lensmirror

Tuesday, 23 March 2010

THE BOOK OF SLEEP

http://www.squareamerica.com/sl1.htm
http://swissmiss.typepad.com/

Saturday, 20 March 2010

Sophie Ristelhueber winner at Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2010

Sophie Ristelhueber (b.1949, France) has been awarded the 2010 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.

For more than 25 years Ristelhueber has investigated the impact of human conflict on architecture and landscapes. Using photography and more recently moving image and sound, she records the resulting aftermath in places such as Bosnia, France, Iraq, Lebanon and Kuwait.
Often playing with an ambiguity of scale in her installations, Ristelhueber’s work confounds traditional photographic genres. She unsentimentally draws attention to the scars and traces we leave behind, addressing the essence of our human existence.

The £30,000 award was presented by the film director Terry Gilliam at a special evening ceremony on Wednesday 17 March 2010.

The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize rewards a living photographer, of any nationality, who has made the most significant contribution, in exhibition or publication format, to the medium of photography over the previous year.

The three other shortlisted artists for this year's Prize were:

Anna Fox (b.1961, UK) is nominated for her exhibition Cockroach Diary & Other Stories at Ffotogallery, Cardiff (28 July – 10 October 09), initiated by Impressions Gallery, Bradford.

Zoe Leonard (b.1961, USA) is nominated for her retrospective exhibition Zoe Leonard - Photographs, at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (1 April – 5 July 09), initiated by Fotomuseum Winterthur.

Donovan Wylie (b.1971, UK) is nominated for his exhibition MAZE 2007/8 at Belfast Exposed (27 March – 1 May 2009).

This year’s Jury is: Olivia Maria Rubio (Director of Exhibitions, La Fàbrica, Spain); Gilane Tawadros (Chief Executive, Design Artists Copyright Society, curator and writer); James Welling (artist, USA); and Anne-Marie Beckmann (Curator, Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Germany). Brett Rogers, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, is the non-voting Chair.

Saturday, 23 January 2010

WILLIAM EGGLESTONE

I could see myself having each of his photographs blown up, framed and hung all over the wall of my studio or something. Each one seems like an amazing winning shot to me.
http://www.egglestontrust.com/

Saturday, 9 January 2010

Liu Bolin

Sunday, 20 December 2009

Massimo VitaliI at Bonni Benrubi Gallery / NY 3 december 2009 - 27 february 2010

To view more, go to Bonni Benrubi Gallery.

Monday, 19 October 2009

Hiroshi Sugimoto 400,000 volt at Frankel Gallery

A photo exhibition this month at the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco showcases the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto. In his series “Lightning Fields”, Hiroshi Sugimoto uses a Van De Graaf 400,000 volt generator to apply an electrical charge directly onto the film – known as ‘Trouvelot figures’.

“The idea of observing the effects of electrical discharges on photographic dry plates reflects my desire to re-create the major discoveries of these scientific pioneers in the darkroom and verify them with my own eyes.”

- Hiroshi Sugimoto

The exhibit concludes October 31st.

Check out these links

Sunday, 11 October 2009

David Maisel

Abstract, otherworldly and, once your brain has processed what you are seeing, both beautiful and terrifying, David Maisel’s photographs show the impact of man and nature on the earth, seen from the air. Over the last twenty-five years he has created an ambitious series of works that show the scars and marks left on the surface of the earth, from volcanic eruptions to strip mining to the seemingly unstoppable sprawl of cities.

Photographing the landscape in Washington in the aftermath of the eruption of Mount Saint Helens in 1980, Maisel was amazed at the level of destruction he saw, especially when he and his tutor at the time chartered a light aircraft and flew over the landscape: “The destructive power of this event had altered the landscape on a scale that defied categorization or comprehension. Viewed from the air, these transformations were totemic in scale: whole forests thrown down like matchsticks; riverbeds rerouted through vast debris flows of rock, pyroclastic flow and volcanic mudslides; and countless layers of ash blanketing the flanks of the volcano and surrounding region.” It had a profound effect on him, and influence the direction of his work from then on; alongside the volcanic destruction he also witnessed the brutally transfiguring effect of the forestry industry, clearing up the thousands of felled trees in the region and adding to the carnage. This led him to examine and document other industrial practices, and to realise that destruction on this scale almost had to be shown from the air to convey it: "I first experienced the potency of the aerial view there; I became instantly attracted to its capacity to permit a kind of mapping of the terrain to take place, allowing the creation of images both literal and metaphorical.”

Subsequent projects included The Forest, a more concentrated look at industrial forest-clearance practices; The Lake Project, a huge series on the disastrous Owens Valley reclamation project in California which left thousands of acres of polluted, unliveable arid land. The Mining Project, begun in 1987, shows the deep scars and photogenic-yet-lethal ‘tailing ponds’ left by increasingly aggressive strip mining practices in Nevada, Arizona and Montana. The striking colours of the lakes and gullies captured alongside the spiralling gouges by Maisel are caused by cyanide, sulphur and mercury amongst others, the unfortunate by-products of these mining techniques.

The sheer scale of these events and the massive effect they have on the land are hard to compute on a day-to-day basis, especially when we spend much of our time at ground level. These virtually abstract, contemporary landscapes, from their removed viewpoint, are a powerful record of the constant, long-term, large scale battering the surface of the earth faces.

Clicking on the thumbnails will bring up larger scans with much better levels of detail.