Right before New Year’s Eve, we’re introducing the fifth issue of The Garlic Bread magazine. In recollection of the Mayan’s prophecy of the world’s end just a week ago, we came to see that the works presented here in our fifth issue could definitely be considered as the artist’s private prophecies, in various ways and interpretations. The monochrome landscapes in Matan’s work indicate the brutal interference of human architecture in Israel, followed by Ralf’s digitally manipulated images from Germany, that distort space and time, giving the impression of enormous power released from both nature and man-made objects. Katrin’s work provokes us by using an indirect and subtle force. While collecting delicate artifacts by a river once occupied for thousands of years by the indigenous Wurundjeri tribe, Katrin reminds us of Australia’s private apocalypse that took place in the 19th century. Last but not least, Shen, a Taiwanese artist, invites us to a spectacular world of colors and lights, in both awe and remoteness. We had an exciting year creating and producing our contemporary online magazine, and we want to thank everyone who took part in our project during 2012. We hope that 2013 will be everything that it could, for each of us in our own personal aspirations. For future issues, we have added a subscribe option, so we can inform you of further updates, and more importantly, when our next issues will be out of the oven. Sasha & Yoav www.thegarlicbread.com
PARTICIPANTS:
MATAN ASHKENAZY
matanashkenazy@gmail.com
RALF BRUECK
www.ralfbrueck.com
KATRIN KOENNING www.katrinkoenning.com
SHEN CHAO-LIANG www.shenchaoliang.com
MATAN ASHKENAZY
Daily Range
This body of work includes colour photographs done in Israel with an 8x10 plate camera between 2009-2012. The images deal with confined space within the natural environment aesthetically, politically and construct wise. A feeling of being activated and controlled around the Israeli space and laws as a citizen drove me to photograph objects and views that function as backgrounds, looking at the mundane and everyday within this unique and rudimentary landscape. Depicting the effects of human behavior in the landscape, and by observing outside of the ‘event’, the photographs isolate the objects from the narrative of time, undermining context and scale. These images are made in the void that exists between military and civilian life. These places are found both in the cities and rural areas, and the photographs investigate how the boundaries between civilian and military have become blurred. The fragile landscape and the brutalist architecture create a monotone landscape within what was once a vibrant place.The use of ecru’ - beige colorsindicates ways of looking and searching monochrome grey within color photography, as a tool for representing these fictionalized environments and using photography as a medium to give place for thought. Ultimately the devices being used in Israel are being used all around the world to less or greater degree and it is this political use of landscape that interests me and is currently the theme of my work. Although the work depicts a specific place, the research is about the policing of landscapes and controlling of spaces everywhere. Matan received his BFA in photography at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem in 2011.
RALF BRUECK
DISTORTION
Ralf Brueck is a german artist who transforms a mere photo into an autonomous individual work of art. The visual and conceptual potential of an images is thereby exhaustless and the task of finding undiscovered possibilities in the field of photography, often stimulated by technical development, keeps artists busy. With his interest in deducing innovative forms of depiction and his specific photographic staging Ralf Brueck systematically questions the nature of photography concerning its representation of reality. The term Distortion means deformation. A shift of strutures created by powerful impact. Interpreting this differently, in terms of Brueck´s works one can speak of ”Ruining” the picture itself. The ruthlessness of this formula is generic for the massive manipulated pictorial intervention and the consequent dynamics. The formal result of this particular intervention reminds of a Barcode that represents the DNA of the picture. Based on their colour, tree trunks and rocks are distorted into bundles of coloured stripes. With their horizontal and vertical lines the Barcodes obtain geometric effects which create friction upon the layer of the picture. A new type of shape emerges from the elongation and widening of the image information which strikingly emphasizes the monumentality of the scenery. Ralf Brueck has studied with Bernd Becher and conducted his diploma with Thomas Ruff at the Academy of Arts, Duesseldorf.
KATRIN KOENNING
Kororoit Collectibles
In early 2012, I was invited to take part in a curatorial initiative that saw a group of selected artists create work about Kororoit Creek, a major waterway of over 80 km in length in the northwest and western parts of Melbourne, once home to the Wurundjeri people. Decades of settlement polluted the river, and many clean-up initiatives later it has still not recovered to it’s original state. The following are objects I collect during my walks along the banks of the Kororoit. Collectively, they challenge manufacture of significance. The lost becomes the kept, inherently changing provenance and meaning, turning the disregarded into something preserved. Katrin Koenning was born in 1978 in Germany’s Ruhr Area. In 2003, after pursuing journalism for a while, she relocated to Australia where she studied photography at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University. Much of Katrin’s work investigates the ordinary and everyday, and is concerned with place and belonging. She currently lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.
SHEN CHAO-LIANG
Stage
Performing groups in the form of cabarets, song and dance ensembles have been around Taiwan since the 1970s, making regular appearances in all sorts of occasions—from weddings, funerals to festivities. Stage trucks, the subject of this photo series, are mobile “carriers” exploited by the said performing groups, molding the collective memory of the Taiwanese people. Hoping to display the other worldly scenes diffusing colors, totems, lights, and the ambience between the stage trucks and the surrounding, and visually re-creating the dreamy and colorful feel, I decided to set the universal time for shooting at sunset evenings, using only 4x5 color reversal films. As for the presentation of the STAGE series—mostly a no man’s landscape incorporating the surrounding environment—I want to bring out the presence of stage trucks, of their existence in the plebeian society, a strong contrast against the reality indescribable beyond words, while seeking to break away from the visual expression and form of traditional documentary approach by trending towards a new angled contemporary mode that seamlessly integrates environmental portraits, visual grouping and construction. Shen Chao-Liang was born in Tainan, Taiwan, in 1968. He obtained his master degree from the Graduate School of the Applied Media Arts, National University of Arts.
The garlic bread wants to grow and spread, which is mainly depends on you! You are invited to submit your works, after reading the instructions on our web site. Please don’t be shy!
The garlic bread is baked for you by: Sasha Tamarin & Yoav Peled
www.thegarlicbread.com info@thegarlicbread.com Front Cover by Ralf Brueck Back Cover by Matan Ashkenazy
All rights for the images are protected and reserved to the artists. No image in this issue can be printed or used without the artist’s permission.