Thursday 14 August 2008

Street & Studio

Andreas Serrano © from the series Nomads

Street & Studio is an exhibition of international photography at the Tate Modern London. The exhibition includes a collection of of photographic portraiture taken on the street or in the studio. Over 350 works are gathered in this exhibition, by some of the world’s most famous and important photographers including Francis Alÿs, Diane Arbus, Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rineke Dijkstra, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Robert Mapplethorpe, Irving Penn, Norman Parkinson, August Sander, Cindy Sherman, Malick Sidibé, Paul Strand, James Van der Zee, Juergen Teller and Wolfgang Tillmans.

Lee To Sang ©, Photo Studio Amsterdam

By Adrian Searle from The Guardian

Portraiture is the key to Tate Modern's new photography exhibition, Street & Studio. The show's subject, over and above the medium and conventions of photography, is really ourselves, in a multitude of guises.
Grace Kelly jumps in the air for Philippe Halsman's camera in 1955. Weegee jumped, and so did Marilyn, and now they're suspended forever. David Bailey throws himself to the floor to photograph Veruschka, while Bert Stern nabs them both in an arty 1960s image. Last year South African photographer Pieter Hugo shot Nigerian Abdullahi Mohammed beneath an elevated section of highway in Lagos. Abdullahi holds a muzzled hyena on a chain. The moment is full of power and danger. Caught on camera, a well-groomed lawyer on the corner of West 41st Street totes his laundry and eyes Joel Sternfeld warily in 1988. The world feels full.
From beginning to end of this compendious and not altogether successful show, like a kind of insistent background din, is the roar of the city. You can hear it above the silence of the images themselves - in the clatter of a Paris street in the rain by Alfred Stieglitz, in the footsteps of commuters heading for work in Paul Strand's 1915 Wall Street, in the drunken shouts and murmurs of Boris Mikhailov's alcoholics. The exhibition calls itself an urban history of photography, and it takes us from mid-19th century Paris and London to present-day Shanghai and Mexico City. In many respects, it covers familiar territory: histories of photography are 10 a penny. Some of the work here just feels unnecessary. More here http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/may/21/photography.art

Saturday 9 August 2008

Tate Modern and Flickr


mike&lori by zeiss66super ©

A great promotion for photography has taken place at Tate Modern this summer.
Tate Modern has partnered with Flickr and Blurb and has invited people to contribute to a unique photo book with their own portrait street photographs.
After submissions a selection of 100 photographs will be chosen by a panel of curators, artists, photographers and others to form the book. The 100 will also form a slideshow in the gallery and be archived on Tate Online as part of the exhibition's website.
The book will be produced using Blurb, the creative self-publishing platform. If your photograph is selected for inclusion, you will receive a copy. Once it is produced, further copies of the book will be available through the Blurb Bookstore

Tuesday 5 August 2008

Rhubarb Rhubarb


Ferit Kuyas ©

While i was in London few days ago, few miles away in the East Midlands an international photography festival was on the way. This year festival was somehow different to 2007, infact compare to previous years the organizers decided to focus on the reviewing as a main object to this year festival. The first Rhubarb Rhubarb International Review was taking place. More infos and video on http://www.rhubarb-rhubarb.net/
Ferit Kuyas was one of the photographer taking part at the review