Armed Forces - Alex Van Gelder

Alex Van Gelder - seen here

This incredible photograph of Louise Bourgeois' hands was taken by Alex Van Gelder and is part of the current exhibition at the Hauser & Wirth gallery in Zurich. Here is part of the gallery introduction to the show: "Gnarled, sinewy and wrinkled with age, Louise Bourgeois’s hands were fascinating. Her hands are the subjects of portraits taken by the artist Alex Van Gelder, who, at Bourgeois’s invitation, photographed her at her New York townhouse during the last year of her life. The resulting portfolio of eighteen photographic prints will be on display at Hauser & Wirth Zürich from 12 February." The exhibition shows until 14 May.

Shadow Catchers: Camera-less Photography

Floris Neusüss - Shadow Catchers - installation shot - seen here

The V&A has been on my list to visit, there were two things in particular that I wanted to see, Shadow Catchers: Camera-less Photography and Mat Collishaw's Magic Lantern zoetrope installation in the crown cupola of the museum's architecture. I timed my visit to make sure I was there after dark and got the most from the installation, billed as '...hauntingly beautiful...a beacon of light brought to life by fluttering moths...', I was disappointed. If I had not already read about the piece, I am not sure I would have noticed it, and if I had, I think I just might have assumed there was a strobe light on the roof. There was also a smaller piece installed in the garden to compliment the work, but I was informed that it was not working today.

Moving swiftly on, Shadow Catchers was an enchanting exhibition, focusing on the experiments of five artists, Floris Neusüss, Pierre Cordier, Susan Derges, Garry Fabian Miller and Adam Fuss in making images on photographic paper without the use of a camera. Various techniques had been used which manipulated light or used chemical processes to capture people, objects, abstract patterns and textures. 

It is interesting that these techniques seemed to lead the artists to muse on spiritual and philosophic questions about the nature and matter of the universe. Maybe the techniques themselves and the quasi-scientific element to the processes influenced the contexts. The often ghostly, ethereal quality of the finished works certainly hint at the more meta-physical aspects of humanity. 

Pierre Cordier - Chemigram 8/2/61 I, 8 février 1961 - seen here

I particularly enjoyed Chemigram 8//2/61 1, 8 fevrier 1961 by Pierre Cordier, it suggested to me the other-worldly presences of the ancestors seen in the palimpsest rock paintings of aboriginal Australia. 

Susan Derges - Vessel No. 3 (1) - seen here

I liked Susan Derges tadpole series, with all the memories it brought of childhood wonder at the process of transformation. Floris Neusüss' photogram Homage to Talbot: The Latticed Window, Lacock Abbey 2010 was absolutely beautiful. Adam Fuss' Shaker ladder was exceptional, and for me brought a little humour to the otherwise quite serious content of the show. 

Adam Fuss - seen here

Spectral Visitations

Thanks to our spectral visitors at Absent But Not Forgotten: 2 last Sunday - here is a link to the gallery of Polaroid images we shot on the night!

Mission Gallery Photography Open 2010

Emma Rylance - Bye Bye B - seen here

The Mission Gallery in Swansea is currently showing the selected work from their 2010 Photography Open. It is a good show, the space seems to really work for photography - something about the light in the gallery I think. The winners this year were Tina Carr and Annemarie Schöne with an image from the show Once We Were Birds about Roma communities in Hungary, which was shown with us at Oriel Myrddin Gallery in 2009. Second prize went to Swansea artist Gemma Copp for an image from a documented set of performances around the theme 'Autonomy'.

I particularly liked the work of Emma Rylance - a triptych of images of bras, Bye Bye B hung centrally in the chapel end of the gallery. I liked the humour and the witty curation!

The Silent Village

Rachel Trezise text - The Silent Village

The subject matter of this exhibition at Ffotogallery in Turner House Gallery, Penarth is heavy weight. You need to spend some time with it and you need to feel ready to be moved, effected and appalled. I went yesterday with the particular agenda to see Peter Finnemore's series of photographs. I ended up spending time with every element of the show. Emma Geliot has written an excellent review on her blog, giving the background to the work.

Photographers, Peter Finnemore and Paolo Ventura and writer Rachel Trezise resond to the WW2 events in the Nazi occupied village of Lidice in Czechoslovakia which saw 340 villagers massacred, sent to concentration camps or, in the case of some of the children 'Germanised'. The village itself was razed to the ground in an attempt to obliterate it from the world in revenge for the death of the SS Nazi officer placed in command of the protectorate. In an attempt to contextualise the outrage felt internationally at the time, the events of this horrific war crime were transposed by the Film maker Humphrey Jennings (commissioned by the British Ministry of Information), to the mining village of Cwmgeidd in the Swansea Valley in his film Silent Village. Similar in its industry and ordinariness to Lidice, the film used no actors, just the actual residents of Cwmgeidd using their own names as they re-enacted the atrocity. The film is showing on a loop in the gallery, an extraordinary testament forming the heart of the exhibition.

It reminds us that we can chose to resist, and to remember; standing in quiet solidarity with the will towards humanity and empathy.

Peter Finnemore - Silent Village - seen here

The exhibition also tells us about a bygone era; when it was made Silent Village was a contemporary piece, it spoke directly to the people of the time. It is now a remarkable documentary of a Welsh Village in the 1940's, and there is another layer of nostalgia and melancholy layered into the film for a modern viewer. This is where Peter Finnemore excels. I found Peter's images deeply moving and incredibly beautiful, he is so adept at lightly touching his subject matter, allowing it to unfold obliquely and subtly in our minds. I always find myself returning to his images with new layers of understanding and meaning long after I have seen them. Never didactic, never blunt or clumsy, he lets us feel a little of his own vulnerability to let us get in touch with our own.

The show continues until February 27th and there is a beautiful cloth bound, boxed publication accompanying the exhibition.

Willie Doherty - Buried

Willie Doherty - Still from Buried - seen here

As soon as the snow has melted and I can travel again I'm heading off to Glynn Vivian Gallery in Swansea to see their latest show Buried by Willie Doherty. Irish artist, Doherty is showing a selection of films and photographs including a new film Buried, made and shown in context with an earlier film, Ghost Story.

Doherty has made work throughout his career that address The Troubles in Northern Ireland with particular reference to his witnessing of Bloody Sunday in 1972.

"...Doherty's focus on place, on the landscape which can no longer contain its histories and memories, avoids simple resolutions, acknowledging instead that long histories never die. In Doherty's work, the past is buried but ever present. Doherty's work blends fact and fiction, history and memory, and has an odd sense of timeless urgency - that these are concerns affecting us all, issues that will not go away." seen here

Maura Hazelden

Maura Hazelden - Eli - Seen here


Maura Hazelden - Holy Hiatus (performance) - seen here

Maura Hazelden is a performance artist based in west Wales, she also takes exquisite photographs - keep an eye on her Flickr page here

Once We Were Birds

Tina Carr and Anne Marie Schöne - Sajokasa - seen here

Photographers, Tina Carr and Annemarie Schöne came into the gallery yesterday to show us some of the work that will be included in their January 2010 exhibition, Once We Were Birds. I'm really excited about the show.

Setting out at the beginning of May 2009 they journeyed from the UK to Hungary to meet, speak with, listen to and work with Roma individuals and groups. Staying on a camp site in Budapest for 6 weeks and then in a converted van parked in a Roma settlement in the north east of Hungary, they have documented a remarkable series of still and moving images of Roma communities. Their blog also follows the progress of the project.

We are lucky to have Tina and Annemarie living locally here in west Wales, their photographic projects over the last 20 years have brought a depth and poignancy to a number of issues that are fundamental to the culture of our own communities.

Coalfaces documents "...life and landscape in the ex-coal communities of Cymer, Croeserw, Glyncorrwg, Abergwynfi and Blaengwynfi. These small, scattered and tightly knit settlements grew in response to the exploitation of high quality steam coal found in the valley. Now and since the destruction of the industry thirty years ago these villages are still dealing with severe problems of adjustment. Jobs lost in pit closures have not been replaced. There is still high unemployment and many families are experiencing a third generation dependent on social security benefits."

This project took 18 years to bring to print as a book - the launch was at The National Library of Wales in 2008.

Tina Carr and Anne Marie Schöne - Croeserw Amateur Boxing Club - seen here

My favourite series of their work is Abandoned,"...a still life series; intimate studies of abandoned homes, barns and places depicting a rural way of life in West Wales that has almost disappeared. This world is explored with almost forensic intensity."

Tina Carr and Anne Marie Schöne - Horns - seen here

Watch this space for more about Once We Were Birds...

SHOWstudio: Fashion Revolution

On Sunday morning I visited SHOWstudio: Fashion Revolution at Somerset House. I've had a page on SHOWstudio.com for a few years now and I really enjoy its energy and vibrancy. Headed up by legendary fashion photographer, Nick Knight, SHOWstudio "...has pioneered the most imaginative and exciting forms of fashion for the Internet. These have both informed and inspired the current fashion revolution. In championing the new medium of fashion film in particular, SHOWstudio.com has harnessed the potential of new technology and the Web to completely reinvent the fashion image and the way we experience it."

By democratising the processes of fashion and opening the forum to all comers, Nick Knight has challenged the notions of exclusivity in the fashion world. In utilising digital platforms, embracing and experimenting with the new technologies, the business of fashion photography has expanded to incorporate performance, film, music, art - SHOWstudio has pioneered a 'richer landscape' for the fashion universe.

Eva Bartussek

Eva Bartussek - Horse House, seen here

I'm looking forward to seeing the photography exhibition, Horse House by Eva Bartussek at the Glynn Vivian Gallery in Swansea, it opens on Friday 9 October.

Here is the gallery information:

Eva Bartussek is an emerging Swansea based photographer who seeks to expand notions of documentary portraiture through her work. Horse House is the documentation of an extraordinary, local, domestic situation: a mansion that for some time was simultaneously a home and stable. By photographing this 'world' extensively, Bartussek sought to foreground its dreamlike, even surreal aspects. In this piece, she creates a portrait of a person without photographing them directly and in doing so the portrait becomes that of a home, its contents, a house, its history, a situation, a space and so on.

Ma Ke

Image seen here

Thank you to Mady Dooijes on her blog Abundance for posting about Chinese fashion designer, Ma Ke and her Wu Yong collection. A hybrid between art and fashion, these extrodinary sculptural garments embrace ideas around sustainability and challenge notions of value, especially in the fashion industry; Wu Yong translates as 'useless'. Ma Ke sees her garments as "things which are the bearers of values for the future."

Here is a You Tube piece about her work at the V & A Fashion in Motion showcase in 2008.

The Wu Yong concept has expanded to a set of truely beautiful photographs by Zhou Mi.

Images by Zhou Mi seen here