Saturday, 25 September 2010

Stephen Shore - New Düsseldorf Photography



Der Rote Bulli is an important new photobook that explores the relationship between the Becher-School, New Dusseldorf Photography, and The New Color Photography of Stephen Shore.
Edited by Werner Lippert and Christoph Schaden with text by Christoph Schaden, Tony Hiss, Christoph Ribbat, Gerald Schröder, Jeffrey Ladd, Maren Polte. With photography by Stephen Shore, Bernd und Hilla Becher, Thomas Struth, Volker Döhne, Axel Hütte, Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff, Tata Ronkholz, Wendelin Bottländer, Andreas Gursky and more.

Format 22.5 × 21.5 cm, 250 pages, Hardcover, 33,- Euro
Available now from Schaden.com

To support the book the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf has a just opened show, focusing on this transatlantic influence on photography in the 1970s and 1980s.
At its heart is a friendship between three artists that was forged in New York in the year 1973. It was here that the 26-year-old Stephen Shore met the Düsseldorf photographer Hilla Becher, whose typological photographic documentation of water-towers, which she had put together with husband, Bernd Becher, had gone on display at Ileana Sonnabend’s renowned gallery the previous year. Two years later, Stephen Shore and the Bechers became the only colour photographer and Europeans respectively to be part of the legendary New Topographics group exhibition.

The focus of the exhibition is on Stephen Shore, a key figure in the US New Color Photography movement. From the mid 1970s onwards, Shore made several road trips through the United States, documenting ‘American Life’, the apparent banality of which caused incredible irritation among his contemporaries. The first part of the exhibition will provide a comprehensive overview of Shore’s ground-breaking work in the 1970s and 1980s with bodies of works from the projects American Surfaces and Uncommon Places.

The exhibition also explores the innovative motifs that Becher’s class developed in the area between their own photographic tradition and that of the US tradition.
The exhibition investigates the extent to which the students on Bernd Becher’s photography course at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, were inspired by US subjects and image concepts from the 1970s and 1980s. The exhibition juxtaposes works by students on Becher’s course that bear the hallmark of this transatlantic influence and Stephen Shore’s own photographs.

Participating artists: Stephen Shore, Bernd und Hilla Becher, Thomas Struth, Axel Hütte, Tata Ronkholz, Miles Coolidge, Martin Rosswog, Thomas Ruff, Candida Höfer, Claus Goedicke, Simone Nieweg, Stefan Schneider, Kris Scholz, Wendelin Bottländer, Elger Esser, Andreas Gursky, Boris Becker, Bernhard Fuchs, Laurenz Berges, Andi Brenner, Volker Döhne, Claudia Fährenkemper, Matthias Koch

Saturday, 18 September 2010

Lori Nix, Dioramas



Library, 2007

"In my newest body of work The City I have imagined a city of our future, where something either natural or as the result of mankind, has emptied the city of it's human inhabitants. Art museums, Broadway theaters, laundromats and bars no longer function. The walls are deteriorating, the ceilings are falling in, the structures barely stand, yet Mother Nature is slowly taking them over. These spaces are filled with flora, fauna and insects, reclaiming what was theirs before man's encroachment. I am afraid of what the future holds if we do not change our ways regarding the climate, but at the same time I am fascinated by what a changing world can bring."

Map Room, 2010

It's been a long time since I mentioned Accidentally Kansas by Lori Nix - what I did not mention were all the other amazing diomaras she keeps creating year after year.

Aquarium, 2007

All images taken from The City © Lori Nix

Saturday, 11 September 2010

Tom Philips



Morbid, yes, but also at times hilarious, Tom Philips' Dead Photosseries is an ongoing project photographing an apparently dead body in various locations around the world. Details on the series are deliberately scarce, so its hard to tell if the act of playing dead is a performance in itself at these places, but the resulting images are chilling and sometimes surreal. The figure slumped from a tree branch in San Jacinto could be a piece by an artist like Robert Kinmont orCharles Ray, but those on the rubble in Suakin or by the grey water's edge in France are more akin to troubling forensics photos.
Its interesting to see passersby's reactions in different cities: people stop and stare on The Bowery in New York, whilst they rush about their daily business in Tokyo, barely registering the prone figure in the street.



Dead At Gilgo, August 22nd, 2008


Dead On The Bowery, March 14th, 2010


Dead On St Mary's, June 9th, 2009


Dead In San Jacinto, Jan 2nd, 2010


Dead In The Yaraab Shrine Temple, May 26th, 2010


Dead In Camaret-Sur-Mer, August 30th, 2008


Dead In The Minimalist Dream, May 18th, 2006


Dead In Suakin, December 24th, 2008


Dead In New York, April 28th, 2010


Dead In North Carolina, May 12th, 2008


Dead In Lisbon, October 14th, 2009


Dead In Japan, March 2nd, 2010


Dead In Historic Filipinotown, May 31st, 2008


Dead In Dahab, December 9th, 2007


Dead In Heaven, July 26th, 2010
All images © Tom Philips