωτογραφος της φυσης αλλα της φαντασιας μου ... θα προτιμουσα να φωτογραφισω μια ιδεα παρα ενα αντικειμενο κι ενα ονειρο παρα μια ιδεα" Man Ray (1890-1976)

" Δεν ενδιαφερει να αποδωσει κανεις το ορατο, αλλα να κανει ορατο οτι δεν ειναι" Paul Klee (1879-1940)

12/13/2019

Eric Gyamfi » Fixing Shadows

Untitled, from the series Fixing shadows; Julius and I, 2018 © Eric Gyamfi


Eric Gyamfi » Fixing Shadows


Winner Foam Paul Huf Award 2019

13 December 2019 – 11 March 2020

Eric Gyamfi (1990, Ghana) is the winner of the 13th Foam Paul Huf Award, which is awarded annually by an international jury to talented photographers under the age of 35. Gyamfi uses a wide array of visual techniques to create visual narratives that hover somewhere in between autobiography and fiction. His work comprises collages, texts, audio and photographs developed according to various methods, including cyanotype and silk screen printing. His portraits and diaristic installations are highly personal, yet transcend the artist’s individual experience.

Foam invited Gyamfi to apply his scrapbook aesthetic to the walls of the museum. The resulting installations are opaque and multi-layered, blurring the boundaries between storytelling and documentary photography. The photographic image is presented as a powerful yet ambiguous means of telling a story, be it fact or fiction. The exhibition consists of two of Gyamfi’s most recent series. A Certain Bed is a semi-autobiographical visual narrative about the artist’s meanderings, following his departure from the home he knew. During this period of moving from place to place he created photo collages that form an introspective report of his nomadic experience, and that question what it means to have a home – or to lose it.

Fixing Shadows; Julius and I is a study into the photographic portrait. In an act of identification, the photographer blends his own image with a portrait of composer Julius Eastman, producing thousands of photographic composites in the form of cyanotypes and silk screen prints. The work plays on Eastman’s experimental compositions, in which each new score contains elements from all anterior scores. Likewise, Gyamfi produces an endless number of unique variations on the same two images, experimenting with the effects of climatological and other circumstantial conditions on the outcome of the print. The work is scored by Whatsapp voice messages the artist accumulated that provide as many readings of the works as there are individuals.
Eric Gyamfi
Gyamfi was born in Ghana in 1990. He obtained a BA in Economics and Information Studies at the University of Ghana in 2014. He is currently pursuing an MFA at the Department of Painting and Sculpture of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. He was a fellow at the Photographers’ Master Class in Khartoum, Sudan (2016); Nairobi, Kenya (2017); and Johannesburg, South Africa (2018). He was an invited participant to the Nuku Studio Photography Workshops in 2016, and the World Press Photo West African Masterclass in 2017. He is a recipient of the 2016 Magnum Foundation Fund and a member of the Nuku studio in Ghana; a collective of visual storytellers dedicated reporting on issues around Africa and beyond. Gyamfi lives and works in Accra, Ghana.

Opening and press preview
The exhibition will be opened on Thursday 12 December 2019 from 20.00 hrs onwards.

Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam

Keizersgracht 609, 1017 DS Amsterdam
T +31 (0)20-5516500
pressoffice@foam.org
www.foam.org
Wed-Sun 10am-6pm; Thu, Fri 10am-9pm 

 
© 10 Dec 2019 photo-index UG (haftungsbeschränkt)
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Editor: Claudia Stein & Michael Steinke
contact@photo-index.art

5/26/2015

CZECH FUNDAMENTAL Czech avant-garde and contemporary photography 1920 - present. Museo di Roma in Trastevere

Jaroslav Rossler (1902-1990)
Still Life with dish, 1923
19 x 21, 5 cm
Gelatin silver print
Copyright by artist / Silva Vitova-Rosslerova
CZECH FUNDAMENTAL
 Czech avant-garde and contemporary photography 1920 - present

 Pavel Banka » Eliska Bartek » Ladislav E. Berka » Frantisêk Drtikol » Jaromir Funke » Stepan Grygar » Miroslav Hak » Milos Korecek » Ales Kunes » Emila Medková » Suzanne Pastor » Ivan Pinkava » Jaroslav Rössler » Vilém Reichmann » Nadja Rovderova » Jan Saudek » Jiri Sigut » Tono Stano » Josef Sudek » Jan Svoboda » Miro Svolik » Miroslav Tichý » Eugen Wiskovsky » Peter Zupnik » Václav Zykmund »









Jaromir Funke (1896–1945)
Composition (Bottle shadows), 1927
30 x 23,5 cm
Gelatin silver print
Copyright by artist / Miloslava Rupesova
Frantisek Drtikol (1883 - 1961)
Fleeing arch, 1929 /1996
22 x 28 cm
Pigment Print
Copyright by artist / Ruzena Knotkova-Bokova


27 May – 19 July 2015   
 Opening reception: Tuesday 26 May 2015 at 6 pm
 
Museo di Roma in Trastevere   Piazza S.Egidio 1/ b . 00153 Roma www.museodiromaintrastevere.it    www.museodiromaintrastevere.it
     
 The exhibition Czech Fundamental is organized by gallery Photo Edition Berlin in collaboration with Museo di Roma in Trastevere and Centro Sperimentale di Fotografia, Rome. The exhibit engages the viewer in a dialogue between old and new - Czech photography from the very beginnings of the avant-garde in the 1920s, to a broad selection of contemporary artists whose works exhibit an individual, authorial or experimental approach to the medium. Featured are photographs fundamental to the development of a specifically Czech vision - Frantisek Drtikol's nudes, Jaroslav Rossler's and Jaromir Funke's contemplative compositions, surreal arrangements by Vaclav Zykmund and Josef Sudek's poetic still-lifes. The exhibition presents Constructivism, Surrealism and New Objectivity from 1920 - 1945. The second section presents Art Informel, Surrealism, Minimalism from the Post-war era to the 1970s. Staged Photography, Postmodernism and New Experimentation from the 1990s forms the third and final section, featuring the very different modern and contemporary visions of Czech and Slovak photographers who became prominent in the 1990s. They represent the last mature generation not absorbed into globalization and digitalization, a phenomenon which has made all but impossible the prsentation of photography - as Czech - in the decades following.
   
Over 180 works by 43 photographers are presented in 3 sections and include the artists (among others):
1. Origins of the Avant-garde 1920-1945
Constructivism, Poetism, Surrealism, New Objectivity
Frantisek Drtikol, Jaroslav Rossler, Jaromir Funke, Eugen Wiškovský, Milos Korecek, Vaclav Zykmund, Ladislav Emil Berka.

2. Post-war to 1970s
Surrealism, Minimalism, Art Informel
Josef Sudek, Vilem Reichmann, Miroslav Hak, Jan Svoboba, Emila Medkova, Eva Fuka, Bela Kolarova, Milota Havrankova, Miroslav Tichy.

3. Photography at the beginning of a new era - the 1990s:

Staged Photography, Postmodernism, New Experimentation
Jan Saudek, Aleš Kuneš, Suzanne Pastor, Nadia Rovderova, Jiri Sigut, Eliška Bartek, Stepan Grygar, Miro Svolik, Tono Stano, Peter Zupnik, Ivan Pinkava, Pavel Banka.



Josef Sudek (1896-1976)
Rose in glass vase, 1950-54
23.5 x 17.5 cm
Gelatin silver print Copyright by artist


Curators of the Project:
It is curated by Gunther Dietrich, director of gallery for contemporary photography Photo Edition Berlin and Suzanne Pastor, Prague, after a first successful exhibition in the Berlin gallery in 2012.

Gunther Dietrich
PHOTO EDITION BERLIN
gallery for contemporary photography
Ystaderstr.14a, D- 10437 Berlin
contact@photo-edition-berlin.com
www.photoeditionberlin.com   

Suzanne Pastor
Suzanne Pastor has lived and worked in the Bohemian capitol for well over 20 years, after living ten years in
Germany where she was confronted for the first time with Czech photography at the Rudolf Kicken Gallery in Cologne. She came to Europe in 1980 after working at the George Eastman House museum in Rochester, NY, to study in Kassel with Floris Neusüss and Klaus Honnef. She moved to Prague in 1990 to establish / found Prague House of Photography, where she worked as director and curator while continuing to be active in numerous other activities such as collecting, writing, lecturing and art-making.

Co-Curators and Project coordination of the Exhibition in Rome:
Gabriele Agostini c/o
Associazione Culturale
Centro Sperimentale di Fotografia adams
Sedi: Via Biagio Pallai 12 – Via Giovanni Vestri 28 00151 Roma

Museo di Roma in Trastevere
SILVANA BONFILI Curatrice Storica dell’Arte
Responsabile Museo di Roma in Trastevere Sovrintendenza ai Beni Culturali Roma Capitale

Eliska Bartek (*1950)
Amore nella Valle di Lacrime, 2011
Cliché Verre
40 x 30 cm
Copyright by the artist

2/20/2014

IMAGINARY, ESTETICA DEL VIRTUALE E PERCEZIONE DEL REALE

PRIMO PIANO LIVINGALLERY
PRESENTA
IMAGINARY
ESTETICA DEL VIRTUALE E PERCEZIONE DEL REALE

21 FEBBRAIO  - 19 MARZO 2014
Inaugurazione VENERDI’ 21 FEBBRAIO ORE 19:30
A cura di Dores Sacquegna
La mostra “IMMAGINARIA: Estetica del virtuale e percezione del reale”, intende misurarsi con alcune importanti questioni che riguardano il rapporto tra reale e virtuale, le tecnologie digitali, i new media e le varie forme espressive artistiche, attraverso una selezione di opere, realizzate da artisti diversi per generazione e background.
Il progetto pone l’accento sull’idea di “transito” in cui i classici concetti di luoghi, identità, storia e natura si incontrano e si scontrano con dimensioni dettate dall’idea di flusso, simultaneità, interattività e globalità, sia nell’ambito “materiale” che “immateriale”.
La tecnologia digitale, infatti, prospetta vere e proprie trasformazioni nel campo percettivo, cognitivo, comunicativo ed estetico. L’arte contemporanea, del resto,  si trova spesso ad esplorare nuovi territori, nuove “realtà”,  in quella dimensione del sublime che Kant poneva al centro della sua riflessione estetica.
In questa selezione di opere di video arte in  2D e 3D, stereoscopiche visioni, avatar virtuali e paesaggi immaginari, l’arte gioca sullo spiazzamento della percezione del reale, con una attenzione alle dinamiche interattive.
Artisti in mostra:
HUGO ARCIER (Francia), CLARA AROZARENA(Francia), 
CLAUDIA ASOLI(Masiera di Bagnacavallo, Ravenna), SOFI BASSEGHI (Australia), 
NUNO BENAVENTE (Portogallo), PAOLO CAMIZ (Roma), 
MARILENA DE STEFANO(Messina), ORONZO DE STRADIS (Torre Santa Susanna, Brindisi), STEFANIE KETTEL(Germania), JENNA RENEE MAURICE(Usa), ALAIN NAHUM (Francia), JAN JANI (Austria ), MIKE STEPHEN (Usa).

Primo Piano LivinGallery,  Viale G. Marconi 4   Lecce, Italy 73100
Tel/fax: 0832.30 40 14   primopianopressrelease@gmail.com
www.primopianogallery.com

JUSTINE VARGA Sounding Silence

JUSTINE VARGA
Sounding Silence

Exhibition 19 February to 22 March 2014

Stills Gallery
36 Gosbell Street . Paddington NSW 2021, Sydney - Australia
info@stillsgallery.com.au,   www.stillsgallery.com.au  
Evening, 2014  from Sounding Silence
Type C print   47 x 38.5cm, edition of 6 + 2 AP
  
Morning, 2014  from Sounding Silence
Type C print    77 x 61cm, edition of 6 + 2 AP

 JUSTINE VARGA
Justine Varga’s images contain silence, space and peace, bringing a sense of the sublime inside, to the minutiae of the everyday. They aren’t simply made in her studios, so much as made with them. The ephemera that accumulates in her workspace, the surfaces, textures and temperaments that seem to change with the daily cycles of natural light, provide both the setting and subject for her images.
Sounding Silence reduces these elements to the very periphery of recognition, described by Varga as “playing at the edge of vision”. The works, like individual exercises in restraint, use only the most understated of objects, the barest essentials of light and form, and ask only the most fundamental of questions—how fine is that line which distinguishes something and nothing; how much sound do we need to appreciate the silence?
While her compositions reveal themselves in the everyday—a crumpled tax receipt, a discarded piece of bubble wrap, an area of light that happens across a wall—these are only the starting points in a process of painstaking refinement, framing, revisiting, sometimes over days, sometimes over weeks. Her works tease out those moments when simple things become so much more than their makings. Scratching away her own wall markings, for instance, to find the cusp of them being there and not there, or, capturing those seconds when the thinnest slice of sticky tape is dappled by light filtering through the trees outside.
Varga reminds us to allow for fleeting moments of quiet, to notice the understated beauty before, around, in the gaps, of the image and information cluttered world that tends to envelop us.

Sounding Silence #2, 2014 from Sounding Silence
Type C print  96.5 x 76cm, edition of 6 + 2 AP

Sounding Silence #5, 2014 from Sounding Silence
Type C print  96.5 x 76cm, edition of 6 + 2 AP

Sounding Silence #7, 2014 from Sounding Silence
Type C print  96.5 x 76cm, edition of 6 + 2 AP

Justine Varga has achieved impressive recognition since graduating with Honours from the National Art School, Sydney in 2007. This year she has been awarded the Australia Council for the Arts London Studio Residency. In 2013, she was joint winner of the Josephine Ulrick & Win Shubert Photography Award, and was a Finalist in both the Bowness Photography Prize and the NSW Visual Arts Fellowship for Emerging Artists. In 2012, she was selected for Primavera, MCA Australia, a prestigious exhibition showcasing key Australian artists under 35, and featured in Flatlands, Art Gallery of NSW and in The Lookout, National Art School Gallery. Her work is held in numerous private and public collections, including the Art Gallery of NSW, Macquarie University and Artbank.

1/08/2014

Fred Cray’s UNIQUE PHOTOGRAPHS

Janet Borden
Please join us Wednesday, 8 January, from 6—8 pm
 for the opening of Fred Cray’s UNIQUE PHOTOGRAPHS.
These are indeed unique photographs, so come early to get the best selection.
The exhibition runs 8 JANUARY—15 FEBRUARY 2014 
These pieces feature the accidental and unexpected connections of an almost aleatoric process. In these experiments, Cray formalizes the coincidental by emphasizing the conscious process of composition. Cray s multiple layers imply movement, both of time and image, which set sacadence that is both visually rigorous and seductively intimate. The results present a new development in Cray’s ongoing interest in visual labyrinths. Two separate limited edition books, UNIQUE PHOTOGRAPHS and CHANGING THE GUARD are available. Each copy comes with three unique photographs enclosed.

FRED CRAY (American, b. 1957) is a graduate of Middlebury College, and Yale Graduate School of Painting. His work is included in many collections, such as The Museum of the City of New York; Brooklyn Museum of Art; California Museum of Photography. He currently lives in Brooklyn


Janet Borden
560 Broadway, New York NY 10012 | TEL 212 431 0166 | FAX 212 274 1679

1/04/2014

CONCRETE - FEROZ Galerie

CONCRETE
 A. Aubrey Bodine , Marcel Broodthaers , Chargesheimer , Sean Hemmerle , Jory Hull , Peter Keetman , Adolf Lazi , Herbert List , Lisette Model , Andrew Phelps , Albert Renger-Patzsch , August Sander , Elfriede Stegemeyer , Claude Tolmer , Barbara Wüllenweber , 

Friday, 6 December 2013—Friday, 17 January 2014
Feroz Galerie    Prinz-Albert-Str. 12, D-53113 Bonn
 galerie@feroz.tv     www.feroz.tv   
FEROZ Galerie is pleased to present the photography exhibition, CONCRETE. The title of this exhibition as a word represents both a mental position to view and think about the works as well as a designation of a physical material. Julian Sander, the owner of FEROZ Galerie uses the anxious spectrum of this word in the broadest sense as a concept for curating this exhibition.
The fact is that we live in a world of media, and we are constantly surrounded by contextualized visual information. The information presented to us in various contexts requires constant interpretation. As a result, only a part of the information is determined by the information itself. The rest of the meaning is produced by our own perceptions, and our ability to conceive hints, even if they are not very concrete.
This observation is both fascinating and terrifying at the same time. In the worst case, we are a society of information overload, and with such tools can be easily controlled. In order to keep things in perspective, it is important to keep a certain amount of distance. In a positive sense, these same contexts precisely highlight easily overlooked details that might otherwise be lost.
It is these facts that have encouraged Julian Sander to make CONCRETE, as a series of visual hurdles. The selections of individual works for the exhibition, and their placements have been chosen to deliberately push the attention of the viewer. Not necessarily to represent a different truth, but rather to draw attention to the possibilities presented by contextualization.
The great grandfather of the Galerist, the German photographer August Sander wrote the following in a photo album that he gave to his grandson Gerd Sander (Julian’s father) as a child:
    Gott gibt uns die Nüsse, aber er bricht sie nicht auf – God gives us the nuts but does not crack them.
This quote from his great grandfather and its underlying request for us to think about things for ourselves has driven Julian Sander to realize his concept of CONCRETE. This exhibition includes work by the following artists; Barbara Wüllenweber, Andrew Phelps, Sean Hemmerle, Adolf Lazi, Lisette Model, August Sander, Herbert List, Chargesheimer, Aubrey Bodine, Jory Hull, and Claude Tolmer. Among other things, CONCRETE will be an encounter that prompts the viewer to relate their position in practice.
Barbara Wüllenweber
Backside Grab, Skatepark Liege, Belgium, 1989
Vintage gelatin silver print
28 x 20,2 cm
© Barbara Wüllenweber, courtesy of Feroz Galerie
Adolf Lazi
Ball-Bearings, ca. 1936
Vintage gelatin silver print
22,9 x 16,8 cm
©Estate of Adolf Lazi, courtesy of Feroz Galerie

Dennis Oppenheim
Mindtwist: A Portfolio of Burnt Out Thoughts:
Branded Mountain (1969)/Burnt Grass/Hillside Near Martinez, California, 1977
Chromogenic print
76,2 x 101,6 cm
©Estate of Dennis Oppenheim, courtesy of Feroz Galerie
Peter Keetman
Nebel Lauf, 1956
Vintage gelatin silver print
17,1 x 23,2 cm
©Estate of Peter Keetman, courtesy of Feroz Galerie

Alvin Booth, Come to Your Senses

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Alvin Booth
Come to Your Senses
© Alvin Booth














































November 14, 2013 – January 11, 2014
 acte2galerie   41 rue d'Artois . 75008 Paris
acte2galerie@orange.fr     www.acte2galerie.com   
Mon-Fri 10am-7pm . Sat 1-6pm    
Galerie ACTE 2   


© Alvin Booth 

© Alvin Booth
 Come to Your Senses
 When asked in an early interview about the photographers who had influenced him the most, Booth listed three sculptors: Rodin, Aristide Maillol, and Gaston Lachaise. As a photographer, Booth finds his focus through the body, a constant that is apparent in his directional shift from photography to sculpture. 
While still a raw celebration of the human form at its vital peak,the current work of Come To Your Senses  introduces a simmering suggestion of loss. In hyperbolic huddles of ears, noses, fingers, and lips, Booth finds humor in the disconnect between the realistic divorced from the real, the essential divorced from its molded replica. Booth’s expired hearing aid batteries form bold multiplicities that speak to the singularly human capacity for invention and adaptation. No longer external components furtively inserted into the body to shore up a diminished sensory capacity, the silvery studs become an idealized female nude. Their collective imperfection transcends limitation for as long as the eye can maintain its unblinking gaze.
 Come To Your Senses  also includes a large collection of spongy silicone, glowing fingers that beckon from their metal frame. Booth’s own scarred thumb, nearly severed in a recent accident, appears several times. In celebrating beginnings and acknowledging endings, Booth’s wry commentary notes the escalation of desire that accompanies the risk of life lived long.






















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11/24/2013

Vladimir Martynov, CHAOS AND STRUCTURES

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From the series "Structure", 2010 ©Vladimir Martynov

















From the series "Structure", 2010 ©Vladimir Martynov






CHAOS AND STRUCTURES   
 State Museum and Exhibition Centre for Photography ROSPHOTO
Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation

Vladimir Martynov
 CHAOS AND STRUCTURES

 10 October – 17 November 2013
Yard Building exhibition hall, 2 floor
  ROSPHOTO. State Museum and Exhibition Centre for Photography
ul. Bolshaya Morskaya, 35   Saint-Petersburg 191186, Russia
office@rosphoto.org     www.rosphoto.org         ROSPHOTO
 
CHAOS AND STRUCTURES
 It is hardly worth to dispute the statement that one of the most notable results of foregone XX century and rapidly developing XXI century was the expansion of visual experience of humankind directly connected with the plastic arts. Previously unseen forms created by imagination freed from the mimetic tasks formerly ascribed to plastic arts, filled canvas and paper. Volumetric structures of unprecedented contours and shapes replaced sculptures in museums and private interiors, as well as public urban spaces. This was added up by all kinds of virtual structures on monitors and projection screens that often replaced tapestry and painting in exhibition spaces. New visual constructions do not necessarily spring from real-life experience of their creator, they can be the reflection of his imagination and embodiment of his most abstract or random thoughts. Mental images and mental forms of actual art ask for yet new methods of capturing and reproduction as well as new schemes of perception. The work of Vladimir Martynov is one of most convincing examples of the fruitfulness of introducing into familiar artistic context virtual phantoms that remain at the same time within the area of visual arts and thus further implement certain order in the plastic and formal chaos fraught with destruction.
This process, of course, is associated with inner complications. On the one hand, liberation of artist's visual experience leads to emergence of images unusual and sometimes unexpected in easel arts, which requires certain braveness and even preparedness to not being understood. On the other hand it is exactly this expansion of visual range that allows to accomplish new plastic structures. And, indeed, the results of Vladimir Martynov's artistic search would be less convincing were it not for his personal gift for creation of new visual forms. These forms are manifold, often flowing, opalescence, constantly moving, creating temporary color structures that exist in continuous metamorphosis.
Vladimir Martynov creates his works both in traditional painting or graphics and digital, virtual techniques. The forms created by the artist's imagination are manifold, revealing both paraphrase of certain natural prototypes and those that undoubtedly are the fruit of the mind of their creator. Indeed, the influence of the artist's architectural background is recognizable in his inclination to “project-oriented thinking”: his “projects” of sculptures, installations and whole exhibitions fully abide to the rules of 3D Max. With all that, even most complex structures to not seem overly sophisticated or completely Utopian for possible realization in real life. On the contrary, as they reveal undoubted talent to sculptural thinking, the viewer’s eye can – not only without constraint but even with visual delight – follow the flowing of one form into another and at times even mentally take part in their creation. This means, not to conceive any additional meanings or hidden subtexts, but rather to sympathize and imaginatively assist the soonest emergence of one or another plastic form-idea in its negotiation of the dominant chaos.
Essentially, Martynov tackles problems beyond the limits of practicability, let alone practicability designed by a computer's electronic brain. In that, the artist calls not only upon futurology, but upon historical experience, especially when turning to one of his favourite themes, the totem. These forms that human fantasy endues with magic powers receive new validity in his interpretation as the accent shifts from attempting to grasp the meaning hidden from the idle eye, to being able to appreciate the plastic exclusiveness and validity of mysterious object or group of objects.
Obviously, in creating new realities, new worlds inevitably reflecting his inner self and existing here and now, in a unique spaciotemporal continuum, Vladimir Martynov does not think of his creations as chromo-plastic exercise without an addressee but rather orientates them at human perception, notably the perception capable of co-creation.
By addressing his works primarily to contemporaries, by calling to their visual experience and creative fantasy, the artist does not aspire to reach beyond the limits of the future and make his creations a part of certain contemplative areas of futurology. He rather creates visual models of contemporary perception within the familiar limits of anthropocentric mind that aims to regulate the irregular and to structure the unstructured.
What we see is essentially the personal, hard one, plastic Utopia, attached to today's realities of the world with all its complexity and controversy. The ability to create Utopia is – starting as far as the Renaissance - the inseparable part of Humanistic model of the world. In our newborn century, being true to this model is, unfortunately, one of the rarest and therefore one of most valuable and imperishable life principles.
Andrey Tolstoy
Doctor of Art History full member of the Academy of Arts  Moscow, Russia

From the series "Structure", 2010 ©Vladimir Martynov

From the series "Structure", 2010 ©Vladimir Martynov

 VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH MARTYNOV
Born in 1959 in Novosibirsk, Russia. Studied in 1980-1986 at Novosibirsk Institute of Engineering and Construction, Faculty of Architecture.
Member of the Russian Union of Artists from 2003. Professor at the Chair of Graphics, Painting and Sculpture of Novosibirsk State Academy of Architecture and Arts. Currently lives and works in Novosibirsk, Russia.
 
Untitled, 2012 ©Vladimir Martynov


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10/05/2013

Jacob Felländer . Pentimento

Pentimento Study #3, 2013
Unique pigment print with charcoal, pastel, acrylic and oil
43 1/2 x 43 1/2 in.
© Jacob Felländer, courtesy Hamiltons Gallery, London


























Jacob Felländer »  Pentimento
 26 September – 1 November 2013
 Hamiltons Gallery
13 Carlos Place, London W1K 2EU,  Tel: +44 (0)20 74999493  art@hamiltonsgallery.com ,   www.hamiltonsgallery.com     Tue – Fri 10am – 6pm, Sat 11am – 4pm    
 
Hamiltons is proud to present ‘Pentimento’ the inaugural London based exhibition of exclusive works by Swedish photographer, Jacob Felländer. The exhibition includes sixteen large format images, 110cm x 110cm, from Felländer’s latest project, marking a significant and exciting shift in his work with the introduction of drawing and painting - challenging their relationship with photography. Pentimento is defined as an alteration in a painting, evidenced by traces of previous work: an original draft or under-painting that shows through with the use of infrared X-rays or when the top layer of paint has become transparent with age. “When is an image more a film than a photograph? When is a photograph more a painting than a photograph? The border territory fascinates me.”
Felländer uses ancient, rebuilt analogue cameras to multiexpose his negatives whilst simultaneously winding the film forward throughout the frame; allowing for time, space and perspective to drift. Paint and charcoal is applied for the first time in this body of work, highlighting the shapes and forms Felländer sees in the underlying exposures and bringing them to the surface; thus pentimento. He cites Turner, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Anselm Kiefer and Robert Frank as influences.

Pentimento Study #5, 2013
Unique pigment print with charcoal, pastel, acrylic and oil
43 1/2 x 43 1/2 in.
© Jacob Felländer, courtesy Hamiltons Gallery, London

Recognised, to date, for his large kaleidoscopic photographs of landscapes and urban environments; Felländer has travelled the world with old, manipulated cameras taking hundreds of multiply exposed photos on the same role of film. In contrast to his previous work, however, the photographs in this exhibition were taken from the same hotel window in New York City. A recurring theme throughout Felländer’s photography is the notion of community and the human desire to live close, above/below/next door, to one another. In a world where more people choose to live in cities than countryside, Felländer refers to urban landscapes and their infrastructure as a source of influence and beauty. Not only, therefore, does this work challenge the boundaries between photography and painting/drawing, but the literal, physical boundaries of space. And time. A traditional photograph is a frozen moment in time captured in one place; by using multiexposed images Felländer captures several moments over a span of time in the same, or differing, locations. He cites Alfred Wegener’s theory of Continental Drift (1912) – the Earth’s continents were once joined and have, over time, drifted across the globe - as the prompt for his moment of artistic discovery: “I wondered, if space drifts over time, perhaps time can drift over space… In memories, we experience time drifting from a linear path and skipping moments. What moments do we actually remember and what would it look like in a photo?” Creativity, to Felländer, is a way to explore what he can be a part of if he sets his intellect aside, explaining that his work has evolved through making art rather than a development of conceived and processed ideas. “Where I want to go” he explains “my intellect cannot help me; only keep me in the world I already know.” One work of art opens doors to the next, and the only way Felländer sees he is able to reach his artistic pinnacle is to put layer upon layer, bypassing intellect which only serves to create anxious guidelines. When asked whether he sees himself more as an artist or photographer, Felländer’s answer is simple; that photography is art. “A photograph is a medium for art, like paint and marble… art is a verb, not a title.” Felländer is clear in explaining that he has chosen not to analyse or intellectualise his work any longer. “I’ve closed the door on all that. I have to be brave enough to let it be what it is, without explanation or justification; art can communicate what we don’t have words for.”
Born in 1974, Felländer studied fine art photography and graphic design at Flagler College, St Augustine, Florida and San Diego State University. He began experimenting with landscape photography in the late 1990s. Felländer has exhibited globally in both group and solo exhibitions, including Fotografiska Galleriet, Stockholm; The Maidstone Garden, NYC and Galerie Aronowitsch, Stockholm, amongst others. His work is held in a number of private collections, including that of Bill Clinton. For many years Felländer has donated works to UNICEF who sell them at auction for the benefit of children worldwide.

Pentimento Study #7, 2013
Unique pigment print with charcoal, pastel, acrylic and oil
43 1/2 x 43 1/2 in.
© Jacob Felländer, courtesy Hamiltons Gallery, London

Pentimento Study #15, 2013
Unique pigment print with charcoal, pastel, acrylic and oil
43 1/2 x 43 1/2 in.
© Jacob Felländer, courtesy Hamiltons Gallery, London

















































© 23 Sep 2013   photography-now.com
Ziegelstr. 29 . D–10117 Berlin
Editor: Claudia Stein & Michael Steinke
contact@photography-now.com

10/03/2013

Jeff Cowen. Photography

 Jeff Cowen: "Z-4", 2012, Silbergelatineabzug, Mischtechnik, Unikat, 46 x 31 cm
© Jeff Cowen, Berlin. Courtesy Galerie Michael Werner Märkisch Wilmersdorf, Köln & New York
        
 
Jeff Cowen
 Photography

 7 September – 26 October 2013
 Opening reception: Friday 6 September, 6 – 9pm
 Michael Werner Kunsthandel,  Gertrudenstr. 24-28 . 50667 Cologne
contactcologne@michaelwerner.de.   www.michaelwerner.de   
Tue-Fri 10am-6pm, Sat 11am-4pm    
Michael Werner Kunsthandel   
  
The Michael Werner Kunsthandel will be presenting new works by Jeff Cowen in the exhibition PHOTOGRAPHY. The artist’s first exhibition in the gallery at the beginning of 2012 provided an overview of his oeuvre over the past 10 years. This new show concentrates on Cowen’s aesthetic approach, which is growing influence in his recent work.
Cowen is interested in photography not as a technical means of archiving visual input, but rather for its artistic potential as a medium. From the outset, photography was characterized largely by its portrayal of reality in contrast to art-forms such as drawing, painting and sculpture. This documentary aspect of photography represents both its artistic potential and its creative limitation. Cowen, however, treats photography as a vehicle for painting, and thereby creates images that are radically different to the style dominant in photographic art. The artist uses the chemicals in his dark-room like a painter uses colour, developing the compositions and allowing for processes outside his direct control. The pictures evolve over a period of weeks or months and the results are not pre-determined. Cowen’s collages and abstractions, in particular, demonstrate a wide range of creative possibilities, which has largely been ignored in the art of photography. He uses elements of collage to overlap and paint over his images in order to create an artistic expression, far removed from the traditional sphere of photography that deals with the portrayal of people objects and landscapes.
   
Jeff Cowen: "Yuki", 2005, Silbergelatineabzug, Ed. 6, 178 x 127 cm
© Jeff Cowen, Berlin. Courtesy Galerie Michael Werner Märkisch Wilmersdorf, Köln & New York

























The exhibition catalogue includes a text by Klaus Honnef.

8/23/2013

8/22/2013

HAREM OF THE HEART. SAMIRA HODAEI

SAMIRA HODAEI: The beloved in the water 150 x 100 cm, 2013
mixed media on canvas























Samira Hodaei  
HAREM OF THE HEART
 6th – 22nd September, 2013
The Exhibition takes place at Gallery Aquabit in Augustsraße 35, Berlin-Mitte
  Venue: AQUABIT Gallery  Auguststrasse 35, 10119 Berlin
AB GALLERY Luzern Arealstr. 6, CH-Luzern
office@ab-gallery.com    www.ab-gallery.com  


SAMIRA HODAEI: Dancing the sharp Edge, Incomplete courage! 2012
mixed media on canvas, 150 x 100 cm
 
   
 The works of the Iranian artist Samira Hodaei remind the viewer of writings of Persian poetry. Haunting, double-edged, rich in symbolism and complexity. But clearly the most distinctive feature of the artist’s oeuvre is to be found in her unusual technique. Samira Hodaei applies meticulously tiny dots of glass paint to the canvas millimeter for millimeter that are based on photographies. For her installation, which is on display at the Aquabit Gallery, she has translated this technique into a three-dimensional form of expression.
The subject of the installation, which she has created especially for the gallery, relates to both mystical and earthly love. In her view, these should not be seen as separate entities, but, instead, as parts linked a unison. In the middle of the first room of the installation we find a mosque made out of prayer beads. However, the focus of Samira Hodaei’s work is not concerned with religion but rather with the symbolism of the architectural elements. She interprets the minaret as representing the masculine form and the dome as the feminine, whilst the geometrical panels surrounding them are intended to depict love stories. Samira Hodaei sees the prayer beads as symbolizing the give and take of love relationships - the memories, to which we cling in the belief that these will bring us closer to our beloved, though in reality they act as obstacles. The only way to overcome them and, having done so, to achieve true, mystical love is, in the artist’s eyes, through working on ones innermost self. The choice of colors she applies to the painting is by no means random. She has deliberately selected colors that reflect her critical commentary on the social attitudes towards love in her country. By painting the panels black Samira wishes to demonstrate that in Iranian society bodily love is regarded as immoral, while her use of red is designed to indicate that any form of physical interaction with a woman during menstruation is – to this very day - considered sinful.
To enter the second room, the visitor has to pass through a beaded curtain representing a female figure. Samira Hodaei refers to this representation as "The Creator, The Sacred Female, Mother Nature", a powerful figure that is both loved and feared. Here, one has to draw back the beaded curtain - just as one would with a veil - in order to reach the next stage of the installation. This is Samira Hodaei’s way of demonstrating the symbolic act of opening up the soul to the Sufi path of spiritual orientation. In Islam, this requires the soul to pass through seven stages of development, though the ultimate goals - the ecstasy of love and enlightenment - are familiar to all kinds of mystic movements. And so the installation ends with a room that serves as a metaphor for the final stage of spiritual development – in keeping with the Arab saying that "the metaphor is the bridge to truth".
 Samira Hodaei was born in Tehran in 1981. She studied at both the Shahrivar Art School and Shariaati Art University as well as Alzahra Art University in Tehran. On completing her studies, she worked for six years as assistant to the internationally acclaimed artist Reza Derakshani. In 2010, she was invited to work in Switzerland as part of the Artist In Residence program of the Oryx Foundation. The works of the artist have been on show in exhibitions in Switzerland, Qatar, Australia, Turkey, Germany and at art fairs such as those in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Her work "Endless" was selected for showing at the Funsasaka-Osaka Biennale in Japan in the autumn of 2012. Samira Hodaei lives and works in Tehran.
The exhibition has been organized in collaboration with kunstundhelden (Berlin) and AB Gallery (Lucerne/Zurich).   www.ab-gallery.com,   www.kunstundhelden.de
 
SAMIRA HODAEI: Dancing the sharp Edge, Virtual Dance, 2013
mixed media on canvas, 224 x 145 cm







8/17/2013

Paradox Ethereal Magazine 01

Issue 01 - Release Date 1st September 2013

After eight years of absence PARADOX ETHEREAL comes back taking the form of a digital magazine. The artists presented, the personalities mentioned and the ideas, or tendencies, conveyed are strictly selected to spread the ideas of AESTHETICISM, ROMANTICISM and TRANSCENDENTALISM. Enjoy this collective project, comprised of a universal language, the language of IMAGINATION.

7/25/2013

Figures Studied 10th Anniversary Group Exhibition

Kamil Vojnar: Sleeps, 2013, 30x30x1”, Mixed media on canvas, Edition of 2
Figures Studied

10th Anniversary Group Exhibition




















 VERVE Gallery of Photography
219 East Marcy Street
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
+1.505.982.5009
info@vervegallery.com
www.vervegallery.com 
 
VERVE Gallery of Photography is pleased to present a group exhibition, Figures Studied, showcasing the works of VERVE gallery artists. In the fall of 2012 our gallery artists, many of whom have been with us for a decade, were invited to submit work for VERVE’s 10th anniversary exhibition. We titled the exhibition Figures Studied. Our artists were invited to interpret the show’s title as they wished. They were not given any additional instructions. Throughout this last month we have opened their submissions with great excitement and joy. The work in this exhibition is as creative and as varied as are our artists.
VERVE Gallery of Photography is located in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico just two blocks north east of the Main Plaza at 219 East Marcy Street. VERVE is housed in an early 20th century freestanding cottage extensively renovated so as to show off the foremost in contemporary fine art photography. The gallery spaces include a large main exhibition hall which houses the current exhibition and a smaller gallery room dedicated to showing complementary selected works by VERVE's artists.

VERVE, established in 2003, has a well earned reputation of being the leading purveyor of every genre of contemporary fine art photography. Verve’s artists are worldwide and so are VERVE’S patrons. All of VERVE’S artists are at work creating in documentary, figure studies, still life, landscape, conceptual, experimental, photomontage, and alternative process photography. VERVE has developed an innovative and unique concept for exhibiting fine art photography. A state of the art computer system enables visitors to browse each artist's portfolio online. Patrons can also peruse VERVE's entire inventory of artist portfolios on a large LCD monitor in the gallery. This concept benefits and serves patrons, artists and the gallery. Patrons are able to view an entire body of work and inspect work in inventory comfortably and effortlessly, while artists are not required to consign an entire body of work to the gallery. VERVE is able to provide access to entire portfolios online on the Internet. The portfolios are stored electronically in VERVE's database, thereby allowing the gallery to utilize its gallery spaces more efficiently.
Charbonneau / French: The Looking Glass - from the Massillon Series, 2006
29.25x29.25”, Chromogenic C-Print Mounted to Dibond, Edition of 7
























photography-now.com
Ziegelstr. 29 . D–10117 Berlin
Editor: Claudia Stein & Michael Steinke
contact@photography-now.com

4/10/2013

Hanno Otten. BOULEVARD

photography-now.com
 
Boulevard No12 © Hanno Otten




























Boulevard No15 © Hanno Otten














 Hanno Otten
4 April – 11 May 2013
Janet Borden, Inc.
560 Broadway, Suite 601 New York NY 10012  T +1-212-4310166
mail@janetbordeninc.com   www.janetbordeninc.com
Tue-Sat 11am-5pm     Prom

 
Janet Borden Is pleased to announce a new exhibition, BOULEVARD, by the German artist HANNO OTTEN. This is Otten’s fifth exhibition at the gallery, and it continues his visual discourse on the nature of color. Pure vivid color is Otten’s language. In these photograms and photographs, Otten literally dissects color photography and uses the individual elements to create unique images. Lush bands of color comprise the Boulevard Section. These are complemented by Otten's elegantly composed unique photograms, or Lichtbilder (Light Pictures). Otten’s new work continues to explore the abstract, with new approaches and refinements. These photographs embrace a more organic and personal approach to photography than in his previous studies. Once again he manipulates color and light to create a modern palette of vivid hues. As in his earlier work, Otten insists on the primacy of color, forgoing any literal or narrative imagery.
  
© Hanno Otten
 Hanno Otten was born in 1954, and lives in Cologne, Germany. His work has been exhibited worldwide, in such locations as Leipzig, Cologne, Los Angeles, and New York. He is also known for sculpture and installation pieces, which are also available through the gallery.  

Boulevard No10 © Hanno Otten























© 2 Apr 2013 photography-now.com
Ziegelstr. 29 . D–10117 Berlin    Editor: Claudia Stein & Michael Steinke