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Remsen Wolff @ Foam

Posted on July 23rd, 2020 by

Joris, Amsterdam 24 april 1991 © The Remsen Wolff Collection, Courtesy of Jochem Brouwer 2020

Remsen Wolff: Amsterdam Girls
11 September – 6 December 2020

“The exhibition Amsterdam Girls presents more than 50 vintage portraits and contact prints from the analogue archive of the American photographer Remsen Wolff (1940-1998). From 1990 to 1992, Wolff spent one month each year at the American Hotel in Amsterdam to work on the project Special Girls – A Celebration. For this project Wolff made a series of portraits of transgenders in New York and in Amsterdam, the city known at the time as ‘the gay capital of Europe’. These unique portraits range from the exuberant and glamorous to the subdued and vulnerable. Together, the photographs show the huge variety in gender fluidity in the 1990s, beyond the exhibited publicly in notorious nightclubs such as Club RoXY and iT. The individuals posing for Wolff’s camera vary from well-known figures like Jet Brandsteder (a.k.a. Francine), Hellun Zelluf and Vera Springveer (regular performers in clubs like RoXY and Mazzo), to anonymous transsexuals who often struggled with their gender identity, lonely and insecure. ”

Foam
Keizersgracht 609
1017 DS Amsterdam

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Terry O’Neill @ Maddox Gallery

Posted on July 20th, 2020 by


Terry O’Neill: Every Picture Tells a Story, A Retrospective
30 July – 29 August

“Every Picture Tells a Story, A Retrospective will present a series of captivating works including images of Audrey Hepburn, Elton John, Brigitte Bardot, Julie Andrews, and David Bowie in the distinctive snapshot aesthetic that O’Neill is famous for. Amongst these pieces will be a number of rare works, including a recently colourised image of Frank Sinatra on the Miami Boardwalk. The works will also be displayed in a virtual gallery for viewers worldwide to enjoy, and each image will be accompanied by some stories from Terry’s perspective offering a glimpse behind the scenes of some of his iconic photographs.”

Maddox Gallery
Gstaad, Switzerland

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Book Review: Grönland by Ulrike Crespo

Posted on July 16th, 2020 by

Grönland (Greenland) is a tome in German and English by Ulrike Crespo (1950-2019) whose background in art history, archaeology and psychology seems to have influenced her photographic work. To me at least, the cover and pic number 6, for instance, look as fascinatingly indecipherable as our unconscious.

What attracted me first and foremost to this book is pic number 2. It accompanies me since I first laid eyes on it. How come? I do not know but I can of course guess. It looks like toyland to me – and the colours contribute to that impression. Moreover, it makes me wonder who inhabits these houses, what do the people living there do, think and feel? This book doesn’t give answers, instead it is showing us landscapes and seascapes. In so doing Ulrike Crespo is emphasising what I did not expect – and I’m pleased for it helps me to get out of the prison of my head.

These photos do not need captions, they are invitations to contemplate the magic of planet earth. My daily problems and preoccupations disappear when looking at what Ulrike Crespo had decided to document. I feel entranced and in awe of such beauty. And with no desire to put anything into words, to look and see feels enough.

What do I associate with Greenland? Ice, cold, snow, emptiness, a vast territory, people who are dressed like astronauts. This tome however is devoid of human beings, Ulrike Crespo aimed her lens mostly at icebergs. The photos were taken from helicopters and from rubber dinghies.

Journalist Freddy Langer contributed a most useful text on Crespo’s icebergs that adds, among quite some other things, a dimension to these impressive pictures that photographs by themselves cannot provide – sounds. “Sometimes there is a tinkling sound from the ice. Very gentle. And very quiet. And then along the shoreline of the polar current delicate chunks of ice that resemble floating shards hit each other. Strange formations with narrow arms and wide fins, the remains of what were large floes formed by current, wind and time into etheric looking sculptures. Some of them look like small loaded boats, others like corals except they are transparent and more fragile. And their sound does not at all resemble trhe chink of ice cubes in a whisky glass. It is higher. Much higher. It sounds more like the tinkling of those small bells that sheep grazing on meadows wear around their necks.”

With this in mind, I am given the chance to see again different photographs for they now seem to be accompanied by “a soundtrack for the dramatic images forming the backdrop.”

Pictures make one see. Not necessarily what Ulrike Crespo has seen but what she wanted us to look at. We do however only see what we know, as Goethe once penned. Freddy Langer provides us with a variety of aspects related to icebergs that make a more informed reading of these photographs possible. For instance: “From the moment that they are thrust into the sea by the glaciers they begin to disintegrate” – an information that makes me immediately visualise a sequence of moving pictures in my head. Or: “But the sea ice is also melting. Due to the rising temperatures the freeze sets in later every autumn and the thaw is earlier every spring, the ice layer is getting thinner and thinner and is disintegrating faster and faster.”

Beauty defies definition yet it can be shown, felt and understood. Grönland is not only an aesthetic pleasure par excellence but has the potential to educate us. What a tragedy, we might exclaim when looking at Ulrike Crespos fabulous photographs, if this miracle were to disappear.

Grönland
by Ulrike Crespo
Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg 2020
www.kehrerverlag.com

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Togethering: Picturing the COVID-19 Pandemic @ Houston Center for Photography (online)

Posted on July 16th, 2020 by

Talya Arbisser, Passover Seders, Houston, TX

Togethering: Picturing the COVID-19 Pandemic

Online here https://hcponline.org/exhibit/togethering-online-exhibition/

“On April 23, 2020, HCP launched Togethering, an open call for photographs from anyone around the world picturing life during the COVID-19 Pandemic. At the time, Houston, Texas had been on “lockdown” for five weeks, and for others around the world, it had been much longer. The New York Times called this an “act of solidarity” that was critical to controlling the virus, which began in December 2019 and has since expanded to every corner of the globe. We found ourselves alone together, and this permanent, virtual exhibition intended to provide a community platform for us to connect with one another during this time of great distance.”

Over 3,000 images were submitted from photographers from all over the world.

Houston Center for Photography

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Wolf Suschitzky @ FOTOHOF

Posted on July 16th, 2020 by

Wolf Suschitzky − Building the Abbey Works Port Talbot, 1950

Wolf Suschitzky: NO RESTING PLACE
July 17 – September 26, 2020

Opening: Thursday, July 16 from 7 p.m.

”
With Wolfgang Suschitzky’s photographic work, the FOTOHOF takes a look at the historically significant position of a personality who comes from Austria, but is characterized by flight and exile. The estate of Wolf Suschitzky, who died in London in 2016 at the age of 104, was given to the FOTOHOF archive in 2018 as a permanent loan, where it is scientifically processed and made accessible. The exhibition project Wolf Suschitzky – No Resting Place does not, however, see itself as a retrospective of the overall work of the photographer and cameraman, which spanned the 1930s to the early 21st century. Rather, it deals with the topic “work” of a material that is omnipresent in the work of the native of Vienna and thus focuses on continuities of content in a biography interrupted by emigration and exile. Wolfgang Suschitzky (* 1912) grew up in a Jewish family committed to the teachings of Viennese social democracy. His father is a co-founder of Anzengruber Verlag and the first – social democratic – bookstore in the Viennese working class Favoriten. Both facilities will be closed after the so-called “connection”. While a large part of his family was murdered by the National Socialists, Wolf Suschitzky survived in exile in the UK, to which he had already fled in 1934 due to political developments in the Austrian “estates state”.”

FOTOHOF / Inge-Morath-Platz 1 -3 / 5020 Salzburg / Austria

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Mario Marino @ Galerie Noir Blanche

Posted on July 16th, 2020 by


Mario Marino: Samburuland – Photographs from Northern Kenya
October 15, 2020 to the end of January 2021

“The Samburus nomadic people. They have been settling in the northern part of Kenya for more than 500 years and denying their existence as farmers and ranchers. Mario Marino spends several months with them, accompanies their everyday life as well as the spiritual ceremony of a traditional wedding. As so often in Mario Marino’s work, the dignity and grace of the individual are at the center of his portraits.”

Galerie Noir Blanche, Rather Str. 34, shown in Düsseldorf.

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Alec Soth @ Foam

Posted on July 13th, 2020 by

Sonya and Dombrovsky, Odessa, 2018 © Alec Soth / Magnum Photos

Alec Soth: I Know How Furiously Your Heart is Beating
11 September – 6 December 2020

“Magnum photographer Alec Soth (1969) has become known as the chronicler of life at the American margins of the United States. He made a name as a photographer with his 2004 series Sleeping by the Mississippi, encountering unusual and often overlooked places and people as he travelled along the river banks. A major retrospective in 2015 was followed by a period of seclusion and introspection, during which Soth did not travel and barely photographed. His most recent project, I Know How Furiously Your Heart is Beating, is the result of this personal search, and marks a departure from Soth’s earlier work. The photographer slowed down his work process and turned the lens inward. Foam presents the first museum exhibition of his new series, consisting of portraits of remarkable people in their habitat, and still-lifes of their personal belongings. ”

Foam
Keizersgracht 609
1017 DS Amsterdam

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Book Review: House Music by Charles Rozier

Posted on July 11th, 2020 by

© Charles Rozier

House Music by Charles Rozier is a collection of images spanning roughly thirty years of lovingly unpretentious moments focusing on the lives of his immediate and extended family. Flipping through House Music is like paging through someone’s family album, and all the images were taken by ‘Dad’, who we only see in one shadowy glimpse. The fact we don’t see the photographer in the book focusing on his own family makes me wonder if he doesn’t include himself because he feels uncomfortable about being photographed, or perhaps he feels like an outsider? But it is quickly apparent that Rozier has the visual storytelling skills to leave these questions unanswered and draw the viewer into universal themes and issues.

Rozier’s scenes depict a range of private spaces in lovely available light, fleeting moments of children acting like children (whether they are seven or seventeen), and photographs which carry far more narrative weight when viewed in this context.  Much like the project, Real Pictures: Tales of a Badass Grandma by Peggy Nolan, Charles Rozier has chosen to capture the honest, intimate scenes of his everyday. He shares views of his wife breastfeeding, children playing dress-up, reading a bedtime story complete with a Guinea Pig, or the vacant heartbreaking stare of his elderly father-in-law with a napkin tucked into his shirt collar.  In a specific image where Rozier’s daughters are waiting tentatively, palpably hesitant with their hands covering their mouths while staring at a birthday cake; the two are sitting at the dining room table in a darkened room, sparely lit by a single pendant lamp – which lends theatrical gravitas to the scene. (Do they dare cut the cake? Will waiting hold back time?)

It should all come as no surprise… we see his wife’s elderly parents grow old and eventually pass away less than decade apart. Children are born and age before our eyes, hairstyles change, youth gives way to tired parenthood, and gray hair slowly graces their temples. Yet the patterns of life that go unnoticed right in front of our eyes are revealed over time. Normally we just aren’t paying attention at the time, because we’re too busy with life. I’m thankful Rozier wasn’t too busy to capture and share these images.

In her essay, Alison Nordström mentions that the stream of continuity is a strength shared between the music genre of house music and this book. But the title/phrase House Music translates to me more literally as the sound of life. A coffee cup clinks into another one in the cupboard, floorboards creak and pop as someone shuffles down the hall, a voice somewhere in the house musically rises and falls while in conversation about Sunday dinner. Or even the distinct, repetitive tone heard when the dishwasher is running. A symphony for the commonplace.

Two different photographers recently spoke with me about the idea that a photo book should be made only when it feels right. Rozier drew from thirty years of work for House Music. The story and his narrative created speaks to this generational span of time. Everyday moments are made special and notable through his act of pressing the shutter. Rozier’s chronicle of the people he knows most initmately is touching and vulnerable. We know the cycle will repeat, we know how it all begins and ends and the musingly sad story will repeat and be told by a new generation.

© Charles Rozier

 

© Charles Rozier

 

© Charles Rozier

 

© Charles Rozier

 

© Charles Rozier

 

© Charles Rozier

 

© Charles Rozier

 

© Charles Rozier

 

© Charles Rozier

 

House Music by Charles Rozier
Essay by Alison Nordström
Published by Dewi Lewis Publishing
124 pages, 28 duotone and 38 colour plates
ISBN: 9781911306559

Charles Rozier received an MFA in design from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Over the next 40 years, in parallel with a design career, he remained committed to photography and in particular to his ongoing series of unposed portraits of the people around him. The images from this project were first exhibited in 2008, and have since been shown in over 25 exhibitions in the USA, China and Spain. Charles Rozier lives in Connecticut, USA. For more information, visit: charlesrozier.com.

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Interior Life @ Filter Photo

Posted on July 10th, 2020 by

© Dean Snodgrass

Interior Life
August 28 – October 3, 2020

reception on September 11th from 6 – 9 PM during the 2020 Filter Photo Festival

“The images we’ve selected speak to the theme of Interior Life in this current, complex moment. Long shadows on walls and light through windows hint at time’s passing. Time is central to the idea of presence; collectively, we have lost a sense of the days, weeks, and months. Collections of house plants and domestic animals draw our attention to the care given to people’s personal spaces. Whether they be green flowering life, or a beloved dog or cat, these companions remind us of the interconnectedness of life, and – most importantly – that we are not alone in this experience, no matter how isolated we may feel.” —Strange Fire Collective

Lois Bielefeld
Gary Blum
Tuan H. Bui
William Camargo
Jeanie Choi
Anastasia Davis
Annie Donovan
Jesse Egner
Arthur Fields
Nate Francis
Preston Gannaway
Brian Gee
Juan Giraldo
Conner Gordon
Olivia Alonso Gough
Mario El Khouri
Erica McKeehen
Darren Lee Miller
Deepanjan Mukhopadhyay
Jeremy Ng
Lingfei Ren
Rolls and Tubes Collective
Annick Sjobakken
Dean Snodgrass
Ursula Sokolowska
Liz Steketee
Wendy Stone
Sarah Sudhoff
Nicole White
Zoë Zimmerman

Filter Photo
1821 West Hubbard Street, Suite 207
Chicago, IL 60622

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we like small things v.3 @ Filter Photo

Posted on July 10th, 2020 by

© Atefeh Farajolahzadeh Irrigation Module 012

we like small things v.3
August 28 – October 3, 2020

reception on September 11th from 6 – 9 PM during the 2020 Filter Photo Festival

“As a whole, the images comprising we like small things v.3 craft a visual timeline of life as it was, and as it is amidst unrivaled socio-political upheaval. What remains to be seen is all that comes of this learning, and unlearning, and what registers in the collective photographic mind as life winds its way to a familiar rhythm.” —Roula Seikaly

Filter Photo
1821 West Hubbard Street, Suite 207
Chicago, IL 60622

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