Happy Valborg

Valborg Borchsenius and Hans Beck in Tarantella from Napoli. Royal Danish Ballet.

Filmed in May 1903 with Denmark's first film camera.

I googled Valborg (Walpurgis Night) and instead found this excellent video from 1903 featuring dancers at the Royal Danish Ballet (which is sort of summing up my mood for today). If you wanted to know more about Walpurgis Night and how it's celebrated go here.

Have a great long weekend and Valborg!

1h.

1h. Photographs by Hans-Christian Schink. Text by Michael Pidwirny. Hatje Cantz, 2010. 96 pp., 36 duotone illustratuons, 34.1x 28.5 cm. Images from photo-eye.

YES, to all the glorious sunshine we're having! In the image series '1h' Hans-Christian Schink uses long exposure and the process of 'real solarization' to capture the sun, the result which is featured in this book.


Book description:

"Hans-Christian Schink (*1961 in Erfurt) employs an effect called 'real solarization' in his series 1 h.

Negative film can only be exposed to a certain point, for if one tries to continue the exposure later, the photochemical process is reversed and the darkest points in the negative become light again.

This special process was first described by photography pioneer William Henry Jackson in 1857; for Schink, a 1955 picture by Minor White titled Black Sun was a source of inspiration.

For 1 h, he deliberately chose to use the real solarization process combined with an extremely long exposure time. Due to the earth’s motion, the sun looks like a black streak in the sky. Thus, by applying classic photographic means, Schink manages to achieve novel, singular images."

Elsewhere.

Elsewhere. Photographs by Nealy Blau. Decode Books, 2010. 64 pp., 30 colour illustrations, 11x11". Images from photo-eye.

An interesting examination of the natural and the artificial and the space in-between, by photographing Natural History museum dioramas that are focused and framed to not reveal what they are.


Book description:

"Since early childhood Nealy Blau has spent time wandering the halls of natural history museums which for her became places to escape and daydream. Drawn to the mysterious and sometimes eerie experience of these constructed unnatural settings, she found her way to photographing the 'real nature' within the diorama cases: plants, grasses, trees.

Her images are melancholic and moody, psychologically charged, and float between reality and the surreal. 'I want the images to capture a presence. When I am editing the images, that is always the first thing I am looking for. It is either there or not for me. I think these kinds of museums present complex experiences and are complex representations of nature. I am interested in photographing a personal experience of being there and not necessarily documenting the diorama' Blau says.

Images from her series Elsewhere were photographed inside natural history museums in Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Santa Barbara, and Tacoma.


Nealy Blau's photographs have been exhibited throughout the Northwest. She has received a University of California Regents Grant, the Cannon Emerging Photographer Award, 2002, and the Photographic Center Northwest Printing Sponsorship, 2004.

Her works are in the collections of 4Culture, King County, Safeco Insurance, Microsoft Corporation, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston."

The Suffering of Light.

The Suffering of Light. Photographs by Alex Webb. Text by Geoff Dyer. Aperture, 2011. 204 pp., 115 colour illustrations, 13x12". Images from photo-eye.

Book description:

'The Suffering of Light' is "the first comprehensive monograph charting the career of acclaimed American photographer Alex Webb.

Gathering some of his most iconic images, many of which were taken in the far corners of the earth, this exquisite book brings a fresh perspective to his extensive catalog.

Recognized as a pioneer of American color photography, since the 1970s, Webb has consistently created photographs characterized by intense color and light. His work, with its richly layered and complex composition, touches on multiple genres, including street photography, photojournalism, and fine art, but as Webb claims, 'to me it all is photography. You have to go out and explore the world with a camera'.

Webb’s ability to distill gesture, color, and contrasting cultural tensions into single, beguiling frames results in evocative images that convey a sense of enigma, irony, and humor. Featuring key works alongside previously unpublished photographs, 'The Suffering of Light' provides the most thorough examination to date of this modern master’s prolific, thirty-year career."

Glad Påsk and Happy Easter!

Spring. © Rare Autumn.

Glad Påsk and Happy Easter!
Hope you have a wonderful long-weekend...

Myriorama.

Myriorama. Photographs by Estelle Hanania. Essays by Sebastien Gindre and Lara Sarcevic. Gottlund Verlag, 2010. 48 pp., colour illustrations throughout, 9x10". Edition of 250. Images from photo-eye.

Book description:

" 'No tricks in the the magic of Estelle Hanania. Her photographs do not show some fake elsewhere. They come from somewhere else. And they bring us back there, with delicacy.

Estelle Hanania proceeds in some kind of inverted analogy in order to bring us closer to this eerie familiarity existing between the ritual act and the very order of nature. She introduces the viewer to a profound connection between the call for looking beyond and the raw presence of things.'

- From The Original Game, on the photography of Estelle Hanania by Lara Sarcevic."


'Myriorama' was produced in a limited edition of 250 copies to coincide with the exhibition of the same name at FAT Galerie, Paris.


I've previously featured the excellent book 'Parking Lot Hydra' with work by Estelle Hanania.

Even in the End.

Even in the End. By Peter Sutherland. Gottlund Verlag, 2011. 24pp., black ink on 80lb finch opaque vellum paper, letterpress printed, hand sewn binding, 6x9". Edition of 500.

Book description:

"A slim edition of black and white images printed by hand from photo engraved copperplates.

The rugged nature of the book matches the wild and epic scale of the images.

We have allowed in the printing and binding for any inconsistencies to present themselves as evidence of the process."


More Peter Sutherland and his work here and here for example.

D'après Nature.

D'après Nature. Photographs by Jean Gaumy. Editions Xavier Barral, 2011. 108 pp., 42 black & white illustrations, 15x12¼".

Book description:

"A student of modern literature, Jean Gaumy started his professional career as a newspaper editor and photographer for a daily newspaper in France.

His first publication was L'hôpital (The Hospital, 1976), a stark statement on the French health system. His 1983 study of French prison life was likewise considered pioneering.

In 1977 Gaumy joined Magnum and became a full member in 1986. Since then, Gaumy has made both films and photoworks.

This beautiful, large-format publication is based upon Gaumy's hikes and climbs in the Occitan Piedmont and the French Pyrenees. Superbly printed in black and white on matte paper stock, Gaumy's photographs detail the pitted mountainscapes of these regions, both up close and from afar, in an austere but luxuriant document of geologic time.

The volume closes with excerpts from René Daumal's great mountaineering novel Mount Analogue (1937)."

Today is ♥

Today is ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Joan Baez

Clip from Joan Baez documentary (watch the entire documentary here).

Great documentary about the American singer/songwriter and activist Joan Baez. Watch the entire film here (in English with Swedish subtitles).

Recollection.

Recollection. Photographs by Walter Niedermayr. Hatje Cantz, 2010. 170 pp., 90 colour illustrations, 17 foldouts, 26,1x30,2cm. Images from photo-eye.

Book description:

"Walter Niedermayr (born 1952) is among Europe’s finest contemporary photographers, a virtuoso in the portrayal of contemporary architecture and Alpine landscapes, whose subtle handling of scale, diffuse light effects and desaturated color has been much imitated in recent years.

Between 2005 and 2008, Niedermayr traveled in Iran, visiting Tehran, Isfahan, Yazd, Shiraz and other smaller cities and historical sites.

His travels spurred the undertaking of a new series examining Iranian architecture in its cultural and historical context, revealing its mingling of east and west as older buildings jostle with colorful billboards, beltways and apartment blocks that look as if they could be located anywhere in the world."

Vidya Gastaldon.

Vidya Gastaldon. Work by Vidya Gastaldon. Edited by Madeleine Schuppli, text by Karl Holmqvist, Madeleine Schuppli, Fabrice Stroun. JRP|Ringier, 2006. 64pp., 48 colour illustrations, 20,5x28,6cm.

Book description:

"First monograph dedicated to the French artist living in Geneva (*1974). Initially associated with Jean-Michel Wicker, over the years Vidya Gastaldon has developed a universe immersed in a hippie and psychedelic aesthetic, in New Age, and in minimalist abstraction, as well as devalued practices such as sewing or DIY.

Through her new series of drawings, her films, and her sculptures in wool and other 'craft' materials, the artist deploys an aesthetic of 'states' rather than of formal or theoretical references, where notions of pleasure and experience find a new force.

Published with the Kunstmuseum Thun."

Memories of yesterday

Memories of yesterday. © Rare Autumn.

Bright, bright day.

Bright, bright day. Photographs and essay by Andrey Tarkovsky. Introduction by Andrey A. Tarkovsky (Jr.). Polaroids edited by Stephen Gill. White Space Gallery and The Tarkovsky Foundation, 2007. English language and Russian language editions. 128 pp., 65 colour illustrations and 13 duotones., 81,2x101,2". Found via Emmanouil Zachariadis.

'Bright, bright day' is a wonderful collection of polaroid photographs taken by the great Soviet and Russian film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986).

See the portfolio here. Read more here, here, here and here for example.


From the introduction of 'Bright, bright day':

"It is not easy for me to talk dispassionately about the photographs in this book, let alone discuss their historical or artistic merit. Each time I look at them, I feel these pictures have an amazing, unique, inner energy; I am drawn as by a magnet back into my past, into the forgotten, distant world of my childhood, which all of a sudden springs up vividly all around me. I seem to be walking along with the feel of dry, yellowing grass underfoot, and the heady, overripe smell of autumn mist; a bend in the river gleams down below, and further on, above the river, is our country house, where it’s warm and cosy, and where they’re still expecting me …

[...]

However personal these photographs are, I am sure that everyone who sees them will appreciate them and be able to relate to them. Whether he was working with Polaroid or cinema film my Father created artistic images, the power of which lies in their direct impact, in the way creator and viewer become spiritually as one.

As he himself said, ‘An image is not some idea as expressed by the director, but an entire world reflected in a drop of water. In a single drop of water!’ "

Earth Now. American Photographers and the Environment.

Earth Now. American Photographers and the Environment. Edited by Katherine Ware. Museum Of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, 2011. 188 pp., 25 duotone and 66 colour illustrations, 10x11". Images from photo-eye.

'Earth Now. American Photographers and the Environment' is published to coincide with the exhibition of the same name, which opens on this Friday April 8 at the New Mexico Museum of Art.

Read more about the book and exhibition here, here and here.


Book description:

"Since its invention, photography has been used to document and interpret the landscape. Survey photographers in the 1860s were the first environmental advocates, arguing for the U.S. national park system.

During the first half of the 20th century photographers Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter were central figures in influencing American attitudes toward wilderness and conservation.

'Earth Now' traces the development of environmental photography beginning with Adams and Porter and others, and the next generation of landscape photographers - Robert Adams, Richard Misrach, Robert GlennKetchum, Patrick Nagatani, Mark Klett, whose works confronted the issues of landscape and the environment in less idealized terms.

Shifting from the historical framework, 'Earth Now' presents new work by twenty-three photographers working in the U.S., the next wave of artists using the camera to engage the environmental issues of the day.

Works by Michael Berman, Subhankar Banerjee, Joann Brennan, Dornith Doherty, Greg Mac Gregor, Christina Seely, Sharon Stewart, and others are among the ninety-one duotone and color images presented, many being published for the first time.


Ranging from documentary to conceptual, the photographs touch on topics such as land and water use, the human place in the landscape, mounting consumer waste, industrial pollution, roof gardens and the green roof initiative, local food production, energy consumption, and the effects of industry on humans and animals.

Katherine Ware’s text offers insightful commentary on photography and the ways that environmental issues have been framed and advanced through the medium of photography.

'Earth Now' is a powerful commentary on global environmental issues as seen through the lens of the newest wave of environmental photographers."

Pangnirtung.

Pangnirtung. Photographs by Robert Frank. Steidl, 2011. 40 pp., 27 black & white illustrations, 23x30,5cm.

Book description:

"In August 1992 Robert Frank’s good friend Reginald Rankin invited Frank on a trip to Pangnirtung, a village of around 1,300 Inuit inhabitants in the Arctic Circle.

This book is Frank’s documentation of the five-day sojourn.

Curiously Frank depicts Pangnirtung void of its people: the still harbour, public housing, a convenience store, a telephone post.

Sincere without being sentimental, the photos are shaped by a short text from Frank himself, 'Prefabricated homes along the main road in Pangnirtung. At times a decorated window - reflections inside or outside. Stones - maybe the balance of a big sky above…' "

Rhythmus 21

Rhythmus 21 (1921) by Hans Richter.

The German modernist Hans Richter (1888 - 1976) was a painter, graphic artist and experimental filmmaker.

He initially painted in a cubist style, but moved into film - being best known for his experiments in avantgarde cinema. He was also a founding member of the Dada movement.

He is quoted as saying:

"Influenced by cubism and its search for structure, but not satisfied with what it offered, I found myself between 1913-1918 increasingly faced with the conflict of suppressing spontaneous expression in order to gain an objective understanding of a fundamental principle with which I could control the ‘heap of fragments’ inherited from the cubists.

Thus I gradually lost interest in the subject – in any subject – and focused instead on the positive-negative (white-black) opposition, which at least gave me a working hypothesis whereby I could organize the relationship of one part of a painting to the other."


His film Rhythmus 21 is generally considered to be the first completely abstract film, and is now viewed as an avantgarde classic.


Suggested further reading: here, here and here for example.

The Revolution Will Be Televised / Nature Can't Be Tamed.

The Revolution Will Be Televised / Nature Can't Be Tamed. By Sara Elgerot / Rare Autumn, 2011. 14pp., b/w illustrations throughout, 10,5x14,8cm. Limited edition of 15, as part of the June/Winter issue of IMPRINT (with 1 copy in the PCA archive). Second/modified edition here.

A comment on the upheaval in the world right now. The change in society, the world structure - the change in reporting, viewing and reacting to world events, other cultures and other parts of the world.

Our reactions to conflict, and those things outside our control.


The starting-point for this artist book/zine was the upheaval in the world that felt very prevalent to me (demonstrations through-out the middle east and the earthquake in Japan was perhaps the main starting point for this). From this I started thinking about the turmoil in the world, the change in the world order/balance, our environment, demonstrations through-out the world – and also the change in how this is reported, presented and perceived.

The title is a play on Gil Scott-Heron's 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' (which for our time is perhaps the complete opposite) and the fact that we in our fabricated world somehow think we are, and also actually are up to a point, living outside nature and the laws of nature.

The book was made by cutting images from newspaper reports on natural disasters, demonstrations and violence (man-made and natural catastrophes eerily similar in their appearance). The images were layered and assembled into collages, text added, then photocopied on different copiers, scanned, copied, layered, cut and printed on inkjet in black & white on 200gsm art paper. The resulting pieces were then folded into books (the edges left raw as part of the overall feel).