RINEKE DIJKSTRA – A RETROSPECTIVE

Posted on 2012-08-20

Since the early 1990s, Rineke Dijkstra has produced a complex body of photographic work, offering a contemporary take on the genre of portraiture. Her large-scale color photographs of young, typically adolescent subjects recall 17th-century Dutch painting in their scale and visual acuity. The minimal contextual details present in her photographs and videos encourage us to focus on the exchange between photographer and subject and the relationship between viewer and viewed. Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective brings together more than 70 photographs and five videos in a major mid-career survey, offering the most comprehensive presentation of the artist’s work to date.

Dijkstra works in series, creating groups of photographs and videos around a specific typology or theme. In 1992, she started making portraits of adolescents posed on beaches from Hilton Head, South Carolina, to Poland and Ukraine. Shot from a low perspective, the subjects of the Beach Portraits (1992–2002), poised on the brink of adulthood, take on a monumental presence. In contemporaneous works, including portraits of new mothers after giving birth, and photographs of bullfighters immediately after leaving the ring, Dijkstra sought subjects whose physical exhaustion diminished the likelihood of an artificed pose.

Exhibition runs through till October 8th, 2012

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Avenue
New York
NY
10128

www.guggenheim.org

   Tweet

RICHARD MISRACH – DESERT CANTOS

Posted on 2012-08-20

Spanning the first 25 years of Misrach’s career, the exhibition will offer a rare opportunity to track the artistic development of one of the most significant living American photographers. The chronology of the exhibition begins with the luscious split-toned works realized with a flash shot into desert night scenes. Eerie and magnificent, these works introduce many of the themes that would occupy Misrach in the years to come: staging the condition of aesthetic beauty of the natural world as mediated by human intervention in the landscape – in this case the photographer’s own invasive flash. The sublime nature of the damage wrought on the landscape by man-made disasters forms the central theme of his Desert Cantos series.These concerns can be further traced through the Playboy series, Battleground Point, and the dramatic views from Misrach’s porch tracking meteorological conditions around San Francisco Bay’s Golden Gate.
These related bodies of work secured Misrach’s place as the preeminent American photographer of his generation investigating issues surrounding landscape.

Exhibition runs from September 13th to October 27th, 2012

Robert Mann Gallery
210 11th Ave
Between 24th & 25th Streets
Floor 10
New York
NY
10001

www.robertmann.com

   Tweet

GILES PRICE – E20 12: UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Posted on 2012-08-20

E2012 Under Construction is a documentary project by Giles Price. It combines large format and minutely detailed aerial landscapes with arresting portraits of the workforce taken during the construction of the 2012 Olympic Park.

The aerial pictures push the boundaries of the visual language of satellite imaging, such as Google Earth. These photographs, produced with the aid of the latest camera technology, allow the viewer to experience a new way of seeing the construction of the Olympic Park with stunning detail and beauty. They reveal a previously invisible perspective on the intricacy of the landscape and the overwhelming scale of its transformation. Conversely, the pictures of workers show us the unseen human face of those involved in the construction of the site. These engaging portraits add a personal dimension to the depiction of the transformation, and offer a glimpse into the hidden stories of the Olympic Park.

A book with 48 pages of full, colour, images from the project, also entitled E20 12: Under Construction, will be available from August 31st via www.seestudio.com

Exhibition runs through till September 9th, 2012

The Crossing
The Granary Building
1 Granary Square
King’s Cross
N1C 4AA

www.kingscrosscentral.com

   Tweet

HENRY HORENSTEIN

Posted on 2012-08-13

Concentrating on the 1970s, but spanning to the present day, Horenstein’s gritty, black-and-white photographs capture the irrepressible spirit of an American institution. Some say the 1970s were the last great decade of country music – between the pomade, plaid jackets, and goofy hillbilly jokes of the 1950s and the more polished “Urban Cowboy” sound of Nashville in the early 1980s.
Horenstein’s work captures it all, from the roadside seediness of TJ’s Lounge to the backstage glamour at the Grand Ole Opry. From bluegrass festivals and country music parks to the honky tonks and dance halls, these images picture such celebrities as Dolly Parton, Jerry Lee Lewis, Waylon Jennings, up to a recent cardboard cut-out of Garth Brooks (which speaks volumes about the artist’s personal opinion of the direction the genre has taken of late). However, the photographs feature not only the stars, but also include the familiar venues and enthusiastic fans who sustain them.

Exhibition runs from September 6th to October 13th, 2012

ClampArt
531 West 25th Street
New York
NY
10001

clampart.com

   Tweet

GUY TILLIM – SECOND NATURE

Posted on 2012-08-13

For the past year Tillim has been photographing the landscape in French Polynesia. He was drawn to this landscape that has been continuously sketched – and later photographed – since Captain James Cook’s voyages in the late 18th century, perhaps because it almost eludes convincing representation. In reading the accounts of the artists who accompanied Cook, Tillim was interested to note that their debates on-board ship around the subject of the representation of landscape are very similar to those we have today: how much do you ‘give’ a scene and how much do you let it speak for itself? In this regard, he explains his own difficulties in finding a way through this binary because of our strongly conditioned notions of the frame and the picturesque.

Opposite – Tautira, Tahiti, 2010

Exhibition runs from September 14th to October 27th, 2012

kuckei + kuckei
Linienstraße 158
D-10115
Berlin
Germany

www.kuckei-kuckei.de

   Tweet

THERE’S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE

Posted on 2012-08-13

A group exhibition showcasing the work of a new generation of photographers.
In these troubled and uncertain times of upheaval and dissent on a global scale, a new generation of photographers and image-makers is emerging. Steeped in the process and versed in the psychology of the medium, they are exploring angst, neurosis, notions of fragility and identity and even the subjectivity of photography itself.The photographers included in the exhibition come from a diverse range of photographic backgrounds: from fashion and still life to conceptual photography and contemporary art. Despite the diversity of their practice, shared interests emerge. Their work challenges conventional boundaries of photography in surprising and unconventional ways, from appropriating found images to incorporating other media.

Exhibition runs from September 14th to November 10th, 2012

Brancolini Grimaldi
43 – 44 Albemarle Street
First floor (above Post Office)
London
W1S 4JJ
United Kingdom

www.brancolinigrimaldi.com

   Tweet