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PHOTOGRAPHY BLOGS
Ron Brownson [Senior Curator New Zealand and Pacific Art, Auckland Art Gallery] – On Photography
These fortnightly posts will address photography, from both the past and the present.
It will include photographs held in Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki collections as well as other collections,
both
public and private.
The aim is to open up some discussion
about various practices of photography –
here in New Zealand and elsewhere.
Peter Ireland - S'kite
This blog is principally about photography. But from time to time other art-related issues may surface.
The blog has two levels: firstly, longer pieces about books [see: below], exhibitions, historical shifts
and the phenomenon of careers; and secondly shorter comments about more emphemeral topical issues.
Peter Peryer - peryer.blogspot
George Eastman House 2010 Benefit Auction
Sotheby's New York
1334 York Avenue at 72nd Street
LINK
Monday, October 4
This benefit auction includes more than 300 photographs, rare books, and cameras donated by friends of the Museum. Proceeds benefit the programs and historic holdings of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, NY.
McNarara Gallery has sent three books over to NY
Aberhart
Peter Peryer Photographer [hard cover]
Art at Te Papa [generously supplied by Te Papa ]
LECTURES
Gordon Maitland - 19th century portrait photography
Auckland Art Gallery
Sunday 29 August 3.00pm
Curator of the Pictorial Collection at Auckland Museum, Gordon Maitland presents an illustrated talk on the phenomenal rise in popularity of the portrait photograph that spread quickly across the globe within months of its inception in Paris in 1839.
Mark Adams joins Sean Mallon, Senior Curator Pacific Cultures and art historian Peter Brunt in conversation about the work of Samoan tattooists in NZ and abroad.
Registration essential
6.30pm - 8.00pm, Wednesday, 8 September
TelstraClear Centre, Level 3, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Wellington
EXHIBITIONS
Kin: contemporary photographers look to their immediate family
an exhibition developed by McNamara Gallery for:
The New Zealand Portrait Gallery / Te Pukenga Whakaata
Laurence Aberhart, Janet Bayly, Alan Bekhuis, Peter Black, Rhondda Bosworth, Fiona Clark, Richard Collins, Margaret Dawson, Bruce Foster, Joseph Griffen, Paul Johns, Nikolai Kokx, Anne Noble, Fiona Pardington,
Peter Peryer, Clive Stone, Olivia Taylor, John B. Turner & Ans Westra
[64 works / 1973–2009]
Shed 11, Queens Wharf Wellington
29 July – 12 September
Opening: Wednesday 28 July 5.30 – 7.30pm
Speaker: Geoffrey Batchen
Victoria University 's recently appointed Professor of Art History
Further
information is on the Exhibitions page
Review:
Peter Ireland EyeContact 16.8.10 LINK
Fiona Amundsen
The First City in History
Sarjeant Gallery Wanganui
August 7 – October 3
The First City in History is the most recent body of work from Auckland-based photographer, Fiona Amundsen. With a background in social anthropology, Amundsen's practice investigates how photography operates on social and cultural levels.
This suite of seven photographs features the Japanese city of Hiroshima that was the first city in history subjected to nuclear warfare when it was bombed by the United States of America on the 6th of August, 1945 , during World War II.
Amundsen comments “The First City in History is a sustained photographic investigation into the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park , the Genbaku Dome, the Aioi Bridge and the surrounding walkways. This project seeks to explore the disparity between the uniquely subjective experiences of being in such historically loaded sites, and their representation through photography. This project also plays on the socio-cultural understanding of both site and photography – the former linked to how photographs actually do reveal something about what they depict, while the latter is grounded in the notion that space itself is always ‘cultural'. Subsequently, what these photographs disclose has more to do with the invisible structures that make up a city but can't necessarily be see in a photograph – things like politics, economics, the social and cultural profiles of a city, its history, all of which influence how a city ends up looking. Ultimately, the core ideas of this project involve an investigation into how socio-cultural historical narratives are preserved and then re-enacted through this city's public spaces.”
The opening of the exhibition will coincide with the 65th anniversary of the bombing. The exhibition has been made possible with the generous support of the Asia NZ Foundation, AUT Auckland University of Technology and NZJEP (New Zealand-Japan Exchange Programme).
MARK ADAMS 11.5.2000. Te Wairoa, Hot Lakes District , New Zealand
U n d e r
Lopdell House Gallery, Titirangi Auckland
Curated by:
KARL CHITHAM
August 6 – October 3
Opening
Thursday 5 August, 6pm
Surrounded by verdant native bush, Lopdell House is the perfect venue for an exhibition, which investigates the dichotomies of New Zealand landscape. Under is a probing of the way we navigate territories. It is an exploratory mission into the grey areas between nature and the manmade, imagination and reality, and the difficulties of cultural expectation. Under seeks to expose the ideas that lurk beneath the surface, a conscious unveiling of the darker alternatives to romantic notions of the way we see the land and its history.
MARK ADAMS
DEBORAH CROWE
MEGAN HANSEN-KNARHOI
NIKI HASTINGS-MCFALL
LONNIE HUTCHINSON
RANGI KIPA
REUBEN PATERSON
BEN PEARCE
JANE SHEARER
JOHN WALSH
CLINTON WATKINS
Land Vertebrates Store #1, Auckland Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira, 2008
Neil Pardington is included in:
Mortality
Melbourne International Arts Festival 2010
Australian Centre For Contemporary Art (ACCA)
Sturt St, Southbank Melbourne
8 October 8 – November 28
From the cradle to the grave! ACCA’s major exhibition Mortality takes us on life’s journey from the moment of lift off to the final send off, and all the bits in between. Curated by Juliana Engberg to reflect the Festival’s visual arts themes of spirituality, death and the afterlife, this transhistorical event includes metaphoric pictures and works by some of the world’s leading artists including Bill Viola, Tony Oursler, Giulio Paolini, Fiona Tan, Tacita Dean, Anri Sala and Australian artists David Rosetzky, Larry Jenkins and more.
Natural Sciences Dry Store #1, Otago Museum, 2008
Tatau Pe'a: Photographs by Mark Adams
University of Cambridge England
Opens June 17 with a discussion/symposium/lecture with Mark Adams, New Zealand, Nicholas Thomas, Cambridge, and Michel Thieme, Amsterdam, and then the opening and book launch introduced by
Prof Elizabeth Edwards, University of the Arts, London.
Tatau - Pe'a: Photographs by Mark Adams originated at Wellington's Adam Art Gallery, then toured to Auckland Art Gallery, University of Queensland Gallery, University of Toronto Gallery and University of Vancouver Gallery. This exhibit explores tatau, the Samoan tattooing tradition, as an example of cross-cultural collaboration and cultural diversity. Based on a twenty-five year association with the tufuga tatatau (tattoo artists), particularly Adams ' friendship with Samoan tattooing master Sulu'ape Paulo II, these photographs show a global community transplanting, adopting and appropriating the tatau. Adams ' images also consider the man behind the camera and the viewer before the prints by exploring colonial photography's legacy and the search for alternative representations of our relationships with others.
The Heart of the Great Alone: Scott, Shackleton & Antarctic Photography
20 August 2010 - 20 February 2011
Robert McDougall Gallery at Canterbury Museum Christchurch LINK
Don’t miss this remarkable exhibition of early Antarctic photography. Herbert George Ponting’s extraordinary images record Scott’s Terra Nova expedition of 1910 – 1913 and Frank Hurley’s dramatic icescapes were taken during Ernest Shackleton’s polar expedition on Endurance in 1914-16.
Presented to King George V and today part of the Royal Photograph Collection, these images are among the finest examples of the artists’ work in existence. Canterbury Museum is the only venue for this exhibition outside the Queen’s galleries.
Antarctic artefacts from Canterbury Museum’s collection complement the photographs, along with a small display of memorabilia that celebrates the special links between the royal family and Canterbury.
The work of the Antarctic Heritage Trust is also profiled in the exhibition. Based in Christchurch, the Trust is responsible for the care of three bases associated with Captain RF Scott’s and Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expeditions. An international conservation project is underway to save both the buildings and the thousands of associated artefacts. Work to save Shackleton’s base all but complete and the Trust is now focused on saving the base associated with Captain Scott's legendary ‘Race for the South Pole'.
Alfred Stieglitz: the Lake George years
17 June – 5 September
Art Gallery NSW Sydney
Lake George brought forth some of the most sublime photographs of the 20th century, whether of people or place. It was where Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) conceived his remarkable cloud photographs the Equivalents, possibly the most visionary works to exist in the photographic medium, spawning the era of ‘straight' photography worldwide.
This will be the first exhibition of the photographs of Alfred Stieglitz ever held in Australia . It will present works rarely seen together, from prestigious institutions including the National Gallery of Art Washington, the Museum of Modern Art New York , Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, J Paul Getty Museum Los Angeles and Museum of Fine Arts Boston , among others.
The exhibition includes 150 photographs and publications from the 1910s to the 1930s, including some of Stieglitz's earliest ‘straight' photographs, later editions of the journal Camera Work and portraits, including from the remarkable series of his wife Georgia O'Keeffe.
Alfred Stieglitz exhibition talks
Wednesdays, 23 June, 7, 14, 21 & 28 July, 4 August
5.30pm
Alfred Stieglitz film series
2 June - 18 July
Wednesdays & Sundays 2pm
Wednesdays 7.15pm
Body Pacifica Contemporary Pacific Artists Exhibition
Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre Sydney
June 25 - August 29
BODY ON THE LINE, CULTURAL WARRIORS
Turbine Hall Gallery
A portrait exhibition of NRL Pacific players by Greg Semu, featuring some of Rugby League's current and former stars with South Pacific and Maori heritage
Nikolai Kokx Dwelling Mahara Gallery Waikanae
August 28 - October 2
A photographic portrait taken in the home is about self-preservation, the
physical testament to an individual's tentative existence – a life lived.
The visual memory harnessed to light-sensitive paper is as temporal as the
moment of photographic conception. It is of curious parentage, conceived
as an enduring memento while simultaneously informed by and formed through
a subliminal history of viewing.
The captured exist in an attempt to quantify our loss.
The J. Paul Getty Museum presents
In Focus: Still Life
- a survey of some of the innovative ways photographers have explored and refreshed this traditional genre
Getty Center in the Center for Photographs Los Angeles
September 14, 2010 – January 23, 2011
“Still life photography has served as both a conventional and an experimental form during periods of significant aesthetic and technological change,” said Paul Martineau, assistant curator, Department of Photographs, the
J. Paul Getty Museum, and curator of the exhibition. “One of our goals for the exhibition was to show how still life photographs can be both traditional and surprising.”
With its roots in antiquity, the term “still life” is derived from the Dutch word stilleven, coined during the 17th century, when painted examples enjoyed immense popularity throughout Europe. The impetus for a new term came as artists created compositions of increasing complexity, bringing together a greater variety of objects to communicate allegorical meanings. Still life featured prominently in the early experiments of the pioneers of the photographic medium and, more than 170 years later, it continues to be a significant motif for contemporary photographers.
Drawn exclusively from the Museum's collection, the exhibition includes photographs by Charles Aubry, Henry Bailey, Hans Bellmer, Jo Ann Callis, Sharon Core, Baron Adolf De Meyer, Walker Evans, Roger Fenton,
Frederick H. Hollyer, Heinrich Kühn, Sigmar Polke, Man Ray, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Paul Outerbridge,
Louis-Rémy Robert, Baron Armand-Pierre Séguier, Paul Strand, Josef Sudek, and Thomas R. Williams.
The exhibition is arranged chronologically and includes a broad range of photographic processes, from daguerreotypes and albumen silver prints made in the 19th century to gelatin silver prints, and cibachrome prints made in the 20th century, to digital prints from the 21st century.
Newly acquired works will be on display for the first time: Still Life with Triangle and Red Eraser (1985) by American Irving Penn, Lorikeet with Green Cloth (2006) by Australian Marian Drew, and Blow Up: Untitled 15 (2007) by Israeli Ori Gersht.
For Bowl with Sugar Cubes, photographer André Kertész created a still life out of a simple bowl, spoon, and sugar cubes, demonstrating the photographer's interest in the compositional possibilities of layering basic geometric forms on top of one another—three rectangles in a circle (sugar cubes and bowl) and a circle in a square (bowl and the cropped printing paper). A visual sophistication is achieved through his adroit use of simple objects and dramatic lighting.
Other selections from In Focus: Still Life include Edward Weston's Bananas and Orange, which depicts a symmetrical fan of bananas punctuated by one oddly shaped orange, and Frederick Sommer's The Anatomy of a Chicken, which uses the discarded parts of a chicken to create a visual commentary. Influenced by Surrealism, Sommer embraced unexpected juxtapositions and literary allusions to express his intellectual and philosophical ideas. In Anatomy of a Chicken, a severed head, three sunken eyes, and eviscerated organs glisten on a white board. Evoking biblical imagery, medieval grotesques, and heraldic emblems, Sommer calls on the viewer to consider the endless cycle of birth and death, the cruel reality of the food chain, and man's role in this violence.
In Focus: Still Life will be the seventh installation of the ongoing In Focus series of exhibitions, thematic presentations of photographs from the Getty's permanent collection.
Previous exhibitions focused on The Nude, The Landscape, The Portrait, Making a Scene (staged photographs), The Worker, and most recently, Tasteful Pictures.
Neil Pardington The Vault
touring to:
Otago Museum Dunedin
16 May - 1 August
City Gallery Wellington
29 January – 24 April 2011
Rotorua Museum of Art & History 19 August – late November 2011
Sarjeant Gallery Whanganui
December 2011 – March 2012
Working behind the scenes in museums and galleries throughout New Zealand with his large-format camera, Neil Pardington reveals the hidden collection storage spaces that are normally closed to the public.
His gathered results ( thirty-five large-scale photographs) hold a strong natural fascination as storehouses of memory or places filled with mystifying treasure.
For Pardington (K a i Tahu, K a ti Mamoe, K a ti Waewae, P a keh a ) the works signify the 'collected culture and history of those things we deem important enough to keep, and what those things tell us about ourselves'.
The Vault Neil Pardington
REVIEWS:
The following artists have photographs included in: Brought to Light: A New View of the Collection
Laurence Aberhart, Margaret Dawson, Andrew Drummond, Paul Johns[see: above right], Fiona Pardington, Peter Peryer, Pauline Rhodes. Ann Shelton [see: above left] & Boyd Webb
Christchurch Art Gallery
November 28 >
Almost seven years since Christchurch Art Gallery opened, the collection display has undergone a complete refreshment. Reconfigured exhibition spaces feature a dynamic mix of new and seldom-seen works, as well as new conversations among old favourites. For any art institution charged with conserving the past, registering the present and offering suggestions for the future, the challenge to 'bring to light' is at once daunting and inspiring. Brought to Light: A New View of the Collection is our response to that challenge.
Beloved: works from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery
Photographers included:
Laurence Aberhart, Mark Adams, Gary Blackman, Ben Cauchi, Di French, Megan Jenkinson, Anne Noble, Fiona Pardington, Peter Peryer, Yvonne Todd & Christine Webster.
December 12, 2009 - October 30, 2011
The Dunedin Public Art Gallery , established in 1884, is New Zealand 's oldest public art gallery.
To commemorate its 125th year, Beloved will showcase a selection of the historical and contemporary gems from the collection. The exhibition and accompanying publication celebrate the history of the collection, paying particular attention to some of the better known and favourite works. Spanning a timeframe of more than 600 years, this rich body of work is both diverse in its content and in the range of media it brings together including painting, sculpture, photography, works on paper, installation and the decorative arts.
Ans Westra has a selection of photographs showing at Pataka Museum & Gallery, Porirua, until 24 May, and then touring to: the Ashburton Art Gallery
July 24 — August 29
Entitled The Crescent Moon –The Asian Face of Islam in New Zealand the photographs were commissioned by the Asia NZ Foundation and provide insight into the lives of Muslim people living ordinary lives throughout New Zealand and across all levels of society.
The photographs are displayed together with quotes from Adrienne Jensen's text about the people depicted. The Crescent Moon: The Asian Face of Islam in New Zealand, the accompanying book with photographs by
Ans Westra and text by Adrienne Jansen, is published by the Asia New Zealand Foundation.
ISBN 978-0-9582964-0-3.
Sightseeing THE NEW DOWSE Lower Hutt
October 23, 2010 – January 23, 2011
An innovative exhibition of postcards that explores the representation of place in contemporary German and New Zealand photography.
Sightseeing’s German influences not only reflect on Germany as the birthplace of picture postcards, but on the way that landscape and tourist photography are closely allied. It responds to a generation of photographers who have adopted the postcard format as their own, and as a medium of its own.
The artists involved include:
Haruhiko Sameshima, Anne Noble, Ann Shelton, Wayne Barrar, Frank Breuer, Fiona Amundsen and Mark Adams.
To be exhibited at McNamara Gallery July 2011
Fiona Pardington
Laurence Aberhart, Mark Adams, Anne Noble, Fiona Pardington, Peter Peryer & Greg Semu
are included in
Unnerved : The New Zealand Project
This exhibition travels to the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 26 November 2010 - 27 February 2011
The richness and diversity of contemporary New Zealand art and film will be celebrated in this major exhibition and cinema program at Brisbane 's Gallery of Modern Art Queensland Art. Gallery Director Tony Ellwood said ‘Unnerved: The New Zealand Project' was the second in the Queensland Art Gallery 's series of country-specific exhibitions curated from its contemporary collections.
‘The exhibition explores a rich, dark vein that recurs in New Zealand contemporary art and film.‘It features more than 120 contemporary New Zealand works by more than 30 artists, dating from the late 1960s to the present, including paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, installations, film and video art,' Mr Ellwood said. ‘In conjunction with ‘Unnerved' the Gallery's Australian Cinémathèque presents ‘New Zealand Noir', a film programreflecting the unique visions of New Zealand filmmakers.
The Queensland Art Gallery held the largest collection of contemporary New Zealand art outside that country, including many works acquired through the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibitions since the early 1990s.
‘Many of the works create a sense of psychological or physical unease for the viewer. It's interesting to
see how artists achieve this in different ways, using scale, mystery, narrative, humour or parody,' he said.
Paris
Photo
2010
Thursday 18th
– Sunday 21st November
Carrousel du Louvre
99 rue de Rivoli
The 14th Paris Photo
Paris Photo will bring together 102 exhibitors presenting a panorama of the finest examples of photographic expression from the 19th century to the present day.
With participants from 24 countries, the 2010 selection covers an exceptional geographic variety with an increase in the number of American exhibitors, and a stronger presence of contemporary art galleries.
Spotlight on Central Europe
Paris Photo 2010 will offer an overview of the Central European scene with work by more than 90 Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Slovakian and Slovenian artists from the 1920's avant-garde movement and the post-war years through to the most contemporary production.
Curated by art critic and exhibition curator Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, the project will consist of four parts:
- the General Section presenting major historical and established contemporary figures;
- the Statement Section composed of 8 galleries revealing some 20 emerging talents from the region;
- the Central Exhibition highlighting a photography collection focused on Central Europe ;
- the Project Room offering a programme of videos from the collective project "Transitland: Video Art from
Central and Eastern Europe 1989 – 2009".
The 14th Paris Photo edition coincides with the 30th anniversary of the biennial "Mois de la Photo", offering a wealth of photography exhibitions, among which "Harry Callahan" at the Fondation Henri Cartier Bresson, "André Kertész" at the Jeu de Paume, "Larry Clark" at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, "Steidl-L'art du Livre" at the Monnaie de Paris, "Extrêmes" at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie…
Exhibitors
AUSTRIA: Johannes Faber, Vienna - Ernst Hilger*, Vienna
BELGIUM: Fifty One Fine Art Photography, Antwerpen
CANADA: Stephen Bulger*, Toronto
CZECH REPUBLIC: Leica Gallery*, Praha
DENMARK: Martin Asbaek Projects, Copenhagen - Galleri Bo Bjerggaard, Copenhagen
FINLAND: Anhava, Helsinki - TaiK, Helsinki
FRANCE: Camera Obscura, Paris - Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris - galerie du jour agnès b., Paris - Baudoin Lebon, Paris - Hervé Loevenbruck*, Paris - Lumière des Roses, Montreuil - Magnum Gallery, Paris - Obsis, Paris - Françoise Paviot, Paris - Serge Plantureux, Paris - Polaris, Paris - Galerie RX, Paris - Le Réverbère, Lyon - Sage Paris*, Paris - Toluca, Paris - Anne de Villepoix*, Paris, Vu' La Galerie, Paris - Esther Woerdehoff, Paris - Xippas, Paris/Athens
GERMANY: Daniel Blau, Munich - DNA , Berlin - Kuckei + Kuckei, Berlin - M Bochum, Bochum - Priska, Köln - Tanit, Munich
HUNGARY: Vintage, Budapest
ICELAND: I-8 Gallery*, Reykjavik
IRAN: Silk Road , Tehran
ITALY: Brancolini Grimaldi, Rome/Florence - Forma Galleria, Milan - Guido Costa Projects, Turin
JAPAN: Foil Gallery, Tokyo - MEM, Osaka - Photo Picture Space*, Osaka - Taro Nasu, Tokyo
LUXEMBURG: Beaumontpublic*, Luxemburg
NETHERLANDS: Flatland, Utrecht
POLAND: Asymetria*, Warsaw - Czarna*, Warsaw
PORTUGAL: Pente 10, Lisbon
SLOVENIA: Galerija Fotografija*, Ljubljana
SOUTH AFRICA: Michael Stevenson, Cape Town
SPAIN: Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid - Fúcares, Madrid - La Fabrica Galeria, Madrid - Max Estrella, Madrid - Toni Tapies, Barcelona
UAE: The Empty Quarter Gallery, Dubai
UK: Bernard Quaritch, London - Eric Franck Fine Art, London - Flowers Gallery*, London - Hamiltons, London - Robert Hershkowitz, Sussex - Michael Hoppen Gallery, London - The Photographers Gallery, London - Purdy Hicks, London
USA: Barry Friedman*, New York - Bonni Benrubi, New York - Janet Borden*, New York - Stephen Daiter*, Chicago - Tom Gitterman*, New York - Howard Greenberg, New York - Edwynn Houk, New York - Robert Klein, Boston - Robert Koch, San Francisco - Hans P. Kraus jr, New York - M+B*, Los Angeles - Robert Mann, New York - Laurence Miller, New York - Yancey Richardson, New York - Silverstein, New York - Yossi Milo*, New York
STATEMENT CENTRAL EUROPE *
CZECH REPUBLIC: Hunt Kastner, Praha - Jiri Svestka, Praha
HUNGARY: Faur Zsófi-Ráday Gallery, Budapest , Lumen Gallery, Budapest
POLAND: ZPAFiS-KA, Krakow
SLOVAKIA: Photoport Gallery, Bratislava
SLOVENIA: Photon Gallery, Ljubljana
New Topographics
900 East Ave , Rochester , New York until September 27, then the exhibition will travel throughout USA until late 2010, then continue on a European tour.
The exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape, held in 1975 at George Eastman House, signaled the emergence of a new approach to landscape photography and is recognized as a seminal moment in the history of photography, A new version of this seminal exhibition, organized with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, will re-examine more than 100 works from the 1975 show, as well as some 30 prints and books by other relevant artists to provide additional historical and contemporary context. This reconsideration demonstrates both the historical significance of these pictures and their continued relevance today.
It is accompanied with extensive interpretive historic material and a catalog published by Steidl
Debating Modern Photography: The Triumph of Group f/64
Portland Museum of Art USA
September 30 - December 5
In the 1930s , a small group of California photographers challenged the painterly, soft-focus Pictorialist style of the day. They argued that photography could only advance as an art if its practitioners exploited characteristics inherent to the camera's mechanical nature . This small association of innovators created Group f/64 , named after the camera aperture which produces great depth of field and sharp focus.
Debating Modern Photography: The Triumph of Group f/64 , on view September 30 through December 5, 2010, at the Portland Museum of Art, revisits this debate and includes images by photographers in Group f/64 such as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Sonya Noskowiak, and Willard Van Dyke, as well as images by Pictorialists such as Anne Brigman, William Dassonville, Johan Hagemeyer, William Mortensen, and Karl Struss. With more than 100 works by 16 artists, Debating Modern Photography is the first exhibition to provide a substantial consideration of the group since 1992, and is unique in its inclusion of pictorialist examples to illustrate the debate.
One night late in 1932, a group of like-minded Bay Area photographers-among them Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Imogen Cunningham-discussed what they saw as the appropriate direction for modern photography. They decided to exhibit their work as a demonstration of a new aesthetic, under the name “Group f/64.” They used large-format cameras and contact-printed their negatives on glossy paper to preserve all the rich detail they recorded.
For the group, subject matter was less important than technique . Their photographs include nearly every possible category: industrial, urban, and natural landscapes; portraits of friends and fellow group members; isolated objects for sharp-focus still lifes; and details extracted from the visible world.
To distinguish themselves from the Pictorialists, Group f/64 wrote, “ Pure photography is defined as possessing no qualities of technic [sic], composition or idea, derivative of any other art-form .”
Over time, Group f/64's purist approach came to be known as “straight” photography , in contrast to the manipulation typical of their Pictorialist opponents. That straight vision became so widely accepted and championed, it no longer appears controversial, as it did to audiences of the 1930s. Furthermore, the triumph of the short-lived but influential Group f/64 has caused the Pictorialist side of the debate to fade into near obscurity. This exhibition revisits the controversy, not only to acknowledge the Pictorialists' arguments, but to illustrate how avant-garde straight photography once was.
Debating Modern Photography will provide outstanding examples of the clean edges and bold forms of Group f/64 that contrast sharply with the romantic, hand-crafted Pictorialist approach that appears in ¬elegant portraits, tonalist landscapes, and allegorical studies.
AWARDS
Laurence Aberhart is one of three recipients of the Antarctica New Zealand 2010/11 Arts Fellowships – he will travel to Scott Base this November.
Fiona Pardington has been chosen as one of three artist laureates for the 2010 Artistic Creation Projects by the Musee Quai Branly in Paris. The programme allows contemporary non- European artists to present a project that offers a connection with the Museum's mission to honour non-accidental cultures and civilisations.
Winner of the 2010 COCA Anthony Harper Award
Curator, writer and editor, Lara Strongman announced that Wellington artist, Ann Shelton, is the winner of the 2010 COCA Anthony Harper Award for Contemporary Art.
Her work, Wintering, after a van der Velden study, Otira Gorge, was selected by Strongman who commented
…this large two-panelled photograph reworks one of Canterbury art history's most famous landscape views. Shelton describes her doubled photographs as a kind of ‘visual stammering': she is interested in the way that this process disrupts the presumed authenticity of a familiar image. Her photographs of New Zealand cultural landmarks explore what traces of an act might remain in the landscape or in the memory, decades later.
Shelton 's Wintering is a powerful, haunting image, whose economy of expression belies the conceptual richness of the work.
This year the gallery received more than 350 entries from artists from throughout New Zealand, with 73 works selected for exhibition. There are no restrictions on the scale or media of works.
The eight Fulbright New Zealand Senior Scholars include second time Fulbrighter Laurence Aberhart, who previously received a 1988 Fulbright New Zealand Cultural Development Grant to take photographs while travelling the length of the Mississippi and throughout the southern states of the US.
This time he will focus his attention on the Atlantic Seaboard states and visit whaling ports from which fleets sailed to New Zealand and the South Seas in the early 1800s, with a view to unearthing and photographing New Zealand artefacts and materials collected by early American whalers.
Wayne Barrar & Ans Westra are included in the Prix Pictet Earth Book
It presents the portfolios of the 12 short-listed nominees [including Edward Burtynsky, Andreas Gursky and Nadav Kander] as well as a number of images by other selected nominees.
10th annual Arts Foundation Laureates announced
The Arts Foundation has announced its five 2009 Laureates and they include Anne Noble
Anne Noble is one of New Zealand 's most widely recognised and respected contemporary photographers.
She has been described as “one of New Zealand photography's most subtle and poetic of practitioners”.
Anne is Professor of Fine Arts (Photography) at Massey University in Wellington , and was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to photography in 2003.
Anne's series Ruby's Room was selected by the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris as the keynote contemporary exhibition for the inaugural Paris PhotoQuai Biennale of Photography in 2007.
Anne travelled to Antarctica in 2002 as part of the Artists to Antarctica scheme. She returned to Antarctica in 2008 after winning a prestigious US National Science Foundation Artists and Writers Award.
Photographer Anne Noble
One of the new Arts Foundation Laureates, photographer Anne Noble, whose three trips to Antarctica have produced a large and intriguing body of work.
The Marti Friedlander Photographic Award
Supported by the Arts Foundation, the Marti Friedlander Photographic Award was launched in 2007.
The Award is presented every two years to an established photographer with a record of excellence and potential to continue working at high levels.
The Award includes a $25,000 donation for the photographer to help further their career.
This year's recipients are Mark Adams & John Miller
Alan Bekhuis sent six daguerreotypes to the international contemporary daguerreotypes exhibition in
Bry-sur-Marne, France this year and all have been acquired by the Bry Museum in Daguerre's town, where they are establishing a Museum to honour the photographic pioneer.
195 daguerreotypes were on exhibition from 44 artists.
Anne Noble's image Spool Henge, South Pole, Antarctica has been chosen from 32 proposals for the photographic billboard at Connells Bay Sculpture Park, Waiheke Island , Auckland
More information at www.connellsbay.co.nz
BOOKS
and
other relevant publicatons
We have available the booklet: ON COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHS
sponsored by The Association of International Photography Art Dealers AIPAD
$15
+ $3p & p [within NZ]
& this leads into:
COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY Gerry Badger [Mitchell Beasley] -available from Parsons Bookshop [see below]
A HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND PHOTOGRAPHY
ISBN is 1-877333-54-5
Wayne Barrar An Expanding Subterra
Published by Dunedin Public Art Gallery
This comprehensive publication traces Barrar's major photographic project depicting commodified mined spaces and uncanny architecture of the underground. Barrar worked on this portfolio for more than seven years taking in commercial, industrial and domestic spaces in New Zealand, Australia, France and the United States of America.
This book provides a thorough account of this significant photographic project, which is also accessible over the coming 18 months as a touring exhibition.
Aaron Kreisler, curator and editor of Wayne Barrar: An Expanding Subterra, notes:
‘This is a stunning publication that will finally bring these works the attention that they deserve. Wayne plotted a photographic course a number of years ago that he has assiduously stuck to and the results are spellbinding – I have no doubt that people will be stunned by the elegance, mysteriousness and scale of this project. Wayne is the type of artist who goes about his business ‘off camera' and when you finally get the chance to see what he has achieved it is overwhelming – this publication shows that his work is operating at an international level.'
Book specifications:
ISBN: 0-908910-59-2
Pages: 128
Plates: 84
Texts: 2 major essays by Dr David L Pike, Looking Underground
and Aaron Kreisler Ground Control, an artist biography and selected bibliography.
Binding: hardcover case bound with dust jacket
Retail price: $55.00
The publication was printed with the assistance of Creative New Zealand and Massey University.
REVIEWS:
Spare Roon LINK
Elsewhere LINK
Otago Daily Times LINK
EyeContact LINK
eyeline contemporary visual arts
issue #71 now available
articles/interviews include:
shelley mcspedden
anne ferran: the forgotten archive
gavin hipkins
lisa crowley: the zone
Eyeline Publishing Limited
Ph 61 7 3138 5521
Fax 61 7 3138 3974
Email r.cason@qut.edu.au
PHOTOGRAPHY AND AUSTRALIA
Helen Ennis
An original and compelling account of Australian photographic history, from the 1840s to the present
Contains many iconic Australian photographs, as well as many lesser-known images of and by Aboriginal
Australians, Photography and Australia focuses on those aspects of photographic practice that can be considered distinctively Australian. It argues that the colonial experience has been crucial in shaping photographers' concerns. The relationship between settler Australians and Aboriginal Australians is regarded as central with photographs of Aboriginal people or by Aboriginal photographers included throughout. Also considered are photographers' responses to place, modernity and globalisation. Images include post-mortem studies of bushrangers, wilderness photographs, documentary photographs, and some of the iconic images in Australian photographic history. The book is visually impressive, illustrated with more than 80 photographs from public collections in Australia .
Photography and Australia provides an original and lively account that will appeal to the general reader, as well
as to specialists and students in the field.
Helen Ennis is one of Australia 's leading photography historians. She was a former Curator of Photography at
the National Gallery of Australia and has worked extensively as an independent curator. Since 2000 she has curated exhibitions for the National Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery of Australia , the National Library of
Australia
and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Her most recent publications
are the biography MargaretMichaelis: love, loss and photography
(2005), which won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award
for non-fiction (2006) and Reveries: Photography and Mortality
(2007). She is currently a Senior Lecturer and Associate
Head at the Australian National University School of Art.
Photography
and Australia (published
by Reaktion Publishers)
ISBN
9781861893239
Available in NZ from Parsons Books, Auckland
I believe that one can readily contemplate the often parallel NZ considerations whilst reading this book.
Art
at Te Papa
The evolution of the national art collection is closely linked
with the story of Aotearoa New Zealand itself – its places,
its people and their passions, and its developing sense of identity.
Art at Te Papa,
a major new book from Te Papa Press, spans the Museum’s
collection – from superb early European prints to exciting
contemporary acquisitions. Te Papa’s curators have selected
more than 400 artworks, each one beautifully reproduced, and accompanied
by an engaging mini essay.
Photographers featured include:
Laurence Aberhart, Mark Adams, Peter Black, Murray Cammick, Richard Collins, Frank Hofmann, John Johns,
Anne Noble, Robin Morrison, Max Oettli, Fiona Pardington, Peter Peryer, Ann Shelton, Chrsitine Webster & Ans Westra
Art at Te Papa Standard Edtn
NZ RRP (incl. GST): $130.00
ISBN: 978-1-877385-38-4
Extent: 440 pp
Illustration: over 400 full-colour plates
Format: Flexibind, 315 x 250 mm
LAURENCE ABERHART has come to occupy a singular position not only within the world of New Zealand
photography, but also within the wider visual arts culture.
His images—like those of Eugene Atget and Walker Evans, two presiding spirits in the Russell darkroom—gain
resonance with each passing year.
GREGORY O'BRIEN
A GREAT PHOTOGRAPH is like an underground tunnel, linking histories that seemed to be separate. Aberhart's
extraordinary achievement has been to create photographs that carry the intimacy and urgency we associate
with certain scenes from our own family albums. In the last two decades, he has widened the focus of his art
without diminishing its intensity, moving from the rites and intimacies of his immediate family out into those of
the wider culture—an album encompassing, as he put it in an eight-word manifesto from 1985, ‘My family, my
country,
my head, my heart.'
JUSTIN PATON
LAURENCE ABERHART has been at the forefront of New Zealand photography since the late 1970s, and is
recognised as a major international figure. Like the paintings of Colin McCahon—an artist with whom Aberhart
is frequently paired—his photographs are a sustained meditation
on time, place and cultural history.
They are also virtuoso pieces of photographic craft.
This book is a landmark in New Zealand art publishing. In a definitive overview of Laurence Aberhart's work to
date, 235 full-page reproductions of iconic photographs of churches, marae, cemeteries, Masonic Lodges and
other subjects are accompanied by illuminating essays by leading New Zealand art writers Gregory O'Brien and
Justin Paton. O'Brien pursues the motif of the horizon through Aberhart's work, considering the many journeys
that his career encompasses and the shelters and structures seen along the way, while Paton focuses on the
human presences that quietly animate Aberhart's extraordinary body of work .
REVIEWS:
NZ BOOKS Vol 17 #4 Issue 80 Summer 2007 p14 Then and now Peter Ireland
...he'ill resolutely continue doing Aberharts to reshape our culture to the end.
...what he's doing is making images that speak to us about the now of history, the our lives bit of the spectrum.
Human endeavour is central to his project, the structures depicted are allegories teeming with human aspiration...
Even those minimal horizons are saturated with an ineradicable human longing for the limitless.
ARTBASH [exhibition]
PHOTOFILE #83 Anne Kirker, Art Consultant, Curator and Writer, Brisbane
Exhibition review: Architecture NZ No. 3 2008 May/June, page 120 - 121
The
book is available in:
Sydney
Gleebooks
49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe
02 9660 2333
Canberra
NGA bookshop
Peter
Peryer: Photographer
Essays by Peter Peryer & Peter Simpson
Montana New Zealand Book Award finalist
Review on RNZ National's Speaking Volumes
Peter Peryer is one of New Zealand’s leading contemporary
photographers.
As author Peter Simpson writes, ‘Peryer has over the past
three decades and more constructed a world—call it Peryerland—which
has its own distinctive typography, climate and features. Only
the best photographers are capable of such a feat’. Peryer
is also one of New Zealand’s most innovative photographers,
constantly refining and expanding his photographic practice, notably
with his embrace of digital photography from 1998.
Peter Peryer: Photographer includes a plate section of eighty
photographs, the largest body of Peryer’s work yet assembled,
personally selected by the photographer. Complementing these plates
are an engaging, wide-ranging introduction to Peryer’s work
written by Peter Simpson and an autobiographical essay by Peryer
himself, discussing aspects of his life from infancy up to the
time he acquired his first camera in the early 1970s. While
interested in doubles, pattern and repetition, problems of scale,
the surreal and the grotesque, Peryer’s work most often
focuses on the ‘thingness’ of his subjects and objects.
Here are whitebait, shells, two goats, a Meccano bus, a ‘sand
shark’, planes and a windsock, as well as a Moeraki boulder,
the trig on Rangitoto and the Alexandra clock. Rich in lovingly
examined bits and pieces, and prompting a viewer always to think
harder about their significance, this book is a quirky and intimate
guide to Peryerland.
Peter Simpson is associate professor and former head of the Department
of English at The University of Auckland. An academic, writer,
curator and publisher (for the Holloway Press), he specialises
in New Zealand literature, art history, modern poetry and post-colonial
literatures. Simpson is the author of Colin McCahon: The Titirangi
Years (AUP, 2007) and Answering Hark: McCahon/Caselberg, Painter/Poet
(Craig Potton, 1999), and has edited numerous other books.
He has been a friend of Peter Peryer’s for ten years.
ISBN 978 1 86940 417 8
260 x 240mm, paperback with flaps, 176 pages
approx, colour and b+w illustrations, $60
ISBN 978 1 86940 427 7
Special limited edition of 100 copies: signed
and hand-numbered.
REVIEWS:
Art News NZ Volume 29 / Number 3 Spring 2008, page 164
The National Business Review, Life seen through a differing lens John Daly-Peoples NBR review
...to...concentrate the image.
Art New Zealand Number 130/ Autumn 2009 page 66 - 8 Leonard Bell
New Zealand Books Vol.19 No.3 Issue 87 Spring 2009 page 9 Peter Ireland
Rauru:
Tene Waitere, Maori Carving, Colonial History
Over the last ten years, in collaboration with anthropologist
and historian Nicholas Thomas,
Mark Adams has tracked the carvings of Tene Waitere (1854-1931)
in New Zealand, Germany, and Britain.
Mark Adams, Sean Mallon & Nicholas Thomas
Tatau: Samoan Tattoo, New Zealand Art, Global Culture
Building on an international exhibition called Tatau, a series of photographs is being published that documents the story of Samoan tattoo.
Tatau: Samoan Tattoo , New Zealand Art, Global Culture is published by the imprint of New Zealand 's national museum, Te Papa.
Containing 75 full-colour plates, the photographs by documentary photographer Mark Adams look particularly at the work of tufuga (tattoo artist) Sulu‘ape Paulo II, and pose questions about the Samoan tattooing scene and
its history. The photos are accompanied by two essays and interviews with both Adams and Sulu‘ape.
An ancient Polynesian art tradition and rite of passage that reaches its most powerful expression in the full body male tattoo, the pe‘a, tatau was first adopted by early European sailors exploring the Pacific hundreds of years ago. Since then, it has flourished among Samoan migrants in Auckland , stimulated major New Zealand artists, and inspired tattooists and tattooing communities worldwide. Paulo was a pre-eminent figure of modern
Samoan tattooing until his death in 1999. Brilliantly innovative and often controversial, he saw tatau as a great Polynesian tradition and also as an art form of international importance.
This new book acts as a record of his practice, and that of other tufuga ta tatau, for all to see.
Mark Adams is a documentary photographer whose work has been extensively exhibited and published. Adams 's photographs appear in Land of Memories (with Harry Evison,1993) and also Cook's Sites: Revisiting History (1999) and Rauru: Tene Waitere, Maori Carving, Colonial History (2009), both with Nicholas Thomas.
Sean Mallon is of Samoan and Irish descent and is Senior Curator Pacific Cultures at Te Papa. He is the author of a number of publications on Pacific art, including Samoan Art and Artists (2002), Pacific Art Niu Sila: The Pacific Dimension of New Zealand Arts (2002), Speaking in Colour: Conversations with Artists of Pacific Island Heritage (1997) and is co-editing the forthcoming Tangata o le Moana (Te Papa Press, 2011).
Nicholas Thomas is Professor of Historical Anthropology and Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge . He has written extensively on art and cultural exchange in the Pacific and his influential books include Oceanic Art (1995) and Possessions: Indigenous Art/Colonial Culture (1999).
Peter Brunt is Senior Lecturer in Art History at Victoria University of Wellington. He researches and writes about art in the Pacific and curated the exhibition Tatau: Photographs by Mark Adams at the Adam Art Gallery in 2003, which has been shown in galleries in New Zealand , Australia , Canada
and the UK .
Tatau: Samoan Tattoo , New Zealand Art, Global Culture with photographs by Mark Adams,
edited by Sean Mallon & Nicholas Thomas, Te Papa Press, April 2010
ISBN: 978-1-877385-55-1
RRP $NZ80.00
Diaspora Drawn on the Body Christopher Grabowski
The global Samoan and the enduring art of tatau, photographed by Mark Adams
Sightseeing
an exhibition and publication of postcards that explores the representation of place in contemporary German and New Zealand photography
Sightseeing with Mark Adams, Fiona Amundsen, Karin Apollonia Müller, Wayne Barrar, Frank Breuer,
John Di Stefano, Jeremy Diggle, Elger Esser, Doris Frohnapfel, Eva Leitolf, Anne Noble, Haruhiko Sameshima, Sarah Schönfeld, Grit Schwedtfeger & Ann Shelton
An exhibition where postcards literally are the exhibition.
It links New Zealand and German photographic artists through a curated exhibition that engages contemporary discourses of globalization and exchange.
The Sightseeing blog is an open, experimental format for research and exchange of ideas around the project.
McNamara Gallery will host this touring exhibition in July 2011
Ferry crossing, Melilla to Almería, Mediterranean , 2009, © Eva Leitolf.
SIGHTSEEING - the book
Includes photographs by Mark Adams, Fiona Amundsen, Karin Apollonia-Müller, Wayne Barrar, Frank Breuer, Jeremy Diggle, John Di Stefano, Elger Esser, Doris Frohnapfel, Eva Leitolf, Anne Noble, Haruhiko Sameshima, Sarah Schönfeld and Shmuel Hoffman, Grit Schwerdtfeger, and Ann Shelton.
Massey University School of Fine Arts Photography Research Cluster is pleased to announce the launch of Sightseeing: a publication of postcards that explore the representation of place in contemporary German and New Zealand photography.
Edited by Ann Shelton and Hanna Scott. Essays by Esther Ruelfs and Hanna Scott
Published 2010 by Rim Books, Auckland
A unique format publication, SIGHTSEEING is packaged in a box set and includes 90 colour plates in the form of postcards. It is published in both German and English.
ISBN 978-0-473-16560-5
For further information and orders please contact:
E: H.M.Hunt@massey.ac.nz
P: (04) 801 5799 ext 62210
Crombie To Burton Early New Zealand Photography
Published by Michael Graham-Stewart in association with John Leech Gallery
Text by John Gow and Michael Graham-Stewart
Soft cover, 80 pages, 210 x 270 mm
ISBN: 978-0-473-16539-0
Crombie To Burton Early New Zealand Photography is a catalogue publication that illustrates the work of photographers in nineteenth century New Zealand . Researched and written by Michael Graham-Stewart and John Gow, this publication documents in imagery the colonial period of New Zealand's past and includes photographs such as the Wrigglesworth and Binns image of the 1883 Auckland touring team and a rare ambrotype by John Crombie of Tamati Waka Nene.
A portfolio of images from Wayne Barrar's long-term project An Expanding Subterra is included in the latest issue of the European photography journal, Camera Austria #107
Mercy Mercer a new book by Derek Henderson
This is Henderson 's second monograph, following the release of The Terrible Boredom of Paradise in 2005
[see: below]
From abandoned rural New Zealand landscapes to the residents of the alternative communities, from Maori teenagers and workers at the Waitoa Slaughterhouse to fashion models and intimate moments from private life, Henderson's varied subject matter is united by an approach marked by a kind of democratic naturalism, where all phenomena, no matter how insignificant or commonplace, is given equal attention.
Although variously described as anti-heroic and anti-iconic, Henderson 's interest in the ‘ordinary' can be deceptive and his narratives often reveal themselves to be more complex and unsteady than they first appear.
Mercy Mercer's 128 colour photographs of the Waikato river, its neighbours, travelers - typically ‘ New Zealand ' in flavour - are punctuated by unexpected moments that tell unofficial stories of New Zealand ;
tales of colonial invasion, poverty, immigration, boredom, and the ecological degradation of the landscape at the hands of commerce.
Mercy Mercer is a cloth-bound, hardcover book featuring128 colour photographs and a foreword by Jan Bryant, Head of Research at AUT School of Art and Design.
Mercy Mercer
Derek Henderson
ISBN 978-0-9582831-4-4
Foreword by Jan Bryant
Design by Fabio Ongarato Design
140 pages, cloth casing
152pp, section sewn
128 colour illustrations
printed on Magno Satin matt artpaper and AA woodfree
cloth-bound with matt black foil blocking on spine, blind debossing on cover
RRP $125
Special
edition (100)
as above plus
box: matt black foil blocking on spine and front
315 x 370 x 40mm overall dimensions
accompanied by limited edition c-type photograph in signed envelope
(250 x 320mm approx.)
RRP $500
REVIEWS:
PhotoEye LINK
Art New Zealand
THE HOLLOWAY PRESS
BODY ENGLISH: TEXT & IMAGES BY LEN LYE
Edited and with an Afterword by Roger Horrocks
“Body English” was Len Lye's catch-all term for all forms of communication that incorporate a physical dimension – from “body language” (which includes gesture, stance, and facial expression) to surprising combinations of words that function as an “umbilical cord from brain to body”.
Roger Horrocks has brought together lively texts from different phases of Lye's career which focus on this concept central to his aesthetics and combined them with ten “doodles”, free-wheeling drawings which share some of the same qualities of “old brain” imagination, physicality and implied motion. The book is a companion volume identical in size and format to HAPPY MOMENTS, also combining texts and images by Lye which Roger Horrocks edited for the Holloway Press in 2000 and is long out of print.
BODY ENGLISH is designed and letterpress printed for The Holloway Press by Tara McLeod on a Littlejohn cylinder press using metal types. The text is 12 pt Granjon, linotype set by Longley Printing Co. Titles are handset in 18pt Lydian italic. Images are printed from photo-polymer plates made by Inline Graphics.
Binding is by Design Bind. Paper is Evergreen Ivory text 104gsm. Tipped-in photograph by John Phillips, c. 1938. Edition of 150 signed and numbered copies. Price: $200 until publication day (27 November); thereafter $250.
Please send orders to p.simpson@auckland.ac.nz or post the order form on the website www.hollowaypress.auckland.ac.nz to Dr Peter Simpson, Director, The Holloway Press, c/- English Dept., University of Auckland , Private Bag92019, Auckland, New Zealand.
Bold
Centuries:
Photographic History Album
Haruhiko Sameshima
Haru arrived in New Zealand in 1973 knowing the country only from his father's photographs, postcards and picture books. “ Bold Centuries is my attempt at placing photographs in an open narrative, collected as a photographer and as a consumer of this image culture.”
With essays by: Kyla Macfarlane, Ingrid Horrocks, John Wilson,
Tim Corbalis, Aaron Lister, Damian Skinner and Claudia Bell
ISBN 9780473144821 (pbk.) 2009
Satin laminated paper back cover plus 196 pages. 220mm x 240mm.
illustration 4 colour spot varnished throughout as well as duotone
black and white on 175 gsm matt art paper. Approx 930gms
1st edition 1000 copies
RRP $59.95 inc.GST
REVIEWS:
Richard Orjis is included in Seen This Century: 100 Contemporary New Zealand Artists; A Collectors Guide
These artists have come to prominence since 2000, and each is allocated 4 pages in the book.
A brief glossary is included.
The Journal of New Zealand Art History Volume 30 (2009)
Editors: Mark Stocker and Anna Petersen
Published by The Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hakena, University of Otago , New Zealand
Features include:
Leonard Bell on migrant central European photographers Frank Hofmann and Irene Koppel
RRP $50 (NZ/AU) or direct from publisher $40
plus postage and packing within New Zealand $5.00 Australia $8.00 Elsewhere $15.00
For orders and inquiries write to: The Hocken Collections, University of Otago , P.O. Box 56 , Dunedin
Fax (6-03) 479-5078 or email anna.petersen@otago.ac.nz
A Field Guide to Camera Species
Darren Glass
Rim Books
ISBN 978-0-473-14735-8
This book is a chronological guide to the cameras I have built since 1990. All are pinhole or slit cameras of simple design, homemade and constructed with readily available materials. Actual photographs taken by the cameras have been excluded in order to focus on camera making and its consequences. I was first alerted to the possibilities of the pinhole camera by my eight-year-old brother. His paper negative of a car next to a shed in Australia , taken with a rudimentary pinhole in the early 1980s, had made its way into the family album.
Years later when I was studying photography I began building my own cameras.
Most of these contraptions have been tested, although some have never been used, others; which failed to produce unexpected ways of seeing the world, have been abandoned. Those not included here are lost, borrowed or destroyed. Often a prototype originates in the desire to photograph a specific subject; a dandelion, the Tongariro Crossing, military search light emplacements built around Auckland , even the camera itself.
Some of these creatures have gone on to produce whole families of cameras that continue to evolve.
My activities are provoked by an interest in how the camera contributes to the interpretation of its subjects. like early photographers who transported giant glass negatives in wagon-darkrooms in pursuit of extreme resolution, I have made cameras that are large, difficult to carry, and often intended for the depiction of remote pictorial sites. I like to think that the work of experimental camera design, begun by Nineteenth Century pioneers of photography, is still in its infancy.
Darren Glass, 2009
REVIEWS:
LOOK !
Contemporary Australian Photography
Dr Anne Marsh
Published by Macmillan
LOOK ! Represents over 150 artists and more than 400 colour plates.
The book is driven by the photographs and accompanied by a series of scholarly essays that examine photography, its exhibition and its technological developments which have led to the prominence of the photographic medium in contemporary art.
Dr Anne Marsh is Professor of Theory in the Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University . Her books include Pat Brassington: This is Not a Photograph (2006) and The Darkroom: Photography and the Theatre of Desire (2003).
The research for LOOK ! was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant and a New Work Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts.
ANS WESTRA: Private Journeys/ Public Signposts screened in the Telecom International Film Festival & on
TNVZ in 2006.
The DVD of this 72min documentary is now available & will retail for $39.95rrp, wholesale $26.95.
ANS WESTRA: Private Journeys/ Public Signposts
Ans Westra, whose photographs of New Zealanders constitute a uniquely expressive record of who we are
and have been, now sits for the camera herself. Contemplating her career with amusement and gratitude, she
speaks as one for whom photography is as natural and indispensable as seeing or remembering. Luit Bieringa,
first-time filmmaker and curator of the superb touring retrospective, intercuts her testimony with cordial
interjections from friends, family and other well-informed admirers - and shows us the photos. Drawn to big
public occasions, she's rarely interested in big public figures. Her images are captured at the peripheries of
official activity and are all the more piquant for that. Framed by a conversation with Hone Tuwhare, the film
roundly acknowledges the progressive role her work played in 60s counterculture and in the cultural renaissance
of Maori.
This 72 minute documentary is the extended festival version of Luit Bieringa's film, commissioned by TVNZ and
joins in celebrating a great New Zealand image-maker.
Please advise if you would like more information. Jan Bieringa jan@bwx.co.nz . 04 385 9435 or 027 535 7370
WHITEBAITERS NEVER LIE
Some say great skill and knowledge is required, but others believe in the mere fact of just ‘being there' and being lucky – and those as young as 3 and as experienced as 93 can be bitten by the bug. As an activity stretching back even beyond our colonial past, whitebaiting truly transcends age, race and gender and stands alone as one of the last pioneering activities still practiced today.
Photographers Anita Peters and Murray Hedwig began in 2006 to explore some of New Zealands major river-ways in search of whitebait and their hunters. Hindered at times by poor weather or the results of, and sometimes just no whitebait, the challenges were many.
The resultant collection of digital images show reverence for not only the pristine river environments but also introduce us to an iconic culture that highlights the passion of the real ‘kiwi' character, one that shows great patience and takes pure pleasure from the ethic of hard work.
An outdoor exhibition titled ‘Whitebaiters Never Lie' was held during the Christchurch Arts Festival 2009 from 23rd July to 9th August, precluding the book by the same name due released in late August. The exhibition consisted of 118 selected landscape format images, enlarged to the grand scale of 1.8 meters wide that paraded on double sided top-lit panels down three blocks of Worcester Boulevard from Cathedral Square to the Museum in the Botanic Gardens. The work in this show was selected for the differences of ‘baiting' and river environments and got up close and personal to the inside and outside culture typical of any average river across the country during the season. Text and dialogue enhanced the images in caption panels below.
The book ‘Whitebaiters Never Lie' by comparison takes a tour river by river around the 8 main regions of the country, showcasing ‘hero' rivers to tiny creeks in environments often unseen on the usual tourist trails. The colourful characters captured within the pages of this book represent countless others throughout the land who will go to enormous lengths seeking the thrill of the catch, to sit on wet riverbanks all over the country in the howling winds and driving sleet of winter in pursuance of these tiny fish. The title of both exhibition and book comes from the fact that each whitebaiter has their own theory about nearly everything, and it's unwise to believe what any of them may say. Captions and philosophies throughout back this up. A foreword written by passionate whitebaiter Keri Hulme endorses the richness of this lifestyle.
Both exhibition and book captured images that rejoice and pay tribute to a fascinating culture uniquely New Zealands own. The book was launched on 21st August at the Whitebait Inn in Mokau, North Taranaki, along with a small exhibition of photographs and proof prints of the Mokau River, the river where the three year long project began. This show will remain for the duration of the whitebait season until the end of November.
Whitebaiters Never Lie by Anita Peters and Murray Hedwig with a foreword by Keri Hulme is a David Bateman Ltd hardback published August 2009 at RRP: $49.99
Edwardian Wellington has taken William Main several years to research and accumulate sufficient illustrations to compile a book on the life and times of the photographer Joseph Zachariah .
This
was because his photographs were originally sold in small
editions of real photo postcards under a shortened abbreviation
of his name - Zak . Another factor hindering
this project was that postcards are sometimes classified in collections
at our libraries and museums as ephemera. Because of this they
are sometimes automatically excluded from picture reference files
that are made available for the general public. Realising these difficulties,
the author joined the New Zealand Postcard Society in order
befriend those who had Zak cards in their collections. Their generosity
in permitting him to copy upwards of 750 postcards for this
project, revealed cards ranging from corporate picnics at Days Bay
to couples listening to a brass band on the lawn at Wellington's Botanic
Gardens. All of these activities along with other gems of Edwardian
Society were faithfully recorded by Joseph Zachariah and appear
in this book.
Edwardian Wellington has155 pages 230 X 210mm with 190 duotone photographs
with extended captions. Perfect Bound.
Copies of Edwardian Wellington ISBN 978-0-9597836-1-2 can be obtained
from booksellers or direct from the publisher: EXPOSURES 93 Burma
Road , Wellington 6035. N.Z.
(04) 971-3535
wmain@paradise.net.nz
r.r.p. $50.00 plus $5 post & packing (N.Z. only).
True
North by Tim
White
Remote Northland communities are the subject of a new documentary
and a photographic book .
Over four years, photographer Tim White visited the townships,
staying with a local families, earning the trust of the local
Kaumatua (Maori elder) and other community members and documenting
them in photographs and on film.
White says he was originally attracted to this project because
of the area’s past reputation as the most 'Maori' place
in New Zealand – a mysteriously spiritual place with a reputation
of “hopelessness”. But after spending years meeting
and entering the lives of different people and families, White
discovered this 'truth' turned out to be anything but. “In
fact, their way of life is uplifting and it made me question what
is important in my life and what I need to be happy?” says
White.
White
liked the irony of calling the book True North. “There is
no truth in photography. Photographs lie. Words lie. Truth and
lies are relative to the observer and the observed. “You
should not assume any real knowledge from these or any photograph.
Journalism has too often become distorted and sensationalized,
fear is any easy
emotion to prey on stereotypes and preconceptions are often wrong
too. Indeed most of my preconceptions were wrong. My underlying
message is for people to constantly question the media, try to
talk to people yourself, ignorance breeds fear, listening and
trying to understand someone else’s viewpoint may solve
a lot of the worlds problems? “I hope only to try and portray
a positive message of the people I have met in the North and the
landscape itself. There are of course negative aspects to all
our lives but I have chosen to try and look past that and focus
on their beauty,“ he says.
The book, True North, contains over 70 photographs exploring people’s
relationship to the land and each other, spirituality, conservation,
family, sound and oral and written communication. “There
are interesting themes that worked their way into the photos,”
says White. “Roads, paths, gates, religion – they
are all symbolic of a spiritual journey.”
Among the people White captures on film are three generations
of organic farmers, a local Maori elder and recent landowners
together with long-time landowners from
the area.
Whakarongomaikio, which translates from Maori as ‘listen
towards ambience’, is a three-part video documentary that
experiments where still photography leaves off. It explores the
sounds and movement of the Northland community where White stayed.
A Limited Edition version, book + print + dvd-r in hand made box,
of 75 copies, is available through Parsons Books, Auckland
REVIEWS:
Art News NZ Winter 2009 p124
Viva Mag Auckland Herald,13-5-09, p10
Remix Magazine, Issue 62 (current), p189
No magazine, issue 6 (current), p161
D-Photo issue 31 (current) 6 page article reviewing the
project ,p 24
Harpers Bazaar Australia Aug 2009 (current), p 190
For further information contact:
Lucy Slater, Beat Communications
showroom@beat.net.nz
09 361 2480 or 021 745 829
Rick Alexander is a New Zealand photographer who was mainly active between 1976-1991. He specialised in
photography at Ilam School of Fine Arts where his tutors included Larence Shustak and Laurence Aberhart.
Rick pursued photography fulltime for the next eleven years, creating three solo exhibitions and contributing
to many group shows. Hinterland is a collection of photographs, many previously unexhibited, which brings
together a diverse collection of works so that they can be seen in relation to one another, rather than in
isolation.
Technical experimentation is important to this work and Rick has made and used a number of cameras including
a unique process combining a pinhole camera with Polaroid film. The work provokes a range of responses in the
viewers. Peter Ireland has described Rick's work as depicting the “dark underbelly of this [NZ's] pictorial
wonderland”. Rick describes the theme of the work as an “eclectic reflective journey through New Zealand 's
interior and exterior”.
Hinterland
Soft cover only
280 x 225 mm
17 four colour, 47 tritone black and white
RRP $75.00 incl GST
A catalogue raisonne of Laurence Aberhart's Domestic Architecture photographs 1974 – 2005
Along with N.Z. images are those from Australia , Vanuatu , Japan , China and France
This project follows on from our 2002 Aberhart exhibition & publication [with essay by Justin Paton] The Interior
ISBN
0-9582430-8-5
Published by: McNAMARA GALLERY Photography
500
copies printed; individually numbered
REVIEWS:
Architecture New Zealand, March/April 2006, p 94-5
N.Z. Home + Entertaining, April/May 2006, p 25
Architectural
Centre [Wellington] Newsletter March/April
2006
The book is available in:
New
Zealand
Parsons Bookshop, Auckland
Unity Books, Auckland
Borders, Queen Street, Auckland
Magazzino,
Ponsonby Road, Auckland
McLeods Booksellers, Rotorua
Govett-Brewster Gallery shop, New Plymouth
Unity
Books, Wellington
Dymocks Booksellers, Wellington
Gallery Shop, Christchurch Art Gallery
Gallery Shop, Dunedin Public Art Gallery
University Book Shop [Otago] Ltd
Melbourne
Centre for Contemporary Photography
404
George Street, Fitzroy
Sainsbury's Books
534 Riversdale Road, Camberwell
03 9882 7705
Sydney
Published Art, Shop 2
23-33 Mary Street, Surrey Hills
02 9280 2839
Gleebooks
49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe
02 9660 2333
Contemporary
New Zealand Photographers
Laurence Aberhart Mark Adams
Fiona Amundsen Wayne Barrar
Peter Black Ben Cauchi Marti
Friedlander Darren Glass Gavin
Hipkins
Anne Noble Fiona Pardington
Neil Pardington Peter Peryer
Edith Sagupolu
Ava Seymour Marie Shannon
Ann Shelton Deb Smith Yvonne
Todd Boyd Webb
published
by Mountain View Publishing distributed by Craig Potton Publishing
sales@cpp.co
SOLD OUT
REVIEWS:
Photofile 78 Spring 2006, p78 Anne Kirker
Derek Henderson The
Terrible Boredom
of Paradise
SOLD OUT
REVIEWS:
Art News New Zealand Vol 25 #3 Spring 2005, p86
D
- Photo #7
August/September 2005, p9
photoeye booklist, Winter 2005, p31 Darius Himes
Photofile 77 Autumn 2006, p79
NOTES
Print Types
See GRAPHIC ATLAS LINK for print identification and distinguishing characteristics
Printing-out paper [P.O.P.] is a commercially manufactured paper coated with silver chloride emulsions designed to develop a print from a negative by using light alone, rather than developing using chemicals.
The negative is placed in contact with the sensitized paper, exposed to light [daylight or strong electric light], and the image would then appear spontaneously. The print is then toned [with gold salts], fixed and washed. These papers were quite popular from the 1880s until the late 1920s. The advantages of the gelatin [sometimes collodion] printing-out papers, over earlier albumen paper, was the variety of surfaces, warm image tones, contrasts, and better image stability.
Atget used this process in his exhaustive documentation of Paris.
The process for making platinum prints was invented in 1873 by William Willis (1841-1923), thirty-four years after Louis Daguerre in Paris and William Henry Fox Talbot in London presented the discovery of photography to the world.
However, Sir John Herschel & Robert Hunt had observed the action of light on platinum salts as early as 1832 and 1844 respectively. Willis continually refined the process until 1878, when commercially prepared platinum papers became available through the Platinotype Company he founded.
Unlike the silver print process, platinum lies within the paper surface, while silver lies in a gelatin or albumen emulsion that coats the paper. As a result the final platinum image is absolutely matte with a deposit of platinum absorbed slightly into the paper, and has the texture of whatever paper was used.
The process depends on the light sensitivity of iron salts. A dried sheet of paper, sensitized with a solution of potassium chloroplatinate and ferric oxalate, an iron salt, was contact printed under a negative in sunlight (or another source of strong ultraviolet light) until a faint image was produced by the reaction of the light with the iron salt, forming ferrous oxalate. The paper was developed by immersion in a solution of potassium oxalate that dissolved out the iron salts and reduced the chloroplatinate salt to metallic platinum in those areas where the exposed iron salts had been. An image in platinum metal replaced one in iron. The paper was washed in a series of weak hydrochloric or citric acid baths to remove remaining excess iron salts and yellow stains formed in the earlier steps. Finally, the print was washed in water.
Metallic platinum is one of the most stable substances known, and as such the prints are as permanent as their paper base.
Platinum prints were popular until the1920s , when the price of platinum rose so steeply as to make them prohibitively expensive They were in part replaced by the somewhat cheaper palladium prints, the process for which was very nearly the same.
Both processes were valued for their great range of subtle tonal variations, usually silvery grays, and their permanence.
Conservation advice
The LIFE EXPECTANCY / STABILITY of photographs depends on: the type of photographic process, how well they were processed, and the way in which the photographs are stored [light exposure {can be reduced significantly by UV-protective ‘conservation glass'} humidity {aim for relative humidity of 30 – 50%}
and temperature {maximum no more than 18 - 25° and temperature variation of = 4°}] and handled.
Unframed prints 28 x 36cm or greater, should be stored horizontally rather than vertically, in stacks not exceeding 5cm high.
Simple measures for reducing light exposure include: drawing curtains & turning off lights [when room is unoccupied] and rotating displays so no single photograph remains on display on a permanent basis.
From the time of its production a photograph undergoes change.
Factors influencing such change include: whether it is an analogue or digital print, pigments or dyes used
[& compatibility between these and the paper type], paper used, chemicals /toners employed, and
support materials [especially acidity levels {aim for pH between 7 – 8.5}, adhesives used and metal-expansive properties]. Colours may change [fading or colour shift] and black & white photographs may develop yellowing, microspots, silver-mirroring or cracking. Agents used for spotting photographs may also fade.
For further detail refer to: www.wilhelm-research.com
The Permanence and Care of Colour Photographs … by Henry Wilhelm, 1993
An introduction to the editioning of photographs
This text, which should be seen as a discussion paper, will be reviewed periodically [last revision 24. 3. 10]
It has been discussed at public forums in Auckland [Webb's Auctions July 2008] & Melbourne [Centre for Contemporary Photography, March 2009] and there was no significant dissension to the notions put forward.
Paul McNamara
Association of International Photography Art Dealers member
McNAMARA GALLERY Photography
Though a discussion paper, one can be categoric about some points:
1. The multiple nature of photography should be celebrated, despite
market pressure to limit editions.
2. Each photographic print should be uniquely identifiable; either
by numbering or editioning of prints.
Absolute clarity is required. Editions can
be closed [indicated by a fraction] where the number of prints
to
be produced is nominated at the outset, or open, consisting
of sequentially numbered prints.
3. Artistic freedom should be nurtured.
4. The provenance of photographic prints is particularly important.
Historically, the monetary value of an artwork was determined
by rarity as well as aesthetics, which raises interesting tensions
with photography’s innate capacity for endless reproduction.
Some see editioning as contrary to the nature of the medium, and
purely a marketing phenomenon. In the U.S.A., before the period:
1960s – 1980s, editioning was unnecessary because no one
was buying photographs in large quantities, and photographers
printed on demand. Frequently actual print numbers from the era
are unknown, but it is often rare to find more than 5 copies of
any one image. This is also the likely number in NZ. When working
with material from the 1960s – 1980s I endeavour to ascertain
the actual number of prints made from each negative. This is reflected
in the pricing of prints. In the U.S.A. the word edition
was not applied until after 1972 - 3.
New York dealer Lucy Mitchell-Innes, who ran the contemporary-art
department at Sotheby's in the 1980s, has recently observed that
the multiple nature of photographic prints no longer bothers collectors.
"People now want to own pictures that other people own,"
she says."That's a major shift…." However, this
is not just a contemporary observation. Ansel Adams’ Moonrise
over Hernandez is notable as a work that held the highest price
paid for a photographic print in the 1970’s for a very long
time. The fact that there were hundreds of examples of it in existence
didn't seem to have deterred the price from being set at the time.
“Photography has become the "hot" medium of the
visual arts in the past decade. Prices have escalated and buyers
seem unfussed that photographs might be one of many editions.
The Age art critic Robert Nelson said the fact that there might
be multiple copies of a photograph was no different to multiple
editions of Rodin's sculptures or Rembrandt's prints. Describing
[Jeff] Wall as a "very significant artist", Nelson said
photography was finally being recognised for doing what no other
medium could do.” [Raymond Gill The [Melbourne] Age
16.12.06]
With the move to digitally produced images, the growth in the
market, and the potential for endless identicals, the desire for
artificial limitation [i.e. editions] has intensified.
“As much contemporary work is now printed mechanically from
digital files, it has been said that in a crude way the act of
editioning is the residual mark of the artist “[Sally
Breen, Photofile #77, 2006]
My policy has always been to leave the issue of editioning
to the artist, as part of their expressivity –
for how long & how widely they wish a particular image to
be in circulation, prior to releasing their next work, and
thereby
maintain a creative momentum and dialogue with their audience.
A hand-printed analogue photograph, crafted one print at a time,
may be better characterized as a ‘multiple
original’. Each print, when viewed alongside
others from the same negative, is recognizably though subtlety
unique in most cases. However, it can take a very experienced
eye to assess the technical ‘quality’ [and ‘value’]
of a particular print. This notion, of the ‘multiple original’,
is reinforced by identifying each print accurately.
As anyone who has spent time in the darkroom will know, the ‘infinite
reproducibility’ of analogue photographs
is something of a fiction; the medium is self-limiting because
of the effort and time required to produce a fine photographic
hand print. The number of prints made from a negative
is generally limited by demand for a particular image. If there
is a high level of demand for an image at the beginning - in other
words it is popular - then print numbers will be higher than for
another image. In the case of open editions the collecting public
does not know when the artist will actually stop making more prints
of a particular image.
With analogue cameras, film, paper and chemicals presently becoming something of an endangered species, print supply can stop abruptly. I am now of the opinion that 'material supply' is the limiting factor in analogue print edition size, and we should dispense with 'artificial' limitation, and allow demand to be the prime determinant.
In the last decade, analogue photography has become the nearly exclusive preserve of artists and high-end professional photographers, and the business empire that analogue-based photographic manufacturers ruled over has crumbled. [Hamish Tocher, artist, 11.11.09]
However, with closed editions, one will know in advance just how many prints are available. Popular images from an open edition[that eventually closes] will of course remain in demand in the secondary market and thereby attain a degree of rarity. Conversely, a less popular image from a closed edition may always remain available and be less rare. In other words, the ‘value’ of a specific image is not necessarily related to the quantity of prints made.
When
an artist decides on a fixed edition size for their work, this
tends to imply an even public response; however, there is a highly
variable response to images, with some being popular and others
not.
When a favoured image sells out quickly this can result in a thwarted
public response.
George Eastman House, the worlds oldest museum of photography, established in 1947 and Image Permanence Institute have established a Center for the Legacy of Photography to collect and share knowledge about 19th and 20th century photographs, to examine the importance of understanding the material nature of photographs and ensure their uniqueness as a fine art and visual communication medium. There is a need to understand and define the ways in which the material nature of silver-halide photographs [chemical technology using lightsensitive silver emulsions] differs from that of digital images and to make clear that the preservation and interpretation of the two pose distinctly different challenges. Changing the materials, working methods, and the aesthetics of photography have altered in profound and lasting ways, and highlight how its specific technical characteristics are intrinsic to its aesthetic qualities .The Centre will inform the appreciation of photographs through a materials-based art history that unifies the technical and aesthetic understanding of photography.
If the artist does choose to limit the edition, which has became
common practice since the 1980s, the negative is retired [but
rarely destroyed] once the nominated edition has been printed;
though the whole edition is often not printed all at one time.
Some photographers like to print the edition in stages so that
they can interpret the negative differently, use different papers,
or take advantage of newer technologies. Also, if demand is slow,
the whole edition may never be fully realized. Also, some artists
may decide to 'kill' the edition before it is fully realised.
Conversely,
with a popular image, when the finite [limited] edition sells
out interest can be deflected toward other images by the artist.
Limited supply can, therefore, drive interest toward an artist’s
entire body of work.
The term edition should not be used retrospectively,
rather the print number, or an estimate of the this.
Included in this calculation should be a list of works held by public collections.
When an artist decides to produce a finite / limited edition of an image that was previously non-editioned, then the new prints could be annotated, for example, with: Edition 2/10 [c. 12 earlier non-editioned prints exist]
Print-to-print variation, of the same image, can of course also
be present with digitally produced photographs.
Again the artist may change the final appearance of an image from
the original digital file, or printing technology or paper stock
may change.
My recommendation on editions is
one sequentially numbered [as produced]
edition of prints for each
image which may
be of the same or different dimensions [dimensions
variable] and printed
using one or more
printing
techniques.
Since photographs can be printed in different sizes, there is
potential for confusion if a photographer prints an edition in
one size but later considers that a different size print can be
produced in an additional edition. My recommendation is that there
can only be one edition regardless of size.
This is now becoming a more accepted practice in NZ. It is
clearer to collectors and the artist remains free to
vary the image size as the edition sells.
If different sizes are to be available within the nominated edition they should be announced at the beginning.
If there
are more than one printing method [print type]
I believe it is best to keep these within the image edition,
but to specify on the print, and in any documentation, the print
type and the number of prints produced of this type.
Also, it is my practice to price work with little or no differential
according to size. I favour a single [image] price with any required
differential based on scale to be in accord with production costs.
Large works can be more difficult to frame [from a conservation
perspective] and more difficult to accommodate in domestic environs.
The scale of image selected by the artist should be based only
on aesthetic considerations.
I am not an advocate for step-pricing [escalating prices that evolve over the life of the edition], however, pre-orders can attract a lower price, and of course price reviews on an artist's work will apply to remaining works within an edition. If step-pricing is employed there should be a central registry though.
My recommendation on titling and dating photographs is:
title; image /negative year; print
year; edition number*; signature [+/- artist stamp]
*e.g. 3/15, if work is editioned
or
print number [if it is an open edition of sequentially numbered
prints]
I like to see two dates on all prints, unless the prints were
all made in the same year as the negative.
Some artists refine this by writing “first printing”
on a work. This is informative when there is an interval between
the date of negative production and when the first print was made.
When photographs are framed this information inscribed on the
print should be transcribed onto the back of the framed work.
This titling and dating information may be written on the front of the print [recto] and covered with the framing overmatt, or on the back of the print [verso].
If an
artist is deceased, this print year information informs as to
whether the print was made under the artist's supervision, or
it is a posthumous print.
One could make a case for a limited edition when photographs are:
- digitally produced
- large and expensive to produce
- presented as albums or portfolios
- printed by a master printer, under the artist’s direction
When actual prints are large, editions tend to be correspondingly
small.
Currently ‘recommended’ edition sizes are getting
smaller[Internationally], and the range is:
[‘artists’
using photography: 3 - ] 5 –10 [ - 25 ‘traditional’
photographers]
Large editions in this small country of ours seem naively optimistic
in many cases.
Once a photographic print is finally determined, they cease to
be artist proofs in the correct sense of the word in that they
are likely to be identical to the editioned prints.
It is now preferable for the artist to make an edition and to
retain artist copies from the edition. [eg one artist copy* &
one artist estate copy] In other words, the edition includes
any designated artist copies; the stated edition is finite
and purchasers know just how many prints are produced and how
many are for sale.
*Artists occasionally reserve one [or more] works in an edition
for public institutions.
Prints gifted by artist, or exchanged with other artists, should come from the nominated edition.
Some of these will eventually enter the secondary market. Artist copies may eventually enter the marketplace when a family sells estate prints.
Some artists produce unsigned, not-for-sale 'work prints' [for demonstration purposes, mailing-out for viewing, etc] and these do not constitute part of the edition.To protect against any confusion later, these should be annotated Work print. Not for sale.
It has been said it is important for public collections to be
developed with a longer view and curators didn't want to feel
pushed to buy a work at its inception. They might consider a work
long after it has been made as the appropriate time to collect
it. Also, a senior curator of photography in Australia has said:
"I favour the system
where artists can provide a short term reprint for exhibition
tours if it is destroyed afterwards, and they should also be able
to provide prints for publication scanning."
The artist copy[s] of an image is expected to appreciate in value
alongside those sold from the edition.
This may serve to circumvent the need for the more bureaucratic Artists’ Resale Right question, with regard to photography.
Editions also control wildcard factors like avaricious relatives not concerned with the artist's posthumous reputation, but on the other hand, is the undesirability of so doing on an archive being so completely closed off to the possibility of public gallery exhibitions. Depositing archive negatives in public institutions may serve to deal to these issues. Estate prints that are unsigned, or posthumously produced prints [from the original negative], can be authenticated by a family member [e.g. photograph and print by..., and signed and dated by a family member or estate representative]. However, the role of an artist stamp being appled posthumously is potentially confusing.
A vintage print is one made ‘close to the aesthetic moment’,
and is thus an object made not only by the artist [or under their
supervision] but produced, contemporaneously with the taking of
the image – say within five years.
Vintage photographs can be indicated with either a single date,
or two dates; the second date being no greater than five years.[Some
would say no greater than one or two years]. However, improved
clarity is provided by the notation of negative year/ print year
outlined above.
A vintage print tends to fetch a higher price because it reflects
best the intentions and thinking of the artist at the time the
negative was made, as well as the aesthetic of that period generally.
More recent prints from an older negative are referred to as modern
prints.
A photograph may be printed differently at various stages of an
artist’s career due to a change in the artist’s interpretation
of the negative, a refinement in printing style, changes in available
materials and improved technology. Also, another printer may be
able to produce a better result than the photographer themselves
[I always acknowledge both the photographer & printer in such
cases].
Therefore it follows that a vintage print is not implicitly superior.
FEEDBACK:
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