THE BOOKMARK
ISSUE 1
T H E L AU N C H
Fleur Van Dodewaard • Jack Davison • Sophy Rickett Supreme Vice • SPBH Book Club Vol 1 • Another Language
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CREATED BY LAURA MATTHEWS
E H T M K O O B 0 H P
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ISSUE ONE / MAY 2014
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About Us Online Content
Editor’s Letter First Things First
The Kelly Pages Fluer Van Dodewaard Portfolio
Jack Davison Fragments Portfolio
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Sophy Rickett The Monochrome Series Portfolio
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Bai Guanghua Dream Portfolio
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Tereza Zelenkova Supreme Vice Photobook Review
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Mårten Lange Another Language Photobook Review
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This Month’s Favourites Photobook Reviews
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Martin Creed What’s the Point Of It? Exhibition Review
Image : Anne Hardy, Notations, 2012
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ABOUT US
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Format
The Sketch
The Bookmark Blog
Format is my photography website, this site can be used to view several projects that I have created over the past 2 years. The site also contains an ‘about’ page, which can be used as a directory to both the sketchbook and bookmark site, as well as all other professional social sites such as Linkedin.
Sketch is my personal sketchbook, a place where I upload work as it develops. The site works well as it allows for feedback, which can sometimes be completely irrelevant, but can also be very useful especially when considering how the meaning and the intentions of the imagery can differ between viewers.
Bookmark is an online research blog, it comprises a compilation of artists who work without and with the photographic medium, as well as including quotations and passages of texts. The criteria of the blog is anything of interest to me, whether this is be contextually, aesthetically or psychologically. The blog is extremely visual and works as a giant mind map, the reason for this is as an aid to help my study; being dyslexic I find it very hard to evaluate imagery which is extensively text based.
THE BOOKMARK About us
Visit Us Online At http://study-bookmark.tumblr.com
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FULL IMAGE
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EDITOR’S LETTER Hello and welcome to The Bookmark, I’d like to begin by explaining what The Bookmark magazine is to me, and why I have created it. Since beginning university I have kept a photographic research blog named ‘The Bookmark Blog’, the blog comprises a compilation of artists who work without and with the photographic medium, as well as including quotations and passages of texts. The criterion of the blog is anything of interest to me, whether this is be contextually, aesthetically or psychologically. When the blog is posted on it offers the facility of allcontent being easily accessible, as well as allowing me to add and update the blog at anytime and from any location. This magazine is a material copy of this blog, I wanted to create the blog as a magazine as It is my intention when I leave the safety of an institution to work in publishing and graphic design, and not as a working photographer. This aspiration for my future career in art has only been recently realized; during the end of my previous project ‘data’ I became very aware of my love for publications. Whether this is magazines, books, posters, I just wanted to be a part of that design world, I describe my photography degree as the loyal, drab wife while I spurned for graphic design – my exciting mistress. By creating a research magazine, it allowed me to still the research as a tool to inform, develop and contemplate my photographic practice. Yet it also allowed me to develop the skills of working in Adobe InDesign, developing an understanding the importance of good aestheticism in graphic design.
The Magazine consists of my personal research towards final major project, photographers that have influenced me, as well as book that I have read and reviewed, and exhibitions that I have attended. However, before you begin reading through the magazine, I would like to inform you due to the publication being polished research journal, most texts within the journal are taken from reliable online sources, which have been referenced below the texts. The reason for this is firstly, my process of researching for my own project work is to read and highlight texts, rather than from writing a review on the piece, secondly, I have no desire to become writer or a critic as my future career. However, I have written some reviews in the magazine, such as the Martin creed ‘What The Point Of It All’ exhibition, and also a few artist and book reviews such as the Fleur Van Dodewaard review. As I have said it is my aim to work in publications once I have completed my current degree, therefore, I have created this magazine and also a sister magazine named ‘The Journal’. Both of the magazines work together, as I consider that a research journal should reflect the art practice, exploring what has influenced them and how it has been used to develop their own practice and imagery. However with The Bookmark I wanted the magazine to appear more like that of a published magazine, which is why on some pages there are advertisements. My aim was to have the journal as more of a catalogue magazine, then Bookmark to have the feel of contemporary photography magazine similar to Hot shoe or British Journal of photography.
Laura Matthews
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FLEUR VAN
DODEWAARD Photographer / The Kelly Pages
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The Kelly Pages is a series of work created by the Dutch artist Fleur Van Dodewaard. The series, created in 2010, is a graphical interpretation of everyday observations on the world. Dodewaard creates the imagery by choosing simple materials, in this case the pages of a book; and carefully combines these simplistic materials together resulting in Dodewaard creating very strong, graphical photographs which are based on rich colours and geometrical qualities. Fleur does not only depict everyday phenomena, she creates abstractions of them and reflect the medium photography in every picture she takes. I first came across Dodewaard’s imagery while reading through a still life article named ‘The Perfect Playground’ in the British journal of photography’s 2013 March issue. The Journal displayed the sun set series Dodewaard had created more recently in 2011. To after viewing both series I saw ‘The Kelly Pages’ almost as a development series that let to the final refined Sun set series.
Both the series portray Dodewaard’s simplistic yet powerful styling of punchy colour with geometric shaping. Almost all of Dodewaards work consist of “assemblages, still-life’s that explore the evocative nature of geometry and color. Referencing art historical terms such as the nude and landscape, her photographs become a tool for the deconstruction of the image plane and a mirror for which to reflect back upon the photographer and the medium of photography itself.” I find Both the series extremely reverting, and refreshingly simple yet still engaging. The work used minimal in the purest sense, colour and white, mirror and table, and even just printed pages. What I adore about Dodewaard practice is that takes these simplistic materials and constructs them by placement to form imagery that force us to question our own voyeurism and understand of contextual art, in Dodewaard’s case this is often reference to landscape or of the nude. http://aintbadmagazine.com/Fleur-van-Dodewaard
THE BOOKMARK Portfolios
Fluer May 2014 Van Dodewaard
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1. Flur Van dodewards blue 2. Fluer van dodes, pages
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JACK
DAVISON
Photographer / Fragments Jack Davison is a portrait photographer from rural Essex, but currently based in London, preparing prints for his first solo exhibition at AtomRooms. Before moving into photography the now twenty-threeyear-old studied English Literature at Warwick University, “I studied English Literature at university, and despite all the reading and essay’s there was plenty of time to take pictures. My tutor described my degree as ‘the loyal drap wife’ that I’d spurned for photography – my exciting mistress”. Davison’s study in English Literature can be felt in the imagery he produces, it has a dynamic presence in his imagery singularly and in series as each one presents the specters with short stories, drama and poetry, I personally find there to always be a sense of narrative in Davison’s portraits. Davsion first picked up a camera at the age of sixteen and since then has become a completely
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self taught contemporary photographer, from simply taking pictures of his family, friends and the landscape around him. Davison’s practice is very much informed and has been developed from the boundless world wide web “the internet introduced me to communities of photographer, and Flickr, in it’s heyday, was unparraled for introduction like-minded artist and creators to each other’s work” he says. His black and white portraits are full of contrast with a dramatic and edgy finish to the imagery. Davison colour work especially his more recent series ’26 States’ is an eclectic mix of punchy styles and substance with great clarity. The relationship between him and his subjects can be seen and felt in all of his portraits, showing that it is near impossible to be objective in photography, as he combines an unmatched visual astuteness with incredible technical skill to produce a
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sublime range of images that are often provocative and always intriguing. I find that one of Davisons greatest skill is the simplicity with which he presents his distinctive work and the clear absence of any excessive retrospective editing, it’s what gives his work that personal style trademark and is why I consider to works so well in conveying the raw human emotion, which I find can sometimes be difficult in the medium of photography. ‘Nominated by gallerist and curator Zelda Cheatle, who described his as ‘a refreshing mixture of enthusiasm and a good eye’”, Davison’s work ranges from documentary to abstract, and takes in both colour and black and white images. – BJP 2014. 18
Davision manages to capture these soulful moment as he never stops the engaging with the world around him, “I don’t really stop looking for faces, I approach people often and am always on the look out for someone new. I guess I don’t really rest in that sense, my eye is restless.” – He says. Although Davison’s work does present us with the same style and way of practice similar to that of a documentary photographer, Davison that classes himself as a portrait photographer not as documentary photographer as she states “I’m less concerned with facts than with the beauty or strangeness of that moment”. www.jackdavison.co.uk www.bjp-online.com http://www.atomrooms.com
THE BOOKMARK Portfolios
Jack May Davison 2014
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SOPHY
RICKETT Photographer / A Photoworks Monograph
Sophy Rickett’s most recent body of work, Objects in the Field, is currently on display in the Camilla Grimaldi. The series is in essence a documentation of Rickett’s time at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge. The work still maintains Rickett’s trademark style and interest in exploring how light and darkness define and articulate our relationship to space. ‘The exhibition includes several works from the Observations series, where Rickett has appropriated a number of Dr Willstrop’s abandoned negatives, reprinting them by hand using the analogue process and altering them through her own subjective and aesthetic decisions. The resulting works subvert the images’ original scientific purpose and at the same time act as a retrieval, or ‘rescue’ of the archive, in an intriguing and provocative confrontation of scientific and artistic endeavours.’ Although I enjoyed Rickett’s current body of work, I find myself drawn more the earlier series
May 2014 Sophy Rickett
and publication. In particular a 2005 publication ‘Sophy Rickett: A Photoworks Monograph’ the publication is the first in the Photoworks Monograph series, a photo book displaying the works of Sophy Rickett, rather than a single series. Since 1996, Sophy Rickett’s photographic work has explored the tension between the narrative tendencies and the abstract possibilities of photography. She has worked almost exclusively at night, building her work around the drama between what the photograph might reveal and what it might conceal. Her photographs generate a powerful atmosphere and sense of place, one that is infused with the desire, uncertainty and expectation associated with darkness and the unseen. They combine formal severity and intelligence with a sheer sense of excitement at seeing and experiencing the world. This book brings together Rickett’s most important works since 1995.
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BAI
GUANGHUA Photographer / Dream
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In around 1995, Bai Guanghua became a photographer. At first, his pictures were mere oddities. Still in the early years of his artistic development, he hadn’t yet attained the ability to realize his subtle and delicate examination of the world around him in his chosen medium. Dream, the representation of a languid fantasy land, was conceived in the early months of the millennium. At the time, Bai Guanghua was working on a series of commercial photographs which placed him firmly within the ranks of China’s top ten fashion photographers. Even in these commissioned images, one may glimpse hints of his later preoccupations; the mingling of the illusive and the tangible and the moment of losing oneself in reverie. Perhaps it is his life in the South Yangzi River area which provides the source of the nightmarish images of moisture and decay hovering on the boundaries of Bai Guanghua’s mind. The dream-world has become a place
of nostalgia for the years past and the expression of a deep affection for the crumbling earth; a means to confront and rebel against the tangible presentday decay of a once vibrant spirituality; an expression of the artist’s loathing. Bai Guanghua’s images of the Huangpu River are not those of the increasingly prosperous Huangpu of reality, but rather the artist’s own dreamy creations. In his visions of the traditional gardens of Suzhou, the artist takes the attitude of a bitter and bewitched dreamer. I like these images even more because they are not images of the garden’s vast open spaces, but rather the enclosed world of the garden walls. This may reflect vague recollections of childhood days or re-imagine distant times of splendour. Usually, they are also reminiscent of ill-omened dreams. The artist’s purpose is to pursue his own memories and to describe his passions, dark and reckless, in his own distinct language. Despite this, Bai Guanghua’s images seem both auspicious and exquisitely delicate
THE BOOKMARK Portfolios
May 2014 Bai Guanghua
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‘Born in 1972, Bai Guanghua established himself as one of the best Chinese fashion photographers. Though, next to his commercial pictures, he develops a personal approach based on his sensations, his memories, his imagination. As shows his “Dreams” series capturing the landscapes that border the Huangdu River, a tributary to Yangzi’s one which crosses his home country. The humidity, the mist, the set between apparition and
Bai Guanghua May 2014
evanescence, dominate each image favoring in such a way the fantasy, oneiric, or, on the contrary, nightmarish dimension. The artist incidentally states that the series does really not reflect the current prosper reality of the areas along the Huandgu River. These compositions simply materialize the images living in his memory. A subtle and delicate gaze you can discover here after.’ http://www.en.ozartsetc.com/2014/02/02/dream-by-bai-guanghua/
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THE BOOKMARK
Film. Photography. And everything in between.
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T
ereza Zelenkova is a Czech republican artist, who is currently a photographer based in London. She earned a First Class Honors in Bachelor of Arts from University of Westminster and went on to graduate in Master of Arts in Photography at the Royal College of Art in 2012. Her work has been exhibited in the Jerwood Space, London; HotShoe Gallery, London; Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland; and the Chelsea Museum of Art, New York. The publication Supreme Vice is stunningly printed object published by Morel Books, consisting of 24 pages. While modest in design, this book is thoughtfully crafted and tightly edited. The editing of the series sharpens the focus of the story Zelenkova has set out to tell. It is a series that grabs at the viewer and forces a connection that transcends multiple levels. Whether it is a connection to the spiritual symbolism of the images or the drastically different depictions of the American West that Zelenkova has created. The addresses the revival of occult beliefs in the 19th century in a rather oblique way. ‘This renewed interest in the occult posits a counter-narrative to prominent Western ideologies regarding perception, reality, and the human experience. As many have noted, photography was born from a collective desire to accurately render the visual world. There is the simplified story of Louis Daguerre and Fox Talbot simultaneously arriving at the creation of commercially viable photographic technology, but the idea of photography was inherited. The increasing dependence of Western ideology and thought on vision, the preferred sense from which to perceive and understand the surrounding world, accounts for the photographic impulse that entertained the use of the camera obscura,
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diorama, physionotrace, and other interpretations of the photographic. The pervasiveness of positivism, rationality and the scientific method justified what could be seen and quantified as the only valid form of experience and truth. The photographic embodies this reliance on sight and reality. It is important to account for Zelenkova’s use of photographic technology to unravel the façade of rationality we attribute to our history and society. Her use of compositionally direct black and white photographs, a medium associated with truth, to give credence and visuality to “our susceptibility to irrational beliefs” emphasizes this duality as an integral part of human experience.’ – humbleartsfoundation For me the imagery implicates me into an uncomfortable state in which fear, superstition, and death are the norm. ‘She continuously deprives our desire to define the subjects who are photographed. There are no faces, no geographical landmarks, no references for us to grasp to, and this ambiguity reinforces her stark postmodern vision. The second spread presents us with a disconcerting pair: the left image is of varying bones artfully and decisively placed in a triangular pattern, the right image is of a dressed skeleton in which only the skull is visible. Not only does the skeleton obviously remind us of the nature of our existence but also the bone symbol implies a talismanic quality invoking everpresent death.’ – humbleartsfoundation The landscapes in this book were taken in the deserts of the American West, specifically in Death Valley, the publication conveys a detachment from reality that is structured through her desolate depictions of the barren desert. This structure suits the book well given the artist’s vision of weaving her Gnostic view of occult symbolism and mysterious landscapes together.
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Supreme Vice by Tereza Zelenkova
LARA
MORRELL Photographer / Saint Anthony
‘Morrell completed her BA in Turin at the Istituto Europeo di Design, before moving to the south of Italy where to work on her personal photography projects whilst living and working on a farm and working as a primary school teacher. Lara’s work has been published in the British Journal of Photography and Internazionale (the Italian equivalent of the Economist) ‘Lara is very inspired by her time in Italy, the emotions she experienced as a foreigner living and working in another country caused her to think with new perspective on immigration and also the experience of living away from the light pollution we are so used too in urban landscapes. “Having grown up in London and in the modern world of 24 hour illumination, my childhood was deprived of the night sky. It was in the south of Italy that my consciousness was awoken to the power of the night sky, celestial rhythms and to the raw material of time, the time which nature imposes on us.” Lara is very inspired by her time in Italy, the emotions she experienced as a foreigner living and working in another country caused her to think with new perspective on immigration and also the experience of living away from the light pollution we are so used too in urban landscapes. For The Lunar House Project, which involves photographing the UK border agency HQ for a full lunar cycle, Lara photographed the institution as the moon passed the line of the meridian each day. The Lunar House project combines my newly found cosmic vision with my concern for the many social scientists and political actors which continue to orient their activities around the nation-state. The Lunar House project advocates cosmopolitanism as a potential social reality, rather than an abstract and utopian philosophy.’ http://www.madeinartslondon.com
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THE BOOKMARK Lara Morrell
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ANOTHER LANGUAGE MÅRTEN LANGE Published by Mack Books
“A physical delineation of nature terminates at the point where the sphere of intellect begins, and a new world of mind is opened to our view. It marks the limit, but does not pass it.” The aesthetics of science, nature and the materiality of things are recurring themes in Mårten Lange’s work and in Another Language, his first major publication, Lange delves even deeper with this fascination for the natural world. Combining images of flora, fauna and natural phenomena in an
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intimate and beautifully crafted book, Lange teases out a subtle narrative - a meteor crashes, a landmass is visible and a distant planet occupies the final page - but the book is more akin to the workings of a scientist collecting specimens. Together the photographs create a cryptic and heterogeneous index of nature, with recurring shapes, patterns and texture, where the clarity and simplicity of the individual photographs contrasts with the enigmatic whole. Shot in his signature black and
white style, his subjects are isolated from their environments, taking on sculptural qualities. Ranging from the sublime (lightning, mountains, a star) to the commonplace (ducks, rocks, a fish), these phenomena all attain equal importance through the democracy of Lange’s photographic treatment. Mårten Lange was born in 1984 in Mölndal, Sweden. He studied photography at University of Gothenburg in SAnomalies (2009).
THE BOOKMARK Book Review
‘Mårten Lange’s Another Language, meanwhile, concerns itself with the totality of the natural world. In Lange’s images, natural phenomena of all types find a comfortable home in his frame. At times, there is almost a casualness to the way that he captures something like a bat in midflight, but as he related in conversation, he is looking at his subjects “with the eyes of a scientist.” So, is the book itself the “other language,” or are the images the evidence of it? In other words, is this a book about photography, or nature? As Lange made clear, the title of the book could refer either to either one. By not trying to spell this meaning out—and reproducing a resonant text by 19th-century naturalist Alexander von Humboldt at the back of the book—Lange has left room for the viewer of Another Language to draw their own conclusions. (This review of Another Language, published in the Brooklyn Rail, provides some excellent background information on von Humboldt.) After producing a number of other works that explored the relationship between photography and phenomena, Another Language feels like the crystallization of Lange’s ideas. Small wonder indeed that it’s showing up on quite a few “Best of 2012” lists around the web. Why did you decide to pursue nature exclusively as a subject? “It’s been an interest since my childhood. Spending the summers in the countryside, fishing, learning the names of birds, looking for mushrooms. I studied natural sciences in high school but then moved on to photography at university. Nature, or at least matter, is something that appears in most of my previous work as well.” What is the “other language” you are proposing? Why is photography a suitable tool for this project? The ‘other language’ refers to two things – the idea that nature and its laws can be seen as language, but also photography as a language and system. The title is reflected in the text by Alexander von Humboldt, but this is not actually where it originated. Many years ago while working in the darkroom, a friend of mine spoke about his frustration with being required to describe his photographs in text, and said that photography is a language in itself which cannot always be translated. I liked that, it stayed with me for years. I guess photography is just as suitable as music or fiction when it comes to talking about nature. But it’s my medium. It’s quiet and enigmatic while at the same time being obvious. Nature is everywhere right before our eyes but it guards its secrets very well, just like photographs.’ http://www.mackbooks.co.uk/books/41-Another-Language www.americanphotomag.com
Mårten May 2014 Lange
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THIS MONTHS FAVOURITES
JH Engstrom / Långt Från Stockholm Långt fårn Stockholm which translates to ‘Far from Stockholm’ is a book by JH Engstrom that was published in 2013 by Morel. The book documents Engstrom’s Journey into the surrounding world away from the big city, ‘Shifting between isolated small communities and the untamed wilderness of the Swedish landscape -Engstrom weaves the two worlds with portraits of ‘dance bands’, youths etc and juxtaposing them amongst icy rivers, forests and disappearing roads.’
Aleix Plademunt / Almost There Published by Mack Aleix Plademunt’s publication Almost there documents an exploration of our world. The Monochrome project was spurred on by the arrival of a postcard, 101 years late. ‘Plademunt’s images play with scale as he explores time and distance, pulling both notions in the most extreme directions. The journeys begin within as Plademunt looks to his own being and the buildings blocks of his physical existence, from images of his red blood cells to his father in his youth. The narrative then reaches outwards, exploring the classic American documentary tradition of the road trip and the Solar System and beyond to the M79 globular cluster, located 42,000 light years from Earth.’
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Review THE Book BOOKMARK
Vee Speers / The Birthday Party The Birthday party is Vee Speers new beautifully crafted book. The ‘portraits in this collection are theatrical, with the children in “fancy dress,” yet a sense of unease pervades—this is an anarchistic, even surreal, take on childhood and play.’ Published by Dewi Lewis in 2008, the imagery flows beautifully in the large sizing of the book, although the exhibited work presents a much more enthrall quality, I find the book holds well to the prints maintaining the playfulness of the imagery.
Martin Usborne / The Silence Of Dogs In Cars Artist Martin Usborne’s latest publication ‘The Silence of dogs in cars’ examines the feelings of sadness and dejection experienced by dogs left in automobiles. The series of work was inspired by Usborne’s own memory, “I was once left in a car at a young age,” he says. “I don’t know when or where or for how long. Possibly it was at the age of four. Perhaps it was outside Tesco’s. Probably for fifteen minutes only. The details don’t matter. The point is that I wondered if anyone would come back: in a child’s mind it is possible to be alone forever.” Shot over three years, Martin Usborne’s series consists of over forty images of dogs gazing silently through car windows, often in the dead of night. The images, which are staged and highly cinematic, evoke a mood of loneliness and longing.
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THE BOOKMARK
SPBH BOOK CLUB VOL I ADAM BROOMBERG AND OLIVER CHANARIN
‘Although it has only been going for two years, Self Publish, Be Happy has already become a hub for aspiring photographers, outsiders and exhibitionists. It has even spawned an offshoot, Self Publish, Be Naughty, dedicated to self-made photobooks that celebrate “naughty pics”, mostly of girlfriends taken by boyfriends and vice-versa. One of their bestsellers is Getting to Know My Husband’s Cock, by Ellen Jong; like many of their photobooks, it’s not nearly as naughty as its eye-catching title suggests. SPBH is the brainchild of writer and academic Bruno Ceschel. It was founded with the aim of “celebrating, studying and promoting self-published photobooks” via events, publications and the web. Not strictly a publisher, SPBH runs workshops that show photographers how to make and distribute their own books, posting the results on their daily blog and acting as a repository of knowledge.
Broomberg May 2014 & Chanarin
“People send us the physical object,” says Ceschel. “It could be a book or a stapled ‘zine. Then we choose what we like and put it up on the site with all the details of how it was made, where it was printed, how much it costs and how to order a copy. It’s all about thinking and creating outside the mainstream model of publishing, which most young photographers can’t afford or simply don’t want to get involved with.” Now SPBH are actually publishing a book of their own; or, to be more precise, three books bearing their imprint over the next year. The first is entitled AB&OC and features polaroids by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, who gave Ceschel his first job back when they were creative directors of Benneton’s controversial COLORS magazine. It’s a rather beautiful little book: a random selection of polaroids, some of which were done as test shots for editorial shoots. There
are portraits (Amy Winehouse, Paula Rego, Alsion Lapper, Adam by Oliver and Oliver by Adam) as well as still lifes (skulls, a leaf, a bird’s nest) and a shot of Adam’s right foot and Oliver’s right hand. The print run is 250 and each comes with an original polaroid mounted on the cover: a picture of a hand, or hands, forming a word in sign language. This has led to another departure for the ever-inventive Ceschel: the launch of the SPBH Book Club. “From the start, I’ve been interested in exploring new business models for book publishing,” he says. “It struck me that the book club was an idea that could be revitalised for the digital age. SPBH is not really about the book as a beautiful object. In fact, many of the titles are about imperfection: they have a kind of DIY fanzine aesthetic’. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/25/ photobook-phenomenon-self-publish-be-happy
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BETWEEN THE SHELL PAUL SALVESON Published by Mack Books
Paul Salveson’s photographs were born in New York and Virginia between 2006 and 2011. Constructing images in domestic environments from items found in arm’s reach, the results are absurdist constructions in which commonplace objects are jocosely rendered in polychromatic puzzles. Salveson describes his photographic process as ‘unfolding like a private performance in an empty house, or after everyone falls asleep... my engagement emerges from a perspective that precedes familiarity, disregarding the functions and cultural associations that objects 44
are assigned. I try to process my surroundings with an alien mind.’ Paul Salveson was educated at Bard College, New York (BFA Photography) and the University of Southern California (MFA thesis on toothbrush design). His work has been exhibited at MoMA PS1, Swiss Institute, New York, and Actual Size, LA. ‘The book is an atlas of synthetic surfaces – the opening spread, an endless faux stone floor. This is followed by an image of stacked store-bought dinner rolls whose rounded corners are arranged in perspective atop a weathered
baby blue, magic shield-shaped, shag carpet bathmat hovering motionlessly over a black void – a coat of arms for the most forlorn of families. A vertical wood-paneled surface inexplicably holds a stark white shower caddy and what could be a potato. The elements of each picture are deftly arranged to form plastic grids of suburban humor and pathos. Salveson pictures an architecture of anxiety, where familiar objects are distorted by displacement, disrupting a presumed natural order. One leaps to thoughts of Freudian analysis and disjointed THE BOOKMARK Book Review
domestic childhood visions. Between the Shell creates a fantastical world enclosed in Saran Wrap where the horizon is all but obliterated, figuratively and metaphorically. One only sees floors, walls, and corners that offer no hint of escape. The stiff pages are walls that open to flat landscapes mapping territories of invented memory filled with melancholy and gallows humor. Roland Barthes wrote in “The Photographic Message” that truly traumatic images precede rational thought and function as a “suspension of language, a blocking of meaning.”2 The uncanny dissonance of Salveson’s work is often, however, more playful than painful, as the sheer silliness of the objects tends to soften their pictorial dislocations. Who is afraid of dinner rolls and shower caddies anyway? Yet, mixed in with the bathmats and tiles are other not-so-gentle vagaries: hand-held doughy excrement, plastic packaged cherry entrails and other inscrutable organic substances. These jarring menageries confound our expectations further and introduce elements of fear into this otherwise anodyne collection of assemblages. Salveson’s methodologies owe much to the traditions of still life and could be seen as an extension of the painterly 17th Century practice of rhopography – a term that roughly translates to “the depiction of insignificant objects.” The still lifes of Salveson’s modern world, however, are not wrought from lobsters and candlesticks, but from shag carpet and linoleum. His compositions are photographically fueled by an interest in new forms of vernacular photography, which appears to come in equal part from Walker Evans’ documentary style as it does from the bewildering image space of the internet. In this way, his work falls in line with current still life practices. Salveson’s photographic terrain subtly combines the pioneering space-bending domestic images and interventions of John Divola and Zeke Berman, the supernormal sensibility of Michael Northrup’s family photographs, and the impossible human distortions of Asger Carlsen. What distinguishes Salveson’s book is its fervent commitment to domestic interiority. His pictures are amalgams of industrialized household objects rendered abstract through their misplacement in plain sight. All photographs are abstractions by some measure. Yet, what is remarkable about these pictures is the simultaneous clarity and inscrutability achieved in their compositions. Their impossible inevitability is surprising, which in turn offers the viewer a glimmer of hope despite all the prefab drudgery. Though Between the Shell’s world may be constructed from particleboard and plastic, its elements are poetically rearranged and therefore offer a possibility of wonderment, even among the darkest wood paneled interiors.’ http://www.mackbooks.co.uk/books/65-Between-the-Shell http://pastelegram.org/reviews/859
Paul May Salveson 2014
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OUT & ABOUT Current Exhibitions
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I only knew one thing about Martin Creed’s work prier to viewing the show, and that was that that there’s always been something playful about his output. So when I found out the Southbank Centre were holding an exhibition of his work, I had to go first walked into the room, it took me a brief second and explore for myself. to realise what I was viewing and to work out what As I first walked into the exhibition I came face was about to happen. I have to admit I was fairly to face with a huge neon sign spelling “Mothers”, repulsed with what I was seeing however, this turning round and round at a variable speed on uncomfortableness came more from the fact that a thick beam that is unnervingly close to your I was viewing the piece in a group rather than by head. My instant thought was this is going to be myself. This made me very self-aware, as could fun, I was filled with a childish notion of wanting feel others looking around to see the reactions to run off and explore. I found the message of of the spectators. While standing there I found this opening piece to be one of the clearest in the tittle of the exhibition to be very apt, as all I the exhibition. A ‘Mother’s could think is what is the presence is a huge one, point of this? I’ve got to admit always near the point of felling I struggled to figure out was you. But then the brightness of MARTIN CREED Creed was trying to state, It the letters is undercut by the WHAT’S THE POINT OF IT? took me till reading Creed’s naturalness of the wood and to understand the work. 29 January - 5 May 2014 vice versa. What should be ‘Creed draws attention to the scary is also intriguing as you fact that living is a matter of wonder what would happen if “trying to come to terms with you were taller.’ It is the same what comes out of you ... That with the room upstairs filled includes shit and sick and with balloons, and entitled horrible feelings. The problem Work No. 200. Half the air in a with horrible feelings is you given space. But it is ‘not air can’t paint them. But horrible you feel as you blunder about vomit – you can film that.” On behind a wall of different film, “horrible vomit” becomes panes of glass. It is the plastic Exhibited by the Southbank Centre a form of painting, and shit – bulk of the balloons. Instead the first solid thing that any of of being airy they are claustrophobic and yet quite us makes – is sculpture. Nevertheless, I found the fun.’ Repetition is something that keeps recurring notion that vomit becomes a form of painting and in his work, in the ziggurats he builds with metal shit is a sculpture to pushing it a bit far for me, beams, the pyramid of pink lavatory paper, the however I was extremely amused with voyeuristic thousand prints of broccoli sections and his cubes quality of the work because it is such a private of plywood planks. It appeals partly to his sense thing to be displayed, to which instantly creates a of rhythm. psychological reaction in the viewer. Upon leaving the gallery, you forced to walk On the whole I found the respective to be through a small dark room, of where the exit is extremely playful and refreshingly honest, Creed situated. Within this room there is a video ‘Sick film’ is the artist of irresolution in which he devotes which is played on repeat, the video essentially himself to an idea but can then never quite reflects basic human functions set against a stark complete it without wondering whether it isn’t all a white background, It’s comprised of a constipated nonsense, which is reflected clearly on viewing the girl attempting to crap and a man being sick. As I show. ‘You will find plenty to surprise, attract and exasperate you without worrying about the deeper philosophical meaning.’ http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/festivals-series/martin-creed http://www.independent.co.uk
Martin May 2014 Creed
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1. Work No. 1092. 2011. White Neon, steel. (Mothers). 2. Work No. 983. 2008. Acrylic on cardboard (installation view). 3. Work No 701. 2007 (Nails).
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THE BOOKMARK Exhibition Review
“I think that the best things get under people’s skin, make them remember them. People aren’t stupid. They know what’s fake and what’s not. They respond to things. Art is just things in the world, usually an arrangement of colour and shapes. It’s people who have the feelings and the reactions.” - Martin Creed
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‘The Photographers’ Gallery in collaboration with Animate Projects present a major new commission for the Gallery’s media wall by artist Alan Warburton. that CGI has made. Conversely, I’m also interested For Spherical Harmonics Warburton draws on in how it fails – when it’s too perfect or when it goes his background in fine art and commercial visual wrong. effects to produce a short experimental animation. I’ve fallen for CGI the same way lots of The title of the piece refers to mathematical traditional photographers have fallen for the formal equations applied in CGI software which compute characteristics of the camera and film processing the behaviour and appearance of light within each – like multiple exposure or flash or the graininess scene. This is an example of how modern imaging of a certain film. For me, CGI is filled with formal software attempts to mimic the massive complexity qualities that define what it is. For example, when of photographic ‘reality’. you light a scene in a 3D animation program, you In Spherical Harmonics Warburton presents a get the choice of a few primitive geometric light sequence of surreal episodes activated by and ‘emitters’. Spherical lights show up in the scene as centred around various bodies of light. Inspired primitive glowing orbs. There are no light bulbs in by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the CGI! And these glowing orbs film hints at a fragmented can be hidden but still emit but elusive narrative which light, making them invisible references fetishisation, light sources. That’s just not systems, games, control and ALAN WARBURTON something that exists outside memory. The protagonist, CGI. Lights without a source! Maya, a stock CG figure SPHERICAL HARMONICS Copies without an original! purchased online, inhabits 17 January - 9 April 2014 Effect without cause. a generic hotel room, responding to texture, colour KS: Whilst there has been and movements which are a 20 year discussion around controlled and transformed the Photoshopping of the by the appearance of each images which scroll past new source of light. us every day (most recently Created especially for the the debate around Lena Gallery’s media wall, the Dunham’s Vogue cover), film responds to its unique most people are still unaware characteristics. Sized at 2.7 that the slick images of the x 3m the Wall is comprised of advertising world are entirely eight high definition screens Exhibited by The Photographer Gallery synthetic – even the most with a combined resolution of banal images, as you point out. In a panel last year at 8 million pixels per frame. With over 7,500 frames the Gallery, Rainer Usselmann explained the impact Spherical Harmonics features a total of 62 billion CGI is having on commercial photography – and pixels created for this project alone.’ noted how photographers with the specialist skills to light and shoot cars are a dying breed. Previously, ‘Katrina Sluis: Your approach to the commission an ad campaign may have involved the expense of has been to explore the technical and cultural sending a photographer to the Namib desert, and ‘coding’ of CGI. What is it that fascinates you about shipping a over a freshly manufactured car from the form? Europe, at eye watering expense. Today, a desert image might be bought from a stock HDRI (High Alan Warburton: So many things! I’m interested in Dynamic Range Imaging) library instead, and a CG how it looks when it does what it’s supposed to do – model of the car (which has not even been made when it’s shiny and perfect and sleek and realistic. yet) might be sent over from the car manufacturer Clients selling products love this look. None of the to create the ‘photograph’. Rainer spoke about how cars or shampoo bottles or trainers you see in ads photography is no longer versatile enough for the are real, they are all these perfect ideas of products needs of commercial image production – a CG composition has become a flexible engine for the production of multiple photographs, visualisations and videos from a single source file.
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THE Exhibition BOOKMARK Review
Ga. Otatemporro ex eos nis esci is es iducil molori
Alan May Warburton 2014
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May 2014
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1. Rocks, 2014 Still Image 2. Rocks, 2014 Still Image
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AW: First off, your point about Lena Dunham’s Vogue cover is only the tip of the iceberg. Think of the recent controversy over the press photographer struck off AP’s register for doctoring an image of a Syrian rebel or the Reutersgate scandal in 2006. Or even the viral created by Canadian animation students a while back that faked footage of a golden eagle swooping on a child in a public park. If you look at all these examples together, you see that CGI is not just affecting body politics and global politics… in the case of the golden eagle, it’s our sense of wonder. The currency of the photographic image as reportage depends on its veracity and that is now totally unstable. It’s almost like the more shocking or beautiful or meaningful an image is the more we will come to distrust it. That’s the most important thing about CGI: it likes to insert itself into places where it can co-opt the willingness to believe, which makes it a political tool of huge potential power. My concern is that it will devalue truth to the point that nothing seems real, especially the special. One the other hand, I’m reminded of a trip I took to work on a big CGI project in Beijing, where someone told me that even though the local markets were flooded with knock-off Burberry bags, people still made expensive trips to Hong Kong where they could spend thousands of dollars on the real thing. In some cases indistinguishable from a fake, the authentic retained a power that no counterfeit
could touch. So maybe CGI counterfeiting is raising the value of the real? Your second point is more to do with the commercial qualities of CGI, namely its flexibility. What you suggest is true – CGI does have the edge on traditional product photography, but I think it’s dangerous to assume that the rise of CGI is solely due to how easy and flexible it is to produce multiple versions of something. Sure, it’s much easier to ship a 50MB digital file online than ship the real car to the Namib desert, but one of the misconceptions about CGI is that the only reason it’s used over real photography is that it’s cheaper and simpler to iterate. The real difference is that the Namib desert is harsh and unfriendly and dusty and you might have to live with the shots you get when you’re out there. Whereas the post-production studio can reshoot, refine, relight, rerender to a point way past what was acceptable for a photographer. There’s less acceptance of messy, chaotic reality. Even CGI dust clouds are finely tuned with stray particles excised by hand. My point is, more control means more work and more skill, not less. And often, CGI produces weird, empty-feeling images where nothing accidental ever happens. This feeds into our ideas of aesthetics, creating a set of platonic ideals. An index of phenomena.’ http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/alan-warburton
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THE K R A M BOOK 58
THE BOOKMARK