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 K-Narf
 K-Narf
 K-Narf

K-Narf

Country: France/Australia
Birth: 1970

Using adhesive tape to manually process my photographs, open to influences from street art and video, the medium of photography is for me not only limited to truth-seeking but is also a toy to create and play. Both conceptual and experimental, definitely non-conventional, my work documents, recycles and collects the visual anachronisms of a world in a perpetual mutation.

For the past decade K-narf has lived and exhibited worldwide including Japan, Australia, France, Singapore, USA and Italy. His exhibitions, often taking the form of ephemeral installations, are shown without distinction in a plant still in operation, an old theatre, Art galleries, Art biennales or an abandoned garage. His work has been shown atthe Museum of Contemporary Art in Scottsdale (US), the Museum of Sydney, the Japan Foundation for the Arts, The Yves Klein Archives, Issey Miyake (Paris), the Clic gallery in NYC as well as a solo show during the Arles photo festival.
 

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Arnold Odermatt
Switzerland
1925 | † 2021
Arnold Odermatt was a Swiss police photographer whose work spanned more than 40 years. Originally trained as a baker, he was a photographer for the Nidwalden cantonal police from 1948 until his retirement in 1990. He is best known for his eerily beautiful black and white photographs of the aftermath of motor vehicle accidents. Odermatt joined the police in 1948 and rose to become a lieutenant, chief of the transport police, and deputy chief inspector of the Nidwalden Police before he retired. At the beginning of the 1990s, Odermatt's photography was discovered by his son, Urs Odermatt during research for his film Wachtmeister Zumbühl, and this work became a central theme in the film's plot. Urs brought his father's works together in the working groups entitled Meine Welt, Karambolage, Im Dienst, and In zivil and has published Odermatt's work ever since, working in collaboration with the Frankfurt art historian Beate Kemfert and a gallery in Berlin - Galerie Springer & Winckler. In 2001, Odermatt's photography was selected by Harald Szeemann to be exhibited at the 49th Venice Biennale. In 2002 James Rondeau exhibited Odermatt's work in its own right at the Art Institute of Chicago, as did Urs Stahel at the Fotomuseum Winterthur in 2004. Odermatt was born in Oberdorf, canton Nidwalden, Switzerland. He joined the Nidwalden Police in 1948. He was forced to give up his original career as a bakery and pastry chef on health grounds. As the policeman Odermatt first appeared with his Rolleiflex at the scene of an accident - to provide photos to complement the police report, people found this rather disconcerting. At that time, photography was anything other than an independent means of providing the police with evidence. A colleague observed Odermatt as he took pictures for the force and was suspicious. He was ordered to report to his commander immediately. Odermatt managed to convince his superiors of the pioneering work he was doing. They allowed him to convert an old toilet in an observation post in Stans into a makeshift darkroom. When the observation post was moved into another building several years later, Switzerland’s first police photographer was given his own laboratory. Odermatt's biggest role model was the famous Magnum photographer Werner Bischof. He met him once by chance, as he was on security duty on the Bürgenstock and wanted to photograph Charlie Chaplin. Odermatt's own style was characterized by sobriety and authenticity. The spartan linguistic expression of his police reports can also be found in Odermatt’s images. His craftsmanship is beyond question, nothing of note is missed by his photographic eye. In Karambolage, his most famous series of work, you can’t see the maimed victims but you do see the ethereal, surreal sculptures of scrap metal. With the softness and melancholy of Jacques Tati, he looks at the consequences of speed and the hectic nature of modern times. For 40 years, Odermatt captured the daily work of the Nidwalden police force. It was only rarely that the local press, the court or an insurance company were interested in his photos. It was only when his son, the film and theatre director Urs Odermatt, showed the photos for the first time at a solo exhibition in Frankfurt am Main that the art scene first became interested in his work. After the inspiring exhibition, the photo book Meine Welt followed. Suddenly the everyday observations from the central Swiss province had gained the same status as those of his well-traveled predecessor, Werner Bischof. At an early stage in his police career, when Arnold used the camera to catalog traffic accidents, this was a revolutionary innovation in the Swiss police. If Odermatt were to turn up at a crime scene with his camera today, he could expect to be told that photography was not for him, but was instead the job of a specially trained police photographer.Source: Wikipedia
Imogen Cunningham
United States
1883 | † 1976
Imogen Cunningham is renowned as one of the greatest American women photographers. In 1901, having sent away $15 for her first camera, she commenced what would become the longest photographic career in the history of the medium... Cunningham soon turned her attention to both the nude as well as native plant forms in her back garden. The results were staggering; an amazing body of work comprised of bold, contemporary forms. These works are characterized by a visual precision that is not scientific, but which presents the lines and textures of her subjects articulated by natural light and their own gestures. Her refreshing, yet formal and sensitive floral images from the 1920’s ultimately became her most acclaimed images. Cunningham also had an intuitive command of portraiture but her real artistic legacy was secured though her inclusion in the "F64" show in San Francisco in 1932. With a small group of photographers which included Edward Weston and Ansel Adams, she pioneered the renewal of photography on the West Coast. Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, Cunningham’s work continues to be exhibited and collected around the world.Source: Photography West Gallery I never divide photographers into creative and uncreative, I just call them photographers. Who is creative? How do you know who is creative or not? -- Imogen Cunningham Cunningham was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1883. In 1901, at the age of eighteen, Cunningham bought her first camera, a 4x5 inch view camera, from the American School of Art in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She soon lost interest and sold the camera to a friend. It wasn’t until 1906, while studying at the University of Washington in Seattle, that she was inspired by an encounter with the work of Gertrude Käsebier, to take up photography again. With the help of her chemistry professor, Dr. Horace Byers, she began to study the chemistry behind photography and she subsidized her tuition by photographing plants for the botany department. After being graduated in 1907 Cunningham went to work for Edward S. Curtis in his Seattle studio, gaining knowledge about the portrait business and practical photography. In 1909, Cunningham won a scholarship from her sorority (Pi Beta Phi) for foreign study and applied to study with Professor Robert Luther at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden, Germany. In Dresden she concentrated on her studies and didn’t take many photographs. In May 1910 she finished her paper, “About the Direct Development of Platinum Paper for Brown Tones,” describing her process to increase printing speed, improve clarity of highlights tones, and produce sepia tones. On her way back to Seattle she met Alvin Langdon Coburn in London, and Alfred Stieglitz and Gertrude Käsebier in New York. In Seattle, Cunningham opened her studio and won acclaim for portraiture and pictorial work. Most of her studio work of this time consisted of sitters in their own homes, in her living room, or in the woods surrounding Cunningham's cottage. She became a sought-after photographer and exhibited at the Brooklyn Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1913. In 1914, Cunningham's portraits were shown at An International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography in New York. Wilson's Photographic Magazine published a portfolio of her work. The next year, she married Roi Partridge, a teacher and artist. He posed for a series of nude photographs, which were shown by the Seattle Fine Arts Society. Although critically praised, Cunningham didn’t revisit those photographs for another fifty-five years. Between 1915 and 1920, Cunningham continued her work and had three children (Gryffyd, Rondal, and Padraic) with Partridge. In 1920, they moved to San Francisco where Partridge taught at Mills College. Cunningham refined her style, taking a greater interest in pattern and detail and becoming increasingly interested in botanical photography, especially flowers. Between 1923 and 1925 she carried out an in-depth study of the magnolia flower. Later in the decade she turned her attention toward industry, creating several series of industrial landscapes in Los Angeles and Oakland. In 1929, Edward Weston nominated 10 of Cunningham's photographs (8 botanical, 1 industrial, and 1 nude) for inclusion in the Film und Foto exhibition and her renowned, Two Callas, debuted in that exhibition. Cunningham once again changed direction, becoming more interested in the human form, particularly hands, and she was fascinated with the hands of artists and musicians. This interest led to her employment by Vanity Fair, photographing stars without make-up. In 1932, with this unsentimental, straightforward approach in mind, Cunningham became one of the co-founders of the Group f/64, which aimed to “define photography as an art form by a simple and direct presentation through purely photographic methods.” In 1934, Cunningham was invited to do some work in New York for Vanity Fair. Her husband wanted her to wait until he could travel with her, but she refused. They later divorced. She continued with Vanity Fair until it stopped publication in 1936. In the 1940s, Cunningham turned to documentary street photography, which she executed as a side project while supporting herself with her commercial and studio photography. In 1945, Cunningham was invited by Ansel Adams to accept a position as a faculty member for the art photography department at the California School of Fine Arts. Dorothea Lange and Minor White joined as well. In 1973, her work was exhibited at the Rencontres d'Arles festival in France through the group exhibition: Trois photographes américaines, Imogen Cunningham, Linda Connor, Judy Dater. Cunningham continued to take photographs until shortly before her death at age ninety-three on June 24, 1976, in San Francisco, California.Source: Wikipedia The imaginative photographer is always dreaming and trying to record his dream. -- Imogen Cunningham
Thomas Annan
Scotland
1829 | † 1887
Thomas Annan was a Scottish photographer, notable for being the first to record the bad housing conditions of the poor. Born in Dairsie, Fife he was one of seven children of John Annan, a flax spinner. After his initial apprenticeship as a lithographic writer and engraver at the Fife Herald in Cupar, he moved to Glasgow in 1849 and worked as a lithographer and engraver for Joseph Swan until 1855. He set up business with George Berwick at 40 Woodlands Road, Glasgow, listing in the 1855 - 56 Glasgow post office directory as calotypists, practitioners of this early form of photography. In 1855, he photographed the ship RMS Persia, under construction on the Clyde, which was probably a commission by engineer, Robert Napier. This photograph was part of a group of images sent to the Photographic Exhibition in connection with the British Association. After dissolving his previous partnership, he established himself in a photographic studio at 116 Sauchiehall Street during 1857. In 1859, the business moved to 200 Hope Street and he was also able to establish a printing works in Hamilton in 1863. First interested largely in architectural photography and then portraits, as well as photographing artworks and maps, in 1866 Annan photographed slum areas of the city. These images were used by Glasgow City Improvement Trust to document the overcrowded, unhygienic conditions ahead of extensive redevelopments. It was this series of photographs, created between 1868 and 1871, entitled Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow, that ensured his posterity. In 1869, Annan purchased the contents of Rock House, which belonged David Octavius Hill, which included many of Hill's photographs and negatives. These were eventually exhibited by Thomas' son, James Craig Annan, and reproduced in photogravure in Alfred Stieglitz's journal Camera Work. Annan's photographs of the Loch Katrine Waterworks were praised in the British Journal of Photography: "The views by Mr. Annan could scarcely fail to be attractive, for in a country so beautiful a clever artist is bound to produce results in keeping with the nature of the subject, and this Mr. Annan has done." Indeed, Annan's work was often praised not only for its aesthetics, but also for its technical virtuosity. Twenty years later, Annan's studio would be singled out by Baden Pritchard for its accomplishments in carbon printing and "beautiful pictures of exteriors and interiors of Scotch strongholds." Thomas Annan purchased the rights to the photogravure process in Britain from Karel Klíč of Vienna in 1883 after visiting the city with his second son, James Craig Annan. James was a noted photogravurist and associated with late nineteenth-century art photography continued in his father's profession, receiving a Royal Warrant as Photographers and Photographic Engravers to Her Majesty in Glasgow. Thomas Annan died on 14 December 1887 at his home in Lenzie. Before his death by suicide, he had experienced a month-long period of "mental aberration". The family business survives to the present day in the form of the Annan Fine Art Gallery, located on Woodlands Road in the West End of Glasgow. A selection of prints from the Glasgow Improvements act 1868 series were displayed in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery from 2011 to 2012. In 2017, the J. Paul Getty Museum curated an exhibition entitled Thomas Annan: Photographer of Glasgow, the first to survey his career and legacy as photographer and printer.Source: Wikipedia
Maia Flore
France
1988
Maia Flore was born in 1988, in France. She is currently living in Paris. Graduated from Ecole des Gobelins in 2010, she joined Agence VU' in 2011. Her approach fits into a research of coincidences between reality and her imagination. Her world is a complete fabrication in form of touching and enchanting narrations, even surrealistic. This is in Sweden she begins her first series "Sleep Elevations", a journey that indulges in childhood memories. During the summer of 2012, while her first residence in Finland, Maia Flore explores new methods of representation and narration. These researches will then continue at the Arts Center of Berkeley, California. Resulting two series (Situations and Morning Sculptures) that continue to explore the feelings of confusion in which the photographer places her characters as her audience. She is exposed for the first time in February 2011 at the festival Circulation (s) of the Young European Photography in Paris. More recently, as part of a White Card from Atout France and the French Institute, Maia Flore depicts the French heritage through her dreamy world in the series "Imagine France – Le voyage fantastique" exposed in Bercy Village until September 2014. In 2015, she wins Le prix HSBC pour la photographie. Source: Agence VU Situations (2012) In the Situations series, a girl runs through varyingly weathered landscapes donning a striking red outfit. In search of a sublime freedom, she travels to find fleeting moments of communion with nature. Draped in red, she catches the light of the sun or buries herself in the fog. As though she were attempting to rediscover this space, she roams on land-locked clouds that evaporate into the landscape upon the return of the sun as it chases away their mystery. Like a game between reality and fantasy, the clash between clairvoyance and a moment of madness, the girl is amused by her emotional confusion. Sleep Elevation (2010) "Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night," Edgar Allan Poe. This is how these girls, carried away in the air by objects, let themselves travel through boundless landscapes. Flying towards dreamed lands, making real a complete attraction between the character, his ideal universe and the world they live in: that is where these girls lead us. Their contorted movements are merging with the shape of the one revealing their passion. Mix of an imaginary realism and childhood memories, these beings in levitation invite us to dream, limitlessly.
Stefano De Luigi
I was born in Koln and spent all my life so far, between Rome, Milan and Paris. Even if we are living in a time where is not really trendy, I feel myself deeply Europeen. I choose photography to became my language, because I felt it is universal, the only filter you have to use is your own mind-eyes. Below the essential of my biography I am a photographer since 1989. I attended 2 years of courses at ISF (Instituto Superiore di Fotografia) in Rome between 1987/89 and moved, for the first time, to Paris from 1989 to 1996, working, among others for the Louvre Museum. Back and forth from France to Italy In 2000 I received the Honorable Mention of Leica Oskar Barnack Award. That same year I started the project Pornoland, a photographic journey on pornographic movie sets around the world. In 2004 Pornoland became a book enclosing 16 pages of text by English writer Martin Amis. Pornoland has been published by : Thames & Hudson, Knessebeck, La Martinière and Contrasto. This work has been exhibited at REA gallery (Paris 2004), Santa Cecilia gallery (Rome 2005), Lanificio (Naples 2006), Festival Transphotographiques (Lille 2007), New York Photo Festival (NY 2011). Personal exhibitions in these years, among others, include WHO Headquarter (Geneva 2010), VII Gallery (New York 2010), 10b Gallery (Rome 2010), Museum of Modern Art (Rovereto 2011), Photofestival (Athens 2011/15), Fondazione Stelline (Milan, 2013) FotoIstanbul (2015) , Candiani Cultural Center ( Venice 2017) Plenum Gallery ( Catania 2018) Museum of Palazzo Ducale ( Genes 2019) Image Gibellina 2021, Photolux (Lucca 2022) Planches Contact (Deauville 2022). From 2003 to 2010, I worked on Blindness-, my main work, which lasted 8 years. A photographic project on the life condition of blind and low vision people, around the world. Blindness received the patronage of Vision 2020- World Health Organisation and won the W.E. Smith Fellowship Grant in 2007. In 2006 I embarked on the project Cinema Mundi, a World Cinema exploration of the alternative cinematographic scene external to the Hollywood dream factory including China, Russia, Iran, Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea and India. Cinema Mundi has been also transformed into a 7 minutes short movie screened at Locarno International Film Festival on August 4th, 2007. I have been awarded in the World Press Photo contest four times in different categories (1998-2007-2010-2011). In 2009 the Moving Walls of Open Society Foundation exhibited my work in Washington and New York. In 2010 I was the recipient of the Days Japan International Photojournalism Award and the Getty Grant for Editorial Photography, Syngenta Prize 2015, CNC grant for the documentary"Mare Amarum" 2019, Planches Contacts grant 2021 and I was the recipient of Strategie Fotografia grant from the Italian Ministry of Culture in 2022. I published 6 books Pornoland (Contrasto 2004), Blanco, (Trolley book 2010) iDyssey, (Edition Bessard 2017) Babel with Michela Battaglia (Postcart 2018) Pornoland Redux (Self-published 2021) Il Bel Paese (L'Artiere 2023). T.I.A Africa is a continent. But Africa is also a well-defined place in my mind. Africa is unique. Every time I have had the opportunity of going there I have come face to face with incredible tragedies but also with the unwavering hope of its people. Ever since my first journey to South Africa in 1989, where I saw Walter Sisulu walk free in Soweto after years of imprisonment, I continue to be both deeply moved and deeply shocked by all the stories I have witnessed and heard. Every time I step onto African soil I know I will experience something deep, something that inevitably leads to a search for the meaning of life, something that, for me at least, surfaces from deep within when I am in Africa. The questions raised call for humbleness, since often they are without answers. We know that the truth often lies in the middle folds of things. This project aims to raise questions and provoke thoughts which could, perhaps, lead to some answers and which in turn could correspond to some truths. I have tried to conceive this project as a poem. Or perhaps it would better be described as a ballad. The ballad with verses which challenge and play with each other. In the space between two facing photographs there is a story. One of the thousand stories I witnessed in Africa, one of the thousand questions I asked myself, one of the thousand experiences I was fortunate to live. The photographs represent the two extremes of the story that links them: the beginning and the end. I couldn't find a better form of expressive language to convey how Africa is an all-encompassing experience for any human being wishing to embrace it to its full. A painful yet joyful ballad of my personal and ongoing relationship with this continent. This is why I have called it "This is Africa". I should probably have called it "This is my vision of Africa" but it didn't sound the same. By no means does this mean it is the only view of Africa. I know it may seem inadequate and subjective. But so is everything in life, I guess. So, This is Africa. Blanco How does the look of a blind person look like? Can the blind show joy, happiness, disappoint, pain, suffering, pity, regret, with the only use of their eyes? The absence of sight can mean also the absence of complicity behind the camera's lens? We always use the term blind to characterize a person, such as blond, fat, poor, rich. And maybe, in some way, it is the truth. It doesn't matter if it happens in Africa, Asia, or the old Europe. The fact is, they cannot see the light, the colors, the daily scenes, how awful or gorgeous they can be. The blind are a contrast. It is easier to ignore them, their handicap is hidden, but they do have it. It's not necessary to turn the face to something or someone else, they won't see it. They seem 'normal', but they're not. They have their own world, the same and another than ours, made of different feelings, different images, different colors. And dark.
Betty Press
United States
Betty Press is a documentary fine art photographer, well-known for photographs taken in Africa where she lived and traveled for many years. Now living in Mississippi she has just completed a project called “Finding Mississippi” recording "real life" in small communities throughout Mississippi with black-and-white film and toy and vintage cameras. She taught photography at University of Southern Mississippi from 2003 to 2015. She is twice the recipient of a Visual Artist Grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission. Her photographs have been widely-exhibited as well as selected for many juried competitions. In addition, her photographs have been featured in publications such as Shots, Silvershotz, South x Southeast, Lenscratch, ACurator, RfotoFolio, and Don't Take Pictures. Her work is held in a number of public collections including Beinecke Library at Yale University, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, The Harry Ransom Center for the Humanities, The University of Texas, Austin, Mississippi Museum of Art and The Do Good Fund of Southern Photography. In 2011 Betty published a photobook I Am Because We Are: African Wisdom in Image and Proverb that portrayed a stunning, life-affirming portrait of the African people and culture. For this book she received a statewide award in photography, from the Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters and was selected for Critical Mass Top 50. Her other books/zines include La Dolce Vista, Hub City Impressions and Finding Mississippi. In August 2019 she moved to Nairobi, Kenya to photograph urban culture and social injustice, but returned to the USA in April 2020 due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Her most recent project They Were Us: Stories of Victims and Survivors of Police Brutality in Kenya, was selected for Photo Lucida Critical Mass Top 50. Betty was invited by Lenscratch to curate the States Project for Mississippi. She also helped bring the Do Good Fund Exhibition of southern fine art photography to USM Art Gallery and organized several simultaneous local exhibitions. Most recently, she co-curated an online show Virtual Photography 20:20 for One Off Contemporary Art Gallery, Nairobi, Kenya. She is represented by Panos Pictures, London; International Visions, Washington, DC; Fischer Galleries, Jackson, Mississippi; Treehouse Gallery, Oxford, Mississippi and One Off Contemporary Art Gallery, Nairobi, Kenya. As a former educator, journalist, and avid traveler Press brings a wide-ranging perspective and appreciation of diverse photographic styles, genres and mediums. Services Offered: The African Urban landscapeEye-catching, colorful and hand-painted! Popular creative signage, found on small shops started by mostly young entrepreneurs, livens up what would otherwise be a drab environment in the poorer, densely-populated areas of third world cities like Freetown, Nairobi, or Monrovia. Services, such as hairdressing, tailoring, phone charging, food stalls and video games are advertised. The designs, drawn from traditional as well as contemporary pop culture, are bold, simple and use primary colors and funky fonts. The sign painters are mostly young and self-taught. With more mobile smart-phone usage the signage reflects the modern world on an African canvas. I have spent more than 15 years living in various African countries. In 2019 I moved back to Kenya. My main focus was to document the social justice movement in Nairobi's urban settlements (formerly called slums), resulting in They Were Us: Stories of Police Brutality in Kenya which was selected for the 2020 Photo Lucida Critical Mass Top 50. On the side I would stop to photograph the colorful shops which I found so artful, refreshing and safer to photograph. Now back home in Mississippi, after being evacuated from Nairobi due to the pandemic, I continue working on my Mississippi projects which deal with how place, race and religion have played a part in the complicated history of the state and still affect black lives today.
Elena Paraskeva
Cyprus
1973
Elena Paraskeva is an international Conceptual Photographer and Art Director. Having lived and worked in the U.S for a decade, she now resides in Cyprus, but often travels for assignments. Elena loves to create surrealistic conceptual work bathed in color and is often inspired by everyday life and popular culture. Achievements: LensCulture Portrait Awards 2019 - Jurors' Pick, Digital Camera Photographer Of The Year 2018, Neutral Density Awards 2018 - Gold Medal in Advertising, Trierenberg Supercircuit 2018 - Gold Medal in Series, Trierenberg Supercircuit 2017 - Gold Medal in Portraiture, Prix De La Photographie, Paris 2018- Silver in Portraiture, Prix De La Photographie, Paris 2017 - Silver in Advertising/Fashion, Prix De La Photographie, Paris 2017- Silver and Bronze in Children Portraiture, Monovisions Photography Awards 2018 - Bronze in Conceptual, American Photography Open 2018 - Shortlisted, International Photography Awards (IPA) 2018 - Honorable Mention, One Eyeland Awards 2017 - Silver in Advertising/Conceptual, Moscow International Photography Awards (MIFA 2017) - Bronze in Portraiture, Chromatic Awards 2017 - Bronze in Fashion/Beauty, Neutral Density Awards 2017 -Bronze in People Category, International Photographer Of The Year (IPOTY 2017) - 3 Honorable Mentions in Portraiture, London International Creative Competition 2017 - Honorable Mention, International Photography Awards (IPA) 2017 - 3 Honorable Mentions, WPPI - Second Place Individual Portrait Division 2017, First Place Individual Portrait Division 2016, FAPA 2017 - Honorable Mentions Conceptual & Portrait Divisions, PDN World In Focus 2016 - Second Place, Neutral Density Awards 2016 - Bronze in Advertising/Conceptual, International Photographer Of The Year 2016 - Honorable Mention, Monochrome Photography Awards 2016 - Honorable Mention Fashion/Beauty Exhibitions: Aperture Foundation, New York City - April 2019, Menier Gallery, London UK - 2018, NEC, Birmingham UK - 2018, Photo Oxford 2017, Oxford UK, Design Center, Linz Austria - 2017, Espace Baurepaire, Paris - 2017, Opus 39 Gallery, Cyprus - 2017, Thalassa Museum, Cyprus - 2017, The Printspace, London UK - 2015 Publications: Photography Masterclass, Digital Camera, Digital Photographer, N-Photo, PDN, Good Light, Economia, Fileleftheros Newspaper, Blurred, Omikron, Volition, Vantage, Icon, Ellements, Elegant, Incredible, LoveBite, La Plus Belle, Surreal
Takuma Nakahira
Japan
1938 | † 2015
Takuma Nakahira was a Japanese photographer, critic, and theorist. He was a member of the seminal photography collective Provoke, played a central role in developing the theorization of landscape discourse, and was one of the most prominent voices in 1970s Japanese photography. Born in Tokyo, Nakahira attended the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, from which he graduated in 1963 with a degree in Spanish. After graduation, he began working as an editor at the art magazine Contemporary View (Gendai no me), during which time he published his work under the pseudonym of Akira Yuzuki. Two years later, he left the magazine in order to help organize the major 1968 exhibition One Hundred Years of Photography: The History of Japanese Photographic Expression at the invitation of Shōmei Tōmatsu, an effort to which photo critic Kōji Taki also contributed. In 1968, he and Taki teamed up with photographer Yutaka Takanashi, and critic Takahiko Okada, to found the magazine Provoke: Provocative documents for the sake of thought. By the second issue, Daidō Moriyama had joined the group, but Provoke ceased publication with its third issue, First discard the world of pseudo certainty: the thinking behind photography and language, in March 1970. Nakahira and the other Provoke members were well known for what was termed their "are, bure, boke" (rough, blurry, and out of focus) style, associated with spontaneity and thus supposedly a more direct confrontation with reality in that it would circumvent conscious control. While working on Provoke, Nakahira published his first photobook, For a Language to Come, which has been described as "a masterpiece of reductionism." Ryūichi Kaneko and Ivan Vartanian feature the book prominently in their book on seminal Japanese photobooks of the 1960s and 70s, and Martin Parr and Gerry Badger include it in the first volume of their international photobook history. Vartanian describes the volume as exemplary of Provoke's vision and concept of photography in Nakahira's use of the are, bure, boke style, but also for presenting full-bleed snapshots of anonymous corners of Tokyo that either cross over or abut each other at the book's gutter. Vartanian argues that "By erasing the conventional functionality of the photograph as document, memory, verification, emotion, and narrative, he revealed the illusory nature of photography as a conduit of information or portrayal of reality, while at the same time underscoring the only tangible reality available to the viewer—the printed image," eschewing documentation of social issues to instead present a personal, diaristic perspective. In 1977, at the age of 39, Nakahira suffered alcohol poisoning and fell into a coma. As a result of this trauma, he suffered permanent memory loss and aphasia, effectively ending his prolific writings. This event has also conventionally been understood as marking a change in his photographic practice since, after a hiatus from his image-making activities, he returned to the medium in a style quite distinct from that for which he was known. Curator and photo critic Kuraishi Shino and Masuda, however, argue that in spite of any stylistic differences with his earlier work, Nakahira's post-1977 practice should be understood as a conceptual continuation of the project he embarked on in 1973 with Why an Illustrated Botanical Dictionary. Nakahira's post-1977 photographs were collected in three photobooks: A New Gaze (1983), Adieu à X (1989), and Hysteric Six Nakahira Takuma (2002). While Nakahira was always an important figure within Japanese photographic circles, the upsurge in research and exhibitions on post-WWII Japanese photography since the 2000s has led to a reevaluation of Nakahira's contributions to Japanese photographic, media, and art discourses in recent years, especially outside of Japan. His work has been included in recent seminal exhibitions of Japanese post-WWII art including the Getty Research Institute's Art, Anti-Art, Non-Art: Experimentation in the Public Sphere in Postwar Japan, 1950-1970 (2007), the Museum of Modern Art's Tokyo: 1955-1970 (2012), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston's For a New World to Come: Experiments in Japanese Art and Photography 1968–1979 (2015), National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo's Things: Rethinking Japanese Photography and Art in the 1970s (2015), and the Art Institute of Chicago's Provoke: Photography in Japan between Protest and Performance, 1960-1975 (2017).Source: Wikipedia
Barbara Crane
United States
1928 | † 2019
Barbara Crane (March 19, 1928 – August 7, 2019) was an American artist photographer born in Chicago, IL. Crane worked with a variety of materials including Polaroid, gelatin silver, and platinum prints among others. She was known for her experimental and innovative work that challenges the straight photograph by incorporating sequencing, layered negatives, and repeated frames. Naomi Rosenblum notes that Crane "pioneered the use of repetition to convey the mechanical character of much of contemporary life, even in its recreational aspects." Crane began her studies in art history at Mills College in Oakland, California in 1945. She transferred to New York University in 1948. In 1950, she received her BA in art history from New York University. After recommencing her career in photography, Barbara Crane showed a portfolio of her work to Aaron Siskind in 1964 and was admitted to the Graduate Program in Photography at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Crane then studied under Siskind at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, and received her MS from the Institute in 1966. Crane’s master’s degree thesis focused on “sculptural patterns through abstractions of the human body.” The images for this series depict bodies against white or black backgrounds – the overexposed, overdeveloped nature of the film turns these bodies into abstract outlines. John Rohrbach states, “each body almost dissolves, becoming a sinuous river flowing across a snowy landscape. This unnerving disconnect between what is seen and what is known would become a central theme of her career.” In 1971, Crane visited Ansel Adams at his home to show him a selection of her work. Adams told an assistant “See I told you photographers could still do something different” upon viewing her Repeats series. After this encounter, Adams hired Crane to teach workshops at Yosemite between 1977-1980. During Crane’s Guggenheim Fellowship (1979), she collaborated with the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona to create a career retrospective of her work. During her time in Boston, she formed a relationship with the Polaroid Corporation and through the Polaroid Artist Support Program she experimented with Polaroid black & white and color photographic materials in numerous series. In 1995, Crane became Professor Emeritus at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Barbara Crane's work is represented in numerous public collections including the International Center of Photography, New York City; the George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY; the Art Institute of Chicago; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the WestLicht Museum of Photography, Vienna, Austria. Crane's archive resides at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ.Source: Wikipedia
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