deconarch

In Boris Savelev‘s haunting images, mundane moments are interpreted through the abstract prism of his lens. His constructivist heritage is clear and Savelev renders the familiar into complex and strange multi-layered pictures. Like Malevic, Kandinsky and Rodchenko before him, Savelev continues to experiment with light, shadows and form.

Lopatiuk, Chernowiz, 1996 © Boris Savelev

Cafe Ion, Moscow, 2009 © Boris Savelev

PR-Text: Regarded by many now as one of Russia’s most important living photographers, Savelev is an artist at the peak of his career. Working with Factum in Madrid, Savelev has again used this extraordinary and proprietary printing process that allows him to fully realise his photographic vision. This new show is composed solely of colour works. Adam Lowe and Rafa Rachewsky at Factum Arte in Madrid, using their own custom-made flatbed multi-layer pigment printer make the images onto gesso coated aluminum panels, allowing for an extraordinary degree of control within what is a mechanical medium. Each image is finished by hand and then waxed which leaves the surface with a rich and penetrating range of tones and hues. There is absolutely nothing else like this printing process in the world and its permanence is proven.

Jelty Bus,Chernowitz, 2011 © Boris Savelev

In Savelev’s haunting images, mundane moments are interpreted through the abstract prism of his lens. His constructivist heritage is clear and Savelev renders the familiar into complex and strange multi-layered pictures. Like Malevic, Kandinsky and Rodchenko before him, Savelev continues to experiment with light, shadows and form. Punctuated by silhouettes, faces, and fleeting movements each photograph is a snatched fragment of narrative. Savelev has the extraordinary ability to make prints that emulate how our eyes actually read light and dark. Details in shadows, rich glorious colours broken by intervening reflections through glass and strange perspectives make his work incredibly exciting to experience in person. We have never represented an artist with such technical ability. Savelev is the definition of an artist who does not simply take images, but makes his images by being at the controls of all the equipment he uses.

Born in Chernovitz in 1947 he moved to Moscow in 1966, a rocket engineer through his working life, Savelev found photography later on and has committed himself to this exciting chapter in photography’s short history wholeheartedly.

Info + illus. courtesy MHGallery

Babel Tales by Danish photographer Peter Funch focuses on human relations and interaction in a metropolis. Funch’s works are documents of moments that never existed, as they are composed of thousands of frozen moments taken over the duration of several weeks for each work. By shooting at the exact same position over a period of time, Funch is able to superimpose images, and he hereby creates a fictional work based on documentary photography.

© Peter Funch

 
 
 
Peter Funch | BABEL TALES REDUX

Show runs Sept 7-Oct 8

V1 GALLERY NYC, New York

www.v1gallery.com
 
 
PR text: Babel Tales focuses on human relations and interaction in a metropolis. Through repetition and juxtaposition Funch investigates human similarities and collective behavior, creating a strange, poetic and detailed picture of our presence as both individuals and communities in the public sphere. His uncanny works raise questions of reality contra fiction, and they challenge the notion of photography as being a depiction of a certain moment in time. Funch’s works are documents of moments that never existed, as they are composed of thousands of frozen moments taken over the duration of several weeks for each work. By shooting at the exact same position over a period of time, Funch is able to superimpose images, and he hereby creates a fictional work based on documentary photography.

© Peter Funch

In “High Noon” an inexplicable number of handcuffed individuals litter around the prison waiting to be taken in. In “Caretaker” the explosion of colours fulfills our senses while we are invaded by doubt… can these coincidences be purely fortuitous ?

Peter Funch (Denmark, b 1974) is currently exhibiting at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art outside Copenhagen, Denmark, as part of the overwhelming Living exhibition. A large part of the Babel Tales series will also be included in the upcoming and celebrated Mannheim Foto Festival in Germany.

 Info + illus. courtesy V1 Gallery

The photo series LAST CALL by German photographer Cathrin Schulz portrays Berlin inner city airport Tempelhof in an outstanding way. With its presentation as an online exhibition, deconarch.com starts a new experimental feature: Virtual Exhibition!

Cathrin Schulz, Last Call

Tempelhof was one of the first traffic airports in Germany, opening its gates in 1923 until it was shut down on October 30, 2008. Historically charged – calling to memory the legendary Berlin Airlift, with the allied “Raisin Bombers” – and remarkable from a urbanistic geo-view – the airport is one of the biggest buildings in the world and covers a huge area of cityscape, as a view on the map shows –, the airport is laden with memories, dreamsand symbolic meaning. Yet even though shut down, the airport’s future is still not fully undecided.

Cathrin Schulz’s Tempelhof – always without human presence – appears calm and timeless, a of both historic as well as – maybe surprising to some – of architectural-aesthetic value.

Click here to see the Virtual Exhbition of Cathrin Schulz: Last Call!

Virtual Exhibition: A new feature by deconarch.com

ENGLISH

Mit der Fotoserie “Last Call” von Cathrin Schulz geht ein neues Feature von deconarch.com an den Start: Die Virtual Exhibition, ein Online-Experiment, das nicht nur das Angebot von deconarch.com ergänzt, sondern auch die Möglichkeiten des Internets weiter ausreizt.

Ist deconarch.com eine Plattform, die Kunst und Architektur – ARTitecture – zusammenbringt und als Begegnungsstätte mit der Vielfalt der künstlerischen Positionen, die diese Denkansätze verfolgen, fungiert, ergänzt Virtual Exhibition diesen Ansatz um die verstärkte visuelle Begegnung mit ARTitecture – in Form einer virtuellen Ausstellung.

Virtual Exhibition schöpft die Möglichkeiten des WWW aus: Es ermöglicht nicht nur die geografisch wie temporal unbegrenzte Begegnung und Zugänglichkeit der präsentierten Arbeiten, sondern auch ihre dauerhafte Verfügbarkeit, während Ausstellungen vor Ort immer nur in einem begrenzten Zeitraum präsent sind. In diesen virtuellen „Sehräumen” werden spannende Begegnungen möglich, die sich realiter so nicht ohne Weiteres finden lassen – Denkanstöße, Entdeckungen und Überraschungen inklusive!

More about Cathrin Schulz

Cathrin Schulz, Last Call

The German photographer, living and working in the USA, works on two main bodies of works: A conceptual one called SIXTH SENSE, a photographic abstraction presented in form of installations. AND A second one, which she is currently working on, called AUTHENTI(C)ITY of AMERICA, documenting her vision of America as a German photographer.

“Immersing myself in the urban scenery of the United States I perceive its authenticity and diverseness’ and embrace it in soul places.”

About her work, Cathrin Schulz says: “With my images I underscore a graphic and aesthetic perfection of my motives and its tranquility without ever staging a setting. Approaching my subjects with a cool objectivity, lack of distortion, and emptiness of human presence my works convey a timelessness creating a blank screen onto which one can project ones own memories and emotions. As a self taught photographer, I have a very intuitive approach to my subjects of interest. My spirit is : FEEL WITH YOUR MIND, THINK WITH YOUR SENSES.”

Ralf Brueck is an artist/photographer who transforms pure photography into an autonomous, individual work or art. He “brutally” changes and distorts his motives – land- and cityscapes -, thus questioning photography’s ability to illustrate reality. Brueck’s works are currently on show in Cologne.

© Ralf Brueck, Yellow fountain, 126 x 96 cm, 2011, c-print

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Ralf Brueck | Distortion

04. Juni – 10. Juli 2011

Galerie Mülhaupt, Köln
www.galerie-muelhaupt.de
www.ralfbrueck.com

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.PR-Text: Ralf Brueck ist ein Kunstfotograf, der durch den künstlerischen Zugriff eine reine Fotografie zu einem autonomen, individuellen Kunstwerk verwandelt. Das visuelle und konzeptuelle Potential von Bildern ist dabei unerschöpflich und die Aufgabe des Auslotens immer neuer, durch die technische Entwicklung angeregter, unerprobter Möglichkeiten der Fotografie beschäftigen Künstler weltweit.
Mit seinem Interesse an der Erschließung neuer Darstellungsformen und seiner spezifischen fotografischen Inszenierung befragt Ralf Brueck zielbewusst die Beschaffenheit der Fotografie hinsichtlich ihrer Wiedergabe von Realität.

© Ralf Brueck, Pink mist, 168 x 210 cm, 2011, c-print

Der Ausstellungstitel Distortion bedeutet als Begriff eine Verzerrung oder Verformung und meint allgemein eine Verschiebung von Strukturen durch Gewalteinwirkung. Anders ausgelegt kann in Beziehung zu den Werken Ralf Bruecks auch von einem “ Zugrunderichten“ des Bildes gesprochen werden. Die Radikalität dieser Formel steht dabei exemplarisch für den massiven, bildmanipulativen Eingriff Bruecks und die daraus resultierende Dynamik. Das formale Ergebnis seines speziellen Bildeingriffs erinnert an einen Barcode, der die DNA des Bildes darstellt.

Imposante Landschaften wie Wald und Wüste und singuläre architektonische Details stellen in den Fotografien Bruecks die abgebildete Wirklichkeit dar. Ihre Gegenständlichkeit wirkt jedoch nicht alleinstehend auf der Bildoberfläche. Sie wird durch den künstlerischen Eingriff der digitalen Manipulation dekonstruiert:
Baumstämme und Felsen verzerren sich anhand ihrer Farbigkeit zu abstrakten, blockhaften Farbstreifenbündeln und erzielen mit ihren Horizontalen und Vertikalen auf der Bildebene reibende, geometrische Effekte. Durch die Verlängerung und Ausdehnung der Bildinformationen entsteht eine neuartige äußere Form, die die Monumentalität der Landschaften frappierend unterstreicht.

© Ralf Brueck, A day after tomorrow, 153 x 210 cm, 2011, c-print

Mit seiner höchst kalkulierten Komposition und der originären Formensprache der Barcodes leistet Ralf Brueck darüber hinaus seinen Beitrag zur Frage nach der Ergiebigkeit der fotografischen These von der Konstruierbarkeit der Bilder und der Welt.

Ralf Brueck, Jahrgang 1966, studierte an der Kunstakademie Düsseldorf bei Bernd Becher und Thomas Ruff, bei dem er 2003 sein Diplom als Meisterschüler machte. Seit 2001 ist der in Düsseldorf lebende Künstler mehrfach mit Stipendien und Preisen für sein fotografisches Werk ausgezeichnet worden. Mit der Anfang Juni 2011 eröffnenden Ausstellung Distortion präsentiert der Künstler seine zweite Einzelausstellung in der Galerie Mülhaupt.

Info + illus. courtesy Galerie Mülhaupt

Michael Hoppen Contemporary London presents a new series of photographs by Simon Norfolk, commissioned by Tate Modern.  In the autumn of 2010 Simon Norfolk began a photographic project in Afghanistan, taking its cue from the work of nineteenth century British photographer John Burke.  Norfolk’s images reimagine or respond to Burke’s Afghan war scenes in the context of the contemporary conflict.

A security guard’s booth at the newly restored Ikhtiaruddin Citadel, Herat, 2010 40x53" from an edition of 7 © Simon Norfolk

Burke + Norfolk: Photographs from the war in Afghanistan

New series of photographs by Simon Norfolk, commissioned by Tate Modern

13^th May – 18^th June 2011

Michael Hoppen | Contemporary

London

www.michaelhoppengallery.com

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PR-Text: “Burke is an enigma; working with him was like looking for a man amongst shadows. He left no diaries or records, unlike other Imperial photographers from the same generation. There are no photographs of him. In a couple of sketches we see him from behind, but never his face; that has to be more than just reticence, surely?”  Simon Norfolk

Some of the nonsensical property development taking place in Kabul. This district of the city, Karte Char Chateh, is remembered by Kabulis as that part of the bazaar which was burned by the British in 1842 as collective punishment for the killing of the British Envoy. The fires still burned when the British retreated two days later. Kabul, 2010 40x53" from an edition of 7 © Simon Norfolk

Michael Hoppen Contemporary is pleased to present a new series of photographs by Simon Norfolk, commissioned by Tate Modern.  In the autumn of 2010 Simon Norfolk began a photographic project in Afghanistan, taking its cue from the work of nineteenth century British photographer John Burke.  Norfolk’s images reimagine or respond to Burke’s Afghan war scenes in the context of the contemporary conflict. A symbiotic project, Norfolk takes references from Burke’s original portfolios.

John Burke (1843-1900) was the first photographer to make pictures in Afghanistan. He accompanied British forces during the invasion that became the Second Anglo-Afghan War from 1878-1880 producing a small number of albums of prints for sale to the general public. These were sold through his studios in Rawalpindi, Peshawar and the summertime mountain retreat of Muree in a region which is now Pakistan but at the time was the borderlands of British Imperial India.

A view of Kabul City from Bala Burj, 2011 40x53" from an edition of 7 © Simon Norfolk

Simon Norfolk was born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1963 and educated in England finishing in Oxford and Bristol universities with a degree in Philosophy and Sociology. After leaving the documentary Photography course in Newport, S. Wales, he worked for far-left publications specialising in work on anti-racist activities and fascist groups. In 1994 he gave up photojournalism in favour of landscape photography. In 2004 Simon won The Infinity Award from the ICP in New York and in 2005 Le Prix Dialogue in Arles. His work appears regularly in the New York Times Magazine and the Guardian Weekend.

Info + illus. courtesy Michael Hoppen Contemporary

Tomorrow in New York: 1500 Gallery presents “Berlinscapes” by Brazilian photographer Tuca Vieira, winner of the 2010 Premio Porto Seguro, the most important annual art photography prize in Brazil. That’s worth a mention – and the more so as deconarch.com has presented Tuca’s work in an interview and I’ve actually been around when he was working on the great photographs in Berlin! Congratulations Tuca!

Link to Interview

Berlinscapes #5 Digital C-Print 47.2" x 37.0" (120 x 94 cm), Edition of 5 © T. Vieira

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Tuca Vieira: Berlinscapes

March 30 – July 30, 2011

1500 Gallery, New York

www.1500gallery.com

There will be a reception for the artist at 1500 Gallery on Wednesday, March 30, 6-8 pm, with caipirinhas courtesy of Leblon Cachaça.

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Berlinscapes #3 Digital C-Print 47.2" x 37.0" (120 x 94 cm), Edition of 5 © T. Vieira

PR-Text: Drawing on the formal rigor and architectural inspiration of the Düsseldorf School, Vieira creates his own distinctive style. Berlinscapes depicts functional architecture but in a nocturnal setting, with sensual lighting. One could describe it as a “tropicalization” of German photography’s rigidity and formality – “Germany meets Brazil”. Made during Vieira’s 2009 artist residency in Berlin, this body of work highlights the contrasts and juxtapositions of “old Berlin” and “new Berlin”, revealing traces of not only divergent prosperity, but also the great battles for territorial and ideological conquest that caused it. If, on one hand, the physical presence of man escapes the viewfinder, on the other it is reinforced by clear evidence of man’s effect on the landscape through monuments and markings, denoting conquests and circumscribing the course of history. From these fragments, the city of Berlin emerges in all its complexity.

Vieira is from Sao Paulo and from 2004-2009 worked as a reporter and photojournalist for the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo. Since 2002 Vieira has worked on personal projects relating to cityscapes, architecture and urbanism. His work is present in the collections of the Sao Paulo Museum of Art (Brazil), Itaú Cultural (Brazil), and the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts (Japan), among others. For more information on Tuca Vieira please visit his page on 1500′s website: www.1500gallery.com

Berlinscapes #17 Digital C-Print 47.2" x 37.0" (120 x 94 cm), Edition of 5 © T. Vieira

About 1500 Gallery: 1500 Gallery is located in New York City’s West Chelsea gallery district and specializes in Brazilian photography – the first gallery in the world with this explicit focus. 1500 represents several of the most recognized Brazilian art photographers, both emerging and established, with works present in major collections in Brazil and worldwide. 8 of 1500’s photographers are present in the Sao Paulo Museum of Art’s collection of photography. 1500 was founded in 2010 by Alexandre Bueno de Moraes and Andrew S. Klug. For more information, visit www.1500gallery.com

Info + illus. courtesy 1500 Gallery

Bologna based gallery Marabini presents new works by American photographer James Casebere, “Tunnels”. Working in his studio, Casebere constructs intimate three-dimensional models of interior and exterior spaces, pared down to essential forms. He then photographs these maquettes, freezing the investigated spaces between the real and the imagined.

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JAMES CASEBERE

“TUNNELS”

Galleria Marabini, Bologna

March 18th to April 30th 2011

www.galleriamarabini.it
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PR Txt: These new works by James Casebere completes the group of photos started in 2008 for his previous exhibition at Marabini Gallery about the underground tunnels of water in the city of Bologna. Working in his studio, Casebere constructs intimate three-dimensional models of interior and exterior spaces, pared down to essential forms. He then photographs these maquettes, freezing the investigated spaces between the real and the imagined. This new series of works, completely different from the “Flooded Cell” (series showed in 2008 in Bologna and inspired by its underground streets of water from the Medieval age) have been delayed because of the extreme complexity of its preparation works and because the artist have been busy to produce the series “Landscapes With House” for the Whitney Biennale 2010. The exhibition is completed by a global vision of the artistʼs work, given by a section of black and white artworks realized since 1975 to the Nineties.

While earlier bodies of work focused on American mythologies such as the genre of the western and suburban home, in the early 1990s, Casebere turned his attention to institutional buildings. In more recent years, his subject matter focused on various institutional spaces and the relationship between social control, social structure and the mythologies that surround particular institutions, as well as the broader implications of dominant systems such as commerce, labor, religion and law. Architecture, also the functional architecture of the underground waterworks, becomes for the artist a reference point and a focus for the social control.

Casebere is the recipient of numerous fellowships including three from the National Endowment for the Arts, three from the New York Foundation for the Arts and one from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Casebereʼs large-scale photographs have been exhibited worldwide in galleries such as Sean Gallery in New York, the Lisson Gallery in London and Gallery Ihn in Seoul, South Korea. His work has been collected by international museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the Los Angeles County Museum, the Tate Modern and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin among many others.
James Casebere born in Lansing, Michigan, in 1953, lives and works in New York City.

Info + illus. courtesy Galleria Marabini

An exhibition at Porto presents new works of Portugese photographer Inês d’Orey‘s striking, ongoing series “Porto Interior”. To find out more about Inês’ work and her intentions, please read this interview she gave deconarch.com some time ago.

© Inês d'Orey

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Porto Interior

From 12^th March until 15^th May 2011.

Edifício da Ex-Cadeia e Tribunal da Relação do Porto

Porto, Portugal

www.cpf.pt

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PR info: Inês d’Orey returns with new incursions through Porto, scattered in time and space. After de New Talent Fnac Photography 2007, the (re)discovery of the city has been continued. Unlike immediate appearances, the city seems to be growing, intimately.

When punctuated by the absence of any human being, the public and semi-public interiors spaces of the city are hit by an alteration in the meaning and in the identity imprinted on Porto. What the city represents becomes thereby more extreme. These spaces, apparently stagnant, transform themselves into a series of generic places, existing and subsisting in a lost time.

Therefore, these images are offered as stages, always with a different story to tell. The intention is not to document as an objective process, but rather to explore the possibility and the impossibility of a porto interior, where one arrives and remains.

The exhibition “Portraits from Above – Hong Kong’s Informal Rooftop Communities” presents the photo documentation by Canadian architect Rufina Wu and German photographer Stefan Canham, including photos, drawings and texts. Within 3 months Wu and Canham have visited and portrayed the informal slum cities of Hong Kong – because of the city’s geographical disposition, these auxiliary sheds have been moved to the roofs of highrises from the 50s and 60s. On minimal space people are “residing” in corrugated iron shacks with up to three “storeys”. Since about 50 years these illegal informal communities are essential part of the HK cityscape.

From February to May 2011, “Portraits from Above” are presented in Dresden, at Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau.

© Rufina Wu, Stefan Canham

Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau

A little while ago I presented the extraordinary photographs of old French pigeonries by San Fransisco-based photographer Vicki Topaz: For her series “Silent Nests”, Topaz has documented old noble pigeonries in North-Eastern France, Normandy and Brittany over the course of several years. Even though hardly noticed today, these buildings look back on an intriguing history as former icons of nobility, from the 13th century until the French Revolution.

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The Style Saloniste has publishedan interesting interview with Vicki Topaz,

accompanied by several wonderful photos (LINK).

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More about “Silent Nests”.

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The book about “Silent Nests”, presenting wonderful b/w photographs, has been published by Heidelberg publisher Kehrer Verlag, and I’ve been fortunate to do the copy-editing of the project.

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