More for the bookshelf ....

Upcoming and just released .......

                     Takuma Nakahira | Circulation: Date, Place, Events [Osiris, 2012]

Legendary japanese photographer and Provoke-era legend Takuma Nakahira just released a new book, "Circulation: Date, Place, Events" [edited by Kazurani Hattori] through Osiris. Of course, a must have for most of us ... Find out more about Takuma: Nakahira-san



Another japanese photography legend from the provoke-era is Daido Moriyama ... always loads of new releases in the pipeline .. just heard about another Daido-mag./Record published [no 21] ... plus a new book through SuperLabo. From the publisher; "Most of the images are taken in '74 when Moriyama visit Okinawa for "work shop photo school" with Shoumei Tomatsu,Eiko Hosoe, Masahisa Fukase and Nobuyoshi Araki. Some images were published in the book "Inu No Toki (The Time of the Dog)" in '95 but most of the images are unpublished. The book will be launched on 15 May and the delivery to the overseas customer will starts from 21 May."

 "Okinawa" will also be published in a limited edition with a special choice of three images. Each print [gelatin silver print .. of course] is signed and limited of 50 + 5 AP:s
And yes - this is of course another must have item!

Christer Strömholm in Höganäs 29/4-24/6

                                      Christer Strömholm
LACMA in California is now showing two of my top-heroes in photography, Daido Moriyama and Robert Adams. Why can´t these kind of shows reach Swedens west coast. Maybe I should not complain ... Höganäs Museum in small village Höganäs (!) will soon open an exhibition with Christer Strömholm [polaroids taken in the seventies] || opening reception on sunday .. be there.

LAUREN E. SIMONUTTI [1968-2012]

                                          Apology | Lauren E. Simonutti, 2012

"The Madness is the Method" [Lauren Simonutti]. Highly talented artist/photographer Lauren E. Simonutti passed away last week due to complications from her illness. Diane Arbus, Francesca Woodman, Lauren Simonutti ...so damn sad. Check Laurens brilliant serie The Devil's Alphabet and 8 Rooms, 7 Mirrors, 6 Clocks, 2 Minds & 199 Panes of Glass.

More here:
Lauren devianART
Lauren blogspot
Lauren gallery
Lauren flickr.

New BANKSY?

                                             New Banksy? | Photo by Fragile

So, if this is a new genuine Banksy, what does it say? Follow the wild speculations here

LIU ZHENG | The Chinese

                                    Liu Zheng | The Chinese [Steidl 2004]

From the Bookshelf || This book features 120 suggestive, and sometimes hard to look at, photographs taken by the Chinese artist Liu Zheng between 1994 and 2001. Zheng focuses on a broad cross section of the chinese society including the homeless, transvestites, drug-dealers, coal miners, Taoist priests, Buddhist monks, prostitutes .. you can also see some real tragic images of the darker side of China´s cultural history.
I do not know how the Chinese government would have presented their profile on the Chinese people .... probably not like Liu Zheng.

Petrol war ...

                                  Petrol War | KennardPhillipps

For the sixth time in a very short time, petrol prices reached "all time high" levels in Sweden ... Cheers!

DAIDO goes digital

Couldn´t resist Part 7 | Maestro Daido Moriyama having fun with a digital camera ........

Andre Kertesz "My France" in Stockholm

                                         Andre Kertesz | "Rue des Ursins", 1931

Upcoming exhibition || Andre Kertesz "My France" [16/3-27/5] opens on friday at Fotografiska in Stockholm.  Kertesz´s outstanding experiments with artificial light, his perfect balance of the composition, angles and more revolutionized photography [and even influenced German expressionist filmmakers like Fritz Lang, F.W.Murnau, Robert Weine].  More about Kertesz here -----------|>

                              "Untitled" .. from Kertesz´s best book, "Polaroids" [1979]

Lee Jeffries and the homeless

                                                 Photo | Lee Jeffries 

 In 2008, former accountant and self-taught amateur photographer Lee Jeffries [from Manchester] was in London to participate in a marathon. While walking around in the streets of London he took some photos of a young homeless girl who was huddled in a sleeping bag. The young girl spotted him and started to scream ... instead of just walk away he approached the eighteen-year old girl and had a conversation with her. Her story had a profound effect on him and changed his artistic approach ... the homeless population now became the subject of his art. His haunting portraits are getting more and more noticed in media and internet ... soon a book will be published [YellowKorner]. Check out his portfolio at Flickr

.

Rememberance .....

It is one year since the disaster "The Great Higashinhon Earthquake" and tsunami which killed over 19.000 thousand people and left small communities like Kesennuma, Rikuzen-Takada, Kamaishi devastated. In the beginning of the ninetíes respected Japanese photographer Koji Onaka travelled around and photographed this area of Sanriku, in the northern east cost of Japan. He collected some of these photographs in a book entitled Umimachi [SuperLabo, 2011]. Highly recommendable!

                                            Sanriku area immortalized by Koji Onaka´s photos

Paul Graham - 2012 Hasselblad Award Winner

"The Hasselblad Foundation is pleased to announce British photographer Paul Graham as the recipient of the 2012 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography for SEK 1,000,000 (approximately GBP 95,000, US$150,000), The award ceremony will take place in London on March 8, 2012. An exhibition of his work, Paul Graham – 2012 Hasselblad Award Winner will open on October 26, 2012 at the Hasselblad Center at the Gothenburg Museum of Art, Sweden, in connection with which, one or more seminars will be arranged with the award winner"....

Paul Graham

                                                              Banksy

W Eugene Smith

                                                    W Eugene Smith
From the bookshelf  ||
W Eugene Smith, one of photography´s legendary figures, published a series of memorable newspaper articles/photo-essays and books in his lifetime. The images from Nurse Midwife, Country Doctor, Albert Schweitzer - A Man of Mercy, Spanish Village and Minamata are of course unforgettable. Smith´s almost fanatically dedication to his mission as a photographer is remarkable... his obsession with the Pittsburgh project that turned a three week assignment into a never ending drama .. or his jazz loft project at 821 Sixth Avenue - posthumously immortalized in the books "Dream Street - W Eugene Smith´s Pittsburgh Project" [Sam Stephenson, 2001] and "The Jazz Loft Project" [Sam Stephenson, 2009] .... Read more about the Jazz Loft Project here.

Alexandre Orion | "Skulls of Sao Paolo"

Couldn´t resist Part 6 | Brazilian graffiti artist/photographer Alexandre Orions amazing reverse graffiti mural inside the Max Feffer street-Tunnel in Sao Paolo [2007]. This project, "Skulls of Sao Paolo", is Orions attempt in getting a greener world ... How can we with easy methods fight against the heavy pollution that is a growing problem in the urban landscape. Orion´s method in this project is simple but at the same time genius .. his choice of medium, reverse graffiti, is in fact cleaning, removal of dirt... With a wet rag he scrubbed away parts of the layer of soot from the walls inside the tunnel until the white surface stared through as a eerie catacomb of skulls. The Sao Paolo state police tried, of course, to arrest him but quickly realised that he was actually cleaning the wall/city ... something the goverment should have done years ago. As they washed and removed the art .. Orion kept working on the rest of the tunnel .. resulting in a clean-up of the whole tunnel. Just in a few weeks after the city started a clean-up campaign in the city ......

Andreas Gursky .. Is photography dead?

                           Rhein II - Andreas Gursky ... probably a good investment

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark opened 2012 with a monster exhibition by photographys own Damien Hirst, the german uber-star photographer Andreas Gursky [Jan. 13th - May 13th].
"The exhibition spans the whole of Gursky’s oeuvre up to the very latest photographs presented this autumn in the artist’s gallery, Gagosian Gallery in New York – and thus gives the viewer the opportunity to follow the transformations and transformative powers of the images through more than two decades". Before I went to the exhibition I tried to do my homework to understand Gurskys photographs and "visual art". But unfortunately, this very ambitious exhibition told me nothing. Maybe I didn´t do my homework well .. but to me, it seems that Gursky is becoming more of a brand than what I call an artist [or photographer]. And of course, an exhibition like this, reminds me of the debates over the whole concept photography, not only if analog photography is dead. SFMOMA has been collecting and exhibiting photographs since it´s opening and has always been dedicated to the examination of the medium in all its form. In April 2010, they arranged a major symposium, "Is Photography Over", on the current state of photography. Follow some interesting conversation here.

And ... if you visit Louisiana ... don´t miss Yayoi Kusama´s hypnotic "Gleaming Lights of the Souls" .. and her exhibitions at Tate Modern and The National Museum of Art, Osaka.

                                    Shine on you cray diamond ....

Yayoi Kusama

10 Most wanted .. for now.

So what can we expect in 2012 - How many new books by Daido Moriyama and what is going on in Göttingen .. more nice items from Steidl? I´ve  been browsing around a couple of publishers web-sites and found these titles .. [more to follow]

                                               Gerry Johansson | Deutchland

Daido Moriyama | Okinawa (Tentative)/SuperLabo .... another release
Gerry Johansson | Deutchland/Steidl ... postphoned for decades it feels ..
Christer Strömholm | The Lido Exhibition/Steidl ... previously unknown works
Rodchenko | Rodchenko/Steidl
Keizo Kitajima | Photo Express, Tokyo/Steidl ... re-release of a classic ...
Anders Petersen | Innocense/SuperLabo
Don Kirby and Joan Gentry | The Anasazi Project/Nazraeli
Anders Petersen | Soho/Mackbooks
Walker Evans | Decade by Decade/HatjeCantz
Daido Moriyama vs Klein | Tate exhibition catalog or?

New BANKSY in March



PunkMum by BANKSY

 According to various rumors, PR-genius Banksy is about to release a new print called "Gorilla". Follow the drama here or here ... and don´t forget to warm up your index "F5íng" finger.

Edit: "postponed due to technical difficulties" ... well

Pollock, NUG .. Steinert

                                              Jackson Pollock in action ....

                                NUG in relaxing mode .......

                                                  Otto Steinert, 1952

Couldnt resist Part 5 |  In the late 1940´s and early 1950´s, Jackson Pollock was noted for his so called "action paintings". Six decades later David Geffen sold his Pollock action painted "No5" canvas for $140 million. In 2009, graffiti artist NUG showed his video "Territorial pissing" on the Art Fair Market in Stockholm ... the video created some "short-lived" scandal in Swedish media but made NUG famous overnight. These action painting reminds me, of course..., of photographer Otto Steinert´s mystical light experiments where he tried to document a movement through time and space ... anyways, check these cool videos.

                                                 
                              

Hisaji "Balthus" Hara

                                       Photo|  Hisaji Hara

Don´t miss this show! The one exhibition not to miss in Feb./March is Japanese photographer Hisaji Hara´s show at the Michael Hoppen Gallery in London. Hara, a graphic designer and film-maker by background, has over the last five years recreated some of artist Balthus most famous paintings into photographs. Not the most unique concept, but with Haras photographs I forget about the concept .... Maybe because his photographs are so beautiful and have a kind of timeless feel ..... Interview with Hara here

                                               Balthus

                                         Johann Heinrich Fusslis version, 1802

Tetsuo - The Iron Man

Couldn´t resist Part 4 | Film clip/trailer from Japanese cyberpunk masterpiece "Tetsuo- The Iron Man" by cult-film director Shinya Tsukamoto [1989]. This low budget film is extremely graphic, great photo/cinematography by Kei Fujiwara which bring me to mind of the aesthetics in Daido Moriyama books.

                                     Cinematographer and actress: Kei Fujiwara

Andy Warhol´s polaroids

It is exactly 25 years ago that, the man, the myth, the legend "for more than 15 minutes", died unexpectedly in New York after a routine operation of his gallbladder. Moderna Museet/Malmö is now showing some of his polaroids in an exhibition called "Ladies and Gentlemen". In this show, also featuring other stars like Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, Samuel Fosso, Tracey Moffatt, Moderna focuses on Warhols obsession with celebrities, from movie stars, rock stars, industrialists, Factory-hang arounds to Studio 54 wannabies ... Warhol published three books on photography [one posthumously], Andy Warhols´s Exposure [1979], America [1985] and Andy Warhol´s Party Book [1988]. Maybe not the best photobooks I have .. if you need a Warhool book go for the fantastic "Index".

                                 | Index [1967]

                             | Exposure [1979] ...  feat. one celebrity from Sweden

Robert Adams ...

                                         Photo | Robert Adams

If one is interested in contemporary art, street art and photography, London is the place to be .. I guess. Tomorrow opens a show at the Timothy Taylor Gallery, simply called "Robert Adams, Robert Bechtle and Ewan Gibbs". Adams, the only photographer in the exhibition, is most known for his documentation of west Americas changing landscape and its disappearing wilderness due to human exploitation. On this exhibition he will be showing a selection of his black and white photographs from the 1970´s of the "sometimes brutal [?]" urban development in the Denver, Colorado areas.
Adams photographs became more or less famous through the book The New West [1974] and the exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape [1975] at MOMA. Since then he has published fantastic books on regular basis, often with the same theme "the humans that altered landscape". Bibliography here.
I asked a collector about which Adams-book is most important in a collection, the instant answer was ... "The New West" and "Listening to the River" [of course, I don´t have River]. One other favorite Adams book is "Turning Back". This book is, as I read it, his most critical response to the timber industry when it almost act like a corporate warfare against the wilderness.

                                    Robert Adams | Turning Back [2010]

Pixadores

Couldn´t resist Part 3 |  Pixacao [aka Pixadores] - not photography but contemporary art on "high level" or ...created in the economic capitol of Brazil, Sao Paulo.... Check more about this unique art-movement in the excellent book "Pixacao: Sao Paulo Signature" [Xg Press].

Black Sabbath

                                         Get well soon, Tony!  | Photo: J.Angel

I've never worshipped anything ...... except for Daido Moriyama´s "third eye vision" and Tony Iommi´s [Black Sabbath] heavy melodic guitar-riffing, so I was looking forward to two big events during 2012 .. Moriyamas monster exhibition at Tate Modern [Oct.] "Moriyama vs Klein" and Black Sabbath´s reunion tour. Reading now that the Black Sabbath tour is cancelled due to Tony Iommi´s health situation [according to various rumours]. To be updated, I've just read Tony´s autobiography plus other Sabbath related books but I can´t find any book with "classic" Sabbath photo:s ... I´m wondering ... are there any "classic" photography books that illustrate rock [not related to magazines] at all? Genesis Publications published loads of nice books but any classics?

              Jimmy Page  "The photographic autobiography" | Genesis-publications

So, what about collecting vintage rock photos? Of course, there are loads of great photographers documenting rock ... Corbijn, Fin Costello, Bob Gruen, Gered Mankowitz - but buying vintage prints from them is currently an expensive hobby. However, there are of course cheaper alternatives for the average collector with a more modest budget. Check out Jorgen Angel´s site .. here you can find a couple of nice and affordable vintage prints. If you like Hendrix go to this site and browse around for cool photos that Bruce Fleming shot at the Monterey Festival 1967.



 Hendrix at Monterey Festival.|  Photo: Bruce Fleming







Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin |  Photo: Jorgen Angel

Peter Duggan´s Artoons

                                  Lichtenstein goes bezerk! ..... by: Peter Duggan

Couldn´t resist Part 2 : Borrowed this cool comic strip från The Guardian´s web. Artist is the highly talented  "artoonist" Peter Duggan. Hope he will do something on Garry Winogrand soon .. should be pretty damn brutal ....

Photo ... montage.

                                      Photomontage by:  KennardPhillipps

What is photography? Could you consider a photo-montage as real photograph or... Well, I´m certainly not a photography critic or photo-philosopher attempting to analyze photographs and to give big "Dinosaur" theories here and there. Sadly, but when it comes to theories about what is photography [i.e. photo-montage] I always feel bored, dazed and sometimes confused ... Basically, who cares if Andreas Gursky is a photographer or visionary .. or both. Anyways, if you never seen the photo-montage art by the duo KennardPhillipps before, you need to check this ..KP . Furthermore, in 2011 Peter Kennard published a nice book entitled @ earth [Tate Publishing]. At last, .. if you want to know what photography is you can try to read this text by James Elkin or Francois Laruelle´s book "On the Concept of Non-photography [Urbanomic]". Good luck!




@earth | Peter Kennard

"I take my hat off to you Sir, @ earth looks great" [BANKSY].