Exhibition : Li Jun " Impermanent Instant" at M97 Gallery

I like the new work from Li Jun which is exhibited at the M97 Gallery in Shanghai. The Exhibition include also Yang Yi and the "Love Hotel" Series from Meh Jin and ang Er .

Here the statement of the project from Li Jun called "Impermanent Instant"

In buddhism, the fundamental concept of "impermanence" teaches that all things are in a constant state of change. Time, existence, and consciousness itself are nothing more than a series of eternally changing impermanent instants. For the unprecedented frenzy of development that is modern China there is perhaps no more fitting a metaphor than dust. It’s a sign of the old world and a sign of the new world. A sign of the ubiquitous concrete high-rise block and cavernous construction site. A sign of the demolished lanes and dwellings of ancient architecture, as well as a sign of pollution and an insatiable industrial appetite. In China, dust is the ever-looming particulate by-product of the physical metamorphosis that envelops the entire country and its people. For photography artist Li Jun, the phenomenon of dust that envelops the simple objects and possessions of his Chengdu apartment and the haunting traces the objects leave offers poetic empirical proof of his and their temporary impermanent existence, however ephemeral, amidst tumultuous environs and changing times.

Exhibition : Juan I-Jong - The Defining Moment in Chinese Contemporary Photography

Taiwanese Photographer Juan I - Jong has worked in photojournalism for 30 years, his retrospective will be showcased at the Guandong Museum of Art in China. He has also contributed as a curator and discovered Chinese photographers such as Lu Nan and Fang Dazeng. Indeed he has started the well know magazine Photographers International which deal with specific topic and issues and recognized as one of the best publication worldwide.

Profile : Mitra Tabrizian

I am interested in Iranian photography and i have posted what I could find so far but some nice person from Tehran gave me some names to look for and I am very happy to share it in my blog. Today I would recommend to look at Mitra Tabrizian work, is another example of sensibility from an inside view of this beautiful country. I do like projects like Tehran, West Suburb and Wall house.

Exhibition : I was in Florence , Patti Smith historical concert in 1979

I grew up with the music and lyrics of Patti Smith and the city of Florence is dedicating an interesting exhibition on the last famous concert of Patti Smith in the Tuscan capital. The Photos show the historical concert where during the event a group of young people created a kind of invasion of the stage and from where Patti Smith decided to stop to perform for a certain time of her life. There were difficult times in italy, struggles between different political group where people believed that concert of any kind of performer should have to be free for everybody.

Patti Smith will perform again in Florence on the 10th of September, she will face the city which made her angry again after 30 years, another historical concert and the photo exhibition will show photos from that famous night. Photo taken from different photographers and worth to have a look (The concert will worth much more for sure...)

Exhibition : Stolen Treasures from Modern China

Thomas Fuesser will showcase his photos alongside some other artist such as Zhou Tiehai , Chris Gill and Andy Hall in the Shanghart Gallery in Huai Hai Rd.
Here the statement from the exhibition which will open on the 8th of September.
This exhibition presents an opportunity for the first time to see photographs of many of China’s famous artists from the early 1990s. This exhibition will be the first time these works have been presented in public, or even printed from the film. Alongside these photographs we have a visual; discussion of what has taken place in China over the last two decades conducted by the artists Zhou Tiehai, Chris Gill and Andy Hall.
There are many logical traps which catch out the observers of the Chinese reform process. There is especially a lack of understanding of what are the cultural and artistic processes that have fed the rapid and ongoing changes in the cultural field.
The media has played, and continues to play, an important role in modern and contemporary Chinese art. So one of the basic premises of the exhibition Stolen treasures from modern China, to be held at Shanghart Huaihai Road 796 starting September 8, is to show how media played an important role in the early careers of many artists in China, and also how some artists reacted to the role of the media. The media has documented as well as explained to local and international audiences the various Chinese artists and movements over the years.
The nature of intransigent cultural theft is a complex issue, as physical cultural objects created post 1949 are considered free from governmental control. But, as yet, it has not yet been really addressed what is the value of artworks created in the early 90s within the context of international dialogue alongside the Chinese phenomenon of reform and progressive change?
A unique set of circumstances in China in the early 1990s, a period when the country was still in the initial stages of its opening and reform process, led to a select group of artists becoming well known figures, and others less so.
For the starting point of this exhibition we have chosen 1993, when a series of visits introducing artists Joerg Immendorf (Hamburg), Guenther Uecker (Duesseldorf), art critics Andrew Solomon (New York Times), Thomas Fuesser (Stern, Germany), and others to the art scenes of Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou was arranged. This historical arrangement, a list of artist names constructed under the guidance of Hans van Dijk, proved instrumental for many artists’ careers. Later Hans founded China Art Archives and Warehouse, with Ai Weiwei.
So this exhibition provides the first opportunity to see the photos taken by Fuesser, which remained as negatives in a box in Hamburg. Also, this visit inspired Zhou Tiehai’s seminal works, such as his video and fake magazine covers.Gill and Hall, though long term residents in China were never on the list. They weren’t particularly bothered about not being on the list. Their work presents a historical flux- a counterpoint to the work of Zhou and Fuesser, talking about the changes that have taken place over the period 1993 until now, the process of historical flux- not only in the art world, but in attitudes and behaviour in society at large- including foreign views of China as well as China’s self image.The many circles of historical development that have taken place are represented in this exhibition in a simple edited format- a reflection of how history edits down the process’ of development.
The key elements of foreign and local involvement in Chinese art will also be explored by the exhibition.
As Gao Shiming, curator of the Guangzhou Triennial, told Gill: “There have been three generations of foreigners involved in Chinese art, the first generation made a hole in the wall, the second generation built a bridge, and the third generation built a beautiful pagoda.”
A limited edition book containing important documents and a wider selection of works will also be available.
Opening:Sept. 8, 2009 Tuesday
Venue: Shanghart Gallery HH796, 796 Huai Hai Middle Road Shanghai
Date: Sept 9-Sept 20, 2009

Exhibition : Global Photographer at Savignano Immagini Festival

I have, earlier, posted an article on Massimo Sordi, a photographer
and educator in Italy which has now curated a group exhibition called
"Global Photographer" inside the Savignano Immagini Festival (Si
Fest) in Italy. The group exhibition has interesting names such as Michele
Cera, Jen Davis, Andrew Phelps , Richard Renaldi, Carla Van de
Puttelaar and Shen Wein (from which i take the cover photo of this
article).The list of photographer is bigger and you can have more
information visiting the web site of the festival from which I am
going to post more as there are more beautiful shows and exhibitions
to talk about .
Here the statement of the exhibition:
Not alone in a big house
The special attention to young photography, showed by the Festival of
Photography of Savignano during its eighteen years of life, expressing
through the large panorama of exhibitions, awards, lectures, workshops
and portfolio readings, suggested the wish to set up a "young section"
within the Si Fest, as a selection of late experiences of Italian and
International photography.
Global Photography wants to be an observatory on emerging photography
and Savignano Immagini becomes its support, representing a basic
reference to its natural development and diffusion.
Since the starting with the Si Fest 2009 edition, this event focus on
the meanings of the term identity; questioning about different aspects
of the cultural or geographical sources deriving from it, we can
interpret multiplicity of codes discerning from the relationships
between people, and between people and places, through the perception
of their mutations.
"A troubled age is an age that wonders about the coherence of the
world and about the relevance of the languages in charge of expressing
such coherence. In this age more than ever, there are elements of
incomprehensible, uncertain, not interpretable nature, floating
meanings scattered all over. The identity's certainties and the
languages of "representation", which are definitely not the ones of
the doubt, as a reaction, recreate themselves. […] We must urgently
address the issues which arises in a different way: thinking, talking,
writing otherwise."
Identity and globalization appear to become essential terms to
describe the features of the contemporary and reflect, through their
vagueness and generality, the delicate fragility of circumstances and
events that increasingly characterize our existence.In this context
the never-ending system established by the global network, universally
shared, seems to offer a democratic use of informations, relying on
each one to be understood and personalized.
Looking at / Looking for approaches the theme of vision as research of
an inner path that digs into the human figure to overcome the physical
limitations of the body assuming a broader corporeity or materiality.
The body becomes a sort of vehicle, the unrenounceable way between the
world and ourselves, the material entity that gives us the measure and
the distance between the reality and the illusion of a photographic
image.
Looking at wouldn't have any significance without looking for, so as
looking for would fall into vagueness without the real support from
looking at: in a permanent balance the apparent borders of both terms
encroach to compose in unison the metaphoric photographing act.
The different authors, in the exhibition of disconnected distances
between clear perceptible realities, shape the imaginary paths that
would be ascribed to such qualities as Lightness, Quickness,
Exactitude, Visibility, Multiplicity.
Announced as "Six proposals for the next millennium", these categories
seem to emphasize the questions arising from the pictures. They
materialize the distinct expressions of the single images to define a
common ground to belong to which communicates the primary relationship
between the artwork and ourselves, an interior sincerity otherwise
impenetrable.
The protagonists of the pictures get to undo their identities
revealing the multiplicity of interpretable signs beyond the image of
themselves.
But "who are we, who is each one of us, if not a combinatoria of
experiences, information, books we have read, things imagined? Each
life is an encyclopedia, a library, an inventory of objects, a series
of styles, and everything can be constantly shuffled and reordered in
every way conceivable".

Exhibition : Not Natasha at Photofusion gallery in London

I spoke already in my blog about the Dana Popa's project Not Natasha,
it is a great documentation on Moldovian women who are victims of
human trafficking, the project from Young romanian photographer has
received many awards and grants and displayed in many galleries.
Currently is at the Photofusion gallery in London which I suggest to
visit, here a statement from the curator of the exhibition Natasha
Christia:
'Behind the fancy facades of the cosmopolitan capitals of Europe,
hundreds of rooms become exile spaces for myriads of bodies
objectified for male fantasy. While most of them are squalid and cold,
many others appear familiar and warm. Mirrors, red lights, posters,
the list of services on the bedside – all these little attempts at
humanising these rooms, at imbuing them with a kind of homeliness,
speak for the girls' need to survive.'

Photoshop Masters : Microsoft

Well i do think that with photoshop things are more easy for many lazy people, photographer does not need to be precise, no need to think, companies no need to hire great photographers and the new category called Photoshopper has a big renovated voice in the industry, they can also get a coffee between one work and the other....
well almost so easy apart some little mistake like this from microsoft where the same campaign has been revisited by changing the face of a black man into a white man... pity they forgot the hand which is still black...
I dont want to start a blog on mistake of photoshop, the blog photoshop disaster (from where I took the photos) does already a great job to show these idiocy but i wanted to post this because it makes me more convinced about the necessity to start to use photography , again, to express idea, selling product, selling concept. Showing a reality rather to invent a bad one...

Profile : Beth Dow

Beth Dow explore the fake buildings in USA, at first glance I thought was a project done in China (as I am used to see many copies of famous building here) but then i read the statement and I was also surprised to see famous landmark spread around America. All in all a great body of work which i advise to have a look. Here the statement :These are the first photographs in a new portfolio that looks at the ways we appropriate and approximate the romance of ruins into modern American environments, and what this says about our longing for historic precedents. While genuine ruins remind us of our own mortality, they also suggest the opposite by showing it's possible to endure, even if only in a reduced and degraded form.We fake antiquities in curious ways, preferring them to spanking-new models. This places the counterfeits at a curious point in time - somewhere between pristine original construction and the present, indicating that we value our nostalgia for something lost over what was actually lost. This circular thinking about authenticity is the biggest draw for me. I have been looking at Victorian photographs by Francis Frith, Felix Bonfils, and Giorgio Sommer, as well as sepia ink and wash drawings by Claude Lorrain, a 17th century artist who used classical ruins to create ideal scenes of pastoral splendor. My pictures of faked antiquities are an attempt to evoke nostalgia for inaccurate history, to wrestle with ideas of authenticity, and to question the value we place on Classical ideals. It is natural to challenge the relevance of nostalgic longing, and I exploit this dynamic in my contemporary landscapes. I approach these pictures as a tourist. These real sites are all shot with a hand-held medium format camera, and include whatever clutter exists around the actual subjects. I also use a slightly wide-angle lens to exploit the sense of disorder through converging verticals. People mill around as they do in Frith's photographs. Life goes on. Unlike the heavily retouched wet-collodion/albumen originals, my film records clouds and other details, so I leave it all in. As my original references are beautiful objects, I honor that beauty by using the Victorian hand-coated platinum process. Platinum is rare, precious, and the most permanent photographic printing medium - an apt metaphor for my search for the authentic and enduring

Movie : Palermo Shooting by Wim Wenders

For sure is not a great movie... but is worth to look at it, is a movie which is facing some issues of photography . Worth to see Letizia Battaglia in a small scene with her leica, worth so see the acting of a photographer (well too sexy to look true) with a great camera such as the Plaubel Makina (medium format japanese camera) and worth for a sentence by "Death" Dennis Hopper which appear in the end who tells : Digital Photography is an open invitation to manipulation.... well great sentence , one of the best on digital photography......