Augenblick . Profile : Erika Larsen

"Young blood" is a great project based on portraits done by American Erika Larsen .The photo described young hunters in America.

Augenblick, Exhibition : Juliana Beasley at Image Singulieres

Juliana Beasley will present her new work at Image Singulieres in Séte, France. I am a big fan of Juliana's work and I will prepare an interview with her as soon we will both have time to talk more about her work and and her life which are often linked together. The project is a result of a residency where she has produced great images which ended up in a book called "Juliana Beasley, Séte #10"
The festival will introduce also many other photographers such as Jacob Holdt, Lars Tunbjörk, Chris Anderson and some others.
Here an introduction from the project written by Christian Caujolle :
Juliana Beasley, heir to a tradition of American photography (Arbus or Goldin), is interested in life on the margins. She is currently working in the deprived neighbourhood of Rockaway in New York, documenting a small community of destitute and forgotten whites. Before that, we learned of her through her 2003 book Lap Dance, a real journey into the world of striptease. But here in Sète, Juliana trains her lens on a city and its culture. More than that, she discovers the south itself! It was a journey of adventure for her, not without its challenges, given the divide between old Europe and America today. Her residency resulted in a book, the third in an exciting collection also featuring those by Anders Petersen and Bertrand Meunier. A different kind of book, revealing a different kind of Sète, full of baroque interiors and unusual stories.
13 MAY till 09 JULY Paul-Valéry Museum «Beyond The Walls» salle Tarbouriech

Augenblick, Blog on photography - Books : Somewhere there's music by Larry Fink

Beautiful book on Jazz by Larry Fink, the book offers a great view of photos from different Jazz musicians , here the introduction by George Panichas:
Larry Fink secured enduring fame with the book Social Graces, which mixed images from working-class Pennsylvania with a portfolio from upper-crust Manhattan, observing manners and mores on the long, curvy couches of Studio 54 and in the chaos of Pat Sabatine’s eighth birthday party, where the screen door is always just about to slam. Fink has always been interested in what high and low culture have to say to one another, and has continued to seek the best of both behind the scenes at fashion shows in Runway and in the ring with sparring fighters in Boxing.Somewhere There’s Music collects Fink’s mostly-unpublished black-and-white jazz photographs from the 1950s to the late 1970s. In these photos Fink captures the cool heights of the Beat era, from Harlem’s famous Lennox Lounge, where the reader can almost hear John Coltrane serenading with his sax, to the Village Vanguard, where Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis made history. Other legends captured by Fink’s lens include Marion Brown, Roland Kirk, Steve Lacey, Leroy Jenkins (Revolutionary Ensemble), Archie Shepp and Lightning Hopkins, among many others. Sit back and be transported to another time with the hip cats of the jazz era in this passionate book featuring more than 80 duotone prints.

Augenblick, Blog on Photography , Book : Andy Warhol in China

Andy Warhol in China is a book with pictures from the visit of the American Artist in China.
A short note from Publisher:
A documentation of Andy Warhol's 1982 visit to China, this volume offers a unique glimpse of the international pop star by Christopher Makos, his personal photographer. With the advantage of hindsight, this volume becomes complexly ironic-in China in the 80s, almost no one knew who Warhol was. Just a few decades later, in 2006, Warhol's 1972 'Mao' sold for $17.4 million to a Hong Kong real estate tycoon. And Chinese artists have, for years, been incorporating Western pop iconography into their work. Photographer Christopher Makos became known in the 1970s for his candid shots of Warhol. Henry Geldzahler, the former Curator of Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has written: 'It is a great asset in Chris Makos' photographs that they reveal new and unfamiliar faces of the legendary pop figure...' 
Photographs of Christopher Makos. Foreword by Ai Weiwei.

Augenblick, Blog on photography : Profile, Jessica Roberts

Jessica Roberts has focused on childhood through interesting portraits. I like the series Before the Coming.

Augenblick, Blog on Photography, Books : The Face of Forgiveness

The Face of Forgiveness is an excellent book as a result of a project which took american photographer  Steven Katzman in different places shooting the cult of religion on the matter of forgiveness. Here the introduction of the book:
Prayer is an interesting social phenomenon. At the basis of every major religion is found the admonishment to 'turn to God' and offer prayer. In that abstract sense it is universally upheld around the globe. But the particular manifestations of prayer-how groups of people have defined for themselves the proper practice of it-are wildly diverse. For some, it is an extremely private act, something to be performed in the privacy of one's own chambers. For others, though, the act of praying in public, in a group setting, is an intensely confirming experience. Katzman's photographs bear witness to this. Working with a flash equipped hand held 35mm camera, Katzman has frequented the prayer/revival meetings of western Florida, in particular the Brownsville community. The specific congregations are Southern Baptist; sociologically they are racially and economically diverse. But to look at this body of work objectively, from a position of distance, as though we are to 'learn' about a culture foreign to us, is to miss the uniqueness of the project. What Katzman offers is a view from someone who is part of the community, a participant, a 'believer' so-to-speak. This necessarily raises numerous questions. How does this affect his photographic abilities or sensibilities? And further, what can photographs tell us of an abstract, interior, spiritual experience (as prayer must surely be defined)? If nothing more, I can at least guarantee that this book will raise more questions than not, and that no two people will get the same thing from this body of work

Augenblick, Blog on Photography , Profile : Alison Brady

Alison Brady explore women's world through some staged situation. Here the explanation from her Bio :

My work is a series of color photographs that work to stimulate unconscious emotions, desires, and sexual compulsions, all unified within a dynamic that vacillates between the real and the fantasized. I explore issues related to madness and alienation as they exist in contemporary culture, concentrating on expressions of neurosis, on feelings of anxiety, displacement, and loss of identity.These emotions are depicted in terms of visual conflict through my imagery, and manifested in terms of grotesque exaggeration. While investigating issues related to the unconscious, elements such as eroticism, twisted humor, and horror come across. I strive to create dichotomies between the sensual and the horrific, the beautiful and the destructive; the result, I hope, is a body of work comprised of deeply emotional and disturbing depictions of the unknown, staged imagery that functions on a metaphorical level, and inanimate objects and settings serving to illustrate the inner workings of the unconscious.

Augenblick, Blog on photography : Profile, Rebecca Veit

Another interesting photographer emerged from the shortlist of the Hyeres 2007 competition. Rebecca Veit, american, has a particular eye on details of female life.

Augenblick, Blog on Photography : On vacation

Well is time to have a break from the blog, Christmas time which I will use to go back to my beloved Yunnan in south China ( away from all the bad habit humans developed during these festivities).
I will be back next year with more post and more interesting photographers , plenty already in my list to be listed. I choose this beautiful image from Joseph Mougel from Series "The Day before" .
Merry Christmas to all the readers....

Augenblick, Blog on Photography , Profile : Chris Jordan

Chris Jordan Latest work Midway, message from the Gyre is amazing and sadly shocking, I think is for sure one of the most important documentation on Environmental issues which should be looked closely:

These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking. To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

Augenblick, Blog on Photography , Profile : Andrew Miksys

I like the series Bingo from American photographer Andrew Miksys

Augenblick, Blog on photography , Books : Assignment Shanghai by Jack Birns

My friend Rosa Chen, photographer and great help for my current project on Cosplay series has brought me to look at a interesting book from Life Magazine's photographer Jack Birns called "Assignment Shanghai", I have to be honest I did know his name and I cannot find much from him in the net. The book shows the City of Shanghai in the eve of the Revolution which took Mao Zedong in power and he witnessed the terrible years of the civil war . The photos were done with a Rolleiflex depicting the end of the golden days of the Chinese metropole. The book was published in 2003 and it is an important document for Shanghai history.

Jack Birns worked one year in China at the age of 28 and he has done many assignment for Life Magazine. He died in 2008

Augenblick. Blog on Photography , Books : Italian Riviera by Mark Cohen

Book on Italian Riviera with photographs by Mark Cohen released last year

here the note from publisher :

Mark Cohen adheres to the fundamental principles of street photography. He uses small format equipment and chooses the urban context as his unique field of action. Despite this he does not haunt large metropolises but, almost without exception, produces his work in small towns and, above all, in his hometown of Wilkes-Barre, a coal mining suburb of Pennsylvania, where he was born and where he has always lived. This is also true of the series he produced along the Levante Riviera in Liguria, during his stay in Rapallo. The scale of places in which the American photographer moves, as well as his attitude, is essentially unchanging. Unlike fellow photographers working on the streets of New York, Paris or London, Cohen is actually unable to disappear into the crowd and remains constantly visible. The act of photography becomes a veritable performance for him, made up of ambushes, agility and a rapid encounter/collision with his subjects the moment the shutter is released . . . The aesthetics and the content of the American artist’s photographs are essentially the same on the Ligurian coast as they are just a few steps from home. Wherever he is, Cohen continues to use the same method and remains sensitive to similar influences. His work presupposes a strong ability to plan. Although, as we mentioned earlier, his work contains the street photographer’s instinctiveness, this acts within the boundaries of a plan which corresponds to his idea of the world and of photography. Beyond the genius loci (geography, even if recognisable and typical, proves to be a chance element in his work) and the decisive moment, in Italy as elsewhere, Cohen uses photography to tell his own story.

Photographs by Mark Cohen. punctum, Rome, 2008. 96 pp., 35 black & white illustrations, 6x8½".

Augenblick, Blog on Photography , Profile : Steven Ahlgren

Living in a corporate city like Shanghai means living daily with the business talk, working eventually in some corporate events and have the chance to buy good version of TV serial "The Office" ( by the way i do prefer the english version...) . Apart from this personal (and sad) experience.. I have the chance to see some work from photographers who were able to describe this world. I have a couple in mind and today I will post the link of Steven Ahlgren , american photographer who had done different project. Have a look at Inside the corporation series , as well the Outside the corporation one.

Augenblick. Blog on Photography , Books Not Niigata by Andrew Phelps

A new book by Andrew Phelps on the Japanese city of Niigata. I have spent a day in Niigata, one of the best rice and fish I have eaten and some nice coastline view . Apart from that the book is an interesting interpretation of the city by the american photographer. Here the note from the publisher:
When traveling in a foreign place, I tend to be fascinated with both the exotic and the mundane. The two are often one and the same, especially in a place where the gap between old and new is astronomical. But what does it mean to photograph with the pretense of documentation? I find it is easy to get caught up in chasing an illusion of what I think a place should look like; preconceptions are powerful and the quest to understand a place often leads to a greater misunderstanding. The best I can do is tell the story of my traveling and responding visually to a place I don’t necessarily understand. It is the story of not understanding Niigata. -by Andrew Phelps
Earlier this year, Andrew Phelps was comissioned to take photographs in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture for the »European Eyes on Japan Festival.« The volume Not Niigata presents the artist’s selection from the hundreds of images he brought back from his trip.

Exhibition : Bill Viola at the James Cohan Gallery

Multimedia artist Bill Viola is presenting his work at the James Cohan Gallery in New York. The exhibition opened on the 23rd of October will showcased his last two decades of work including Pneuma and Ocean without a Shore.

Film : Robert Frank , The films

I spoke already on the exhibition on Americans at the Metropolitan in New York but apart from the great event C/O Berlin will introduce the films series from Robert Frank, a retrospective on american daily life and all the contradictions of the
country. Here the presentation of the films series taken from C/O Berlin web site:
In his films, Robert Frank examines the public and private aspects of
American everyday life—the modern odysseys, the familiar
speechlessness, bacchanalian revelries, and sexual freedom—without
pathos, but with a touch of irony. Frankʼs films are unsettling
because they do not draw clear boundaries between genres; biographic,
documentary and fictional elements are seamlessly intertwined.
C/O Berlin .Postfuhramt, Oranienburger Strasse 35/36

Exhibition : Susana Raab at Kunslicht Gallery in Shanghai

American Photographer Susana Raab will be presenting her work "Consumed" at the Kunslicht Gallery in Shanghai. The opening will be on the 17th of October.

The work focus on the fast food impact on american society.

Exhibition : Robert Frank , The Americans at the Metropolitan

What will be contemporary photography without Robert Frank? The book Americans is the beginning of what we know modern era of fixing a shadow in a film. The Metropolitan Museum Of Art in New York will present a special exhibition by displaying all the original prints from the book, 83 photos that have changed the world of photography. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Book which was in the beginning criticized back in 1959. If you happen to be there dont miss the show.

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