13.03.13 - Juergen Teller : Woo! - ICA
POSTED ON Sunday, 31 March 2013 AT 10:02 \\


After going on the London trip, it came to my attention that many galleries are closed on a Monday. I was unaware of this factor prior to the visit and therefore was disappointed to find out that the exhibition I was most looking forward to, Juergen Teller's "Woo!" at the ICA wasn't going to be open. As Teller is one of my favourite photographers, I felt that if I hadn't gone to this exhibition when I had the chance I would really regret it. Therefore on my day off on Wednesday, I decided to go back to London and see it for myself and I am glad I did.



Juergen Teller is an iconic photographer in both the art world and in commercial photography. According to the introduction of the exhibition, Woo! is a "seemless journey through his landmark work"- showing his documentary photography alongside his celebrity portraits and fashion photography. Woo! also shows his more recent series called Irene im Wald and Keys to the House; showing his personal world back home in Germany and also Suffolk.

(ICA's website)

Labels: , , , , , ,


My Work: Experimenting with Photography & Collage
POSTED ON AT 09:05 \\
After visiting the London West End Galleries, I was inspired by the amount of collage being exhibited. The work that I was particularly drawn to was that of C.K Rajan in The Photographer's Gallery. As I said in the previous post, C.K Rajan overlays just two contrasting images sourced from magazines or newspapers with the intention to show how economic modernisation creates strange social and cultural contradictions. I decided to follow this concept by using a mixture of old family photos and my own images to create a collage. However instead of creating collages by hand, I decied to scan old photos and create my works on Photoshop.

Past & Present

Process

  • Open all the images I want to collage: an old photo of my grandparents who passed away last year, a war photo of a ship taken by my grandpa and my own photograph of their doorstep in Stanmore, where they lived for most of their lives.
  • Using the magnetic lasso tool i cut around the picture of my grandparents.
  • Here I layered the house and ship images together using the blending tool 'lighten'.
  • I wanted the house number to still be visible.
  • I like how the colouring of the old photo has been able to age my digital photograph.
  •  Here I dragged the photo of my grandparents onto the background, resizing them to the appropriate size.
  • Final adjustments to colours and contrast were also made here.

Last year I lost both of my grandparents and since then their house in Stanmore has been cleared out and recently sold. I went back to photograph the house one last time, inside out. It was a place that held so many memories and had barely changed throughout the years, only becoming more cluttered with family photos and less well maintained. The photo of my grandma and grandpa here is only a tiny image and I am yet to find a photograph of the two of them outside their house through the thousands of photographs I am in the process of sorting for a project where I hope to explore my family's history and come up with a way of presenting my findings. I photoshopped the couple on their doorstep (a photo I took on my more recent visit last month) and decided to layer on an old photograph of a ship my grandpa would have taken during the war. I felt that this added a different dimension to the photograph, maintaining that sense of the past and things long gone, but a significant moment for everyone, and a prominent time of my grandparents lives that they were a part of and an experience they shared and endured together. I hope to create more of these style collages using the old photographs that were taken by my grandparents as a way of telling a story through one image rather than an entire album full.

The Sound of Summer

Process

  • Similar process to previous, opening two images: one of my half sister when she was younger, playing the recorder in my grandparents house and a photograph of the garden chairs in my grandparents garden on a summer day.
  • I cut out the outline of my Rebecca's form and placed it onto the scene and resized as appropriate.
  • For a warmer and more aged effect, I adjusted colours here. I often edit my images by enhancing the reds and pinks.

Other Attempts at Collage


 Humour



My dad and my uncle with a stuffed bear with a flower crown.


This was a photo taken on one of my grandparents holidays. I'm not exactly sure where it was taken, but the large building in the background reminded me of an Indian structure and brought me to the story of Aladdin. I took an image of my half sister and myself as a baby sat on our 'magic carpet' (a towel to keep us from getting grass stains on our clothes, no doubt). I applied a premade texture (here) over the top too, to enhance the dreamlike quality and illusion of clouds.

Representation of Generations



My half sister and myself as a baby, out on the garden lawn. In the foreground I placed an image of my grandma (middle) and her two friends, sat on the grass on sports day.


Here I layered a photograph of my three uncles (on my mother's side) as children onto a backdrop of a cornish beach scene that I found when rummaging through albums. I chose this backdrop because the bright, saturated colours really caught my eye.

Labels: , , , ,


London Trip (West End Galleries) 11.03.13 - The Photographer's Gallery: Geraldo De Barros
POSTED ON Friday, 15 March 2013 AT 11:15 \\

This exhibition is a display of the works of Brazilian photographer and artist, Geraldo De Barros. I was unaware of his work before today but I like it very much. His connection with photography can be described as book-ends of his life and career: he began with photography but left it behind for around 40 years (working with other art mediums) before returning to it in his later life after his daughter uncovered his old photographs and negatives. He then returned to using photography in his work right up until his death. 

about the space:-


The space itself was considered very carefully. The exhibition was aiming to showcase De Barros' work in a less contemporary way as it is showing works from the past in the form of an archive. Therefore the space had to be altered to suit a more vintage/historic feel rather than that of contemporary art spaces. The most prominent way of creating this effect was to get rid of the plain white walls that fill most art exhibitions and create a more museum like feel by painting the wall in a soft and warm colour. Museums often use a green or mushroom shade on the wall but the use of pink in this space created a vintage and homely feel without the strictness of a museum space. There was also a table that featured smaller components of his work to enhance our insight into his process and way of thinking. 

(more information)

Labels: , , , ,


London Trip (West End Galleries) 11.03.13 - The Photographer's Gallery - Laura Letinsky
POSTED ON Monday, 11 March 2013 AT 13:50 \\
LAURA LETINSKY - ILL FORM & VOID FULL



-meticulously composed still life photographs taking reference from 17th century renaissance paintings
-uses a large format camera
-photographing the aftermath of a meal
-elements such as spilled wine, squashed fruits etc. alludes mortality and melancholy
-in this exhibition she starts encorporating magazine cutouts and collage in her photographs

images from the exhibition-



(more information)

Labels: , , , , , , ,


London Trip (West End Galleries) 11.03.13 - The Photographer's Gallery
POSTED ON AT 13:20 \\

website

About the space:-

The Photographer's Gallery consists of 5 floors that are each dedicated to different exhibitions at a time, as well as being accompanied by a book/print shop on the ground floor. 
On this visit the various floors featured works by Laura Letinsky (2nd floor), Geraldo De Barros (4th floor) and an exhibition called Perspectives On Collage (5th floor). Whilst being given a thoroughly informative talk by one of the staff of the gallery, I learnt a bit about how and why the gallery space has been constructed. For example on the 5th floor (top floor) there is a hatch in the ceiling that allows for larger works to be lifted and lowered into the gallery where it would be impossible to carry it up stairs/ get it through doors because of size. 

Whilst in the 5th floor space, I took a look at the exhibition Perspectives on Collage. Works in this exhibition that particularly drew me in were the collages of:

C.K. Rajan

-often overlays just two contrasting images sourced from magazines or newspapers.
-retaining modernist size and scale.
-responds to how economic modernisation creates strange social and cultural contradictions.
-other practices include painting, drawing and sculpture.

Batia Suter

Wave, Floor Version #1 - Floor collage (wooden plinths and books)
-explores the poetic connections between photographs of disaparate subjects and encyclopoedic knowledge.

Roy Arden

-influenced by pop art
"although the works are always looking to the past, they are not nostalgic or sentimental- their subject matter is more likely to be trauma, desire or violence."
 (image sources)

Labels: , , , , , , ,


Berlin: Day Three (28.02.13) - Helmut Newton
POSTED ON Sunday, 10 March 2013 AT 14:37 \\
TAKING PHOTOGRAPHS WAS NOT PERMITTED IN THIS EXHIBITION. 
ANY IMAGES IN THIS POST ARE FROM SECONDARY SOURCES.

 (HELMUT NEWTON WEBSITE)

(image source)

Helmut Newton is a fashion photographer that I have been a fan of for some time so I was really thrilled to be able to his work in an exhibition and this was one of the most extensive collections of work I have ever come across and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The above image is what greets you on arrival to the Helmut Newton Foundation base, a grand staircase lined with red carpet, a series of Newton's fashion nudes lining the back wall. It is striking on first impression: a common theme amongst Newton's own daring fashion photographs. The exhibition was broken up into several parts to divide the vast amount of work and artifacts on display.

Helmut Newton's Private Property

"Newtonmobile"
(image source)

This is where the exhibition started and is part of the exhibitions permanent display and is located on the ground floor. Helmut Newton's Private Property provides an in depth insight into the life of Newton himself: displaying the cameras and equipment he used, letters of complaints from his clients, letters of condolense after his death, a collection of magazine and newspaper articles regarding the photographer, photographs from his childhood, glass cabinets containing some of the iconic suits and actual clothes that the photographer wore, along with  the "newtonmobile" a replica of his studio/living space(image above). I found the techniques used in this gallery space to be incredibly effective. 

Helmut Newton's photographs for magazines such as Vogue & Elle
(image source)
Photographs partnered alongside props
(image source)

There is a wall filled to the ceiling with his pictorial and magazine shoots for clients such as Vogue, Elle and Vanity Fair. Photographs were on display, partnered alongside the props used in them. The replica of Newton's living space also allows a more personal connection with the photographer, bringing to life just a glimpse of this iconic man's lifestyle. There was also a television screen in this part of the exhibition, showing a film of Newton at work carrying out a photoshoot, allowing the audience to see his process and development.


Leaving behind the ground floor and Private Property, taking yourself up the grand staircase will lead to an extensive number of rooms displaying more of Newton's work. These rooms home an ever changing collection of his work and has displayed many different series. You can view the list of previous exhibitions as well as the current displays here. The wall colours vary from room to room as if to evoke the mood, temperature and feel of the work being displayed. All of his work is presented in black frames, protected by glass, maintaining the stylish monochrome chic to his images. The exhibition didn's just display black and white works, but also some of Newton's colour prints.

various gallery spaces at the Helmut Newton Foundation

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,


Berlin Trip, March 2013 - The Berlin Wall, Tacheles, Television Tower
POSTED ON AT 12:47 \\
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

the berlin wall



tacheles



Kunsthaus Tacheles (Art House Tacheles) was an old art center with an extensive and dark history even prior to that. Prior to it's current state, the building used to contain studios, workshops, a nightclub and even a cinema. The galleries and artwork have all but vanished since then, only the graffiti murals that plaster the exterior walls remain. A small area of the garden is still open to the public, where a few artists are fighting against being evicted from the site and they continue to sell their works: mainly jewellery and metal sculptures.


television tower

Labels: , , , , , , ,


Berlin Trip, March 2013 - Street Art, Sight Seeing, Stasimuseum
POSTED ON AT 12:41 \\

berlin's street art scene




CLICK THE IMAGES TO ENLARGE

more sights



                  
CLICK THE IMAGES TO ENLARGE

stasimuseum


The Stasimuseum is a museum extending several floors of a building that is the former headquarters of the Stasi. It acts as a sort of memorial, with reconstructed rooms and a vast amount of furnishings and artifacts from the Stasi (the Ministry of State Security, also known as the secret police). 

German history is something I know little about so the Stasimuseum was something that I didn't understand too well, however I found it to be a really good spot to photograph and found the pieces of the exhibition to be very interesting in their historic content. I particularly liked the recreation and maintainance of the old rooms as I find it fascinating to picture the real history that happened there.



CLICK THE IMAGES TO ENLARGE

Labels: , , , , , , ,