Caleb Churchill | Photography

Hysteric Fireworks, 2007 © Ryan McGinley

Ann Slingshot, 2007 © Ryan McGinley

Roller Coley, 2007 © Ryan McGinley

New York based photographer Ryan McGinley’s most recent series I Know Where the Summer Goes (2008) is an elaborately executed but reflexively casual body of constructed images. With a troupe of sixteen models and three assistants, McGinley travels the US capturing candid and planned scenarios. Taking 70′s amateur nudist magazines as his point of departure, McKinley ends up with images almost diametrically opposed to his source. Since his debut The Kids are Alright (2002) he has built himself a reputation. With the Kids Ryan was the youngest to show at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Untitled, 2005 © JH Engstrom

Represented by Gallery VU in Paris JH Engstrom lives and works in Stockholm. Teaching at the famed Danish School of Art Photography Fatamorgana. Engstrom’s Learning to Dance (2005) is an autobiographical collection of images reaching back as far as 1990. This eclectic body of memories capture that fleeting moment with a sensitive and provocative touch.

Flowers in the Backseat, 2007 © Shen Wei

Pool, 2006 © Shen Wei

Fumi and Alex, 2004 © Shen Wei

Arthur, 2005 © Shen Wei

Silver Ball and Stars, 2005 © Shen Wei

Shen Wei is currently in Shanghai; he is press checking his new book on his body of work, Almost Naked (2003 to present). Wei explores the American expression of love and intimacy. The openness of this expression may have been considered an anomaly to his conservative Chinese upbringing, but his portraits seem throughly relaxed. The language between subject and artist feels as though old friends have met again. With a sensitive eye, his landscapes and still lives evok a moment that is buried deep in our psyche. Through this phenomenally large group of images Wei has widdled down 25 images for his portfolio style book of only 218 editions, with the possibility of 18 being signed with an original print included. Congratulations Shen.

Bright, bright day: Photographs and essay by Andrey Tarkovsky © Andrey Tarkovsky and or/ publisher, 2007

Tarkovsky, predominantly known for his films, shines unwillingly through this beautiful monograph, Bright, bright day (2007). While similar to JH Engstrom’s autobiographical collection Learning to Dance (2005) in subject; Bright, bright day (2007) differs strikingly in execution. While the images have a spontaneity and rawness more associated with the amateur snapshot, Tarkovsky’s awareness of light and subject demonstrates the lyrical elegance and lucidity that constitutes a master image maker. With a written introduction from Tarkovsky’s son, Andrey Tarkovsky Jr. and poems from his father Arseniy Tarkovsky, the work binds together three generations of artists in a single hard cover.

Untitled, 1999 © Boris Mikhailov

Born in Kharkov, a city in the former USSR, Boris Mikhailov lives and works both there and in Berlin. Case History (1999) focuses on the human casualties of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The body of work, which consists of 500 images, documents those people enduring the spatial and mental dislocation which follows such circumstances. As someone both a product of and commentator on the communist state of his birth, it is not surprising to see his images deploy an existential view toward this disintegrating social environment. Indeed, his recent work engages even more fully with the capitalist realities of modern Russia. The sense of despair and strife emanating from Makhailov’s images can perhaps be hard to swallow, but must be read as part of a larger social and political context. Saatchi gallery has posted an interesting interview with Boris Mikhailov on Case History (1999) which is worth a read.

Cryopreservation Unit, 2007 © Taryn Simon

White Tiger (Kenny), Selective Inbreeding, 2007 © Taryn Simon

Avian Quarantine Facility, 2007 © Taryn Simon

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Contraband Room, 2007 © Taryn Simon

Patiently waiting, for sometimes up to a year, to access some of America’s top secret spaces, Taryn Simon delivers a peek into that forbidden world with An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007). Her still images cross into the realm of landscape, still life and possibly diorama yet remain apart from the traditional conception of these modes; echoing rather than replicating them. There is a noticeably surreal, sterile feeling evoked by the images, with an additional sense of curiosity and a seductiveness that is hard to put ones finger on. She is a runner up for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize at the Photographers’ Gallery in London; the winner will be announced on the 25th of March this year. She will be competing with some of my favorites, Tod Papageorge and Paul Graham.

Central Park series, 1973 © Tod Papageorge

Seems as though Yale’s Director and Professor of Graduate studies in photography, Tod Papageorge is an even busier man as of late. As mentioned before he was up for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for his nostalgic body Passing Through Eden (2007). This body of work exists in the methodology of Walker Evans; his mentor. The images are loosely based on the book of Genesis in the Old Testament. If you are a fan of the nostalgic this one will sure quench that thirst. If you want to see these in person, he will be having his first solo show since 1985 this June in New York, NY at Pace/MacGill Gallery.

Home, 2008 © Bryan Graf

Untitled, 2008 © Bryan Graf

Deer, 2008 © Bryan Graf

Dandelion, 2008 © Bryan Graf

Deer, 2008 © Bryan Graf

Untitled, 2008 © Bryan Graf

If your in the New York area stop in a see Bryan’s work. Forthcoming solo show at the Wild Project, NYC, September 09.

A summer series of three exhibitions by recent Glasgow School of Art graduates

GSA Mutual is an organization of brand new Fine Art graduates from Glasgow School of Art, formed for the production and participation in an eight week program of exhibitions and events at the Southside Studios Gallery.

Three exhibitions, thematically curated and self selected will open to the public 31.07.09, 22.08.09 and 19.09.09, and will showcase the diverse output of young visual arts in Glasgow. Each exhibition will be accompanied by an opening, an event and an after-party.

New Photographs, 2008-2009 © Gregory Halpern

Native to Buffalo, New York, Gregory Halpern currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he teaches photography at Harvard University and the Museum School. Halpern’s images encourage us to contemplate our surroundings in new ways. He deems his subjects as important by the sheer act of recording them. While they work as conglomerate of images, they retain their credence as individual visual subjects; not heavily relying on pretenses of conception while tantalizing the senses.

8.1.89, 1989 © Gehard Richter

9.1.89, 1989 © Gehard Richter

11.1.89, 1989 © Gerhard Richter

18.1.89, 1989 © Gehard Richter

24.3.89, 1989 © Gerhard Richter

Dresden born, honorary citizen of Cologne, Richter’s many styles of working always make a lasting impression. “Throughout his career Richter has shrunk from giving a psychological insight into his art, leaving his admirers and critics guessing and at times confused. According to him, his work forms from structures and ideas that surround him, nothing more profound than that.”

Read more here.

Aura, 2009 © Noel Rodo-Vankeulen

Karst, 2008 © Noel Rodo-Vankeulen

Failed Sublime, 2009 © Noel Rodo-Vankeulen

Rise, 2008 © Noel Rodo-Vankeulen

Drift #2, 2009 © Noel Rodo-Vankeulen

Founder of the We Can’t Paint Network Noel Rodo-Vankeulen lives and works in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. The playful juxtapositions and anonymous subjects of Karst seem to permeate into a world of apprehension and allure all at once. Check out Noel Rodo-Vankeulen’s hand made artist portfolio book here.

Jack-Move

A GSA Mutual presents JACK MOVE the second of their three shows at the Southside Studios.

JACK MOVE takes it’s name from 80′s hiphop slang; it means to steal, to burgle or assault. This show draws on the precedent of the grandmasters of early rap and hip hop in sampling from history and from various cultural forms with audacity and irreverence. This exhibition is a chance to ‘show your cuts’, for the artists to flash their influences, to do homage and to appropriate unrepentantly. This promises to be a diverse, apologetically riotous show of work offering a number of performances and installations that rely on the Mutual’s inventive, if a little unorthodox use of outdoor and supplementary space. So aided and abetted by 48 bottles of Zamaretto, an amaretto based drink in all the colours of the rainbow, the show promises to function as an overall sensory experience .

The exhibition will open at 7:00PM on Saturday the 22nd of August and we would love to see you there.

The Visitor, 2009 © Ozzy Yorulmaz

Yours truly and many more will be featured in the biennial Brighton Photo Fringe, in Brighton England. ‘From Here’, will be held from 17 October–8 November located at the Moore House, 13 Black Lion Street. To read more on the Photo Fringe, Brighton Magazine has posted an article here.

I am happy to announce the Brighton Photo Fringe has been extended!
‘From Here’ will now be extended until Sunday the 29th of November.
So if you missed it the first time, here is your second chance.

Untitled, 2009 © Isabel Arbelaéz

Christian Dior, 2009 © Caleb Churchill

jakefromme Untitled, 2009 © Jake Fromme

Rome, 2009 © Cerys Wilson

The University of St Andrews
School of Art History
Old Union Diner
79 North Street
St Andrews, KY16 9AL

9 Dec at 4:15.
Talks from Isabel Arbelaéz, Caleb Churchill, Jake Fromme and Cerys Wilson.

Dr Tom Normand (Scottish Photography: A History) and the School of Art History,
University of St Andrews invited these four emerging artists to speak
about their practice. Hope to see you there.

Larry Sultan, 2009 © Kelly Sultan

Larry Sultan dies at 63. The American photographer passed away today from cancer; see his obit in today’s New York Times. His photography has been a major influence on us all. My favorite body of work from Sultan is Pictures from Home (1992).

Practicing golf swing, 1986 © Larry Sultan from Pictures from Home

Argument at the Kitchen Table, 1986 © Larry Sultan from Pictures from Home

Mom Posing for Me, 1984 © Larry Sultan from Pictures from Home

For ten years Larry Sultan vigorously documented his mother and father. He then published his book Pictures from Home. As Charlotte Cotton describes “some of the photographs are posed, and Sultan describes these as images he traded or won their compliance to be photographed while they undertook household chores.”[1] The images border on collaboration, exercising the willingness of the subject to stop and have their photograph taken. Sultan’s images present themselves as a range of vernacular family snaps from spontaneous and in the moment to formally posed. Sultan beautifully crafts the commonplace within these images. Pictures from Home may have served as an aid to memory for Sultan, but mostly he strove to understand. Sultan studied two individuals he had always known, remembering them as a child and returning as an adult. He tried to grasp nuances, from then to now, investigating not only his parents but also himself. Since the maker is a son depicting his parents there is an intimate language permeating from the subjects themselves, and his endearing attitude toward his family is always prevalent.

[1] Charlotte Cotton, ‘Intimate Life’, in The Photograph as Contemporary Art, 2004, p. 161.

Photography Degree Zero, 2009 © Geoffrey Batchen

Geoffrey Batchen’s Photography Degree Zero: Reflections on Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida, MIT Press (2009) is comprised of some new and some previously published essays. With a list of contributors as the day is long (Geoffrey Batchen, Victor Burgin, Michael Fried, and Rosalind E. Krauss just to name a few), Camera Lucida, Hill and Wang (1981) is reconsidered from every possible angle. The varying texts range from the Buddhist approach to standard semiotics. Fourteen essay are included. Batchen’s “Palinode: An Introduction to Photography Degree Zero” not only lays the foundation to Barthes’s theoretical approach, but also explores the physical manifestation, translation of the French text into English and the layout omissions made in the original English version of Camera Lucida. In ‘Camera Lucida: Another Little History of Photography’ Batchen compares Walter Benjamin’s ‘Little History of Photography’ (1931) and Camera Lucida and proposes that Barthes’s text is better read as a history of photography rather than a theoretical text. He equates these two essays as histories of consciousness. He also asserts that Camera Lucida can function as a framework in which to approach vernacular photography. This is not surprising considering Batchen is one of the leading authorities on vernacular photography.

This is a very useful reader and a must for the CL fan.

Further readings not included in Batchen’s text that are helpful:

Benjamin, Walter. “Little History of Photography”, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, vol. 2, ed. Michael W. Jennings, Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999.

Culler, Jonathan. Barthes: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Edwards, Steve. Photography: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Jay, Martin. Downcast Eyes: the Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

Nickel, Douglas R. “Roland Barthes and the Snapshot.” History of Photography 24, no. 3 (Autumn 2000): 232-235.

Rebaté, Jean-Michel. Writing the Image After Roland Barthes. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.

Shawcross, Nancy M., Roland Barthes on Photography: the Critical Tradition in Perspective, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.

Yoko Okutsu, 2008 © Carlo Van de Roer

Yoko camera generated chart, 2008 © Carlo Van de Roer

Yoko full description, 2008 © Carlo Van de Roer

Tim Barber, 2009 © Carlo Van de Roer

Tim camera generated chart, 2009 © Carlo Van de Roer

Tim full description, 2009 © Carlo Van de Roer

Carlo Van de Roer’s ongoing Portrait Machine Project utilizes a Polaroid aura camera to objectively document the human aura. Whether the camera can actually document human aura is a riddle Van de Roer sets out to solve. By photographing those he knows or has expectations of, most of which are known in the public sphere, an attempt at accuracy is evident. The project having its own web page can be seen here. Snippets of the project can also be seen on his artist website along with other works, all of which I highly recommend.

Untitled, 1986 © Bruce Weber from O Rio de Janeiro

More often known for his homoerotic fashion photography celebrating the muscle bound new masculinity for the likes Calvin Klien and L’ Uomo Vouge, Bruce Weber’s ‘O Rio de Janeiro’ (1986) continues to be his most sought after publication. A collection of landscapes, family photos, still lifes and beautiful models all displayed under the warm sun of Rio de Janeiro become a dizzying montage of Weber’s subjective world in what one could call his photographic journal.

Untitled, 2010 © Ed Templeton from Drinking the Kool-Aid

Mörel Books provides us a sneak preview of Ed Templeton’s newest booklet ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’. Echoing a non-judgmental attitude to his environs with brushes, camera and text, Templeton presents a document of today’s youth culture. Preserved amongst the pages of ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’ is the do-it-yourself ethos of the skate and punk culture from which Templeton hails. The book fuctions as a whole due to its seamless presentation of collage, illustration, painting and photography. Also noteworthy is the complete vision of Templeton’s experience as he has created, designed and edited the booklet himself.

Pre-orders will be formally released 6 April and copies can be purchased at the Mörel Books website while available. In addition, make your way to the Elms Lester Gallery in London 8 April for the official book launch/ opening with artist and publisher. Also, be sure to attend the exclusive signing of ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’ 10 April (12-2pm). The ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’ exhibition will run 6 April to 17 April, also at Elms Lester Gallery.

Lavina, Yann Gross‘s first solo show at the Lumen Gallery in Budapest (2008) depicts the ferocious nature of the avalanche. Through his photographic representation, this active moment becomes beautifully silenced for our inspection. Accompanied by guides and researchers these avalanches are instigated through dynamite and are carefully controlled circumstances. Gross is very aware that photographing these moments only exemplify that control, as he transforms something that is terrifying and dangerous into something aesthetic, safe and sublime. This contextualization is even stronger when one considers the possibility of having an avalanche in the frame containing it in a pictorial space.

Three Hundred and Sixty Five Exposures, 2010 © David Bellingham

I received a pleasant surprise in the mail today from good friend David Bellingham and thought I’d share. His practice is concerned with the way one classifies, measures or quantifies ideas and objects. Utilizing text, found and familiar objects he creates works that challenge our preconceived notions of the originals, initiating the viewer to a new point of view. There are two versions of Three Hundred and Sixty Five Exposures. One being the book, the other a set of 13 monochrome contact prints of uncut rolls of film, approximately 50”x6”. It is also noteworthy that Bellingham publishes all his own titles on his letterpress and local offset litho printers under the title Wax 366.

Three Hundred and Sixty Five Exposures
Edition 500
24 pages
21cm x 25.5cm
ISBN N/A
£10.00 (purchase enquires can be made via contact link here or davidbellingham.com)

Technogeek? Love tinyvices.com ? Well Tim Barber has a solution, introducing the Tinyvices App for the iPhone, iTouch and iPad.

Find it here:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tinyvices-com/id376558809?mt=8
or look for it in the App store on your iPhone.

It’s free!

Drinking the Kool-Aid, 2010 © Ed Templeton

Finally got my copy of Ed Templeton’s newest booklet ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’. Echoing a non-judgmental attitude to his environs with brushes, camera and text, Templeton presents a document of today’s youth culture. Preserved amongst the pages of ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’ is the do-it-yourself ethos of the skate and punk culture from which Templeton hails. The book fuctions as a whole due to its seamless presentation of collage, illustration, painting and photography. Also noteworthy is the complete vision of Templeton’s experience as he has created, designed and edited the booklet himself. More can be seen from the ‘Preview’ post here.

Copies can be purchased at the Mörel Books website while available.

Drinking the Kool-Aid
Edition 1000
24 pages with multiple fold outs
15cm x 20cm
ISBN: 978-1-907071-20-1
£10.00 (purchase can be made here or morelbooks.com)

Just as we begin to settle back into our comfy zones of photographic veracity, Asger Carlsen’s Wrong reminds us that photography is created and imagined, that the image doesn’t always have to seem indexical. At an age when digital manipulation strives to conceal truth while bearing the marks of reality Carlsen’s manipulations are flawlessly employed whilst rejecting the reliability of the real. All at once his images fasten to reality and blow it out of proportion.

As Geoffrey Batchen has stated: “The boundary between photography and other media like painting, sculpture, or performance has become increasingly porous. It would seem that each medium has absorbed the other, leaving the photographic residing everywhere, but nowhere in particular.”[1] These are the boundaries that Carlsen has leapt and embraced. The images always refer back to their construction and Carlsen willingly participates in reducing our faith in photography. Employing sculpture, performance and some ‘digital’ painting a simulated reality is born. But this simulation often leaves us tense and curious for explanation. The more we look the more we find ourselves creating our own dialog and partaking in this alternate world. Carlsen’s “gambit reminds us that photography’s other is not ‘reality’ at all, but a matrix of representational structures, already existing and only dreamt of, which photography appropriates, compresses, displaces, and occludes.”[2]

With over 40 black and white images, a sizable measure for a complete body of work, it contains mostly candid moments of both portraits and landscapes, plus a great introduction from Tim Barber. This has proven to be a most engaging book that I cannot stop appreciating.

[1] Geoffrey Batchen, “Post-Photography,” in Each Wild Idea: Writing, Photography and History (Boston: MIT Press, 2001), 109.
[2] Jeannene M. Przyblyski, “Moving Pictures: Photography, Narrative, and the Paris Commune of 1871,” in Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life, eds. Leo Charney and Vanessa R. Schwartz (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 274.

Wrong
Edition 1000
88 pages
22cm x 22cm
ISBN 978-1-907071-22-5
£20.00 (purchase can be made here or morelbooks.com)

Sashin yo Sayonara, 1972 © Daido Moriyama

Sorry for the lack of posts.

Come November I will be finished with my dissertation (Japanese Post-War Photobook) and the blogging will commence!

BJP International Photography Award 2010

“BJP’s International Photography Award has no theme. Photographs can be
captured in any format, and in any style or genre. Anyone can enter, from the UK
or abroad. All we ask is for fantastic images in two categories – a coherent
body of work and a stunning single image.”

“Photographers are welcome to enter both categories, and to enter more than
once. We have also extended the final deadline – you now have until 2pm on 30
September.”

The Terry O'Neill Award 2010

“The submission site for the Terry O’Neill Award 2010 is now open. This contemporary photographic competition forms a showcase for new work by both established and upcoming photographers, providing valuable exposure and a prestigious opportunity to promote their current practice. The award, an important addition to the cultural calendar, celebrates the diversity of talent working in the photographic medium today.”

“The closing date for entries is 22nd October. The winners will be announced at the preview on 8th December 2010 and will be exhibited for one week at The HotShoe Gallery, London.”

Via Self Publish Be Happy:

“We know there are lots of people out there that are either just getting into self publishing or are working on continuing projects. We are looking to show books which are in the process of being made. If you are currently working on a self publication we would love to see the process from images stuck on bedroom walls, Indesign screen shots, stapled mock ups right up until the final projecting coming out of the printers and into your hands.”

“If you are working on a book please contact us with images of the process for possible showcase” – selfpublished.behappy@gmail.com

Lovestoned is one of many fantastic self-publications by Laurent Champoussin. The engaging corporeality of obstruction leaves us feeling irreconcilable, teetering on the notion of suffocation (similar to Slavoj Zizeks’s opinions on love). They exceed the mundane exchange of vulnerable glances, typical of a portrait, by rupturing the surface of the photograph.

Lovestoned
Edition 30
28 pages
14.5cm x 14.5cm
ISBN N/A
€12.00 (purchase enquires can be made via contact link here)