Nov 30, 2013 ... PANEL OF JUDGES FROM THE ARTS, MEDIA,. FILM AND ..... and ruins, in old
factories and swish lobbies, official town buildings and.
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Simone d'Allencourt in Deauville photographed by Eugène Vernier for Vogue. 1957
EUGÈNE VERNIER THE SPY AT VOGUE?
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CHAIR: JON JONES Director of Photography, Sunday Times Magazine
LORD PUTTNAM Film-maker and advertising industry pioneer AIDAN SULLIVAN VP, Getty Images
NINA BERMAN Associate Professor, Columbia University, New York
DR MICHAEL PRITCHARD Director-General, Royal Photography Society BOBBI BAKER-BURROWS Director of Photography, Time-Life Books
VICTORIA BROACKES Victoria and Albert Museum (Curator of the David Bowie Exhibition)
The Lochan by Steve Gosling. Olympus OM-D E-M5, f/8.0, 1/160 sec, ISO 400, Focal Length 12 mm
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Soho Moments PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAFYDD JONES 17 October - 1 December 2013
Combining an Electronic Viewfinder with a mirrorless design to produce a compact, lightweight body – the stunning and multi-award winning Olympus OM-D E-M5 is a digital interchangeable lens camera of exceptional quality. Check Art Filter effects, colour white balance, and exposure levels in real time.
THE SOCIETY CLUB 12 Ingestre Place, Soho. London W1F 0JF
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MY OM-D BY STEVE GOSLING Visit www.olympus.co.uk for more information.
h INFOCUS BOO SAVILLE Using 'poor' materials such as ball point pens, Boo Saville has become known for her exquisite drawings depicting human phenomena, bizarre and intriguing sacrificial murders, spiritual and totemic objects via the source material of scientific or archaeological textbooks. For her last solo show at TJ Boulting Gallery (2012), she presented monochromatic colour fields created from layers
and layers of methodical biro markings in different colours, creating vibrating visual fields, akin to Rothko or Jules Olitski. A new larger studio space in an old factory in Bermondsey also enabled her to think bigger and work bigger. ‘Drawing to me is thinking, painting is more like dancing.’ Boo Saville was born in 1980 and lives and works in London. She was a
IMAGE & TEXT CARLA BOREL student at the Slade School in 2004. In both 2007 and 2011 she was a nominee for the Sovereign Painting Prize, and in the summer of 2008 she worked on a residency in Paris at the Cite des Arts. Her work was recently shown in a survey of young British artists at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto.
C O N T E N TS | 11
>> E D I T O R I A L IN THIS ISSUE we include a specially created portfolio of digital photographs by eight leading contemporary artists. It is our – and their – gift to you so that the elementary idea of having a photograph in the hand to examine is not totally submerged by modern technology – whereby all images are looked at fleetingly on a tablet or i-phone screen and filed to oblivion. Multi-media and on-line are no substitute for holding a great picture and absorbing the nuances of it. Our only limitation was on paper stock due to weight factors with distribution to our network of galleries and institutions across the UK. This fully authorised edition has only been made possible by the generous collaboration of Olympus, a leading trade brand with a long and close relationship to top photographers for over 50 years. One memorable press campaign featured the now legendary snappers: David Bailey, Terry Donovan, Patrick Litchfield, Duffy, Barry Lategan and Don McCullin – all in a single endorsement ad. Here, Olympus, eight leading photographers (Pattie Boyd, Jill Furmanovsky, Dafydd Jones, Neil Libbert, Jay McLaughlin, Terry O'Neill, Andy Summers, Richard Young) and f22 magazine reclaim the experience of the photograph as the essential art of our time.
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14 BEASTS OF PALM BEACH THOSE WERE DAYS Helmut Koller's fusionTHE of Sebastian Keep recalls the Location Scout wildlife art & photography
The fight to be visible is one that exercises most artists and dealers today. State Distribution is an economic way to reach a specialist readership through our network to museums, galleries and arts venues across UK. To discuss possibilities simply email Julie Milne at
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COVER IMAGE | ISSUE 11
PERISCOPE
Check out these hot shows in PARIS
SMOKE, MIRRORS Who was Eugène Vernier?
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RECOMMENDED
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VOLTA
Image books of note
Eugène Vernier Vogue, July 1957, Simone d'Allencourt in the casino in Deauville.
BOO SAVILLE
(
(
‘Drawing to me is thinking, painting is more like dancing.’
©Condé Nast Publications Ltd.
U Back in those halcyon days before CGI could place a model on the Moon, all magazine and advertising shoots were on location – and the more exotic the better. Fashion editors and photographers alike vied for the chance to dream up unlikely destinations to use as a living backdrop for a product that might otherwise have no relationship to the Sahara Desert, Caribbean island, Rain Forest – wherever! Eugène Vernier’s 1957 Vogue magazine shoot for Your Car on Holiday strangely managed to incorporate a trip to the Deauville casino!
EDITOR Mike von Joel
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[email protected] DESIGN DIRECTOR Tor Soreide
[email protected] ADMINISTRATION Julie Milne
[email protected] EDITOR-AT-LARGE Michaela Freeman
Anne Chabrol PARIS David Tidball BERLIN
Photo influences?
Zavier Ellis reports
06 SNAPSHOT 09 TECHNOLOGY, GEAR & GIZMOS
A PEOPLE | PLACES | PROJECTS
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS Clare Henry Kenn Taylor Ian McKay William Varley Georgina Turner CORRESPONDENTS Lyle Owerko NEW YORK
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ART BASEL
f22 Magazine is available through selected galleries, libraries, art schools, museums and other art venues across the UK. William Wright SYDNEY Elizabeth Crompton MELBOURNE
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h SNAPSHOTS
AUTUMN PHOTO-FAIRS Rencontres d’Arles Arles, France until 22 September Arles in the south of France. Photography is everywhere – in churches and ruins, in old factories and swish lobbies, official town buildings and stately palais.
Visa pour l’image Perpignan, France 31 August - 15 September (Professionals week 2-8 Sept.) Perpignan is mostly photojournalistic in nature, and many photographers attend during professional week. Centre point is the Café de la Poste.
Dr. Richard Young
DOCTOR DOCTOR The University of The Arts London have awarded celebrity and social documentary photographer, Richard Young, an Honorary Doctorate and Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his outstanding contribution in the field of photography. It is the highest honour conferred by the university. The inauguration took place during the university's graduation ceremonies at The Royal Festival Hall last July.
Internationale Photoszene Köln Köln, Germany 1 -30 September (unconfirmed) Special events on the main weekend and a photo exhibition plus a Portfolio Review for ‘young photographers’. Victoria Berekmeri’s controversial prize image (detail)
BORNOGRAPHIC At an exhibition in the South Australian Photography Awards at the National Wine Centre in Adelaide, a dramatic photograph capturing the moment a baby is born has been reinstated after the artist complained about being censored. Professional birth photographer, Victoria Berekmeri, had won an award for the controversial image but it was covered after
Noorderlicht International Photofestival Groningen, Netherlands
visitors complained it was 'too confronting'. She negotiated with the Australian Institute of Professional Photographers and the venue to reinstate the image, noting: 'Each invitation I have to document one of the most intimate events in a women’s life is an honour and one I deeply respect.’ (source: Herald Sun)
31 August - 13 October 20th edition of the Noorderlicht International Photofestival. This edition will feature a set of themed exhibitions.
Photoquai Biennial Paris, France 17 September - 17 November
Winning image 2013 World Press Photo
A biennial exhibition of world images at Musée du quai Branly and in the museum’s gardens.
VERDICT IN Bob Carlos Clarke Marco Pierre White
BCC FOR NPG
Paul Hansen’s award-winning image was not faked by splicing together three different photos. After a thorough investigation of the RAW file and the JPEG image entered, the winning image of the 2013 World Press Photo by Hansen was judged
Brighton Photo Biennial Brighton, England
absolutely genuine. In extraordinary, damning allegations, Neal Krawetz, a forensic analyst, claimed 'the photo itself is almost certainly a composite... then further manipulated to illuminate the mourners’ faces.' Hansen, based
Celebrity portraits by photographer Bob Carlos Clarke have been donated to the National Portrait Gallery by the Bob Carlos Clarke Foundation. Taken between 1971 and 1998, includes Marco Pierre White, who Carlos Clarke photographed in his studio following the success of his acclaimed recipe book White Heat. Other highlights are portraits of Ronnie Wood, Bryan Ferry, Elton John, Elle Macpherson, Christopher Lee, and Rachel Weisz. Born in Cork, Carlos Clarke long battled depression and following an unsuccessful stint in The Priory in 2006, he took his own life aged 55. His wife Lindsey runs the Foundation and ensures his life and work remain consequential. (source AP)
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Brighton Photo Biennial is the largest photography festival in the UK and with 60,000 visitors in 2010. Previous editions have been curated by Martin Parr (2010), Julian Stallabrass (2008), Gilane Tawadros (2006) and Jeremy Millar (2003). Following the merge with Photoworks in 2011, the fifth edition of the Biennial will be curated & delivered by Photoworks.
Hereford Photography Festival Hereford, England 26 October - 24 November (unconfirmed)
Alfred Eisenstaedt’s Leica
Hereford Photography Festival has always been a photographers’ project; open submissions show alongside curated exhibitions.
Paris Photo Grand Palais, Paris. 14 November- 17 November 135 galleries and publishers coming from twenty or so countries and more than 50,000 visitors, the best of photography from its origins to contemporary innovation.
Angkor Photo Festival
inch print bearing Eisenstaedt's signature on the back, also sold – making nearly $31,000.
TRAGEDY Sussie Ahlburg, 50, a leading photographer whose work has appeared in Vogue and Time Out magazine was found dead on Hampstead Heath after going for a swim. She had cycled to the ladies' swimming pond using her folding black Brompton bicycle but failed to return to her home in Holborn, London. The Swedish woman was later pulled out of the water dead by police divers. It is thought that she may have had a heart condition. Ahlburg had photographs published in the Guardian, The Times and Time magazine, she had studied photography at the Central School of Art. (source AP)
6 October - 4 November
in Stockholm, has worked for the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter since 2000. His shot won top prize and shows the bodies of two-year-old Suhaib Hijazi and his elder brother carried by their uncles to a mosque in Gaza City. (Source: AP)
A gold-plated Leica III 'Luxus', which had been diligently passed down through the family that owned German wine company Henkell, sold for $682,366 in the same auction of specialist camera items. (source AP)
LEICA LIKED
Photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt used the Leica IIIa rangefinder to capture that famous image of a sailor kissing the nurse as he celebrated Japan's surrender in WWII. The German-made camera, used to take the iconic Times Square picture, recently sold for $150,000 at the Westlicht Auction in Vienna. The image of the sailor and the young nurse (allegedly Edith Shain) in a
passionate clinch became a world famous symbol of the V-J Day festivities. When Life magazine asked the subjects of the photograph to step forward, a total of three women and 11 men each claimed to be one of the notorious couple. Eisenstaedt continued to use the camera until his death in 1995. The photograph of the kiss, a 17.5 x 12
NOTE: The Leica IIIa was first made in 1935, with a shutter speed of just 1/1000 seconds. The Eisenstaedt camera is mounted with a Summitar 2/5cm lens and VIOOH viewfinder. There were actually two ‘kiss’ photos taken that moment, the other, shot by Victor Jorgensen, shows more of the Times Square crowd in the background.
Siem Reap, Cambodia 23 November - 30 November Tim Hetherington, British photojournalist
DANGER MEN A Westminster coroner, Dr Shirley Radcliffe, has finally recorded a verdict of unlawful killing on Tim Hetherington, 40, award-winning British photojournalist killed by Gaddafi troops after being hit in Misrata in 2011. His American colleague Chris Hondros, 41, was also killed in the attack. British photographer Guy Martin was injured by flying shrapnel. Hetherington won First Prize in the Portraits Stories category in the World Press Photo 2002; best known for his work in Afghanistan, he won the prestigious World Press Photo of the Year Award 2007. His 2010 Oscar-nominated documentary Restrepo won the Grand Jury Prize for best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. February: French photographer Olivier Voisin killed by
Created in 2005, the festival is the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, and a platform to discover talent from all over the world.
London Photo Festival flying shrapnel while monitoring armed opposition groups in Syria. Voisin (b.1974) had been working for Reporters Without Borders near the north-western city of Idlib. Voisin died from wounds to his head and arm. He was a freelance photographer working Libya, Somalia, Haiti and Kenya. April: Mexican newspaper photographer, Daniel Martinez Balzadua, 22, found hacked up and his body parts strewn across a Saltillo street in a suspected drug cartel attack. Bazaldua had recently been hired to cover social events for La Vanguardia. Officials identified another victim as Julian Zamora, 23. Saltillo is in northern Coahuila state, an area where the Zetas cartel is active. (source AP)
The Crypt (St George the Martyr Church) Borough High Street, London SE1 1JA 3 - 5 October Themes: Black & White photography and Night photography Emma Mapp and Kit Shah, co-founders; judge this year is Zoe Whishaw, formerly of Getty Images
Frequency – Lincoln Digital Culture Festival Lincoln, England 18th-26th October The medieval city of Lincoln succumbs to the 21st century.
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h SNAPSHOTS
h TECHNOLOGY, GEAR & GIZMOS
Solarpod 1000 – top of the pods
SUNSHINE SUPERMAN
Impressions Gallery, Bradford
VITAL ARCHIVE SECURED
Marilyn Monroe photographed by Milton Greene in 1955
Impressions Gallery marked a 40th anniversary by depositing its archive with the National Media Museum. It will become part of the National Photography Collection, where it will be the Impressions Gallery Archive. This is the second major collaboration for the two Bradford-based venues, following the successful launch of the inaugural photography festival Ways of Looking in 2011. Since its inception Impressions (director: Anne McNeill) has consistently confronted issues of politics, race, gender and identity – and supported new work using thenemerging technologies of video and digital media. Established in 1972 as one of the first specialist photographic galleries in Europe, Impressions has grown to become one of the UK’s leading
independent venues for contemporary photography. Located in the heart of Bradford, UNESCO City of Film. The National Media Museum located in Bradford, West Yorkshire, opened in 1983 with more than 3.5 million objects in its National Photography; Television; Cinematography; and New Media collections. It organises the Bradford International Film Festival and Bradford Animation Festival, and is home to Europe’s first IMAX cinema screen. Comprising of approximately 3.2 million images, the National Photography Collection includes works ranging from Julia Margaret Cameron to Martin Parr.
iPhone games with 3D gizmo
Leica/Hermès limited-edition cameras
IT’S THAT iPHONE AGAIN
BRAND OF BROTHERS
Two young American inventors have created a gadget that transforms an iPhone into a camera capable of capturing and displaying 3D photographs and videos. Their Kickstarter project has already raised more than $144,000. Seattle-based Joe Heitzeberg and Ethan Lowry created POPPY to enable people to record and share their experiences in 3D. Users insert their phone into the device, which supports iPhone 4, 4S, 5 and iPod Touch, and then start filming. Poppy uses mirrors to capture two images using the iPhone’s single camera, through the device’s viewfinder the lenses combine the two video streams to
Otherwise serious German-based camera maker Leica has collaborated with Parisian fashion house Hermès on a pair of limited-edition cameras: the Leica M9-P Edition Hermès, priced at $25,000 and limited to 300 units; and the Leica M9-P Edition Hermès - Série Limitée Jean-Louis Dumas, priced at $50,000 and limited to just 100.
The Profiles in History auction house reported that a collection of colour transparencies from The Prince and the Showgirl movie realised $42,000. Another group of
TERRY O'NEILL PHOTOGRAPHY AWARD
SNAPCHAT CEO Evan Spiegel (22)
50 MILLION SHADES OF GREY In April 2011, Stanford University student Evan Spiegel devised a mobile phone app designed to allow 'self destructing' pictures that would disappear, without a trace, after a few seconds. Today, SNAPCHAT is being used to send 50 million messages a day. Senders can specify the lifespan of their picture and video messages – but once opened none can last longer than 10 seconds within the App. Launched with Bobby Murphy,
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and employees, Daniel Smith and David Kravitz, the team's LA headquarters are in Spiegel’s father’s house. Facebook launched Poke in retaliation, but it rapidly lost popular appeal whilst SNAPCHAT has retained its spot near the top of the App charts for Android and iOS versions. And the reason for its huge take-up? The universal craze for ‘sexting’ compromising and nude ‘selfies’ amongst the young – and not-soyoung – technocracy! (source AP)
Photographers have until the 31 November to enter this year's Terry O'Neill Photography Award. The winning images will be featured in the Sunday Times Magazine and the winner will receive £3000 and two runners-up £2000 and £1000 respectively. Furthermore, the winner of the mobile device category will win £500. The award is now in its eighth year, inviting entries from Berlin to Beijing. Images entered must have been shot between 1 January and 31 November 2013 to be considered. Cost of entry is £25 for a minimum of three and up to 10 images. www.oneillaward.com
Manfrotto lighting solution, optional configurations
Somerset House (10-27 October 2013) shows the work of Simon Norfolk, winner of the fourth Prix Pictet commission, shot on location in Afghanistan. Pictet's charity partner, Medair, have been instrumental in helping Norfolk realise the commission. Medair has worked in Afghanistan since 1998, helping communities to learn survival techniques in such disasters as drought, floods and landslides. Norfolk has produced three monographs including Afghanistan: chronotopia (2002) which was published in five languages; For Most of It I Have No Words (1998) about the landscapes of genocide; and Bleed (2005) about the war in Bosnia. Founded by Pictet, the leading Swiss asset and wealth management group in 2008, The Prix Pictet has two elements: the prize of CHF100,000, and the commission, in which a nominated photographer is invited to undertake a field trip to a region where the Bank is supporting a sustainability project. Distinguished photographers who have appeared on previous Prix Pictet Shortlists include Robert Adams, Luc Delahaye, Joel Sternfeld, Edward Burtynsky, Mitch Epstein, Taryn Simon, Andreas Gursky, Nadan Kander and Susan Derges.
www.leica-camera.com
(source: GeekWire)
MINI UNDERCOVER CAM
Rough location solution to avoid heavy lighting kit: Manfrotto ML120 12 LED light. The Italian manufacturer has introduced a range of tiny, battery-powered LED panels compact cameras, Camcorders and camera phones. You can use these stylish lights for stills, better than the flash on phones. From around £20.
Aberystwyth University PhD student, Greg Dash, 25, sold 290 of his miniscule cameras in the first month. The Lofi Fish-Eye camera has just 12 megapixels, one button and no LCD screen. It can shoot high-quality images and HD video, and has a built-in lithium battery charged via a USB port. At £65, the camera is small enough to fit in the palm of the hand. Dash created it using old camera parts. Just over 4cm long and 2cm high, it still produces expensivelooking photographs. He first launched his camera via the fundraising website Indiegogo in February, limiting production to a run of 500.
www.manfrotto.co.uk
(source: Huffington Post)
Simon Norfolk
NORFOLK AT SOMERSET
Leica produced the silver M9-P Edition Hermès camera in partnership with automotive designer Walter de Silva. The body is lined with Hermès’ signature tan leather and comes as part of a set,
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION
www.impressions-gallery.com www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk
transparencies from the Monroe film Bus Stop fetched $39,000. The seller is an American photography collector who purchased the archive 10 years ago. The items came from the Greene estate. The actress and photographer were close friends, and Monroe lived in the Greene household for a year before her marriage to the playwright Arthur Miller in 1956.The inclusion of copyright was the key to the high prices achieved. (source LA Times)
The device does not need batteries or electronics – it just uses optics. The gadget also works with 3D content that is already online, meaning that people with an ordinary iPhone can watch 3D films and video clips through the device. Scheduled for the Xmas market, on sale for about £30.
paired with a leather Hermès shoulder strap and a Leica Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 ASPH lens. The Dumas camera is a celebration of the late Jean-Louis Dumas, former president of Hermès and a Leica photographer. The camera comes with three lenses: a Leica Summicron-M 28mm f/ 2 ASPH, a Leica Noctilux-M 50mm f/0.95 ASPH, and a Leica APO-Summicron-M 90mm f/ 2 ASPH. Hermès produced a camera bag specifically for the Dumas camera, with which Leica also includes a book of photographs taken by Dumas.
Lofi Fish-Eye
MARILYN COPYRIGHT SENSATION TENS of thousands of negatives by celebrity photographer Milton Greene have sold for $2 million. The archive included 3700 negatives and slides of Marilyn Monroe. All the material was sold with copyright.
create a single, sharp, 3D video. The viewer built into POPPY isolates the images so the right eye sees the image taken by the right mirror, and the left eye sees the left image. The brain then fuses the two images into a single, three dimensional scene.
Serious mains power in the middle of nowhere from the sky. Whatever the photographer on location needs, the stylish French-made Solarpod has an solid 13-amp plug socket to show it offers 230V mains. The Solarpod is a rechargeable battery and output system that generates 400W of mains from the energy it stores. You need to buy the solar panels separately, and there are several options. Typically, five hours of bright sun will give you power for a TV for four hours, a fridge for five hours, or five charges for a laptop. This Sun king comes bundled at around £699 with a basic solar panel. www.power-on-demand.co.uk
From 17,500ft it can capture objects as small as 6 inches on the ground
WE ARE NOT ALONE From 17,500ft the ARGUS-IS military airborne surveillance system can capture objects as small as six inches on the ground and track movements across an entire area in real time. Mounted on unmanned drones, it captures an area of 15 sq/miles in an incredible 1,800MP – 225 times more sensitive than an iPhone camera. ARGUS-IS (a backronym standing for Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance-Imaging System) works by stringing together an array of 368 digital camera imaging chips, a processor combines the video from these to create a single ultra-high definition mosaic image which updates at up to 15fps.
Developed by BAE as part of a $18 million DARPA project (the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) operators can zoom in to any spot within the camera's field of view, with up to 65 zoom windows open at once. It tracks all moving objects, highlighting them with coloured boxes for identification. It also records everything, storing an approximate million terabytes of data a day – the equivalent of 5,000 hours of high-definition video footage. The technology has been secret since 2007 and BAE are reputedly working on an infra-red version to allow total surveillance even at night. (source: www.extremetech.com)
THEY ARE NOT ALONE Codenamed Black Hornet – a tiny spy drone that can follow targets all the way home yet fit easily into the palm of your hand and looks just like a child’s toy helicopter. The tiny, remote-controlled aircraft, an eight-inch long plastic moulded drone, has three cameras hidden inside its nose, yet weighs just 15 grams. It has a smooth grey body and twin black rotors and stays airborne thanks to a small rechargeable battery. The pictures it delivers back to the monitor are really clear. It is controlled using a computer game-style joystick or given set of co-ordinates using GPS with a speed of 22mph and a max flight time of 30 minutes. The Black Hornet – properly called a Proxdynamics PD-100 Personal Reconnaissance System – is a joint UK-Norwegian venture and used in Afghanistan after extensive field trials in Cyprus. It is ‘unlikely it could be used on Britain’s streets (ha ha! Ed.) because of civil liberty concerns,’ says a rep for the makers. (source: AP)
Black Hornet – Like a child’s toy
The Earth seen from Saturn by the Cassini space probe
THE MIRACLE OF DIGITAL OPTICS Extraordinary images of Earth taken from Saturn, 900 million miles away, by the Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting since its arrival in the Saturn system in 2004. The Earth has only been pictured in images from outer space on two other occasions. The first was in 1990, when Voyager 1 captured an image from 3.7 billion miles away. The second occasion was when Cassini took a photo in 2006 from 926 million miles away. (source NASA)
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PEOPLE: SEBASTIAN KEEP
A roundhouse full of derelict steam locomotives. No tracks and nowhere to go.
SCOUTING FOR BOYS Once upon a time in the not too distant past there was a job. A job that any young photographer today would sell their mother to get. And in the current state of the world the very job spec sounds way beyond belief. Meet the Location Scout. TEXT MIKE VON JOEL | IMAGES SEBASTIAN KEEP
U
NTIL THE END of the 1990s, production companies operated pretty much as they had done since the boom in television advertising in the ‘60s. Exotic locations (think Flake, Bounty Bars) and dramatic backdrops were funded by cash rich client companies through equally affluent agencies. And by the ‘70s onwards, the Director was an all powerful figure whose every whim was (mostly) acquiesced. What can now be scoped out on a laptop computer, or via Google Earth and street
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view, or by a local agent, was then done in person, on site. One man with a camera and a few rolls of film (it tended to be a male preserve). The Location Scout. And one of London’s most experienced was Sebastian Keep. Keep lays back in his favourite chair under a shelf of cameras old and new. A collection of oddities and relics that he acquired over the many years he has occupied this sprawling mansion flat in Victoria. Sebastian is sanguine about time spent in the dream job that has been all but obliterated by modern communications.
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A desecrated grave in the lost town of Baquedano, Atacama desert; 90 kms NE of Antofagasta, Chile.
‘Actually, my first job was packing films into boxes for the British Film Institute. I then got a job with a young Ridley Scott as a second assistant, which is a bit grander today but then meant you ran around doing anything and everything. When Ridley started RSA I helped him move into their new offices. A “production company” then meant television and cinema commercials. My hobby was surfing, so I did freelance jobs around the place, saved up money, then went travelling to surf. So I got around quite a bit and always took a 35mm camera with me. My stint at RSA ended because of the Union. We had a job in the Caribbean and the ACTT came along and asked to see everyone’s card. I didn’t have one and they
The Directors ran the show in the those days. People like Roger Lyons, who did the Levis ad; when they suggested a film the client and agency would listen. I had a good reputation as a scout – from my heyday in the ‘80s to 2000 I was travelling the world and paid to supply a photographic essay. When you are in a helicopter at dawn over the Amazon, you just think “Wow, somebody is paying me for this”, I was never blasé about it. I had a job to do and a time constraint, which is what happens when you work for somebody. I never had the luxury of waiting until the light was exactly right for a shot. And remember, all this was on film where anything can go wrong.
the humble runner. In New York they spent the day yelling and swearing at you. Sokolsky was a stills man who had gone into commercials. We got Twiggy’s first commercial and it was to be filmed in London. Half way through I really had had enough of the American way and I quit. I’d always known a lot of photographers. They would regularly say “you have been here and there; what’s it like and have you any pics; where can I stay?” It occurred to me that this was saleable knowledge.’
‘The idea of sending someone off to Japan – and I would be a month Japan – is totally laughable today. Then you had to do everything yourself, literally. Now, if you choose anywhere in the world, from Madagascar to Matabeleland, you can find a fairly efficient service company who can help you out. The days when you just pitched up in France and told the local Mayor you were going to shoot here, and here, are gone. Everywhere is drowning in red tape.’ Sebastian Keep was born in Woodstock in 1949. His father was in publishing and the family travelled around – Denmark, Italy and France. Keep went to school in Copenhagen, aged two, and his first language was actually Danish, although not a word remains. By seven he was back in the UK and living in Richmond. After school he found work in the film industry (an expression which invariably meant television commercials).
Studies made in the Atacama Desert, 1000 miles north of Santiago, Chile. It has reputedly not rained once since records began in 1850.
So Keep launched into location finding, something that was done in person and on foot in a time before the internet and CGI magic. With the commercials industry booming as never before and every hour on location increasingly expensive, a good Location Scout could save a unit many thousands of pounds by facilitating accurate advance planning. 1
Sebastian Keep at home in Victoria
went mad. They tried to fine RSA – and Ridley wasn’t the VIP he is now at that time – so I was out at 19. It really was a case of “you will never work in this town again, son” from the ACTT. Ridley was great and gave me some contacts in New York to follow up.’ Keep dutifully left for New York for a job with Melvin Sokolsky – the American photographer and film director best known for editorial fashion photographs in Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and The New York Times. By the end of the ‘60s Sokolsky was also working as a commercials director and cameraman. ‘It was a culture shock. In the UK people in the industry were polite, even if you were
1 ‘The pay wasn’t that great but it involved lots of travel. I was working for really top people in commercials and the ‘80s and ‘90s were the very best of times. For example, over two years I did research for the Cathay Pacific calendar, photographed by [Lord] Patrick Lichfield. It meant I had to physically go to all the destinations the airline serviced. Or the Easter Island project. That was a Government initiative for the Millennium. They wanted those huge head sculptures – called moai – to act as a sundial, filmed in stop motion. We had to sort of ‘cast’ the statues in advance because the production company could not waste time selecting them on arrival – they only had three days on Easter Island. I would photograph each head every half hour. It took me three
Mausoleum desecrated by thieves looking for jewellery
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‘Actually, my first job was packing films into boxes for the British Film Institute. I then got a job with a young Ridley Scott as a second assistant’
weeks. I would get up in the morning – pack my picnic and bottle of wine and book – and spend the whole day out with the moai. I sent the pics back to London and then had to wait. So I went off to explore Chile for a few days until the unit arrived. ‘How did it work? The Location Manager is the guy who does all the paper work – the
scout is the eyes. I was a much better scout. Typically, you get a call from the Director and they send a script (say it’s for BMW cars) – where could we do it? I was pretty geographically savvy so I would attend a meeting with books and pictures – I might meet the story board artist – and say “there is this great winding road in Patagonia ideal for a helicopter shot, and so they send you off...”
‘My worse time was in Glasgow surrounded by a pack of feral boys. I ran to my car and they climbed all over it and I expected them to smash the windows any minute. Dogs are something to be wary of too, especially when they are between you and your car. I had a dodgy moment like that in Africa with a pack of baboons – and they can rip you to pieces. What do you do? Pray!’ Sebastian Keep might well be the last of the great Location Scouts. Today he spends his time between a small house in America and London’s Victoria. What does the future hold? ‘Death and taxes! Actually, I’m doing a project on America’s 1,305 mile Route 395 – known as the three flags highway (Mexico, America, Canada). It skirts the Rockies all the way up. I happen to have a house on the roadside and whenever I am there I put in a couple of weeks work...’ www.f22magazine.com
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PEOPLE EUGENE VERNIER
IN FROM THE COLD It is a common fallacy that dramatic and highly individual non-society photographers only came to Vogue with the Bailey generation. One enigmatic and mysterious European lensman had been resident since 1954. But who exactly was Eugène Vernier? TEXT RONNIE NORMAN | IMAGES EUGÈNE VERNIER
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Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Vernier captured the elegance of Vogue models wearing flowing gowns, driving fast cars, on holiday in Deauville, in the South of France, the Caribbean and Israel. He often shot on location and regularly covered the Paris collections – but his many studio photos were shot at Glebe Place.
1 Eugène and Mollie Werner at their wedding (9th August 1947) with Mollie's parents Robert and Ivy Baker (and Jasper the dog). © Jessica Vernier
But who exactly was Eugène Vernier? Even his closest associates in Vogue had no idea that he had passed through Paris in 1940 and arrived in war time England with the name Egon Werner. Vernier liked to say that he was born in Biot, France – a picturesque village in the hills above Cannes where he photographed his models and often returned for holidays with his family.
‘Smoke often billowed out of Vernier’s studio and a wind machine simulated various conditions for his atmospheric photographs’
1 Eugène Vernier Vogue, January 1959, Cover.
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Eugène Vernier Glebe Place 1967 © Jessica Vernier
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‘The studio was consistently packed with the most beautiful women of the day, such was the lure of the advertising
pound’ recalls another former assistant, David Smith. Among them were Tania Mallett, Grace Coddington, Celia Hammond, Jean Shrimpton and Pauline Stone. By David Smith’s account, Glebe Place, 'a large rabbit warren of a place', was a hive of activity. By 1964, Vernier and Alexander had 16 people working for them – photo assistants, bookkeepers, a regular hairdresser and a formidable manager, Joan Morton, who had followed Vernier from Vogue. Vernier was also training a succession of younger photographers to help with the workload, among them Peter Carapetian, Peter Kerno and John Carter.
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HE TURRET of 50 Glebe Place in Chelsea can still be seen from the King’s Road. Over the years it has welcomed extraordinary people and been the scene of much creative activity. Between 1963 and 1968 it housed the shared studio of the innovative Vogue photographer Eugène Vernier and the still life photographer Peter Alexander. During this period, the architectural wonder in Glebe Place (now a private residence) saw visitors such as Helmut Newton and Cecil Beaton who occasionally used the studios. Scenes from films such as There’s a Girl in my Soup, Maroc 7 and The Lion in Winter were shot there – and Peter O’Toole was once seen pacing the street outside with his script in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. Smoke often billowed out of Vernier’s studio and a wind machine could be in action as he simulated various conditions for his atmospheric photographs. Inside, it was the ash from Vernier’s chain smoking that was one of the main hazards. ‘We had to keep it away from lenses, from everything’, recalls Stephen Campbell, a former photo assistant for Vernier.
Vernier related that having escaped France to Guadaloupe early in the war, he was captured by German forces and was being sent back to France for court martial – and almost certainly a firing squad for desertion – when the French ship he was on was intercepted by the British Navy. Not knowing whether he was a deserter from the Germans or the French, on landing in Liverpool the Navy arranged for him to be taken straight to the London Reception Centre opposite Wandsworth Prison. Located in the Royal Victoria Patriotic www.f22magazine.com
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IN FROM THE COLD
PEOPLE EUGENE VERNIER
School it was actually an alien clearing station run by MI6. It is now a residential apartment block. On their website, the current owners of the RVP building write: ‘It was rumoured that suspected spies were incarcerated for years, both in the building and in windowless concrete cells constructed in the south courtyard’. Vernier maintained he was there for 'many day's interrogation' – but it can only be speculation as to what happened.
1 Eugène Vernier Vogue, July 1956, Cover.
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Reputedly 'the French were only allowed to leave provided they joined the Free French'. Vernier admitted to desertion from the French forces, but his British interrogators would have had difficulty with
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‘ everything pointed to him being a German spy: either be shot or ... ’
this, especially as his first record card (on later joining the Free French in 1941) describes him as being of Polish origin and speaking German and Italian. Although he always claimed to be French, it appears, that in reality, Egon Werner was born in Berlin of a Polish father and German mother. German archives reveal that his mother and younger brother passed through the Kraków ghetto in 1944. So had he left Germany earlier in the war? As there are apparently no French records for him before 1941, without more evidence, it seems likely that – rather than being a deserter from the Vichy French when the Germans invaded France – in reality he had originally been conscripted into the
German army. Being part of the invading force, Werner had then deserted in France. Reading between the lines it would seem he was probably told in the London ‘reception centre’ that as everything pointed to him being a German spy he had a simple choice: either be shot (perhaps by being put back on a boat to France to meet his fate) or continue his intelligence work – but for the Free French. During his lifetime Werner reinvented himself several times. He was initially enlisted into the Free French as a driver and he recalled that he occasionally drove De Gaulle around London. While still in London he was trained in photography and ciné photography and then sent to record the French campaign in North Africa as a war correspondent. He fought at Bir Hakeim in the Libyan desert and was later stationed in Egypt. There, he had a girlfriend, Madame
Lora Aral, who was an interpreter working for the British forces in Cairo. She was listed as his contact in case of accident. Being a photographer and war correspondent 'to promote the efforts of the Free French abroad' the young Egon Werner would have had sufficient freedom of movement to benefit British Intelligence. Was Madame Aral perhaps his controller? Werner’s knowledge of languages, coupled with hers, would have made them a formidable team. By 1944 he was back in London and joined Pathé News, filming Londoners celebrating VE-Day, along with the hardships of postWar Germany and Sir Malcolm Campbell attempting the world water speed record – and many other newsworthy events of the time. However, his days as a newsreel cameraman came to an abrupt end in 1947 when his union, the Association
of Cinematograph Television and Allied Technicians (ACTT), expelled him for being French. Werner was first introduced into the world of high fashion when he met his wife, Mollie, a Vogue model and later a stylist working with Vernier. Perhaps the name ‘Vernier’ recalled the high fashion names of the day – Lanvin, Dior, Balmain? Or was he aligning himself with famous French contemporary photographers such as Cartier-Bresson? By 1950 his metamorphosis was complete. He began working for magazines such as the shortlived Shopping and the fashion pages of the national press like the Daily Mirror, and by 1953 was on contract to Vogue under the alias of Eugène Vernier. His first photographs were to appear in the January 1954 issue; his first Vogue cover
was in March 1954. In the winter of 1960/61 he took the first Vogue photograph of a young Jean Shrimpton. By now he was travelling for Vogue to shoots in many exotic places. In the mid ‘60s he was in such demand from clothing and fabric manufacturers for their advertising that he stopped working directly under contract to Vogue and continued working from them on an ad hoc basis. He was shooting advertisements for international companies like Burberry and Aquascutum, Schwartzkopf, Consulate and Benson & Hedges cigarettes, Johnnie Walker whisky and motor companies such as Chrysler and General Motors. Vernier's final years were spent in the countryside in Surrey riding the horses he had loved and owned all his life. Eugène Vernier died peacefully in December 2011 at the age of 91.
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Above: Eugène Vernier pictured in late 1969, complete with tell-tale cigarette smoke. ©Stephen Campbell Opposite page: Eugène Vernier: Vogue, July 1962, Celia Hammond in Safed, North Israel. ©The Condé Nast Publications Ltd.
EUGÈNE VERNIER: fashion, femininity & form Essays by Robin Muir, Becky E. Conekin Editor: Alistair Layzell Hirmer Publishers HB. 220pp 200 illus. £39.95 ISBN: 978-3777451510 Text © Ronnie Norman 2013 All images courtesy of © Condé Nast Publications Ltd/Vogue
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BOOKNOTES
THE CAMERA CANNOT LIE IF EVER THERE was a book for our time this brilliant and comprehensive survey by Mia Fine is it. Ever since the invention of the photographic image pictures have been manipulated or faked outright. Early camera pioneers were, in many instances, former artists and so ‘artistic’ interpretations were to be expected. But as photographers became more ingenious and the photograph itself more ubiquitous, reconstituting images became epidemic, making the old adage, the ‘camera never lies’, risible. The most famous faked photo in the art world is most likely that of French artist, Yves Klein, diving headfirst off a high wall: Leap into the Void (1960). Even today, given Klein’s anarchic nature, many art students suppose it real – as opposed to it actually being a composite of three separate photographs. Mia Fine’s award winning study of the history of altered images collates the different areas of intent – from the criminal, through artistic licence, amusing, surreal and politically expedient – into a coherent time line. Dictators seem to be huge fans of picture
editing, especially Communist ones, where one-time confederates are erased from history and relevance, comrades Stalin and Mao being particularly keen on pictorial revisionism. And the history of war photography, always susceptible to suspect ‘decisive moments’, was subject to the ‘creative eye’ from its birth. Roger Fenton’s rearranging of the cannon balls in his world famous Crimea picture of the Light Brigade’s ‘valley of the shadow of death’ (1855) is a more recent discovery that has agitated photographic scholars. More surprising, in another category, is to learn that Gustave le Gray’s 19th century gentle and atmospheric seascapes benefitted from a standard dramatic cloud formation, which was dropped in as and when appropriate. There are light hearted moments of course, more so when viewed from today’s perspective. The explosion of fake ‘ghost’ photographs, created to support Spiritualism and the Occult obsessions of gullible Victorians, are comic indeed. But to an audience perhaps only familiar with a formal – and entirely accurate – studio portrait, they were items of wonder and dread. And often the subject of legal proceedings. In 1869, one William Mummler was charged with fraud and larceny for selling ‘spirit photographs’ – one ghostly apparition being a stolen image recognised as someone still very much alive. For anyone involved in the camera arts this book is almost essential reading – and a timely reminder that really nothing is new in the ingenious use of optical devices to seduce and confound. FAKING IT Manipulated Photography before Photoshop Mia Fineman HB YALE 288pp ISBN: 978-0300185010
TALKING THE TALK
VISUAL LANGUAGE
IT WOULD BE easy to dismiss this handbook on directions in contemporary photography. Firstly, the affected main text typeface by the French designer, Francois Huertas, is an irritant and not easy on the eye; and secondly, author Elisabeth Couturier opens with the dubious assertion that ‘contemporary photography originally emerged from Performance Art’. But get past that and the latest in Couturier’s Talk About... series is an entertaining and focussed dissertation on photography today – its leading players, international preoccupations, technical innovations, genres and evolution since the 1960s. As befits the creation of a Paris Match journalist , art critic and trendy television producer, TACP brims with information and well researched factoids, making this an ideal primer for those embracing photography at student level. But professional snappers will also not fail to find something of interest in Courier’s lightning trawl through the ‘10 major concepts; 20 key dates; and 30 essential photographers’ that make up the backbone of this book. Pity about the typography!
SARAH JAMES’ excellent and panoramic evaluation of photographic departures in Germany from the end of WWII to the 1980s, is exhaustive in its meticulous research and well argued analysis. She has located a useful starting point. The highly influential touring show of photographs curated by Edward Steichen, The Family of Man, arrived in Berlin in 1955. Across in East Berlin, Bertolt Brecht’s Kriegfilbel (War Primer) was published. Brecht actually attended the exhibition (he died a year later from a heart attack at only 58). From this coincidental juxtaposition, James’ unravels the highly complex socio-political tangle of historic German concerns from the new postwar society, its corruption by American-Soviet subversion, and the eventual emancipation of the society which precipitated the fall of the Berlin Wall (1961-1989). This is an outstanding and scholarly work which describes a culture where any given image is necessarily pre-loaded with meaning and pregnant with symbolism – which may go a long way to explaining the often humourless and banal content of much contemporary German photography.
TALK ABOUT CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY Ed. Elisabeth Couturier
COMMON GROUND German Photographic Cultures Across the Iron Curtain Sarah E. James
FLAMMARION PB 256pp ISBN: 978-2080200976
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YALE HB 320pp 10 col + 170 b&w illus ISBN: 978-0300184440
THE GENTLE EYE
WAKING DREAMS
THE PRE-EMINENT Czech photographer Josef Sudek (1896-1976) is often thought of as a reclusive, private individual whose talent with the camera has only been discovered since the resurgence of fine photography in the latter half of the 20th century. There are two ironies there: Sudek was a celebrated and much employed artist from the 1930s onwards in his native Prague; and that he, himself, did not regard photography as ‘art’, rather he described it as a ‘nice craft’. Sudek was, however, famously shy and rarely attended his own exhibitions. His oeuvre is more remarkable when one considers he lost his right arm serving in the Great War and it was his army pension that enabled him to pursue photography as a vocation. Essentially a romantic, Sudek’s long career embraced the prevailing art movements of the 1920s and ’30s including Cubism, Surrealism, and the Czech avant-garde, with a special regard for the geometric abstractions favoured at the Bauhaus. Hirmer have created a quite beautiful, large format book of Sudak images held at the Art Gallery of Ontario, complete with a detailed biographical chronology by Czech art historian and Sudek expert, Anna Fárová..
THE PARASOMNIA OF the title is a sleep disorder involving strange movements, odd behaviour, extreme emotions, and virulent dreams. Viviane Sassen, the award-winning Dutch-born photographer, interprets these altered states with a series of images she made across East and West Africa. Sassen is comfortable working in the realms of fashion, the art gallery and journalism. These pictures would be at home in any number of related media, so confident is her composition and delivery. Ugandan writer Moses Isegawa (Sey Wava) provides the only text piece in the book – a short and poignant story depicting contemporary African street life. Throughout, Sassen’s images go uncaptioned – a glossary at the end records each picture enigmatically, with [usually] just a single word and date. Viviane Sassen also collaborated on the design and the result is intriguing, with the familiar rectangular images sliding into the gutters, and off the edge of one page to turn around onto the next. Prestel have published an unusual work that projects an artist’s monograph out of the ordinary and into the extraordinary. This will become a collectors’ item.
JOSEF SUDEK: The Legacy of a Deeper Vision Maia-Mari Sutnik (Editor)
PARASOMNIA Moses Isegawa (Author) , Viviane Sassen (Photographer)
HIRMER HB 287pp ISBN: 978-3777452913
PRESTEL HB 104pp ISBN: 978-3791345215
THE FAR HORIZON THE NAME OF Terry Evans (b.1944) is possibly not immediately familiar to a European audience, but she embodies the very essence of photography as a means of documentation, self expression and veracity. A daughter of America’s vast Midwest – that other America – her work has evolved as a personal tribute to its inhabitants and the natural history of the great prairies that still stretch as far as the eye can see in her native Kansas, Iowa, North Dakota and neighbouring States. Her first social documentary was on poverty in Kansas and she continues to make portraits of those whose lives remain enmeshed in the traditional, small town communities. Introduced to the subject of natural history in the 1970s – when asked to help out her friend, Wes Jackson, with an ecology project – the study of grasses, the colours and textures, the wind-swept flora and dramatic cloud formations overhead, pitched Evans headfirst into local conservation and she became an
enthusiastic eco-activist. This would eventually lead to her extended series of prairie skies, uninhabited landscapes – and most notably – the prairie terrain photographed from a low flying aircraft. Here the atmospheric, silent horizons and close-up studies cede to photographs resembling abstract paintings, with vivid colours and organic forms and a sense of primeval energies at work. But Evans is no idle romantic. Her pragmatic lens is also focussed on the city of Chicago and the steel industry of Indiana and Ohio, registering that beneath these man-made masses still lies the prairie, patiently awaiting Time to reinstate its ancient dominance. Given the classic Yale treatment of cool, crisp design and outstanding quality of reproduction in both colour and black & white plates, Heartland will remind readers that great photography is not restricted to headline grabbing, auction breaking celebrities on the international art world circuit. There is a lot more going on elsewhere – if one takes the time to look carefully. HEARTLAND The Photographs of Terry Evans K. F. Davis, J. L.Aspinwall, A. M. Watson YALE / Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art HB 220pp 86 col + 54 tritones ISBN: 978-0300190755
Dominic Nahr Cairo 2012 ©Magnum Photos
UNIVERSAL SOLDIERS
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HE DEPRESSING message, demonstrated so magnificently by the work of these courageous photographers, is how so little has changed since 1945. The skilled lens’ of these Magnum members and affiliates, an agency itself founded by photographers with WWII experience, capture the familiar ingredients of revolutionary conflict – whether it be in the Middle East, Asia, Afghanistan, Africa, Serbia, or Cuba and Latin
America. Across the world stage the same players repeatedly show their faces: autocratic despots resplendent in military bling; hapless uniformed apparatchiks forced to play a losing hand to the bitter end; the intelligentsia, giving authority to the revolutionary struggle – and the larger contingent of angry citizenry, zealots, thugs and gangsters, all newly armed and with an unquenchable thirst for revenge and blood. As Abbas, who documented the fall of the Shah of Iran
in 1979, sadly noted: ‘extremists will always win’. And in the power vacuum that follows revolutionary change, the violence used to overthrow the old order is more often than not continued to enforce another onto the general population. The digital explosion has ‘enabled’ accidental eye witness reports to be captured by cellphones, cameras and tablets everywhere – material that is plucked by the demands of rolling news agencies and broadcast worldwide. But these obviously partisan amateur snapshots are no match for a professional eye searching deliberately for the truth of a situation, often in circumstances of extreme personal danger. Although, as editorial standards are compromised and sensation drives media coverage, the future for this genre of photo-reportage has got to be in jeopardy. Documenting revolutionary struggle is quite different from overt war photography. The goal posts change, the players morph into ever changing factions and illogical situations become the norm. The individual courage of
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‘Documenting revolutionary struggle is quite different from overt war photography.’
James Nachtwey; Helmut Newton; Martin Parr; Herb Ritts; Sebastiäo Salgado; and August Sander. And Flammarion don’t hesitate to launch the book with the controversial Japanese photographer, Araki Nobuyoshi, who has latterly dedicated his lens to traditional shunga (erotic) depictions of women, especially in bondage roles.
Elliott Erwitt Paris 1989
THE SUBLIME IMAGE
H
OW TO SELECT a compendium of ‘master’ photographers? The impossibility of even a shortlist. And to make a selection of only 20 artists? But in this sensational, large format and truly elegant presentation by Flammarion, there is no sense of omission. The artists, all of whom show a portfolio of some of their most iconic images, are: Araki Nobuyoshi; Gabriele Basilico;
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‘The sheer quality of the reproductions makes this book stand out immediately’
Margaret Bourke-White; Robert Capa; Henry Cartier-Bresson; Robert Doisneau; Elliott Erwitt; Walker Evans; Mario Giacomelli; William Klein; Peter Lindbergh; Man Ray; Robert Mapplethorpe; Steve McCurry;
Each photographer is introduced with a biographical appraisal but the essential texts are the notes and quotes that illuminate the selected images, completed with a flourish – a facsimile signature. The sheer quality of the reproductions makes this book stand out immediately, many must be near original print size, and the full richness of life and the infinitely complex nature of human existence is recorded here by the very best exponents of CartierBresson’s famous exhortation: to capture the ‘decisive moment’. Twenty image makers of all nationalities and generations, and yet, there is a consistency in the 300 or more images. A certain fluidity. It can only be the indefinable spirit of genius that connects these artists – a total adeptness with their tool of choice, the camera – even though the more contemporary contributors are of the
the men and women who literally risked their lives to freeze the moment can only be admired. Prestel have produced an excellent tribute to these photographers, introduced by John Lee Anderson of The New Yorker; and with texts and interviews by Pulitzer Prize winner: Paul Watson. There are many highlights herein, but revisiting Susan Meiselas’ now famous photo essay on American sedition in Nicaragua – and Steve McCurry’s outstanding portrait of Afghanistan at the time of the Soviet invasion – shine out. Thomas Dworzak’s 2002 studies of Taliban fighters presents a totally contrary view of men denigrated as mere ‘insurgents’ today.
MAGNUM REVOLUTION: 65 Years of Fighting for Freedom Jon Lee Anderson & Paul Watson PRESTEL Hardcover 240pp. ISBN: 978-3791346441
digital/photoshop generation. Each still, fixed, image invites multiple readings and a contemplation into the very meaning of time and place. Edited by Roberto Koch, the director of Contrasto, and also founder and CEO of Forma, the International Center for Photography in Milan; with contributions by specialists Laura Leonelli, Alessandra Mauro and Alessia Tagliaventi. Truly outstanding and absolutely deluxe.
MASTER PHOTOGRAPHERS Edited by Roberto Koch FLAMMARION HB 448pp ISBN: 978-2080201331
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BASEL ARTROGERS FAIR BRETT
EUROSTATE SWITZERLAND
Thomas Ruff phg.02_I, 2013 David Zwirner Gallery (London/New York) Art Basel o THOMAS RUFF’s new series is sort of
Richter-in-reverse: from pure computer to a painterly endpoint which, push come to shove, I’d still term a ‘photograph’. Ruff is already known as a photographer who doesn’t take photographs: rather, he finds, re-presents and remodels material from other sources to push against the limits of what photography might be. One way to go, then, is to carry out the refinement from no source at all: what look a bit like photograms (in which objects are placed directly onto light-sensitive paper) derived purely from a virtual studio built by a custom-made software program.
Anselm Kiefer Für Paul Celan: Rutengänger, 2013 (For Paul Celan: Diviner) Galerie Thomas (Munich) Art Basel o Anselm Kiefer is famous for attaching
anything from mud to branches to lead submarines to paintings of enormous size, ambition and sometimes grandiloquence. It’s no surprise then, that there are twigs on this refreshingly intimate photograph with pencil additions. They suggest divining rods, and some also seemed shaped into some potential symbology – both are appropriate to Celan’s poem in which the diviner’s shadow ‘does not obliterate the scar of time’.
Alan Michael three Untitled paintings, 2013 installed by the Micky Schubert Gallery (Berlin) at Liste o There wasn’t a lot of photorealist painting
around the fairs, but it’s an approach which Scottish artist Alan Michael has said appeals to him for its ‘alienating effect’, and has become the main mode for his depictions of widely-sourced images (he also paints texts). This set of three makes a cold fetish of the way a rapid exposure photograph can catch liquids in motion. They’re taken from the publicity shots for the launch of a style magazine, and the use of such laborious and slow means to catch something so fleeting and inconsequential may be no coincidence in that context.
Franz Ackermann Hotel Talabashi, 2013 Marian Goodman (New York/Paris) Art Basel o Both Mai 36 and Meyer Riegger showed
report-outs from the increasingly complex psycho-geographies of Franz Ackermann. His world-ranging travels feed into constructions in which multiple layers are cut literally away, with various paintings, objects and his own photographs thrown into the frenetic mix. India, Afghanistan and – as shown – Turkey were the inspirations for dizzying evocations of local colour, which also suggest that the imposition of modern values has a certain sameness across the world.
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PHOTOFIT BASEL Did the organic spread of photo-based imagery reach Switzerland this year? TEXT PAUL CAREY-KENT All images courtesy and ©the artists and/or galleries listed.
HERE WAS quite a bit of art on show during the Basel Fair week: I saw 500 galleries across four of the seven Fairs, the hundred large works and projects of Art Unlimited (in the Art Basel Fair) and Art Parcours (out and about in the city), plus half of the twenty-odd significant non-commercial exhibitions in the city. Given that volume, it would probably be possible to find enough work to support any number of trends. For example, various depictions of lightning and
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flooding (how close are we to natural end times?) and insects (will they take over?). On a more widespread basis, there were certainly fewer jokes and more abstraction than a few years back, and that was true of some photography as well as lots of painting. I wouldn’t claim that there was, numerically, a trend towards combining photography with other disciplines, but there was certainly enough of it to choose ten interesting examples, a selection that includes four established German heavyweights...
Gerhard Richter 924-1 STRIP, 2012 Marian Goodman (New York/Paris) Art Basel o ONE ANSWER to doubts about the
importance of painting now that digital technologies dominate, might be to technologise it, and that’s what Richter does to an extreme degree, putting the scanned template of his Abstract Painting 724-4, 1990, to generate thousands of computer transformations (he has documented some of the interim stages in a book) which conclude with twenty-foot-wide display of more than 8,000 stripes. Each outcome of the procedure is unique, and could be seen as a photograph of the painting, albeit one which fetishises – by maximising – the distortions which occur in any photographic process. Result: an abstract representation of an abstraction. www.f22magazine.com
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EUROSTATE SWITZERLAND
Amanda Coulson
Harold Ancart Untitled (Seascape) 2013. 2013 Xavier Hufkens (Brussels) Art Basel o The Belgian Harold Ancart, best-known
for sculptural installations, also alters net-sourced photographs of tourist destinations by burning them and adding flecks of paint. The typical effect is a picture of fire made out of smoke – ‘no fire without smoke’, if you will. The suggestion of trauma in would be-paradisiacal places can be traced back to his own childhood experience of witnessing a major fire while on holiday. Here, though, there’s also the alleviatingly witty paradox that it’s water which seems to be burning.
Rachel Harrison Sunset Series, 2000-2012 Greene Naftali Gallery (New York) Art Basel o These are very much sculptor’s
photographs: Rachel Harrison bought a conventional sunset view from a flea market, then set about both manipulating it as an object, e.g. by bending it; and re-photographing it in various ways (altering the lighting, focus, angle of approach, proportion shown etc.) Result: a set of 31 analogue variations on the same source which look surprisingly different. Possible subtext: even if we think we share the same dreams or ideals, we may mean rather different things by them...
A Kassen The Colour of Things (Chair) 2013 Nicolai Wallner (Copenhagen) Art Basel o The Danish collective A Kassen push
equivalence to the limit in their series in which a pulverised item is smeared on the wall as a monochrome painting, beside a photograph of how it used to look. What depicts the truer reality? There were examples at two fairs, each with a different subsidiary logic: at Madrid’s Maisterravalbuena in Liste, a guitar was rendered decisively mute; while the chair in the main fair seemed designed to take Joseph Kosuth’s famous contrast between an actual, pictured and verbally defined chair (‘One and Three Chairs’) that one step further.
Jimmie Durham
Naomi Safran-Hon
kurimanzutto (Mexico City) Art Basel
Wadi Salib: Interior Landscape (Purple Wall), 2013
who campaigns for Native American rights, but his work ranges widely, as in this beautifully balanced and tactile assemblage which uses what Durham himself describes as ‘a HEAVY piece of flat stone. In Brazil I got an old photo of a jaguar in a cage at the flea market. Then in Rome I had it transferred to a tile, like they put on graves’ and then ‘many objects in the studio all wanted to be part of the piece – but they were all too much, because the stone is so magnificent (it looks like an aerial photo of the Amazon)... then I found the last rattlesnake skin, that completed the rather quiet work...’ 20
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What was your original vision? Amanda Coulson: The show came about when Friedrich Loock, Kavi Gupta and my then partner, now husband, Uli Voges, were sitting at Art Cologne back in 2004 and talking about Basel. Uli was pretty-much born in a three-piece suit and sharp, laceup leather shoes; as a young gallery he was invited to Liste but always felt it was not his crowd. The vision also had to do with the booths themselves. I am still to this day surprised at how some approach this – whether at a small satellite or at the main fair – as an opportunity to slap up 5-8 artists, who do not relate one to the other at all, and just sell. I never really understood that. So the global concept was to create a place for good, serious galleries – young OR ‘old’ – with a strong history of supporting emerging art – young OR ‘old’ – who were somehow overlooked, and to make a fair where the art was put into a context, even if tenuously. VOLTA Basel is now in its 9th year. How has the show evolved? We were always concerned with production values and made sure there was almost museum-quality lighting and walls, clear maps and legible signage. We have a lot of extremely funny stories from the early years, which actually we're going to collect and publish on our tenth anniversary next year.
Belo Horizonte, 2013 o Jimmie Durham is known as an artist
lots of art museums and lectures. Buy only what you like. Make your own decisions. Keep an open mind.
Artistic Director & co-founder of VOLTA art fair
Slag Gallery (New York) Volta Fair o The Haifa-raised, Brooklyn-based Naomi
Safran-Hon sets up a tension between the domestic safety and the political trauma of her home neighbourhood of Wadi Salib, where many of the buildings from which Arabs were ejected in 1948 are now dilapidated. Safran-Hon mounts her own photographs of its walls on canvas, cuts holes in it, mounts lace on the back, pushes concrete through the lace and then adds acrylic. This complex hybrid of photography, sculpture and painting produces powerfully literal and charged abstract effects.
What was the motivation behind establishing VOLTA in New York and how did you seek to create its identity? We had thought about taking VOLTA to a second city but had not really settled on a location – except being agreed it would NOT be Miami. Then, in 2008, we were purchased by MMPI, the other founders then focusing again more on their respective galleries, and I was retained as Executive Director to oversee VOLTA's growth. MMPI really wanted us to open elsewhere first Chicago, which we entirely rejected, and then NY. We felt that in Basel we had really brought something additional to the city, the three fairs functioned well together – clearly different but complementary – and that we filled a gap. We always said the same criteria should apply to another VOLTA, in that we should bring something to the table, add something meaningful to the conversation and not just catch some kind of overflow. It was also important to differentiate from our own Basel brand because to produce two completely similar fairs, with the same concept, with the same gallery list, is also not interesting. We were also responding to the nature of the city: Basel has always been about the market; New York, on the other hand, has a critical mass of curators, writers, many other art world professionals outside of collectors, who mightn't have the budget to travel. So, that's how the idea for an entirely solo fair came up, to make it like studio visits.
Laurence Tuhey 1
Amanda Coulson
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Steve Shane
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Laurence Tuhey
SWISS ROLES Zavier Ellis meets three key contributors to the success of the 2013 art extravaganza in Basel, Switzerland.
You have also been an art critic, a curator, are now a museum director and have extensive prior experience working in galleries in New York, Paris and London. Many don’t realise that art world people often wear several ‘hats’. Yes, a lot of hats indeed! Let's be honest, part of it is economic. Nobody likes to talk about money in our business and while, yes, we all get into it for passion, there are still very real basic needs – like eating! There are not that many who can really support themselves entirely on a critic's salary and it's necessary to do some consulting or curating, or to juggle some other projects that can simply help get the kids through school. Precisely because of the way the artworld is there are loads and loads of potential conflicts: curators dating artists, artists curating shows, museum directors married to dealers, critics with artists. These all exist and they are all tricky to navigate but we have to trust in the personal moral compasses of these individuals. My wonderful colleague and co-Director of VOLTA NY, Christian ViverosFaune was indeed let go from his critical post at the Village Voice because some other journalist made a big fuss about it, saying how it was a conflict of interest, and that to me was just absurd.
Steve Shane Collector When, how and why did you first get into collecting? Steve Shane: It all started in high school in a Detroit, Michigan suburb. I was introduced
to art history by my Humanities teacher. Nancy is still my friend after all these years. She first taught me all about Surrealism and Salvador Dali. I was hooked immediately. When I went to New York City at the age of 19 to see the art I studied in person, I found myself going to the book shops of the museums and buying reproduction posters and post cards of the art work that engaged me. I had the urge to be surrounded by art and to live with the art. I do the same thing today with original works of it. Some collectors have a very tight remit for subjects, styles or periods in work that they are looking for? I try not to buy any more art, but I am completely addicted. I can smell sincerity in an artist. The work has to move me and I need to relate to it. No one advises me. I buy with my heart and eyes. I love ‘the circuit’. I find great enjoyment in running into fellow art lovers and talking about art and the art world. My social life is dominated by art fairs, gallery tours, studio visits and museum visits.
What advice would you have for young/emerging collectors? I like the art dealers who tell me about the artist and what their work is about. I DO NOT want to know: what awards the artist won, what museum shows are coming up, who is buying the work, nor what article is going to be written. I find this kind of banter very annoying and sad. My advice to young/emerging collectors is to wear comfortable shoes, and go to
Associate Director of Timothy Taylor Gallery Can you tell me a bit about your history and how you reached this point in your career? Laurence Tuhey: I was very lucky to have my first introduction to the art world some 25 years ago working for Leslie Waddington and that really set the standard for my career to date. To be exposed to artists of the calibre of Picasso, Miro, Jasper Johns, Motherwell and many other museum quality artists was an education that money can’t buy. At Waddington's I met Tim Taylor and over the course of the last 20 years, apart from a brief interlude, I have worked with Tim. This week you are exhibiting at Art Basel. Your booth is one of the strongest at the fair. Two standout pieces are the Susan Hiller and Philip Guston. We deliberately chose to present Guston in close proximity to other gallery artists who work within abstraction or who have responded to his legacy. Susan’s part of the stand is really a chance to show the incredible range of her work and some of the highlights of her wonderful career to date. Your gallery roster features established contemporary artists like Richard Patterson, Fiona Rae and Sean Scully as well as stellar 20th century names including Philip Guston, Antoni Tàpies and Andy Warhol. How do you balance your programme between the two approaches? Having a varied and exciting program is the lifeblood of the gallery. There are already a number of links between some of the gallery artists, such as Antoni Tàpies and Jessica Jackson Hutchins, so it’s simply a question of drawing attention to that and then achieving the right balance between presenting established names and nurturing new talent. With so many art fairs globally, how are they relevant? Is the template shifting? And where does Basel figure in all of this for you? Yes, there are a number of fairs throughout the world with Art Basel acting as a hub for the best international galleries. Art Fairs give clients the opportunity to see a greater scope of work in one location and an opportunity to see works by artists they may not have considered previously. Art Basel is the premier fair and clients are able to view the most prestigious works in one location.
EDITOR’S NOTE The complete versions of all these three interviews can be read in full online at www.state-media.com/state/ www.f22magazine.com
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