April 2011 Archives

The premiere opening of the Lens Culture International Exposure Awards show at Gallery 291 in San Francisco was a huge success. Thanks to everyone who came out on a magical night in one of our favorite cities. The show of award-winning photographs by 31 contemporary photographers continues through Saturday April 30. Come to say hello and to discover some great talents from all over the world.

From here, the exhibition travels to galleries in New York and Paris. Cheers!

Thanks to San Francisco-based photographer Stella Kalaw for taking lots of fun photos during the evening. More photos by Stella and by photographer Stan Lipsitz (Thanks, Stan!) on Lens Culture's Facebook site: http://on.fb.me/LCAwards.

You can also preview the entire exhibition catalog online (and then buy one, please!) at Blurb. And, last but not least, details about each of the winning photographers, including their website addresses are here at Lens Culture.

Discover the work of 31 contemporary photographers from 12 countries in a remarkable group show — this week only — at Gallery 291 in San Francisco.

These are the 6 top winners from Lens Culture International Exposure Awards 2010 plus 25 winners of honorable mention awards. Please join us in a celebration of this great work in an exquisite gallery space overlooking Union Square. The show is up now, and the opening party is Thursday April 28 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Don't miss it!

Special thanks to PictopiaLabs.com (exhibition prints), Blurb.com (exhibition catalogs), Lesley Gasparetti (book design), Ghost Pines (wine), and Gallery 291 (incredible gallery space and friendly people).

Gallery 291
291 Geary Street, 5th Floor
San Francisco, CA

Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Friday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

After this premiere exhibition, this group show will travel to galleries in New York and Paris.

Now more than ever, Mother Earth needs our love, care, attention and respect. Looking back in our Lens Culture archives, and in our current issue, we are highlighting today the work of six concerned photographers who draw our attention to environmental issues — using art and photography as a call to action. Click on each image to discover a remarkable story.

Anders Petersen is one of our all-time favorite photographers. As a gift to the next generous supporter of Lens Culture (contribution $250), we are delighted to offer a signed first-edition copy of Anders Petersen's beautiful photography book Du Mich Auch (which translates as You Me Too).


Anders said this about this book:

I look at these pictures. Old photographs, taken in the late sixties in Hamburg and Stockholm. They bring back memories of kinship, fearfulness, undisguised curiosity and our solidarity. Photography was rarely the main issue.

What counted then was meeting people and exploring different realities. The same things still count. Now I see the pictures from a changed perspective. But they link together what was then with what is now. My questions of then are my questions of now. I recognize them, though the answers no longer carry the same weight. So I continue to ask my questions.

Be wary of: Nicely formulated principles and truths. Useless feelings of guilt and sins of the past or while we're at it, a photography resembling pretty adjectives. On the other hand, I like private diaries and family albums.

Book details: Published by the Swedish publisher, Journal, in 2002. 9¾" - 12" tall. 112 pages, 72 photographs. Text in Swedish and English. This is a brand new copy, which was only opened for the author to autograph.

Special thanks to Anders Petersen and to all of our supporters over the past six years!

SF to Paris in Two Minutes from Beep Show.

Air France flight with live light show and soundtrack. Champagne, anyone?

French artist Floriane de Lassée — who is well known for her earlier, meditative, large-format architectural photographs with figures — only recently started making short films and videos from stills. We were thrilled to discover her new work when she submitted it to Lens Culture last year. And we are delighted that these captivating video animations will be featured as life-size rear-projections at a Galerie Philippe Chaume in Paris.

Floriane de Lassée says this about the new work, Presences:

Presences plays with the place of the human body in our minds. Our bodies create our boundaries; they carry and constrain the human spirit. What stories do we tell with what we reveal and what we hide? What do we choose to show the world? Can the human body ever truly be "shown" in its entirety?

Subjects in the series appear behind a translucent structure through which they may both reveal and hide themselves. Imprisoned, glimpsed, imagined, transformed, they disappear and emerge all at once. The video is backlit (retro projection) on a semi-transparent surface, similar to the one through which the series' subjects were photographed. Each full-scale video is a human scale loop. The device and the back of the installation are hidden by a box or a big black cloth so we can think that it is a real person behind a window.

Have our subjects been trapped, held captive behind a wall of light? Or are they surging forward from ether to matter, from imagination to reality?

These videos and others are showing, life-size, at Galerie Philippe Chaume in Paris, April 8-June 4.


Exposition "Présences" à la galerie Philippe Chaume: 08 Avril au 04 Juin 2011.
Vernissage le mercredi 07 Avril de 18h à 21h.
9 rue de Marseille, 75010 Paris – Métro République
www.galeriephilippechaume.com

Visit the artist's website to see more.

Discover an eclectic mix of great new contemporary photography in the lastest edition of Lens Culture — online now at www.lensculture.com!

Some highlights from the new issue:

Photographer Peter Dench contributes a great photo-essay about depraved drinking habits of people in the UK.

Jeroen Toirkens takes us on a multi-continent search for the last living nomadic peoples in the Northern Hemisphere.

A new exhibition in Moscow features six contemporary photographers from Georgia.

Prix Pictet winner Mitch Epstein presents his award-winning work, American Power.

Swiss/French artist Corinne Vionnet weaves together small sections of the appropriated tourist snapshots found on the web, to create layered, ethereal structures.

A great retrospective book of nearly a century’s worth of photos from the Scurlock Studios celebrates the vibrant life of African Americans in Washington DC.

Stephen Mayes writes about Gazi Nafis Ahmed’s series of same-sex couples and tough kids on the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Peter Ainsworth presents a series of abstract photographs of artful scratches, splotches, scribbles and accidental marks found underneath one of the ring roads of North London.

French artist Alban Lecuyer creates photomontages of old European buildings at the moment they are deliberately imploded.

Plus much more… including reviews of some notable new photobooks, and six years of archives, articles, and interviews with photographers.

See us in San Francisco — April 28, 2011

Join us for a glass of wine and some great photography at Gallery 291, for the premiere showing of "31 Contemporary Photographers" featuring the winners of Lens Culture International Exposure Awards.

See us in Sweden — May 27-28, 2011

Our next international portfolio review event is a partnership with Fotografiska, the Swedish Museum of Photography in Stockholm, on May 27-28, 2011. Registration is limited to 100 photographers. Full details at the Stockholm Photography Week website: spwk.eu

Cheers!

Google Earth provides fertile ground for artists who like to discover and appropriate quirky coincidences. These distorted satellite photos of bridges and valleys were found online by Clement Valla.

Here's how he explains what we are seeing:

"The images are screenshots from Google Earth with basic color adjustment. They are glitches that occur when the 2d satellite imagery and 3d terrain don't line up quite right, or structures such as bridges get projected down onto the terrain below, creating fabulous and unintentional distortions. These images are like funhouse mirrors - strange illusions and reflections of the real."

See more bridges, and discover lots of other technical oddities and fun stuff at Clement Valla's website.