EXHIBITION OPPORTUNITY FOR RECENT GRADUATES – The Photographers Gallery

So the Photographers Gallery is open again and with a great series of exhibitions and projects, the new website looks good too and I love the new logo

One of this year’s projects is an exhibition for new photography graduates called

FreshFaced+WildEyed  which showcases the work of recent graduates from across the UK. Now in its fifth year, this annual event highlights the breadth and diversity of photographic practices emerging from UK institutions, giving graduates a public platform at a critical point in their careers.

Following an online application process, selected finalists have their work exhibited at The Photographers’ Gallery and online, and the opportunity to work with a mentor for twelve months.

THE EXHIBITION

At The Photographers’ Gallery, London, 15 – 30 September 2012, and online at ffwe.thephotographersgallery.org.uk

THE MENTORSHIP SCHEME
This year, for the first time, we are offering this scheme in addition to the exhibition opportunity. A number of mentorships will be awarded to finalists, who will be matched with a mentor whose professional/ creative background is relevant to their practice. The mentor and graduate will enter into a yearlong dialogue, offering participants invaluable feedback on their current work and the broader professional and critical context into which it fits.
APPLICATIONS
All applications must be submitted through this site by 18.00, Monday 2 July 2012

If you have any questions about this opportunity that cannot be answered by the information below,

please email karen.mcquaid@tpg.org.uk

Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2012

13 July – 9 September 2012

The four artists shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2012 are Pieter Hugo, Rinko Kawauchi, John Stezaker and Christopher Williams.

This selection showcases diverse approaches to photography, from portraits taken in the toxic waste dumps of Ghana, to exquisite images of everyday moments and the conceptual use of found imagery.

Yakubu Al Hasan, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana 2009 © Pieter Hugo

There is a program of courses and workshops, here is one on offer

A Brief History of British Photography

16 June – 14 July 2012

An introduction to some of the key movements, developments and figures in photography in Britain, from 1800s to the present day.

Led by Greg Jones

£88/£55

Booking through City Lit www.citylit.ac.uk

There is a lot more to check out on the web site so here is the link or even better go and have a look for yourself

© Kate Elliott, Courtesy The Photographers’ Gallery

The Photographers’ Gallery is the largest public gallery in London dedicated to photography. From the latest emerging talent, to historical archives and established artists – we are the place to see photography in all its forms.

Open 7 Days, Admission Free

Monday – Saturday 10.00 – 18.00
Thursday 10.00 – 20.00
Sunday 11.30 – 18.00

The Cafe is open from 9.00 Monday – Friday

16 – 18 Ramillies Street, London W1F 7LW

Visit Journey Planner  or Street Map to plan your visit. Nearest tube Oxford Circus

Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography

Lucy Davies writes an excellent article in the BJP about an exhibition of South African photographers at the V & A

Messina/Musina and Maryna Vermeulen with Timana Phosiwa, 2006 © Pieter Hugo. Courtesy of Michael Stevenson, Cape Town & Yossi Milo, New York.

“South African photographers have caught the world’s attention and are now being recognised as some of the most exciting and inventive artists at work. BJP talks to some of them as the V&A Museum welcomes them in a comprehensive exhibition. The weight of South Africa’s past lies heavy on its present, a burden its photographers cannot ignore. And yet, in their attempt to make sense of post-apartheid society and devise new approaches to its complexities, the dynamism and urgency of these photographers has caught worldwide attention, and they are now being recognised as some of the most exciting and inventive artists at work. Lucy Davies travelled to South Africa to meet a handful of them ahead of the V&A’s exhibition Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography. In Portrait with Keys, Ivan Vladislavic’s collection of loosely stitched, non-fiction encounters with the city of Johannesburg, the narrator imagines a map. At the time he is travelling westwards across the urban grid in a car with his friend Louise, past the house on Isipingo Street in the suburb of Belleville where the writer Herman Charles Bosman murdered his step-brother in 1926. “People should be made aware of this historic site,” says Ivan, and conjures in his mind a palimpsest to represent the city’s history, where “every violent death… above ground and below, by axe and blade and bullet” is marked on a map. It will form, he says, “a title deed to despair… cross-stitched in black, crumpling under the weight of sorrow as you struggle to unfold it on the dining room table”.

There is no question that the weight of South Africa’s past lies heavy on its present. Its collective memory has the butting insistence of the head of an animal that needs to be fed. The public hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission were first to map the ancient violations and prejudices for a post-apartheid generation, but in recent years these histories – and I use the plural because they are not always concordant – have been inscribed, reinterpreted, reappropriated, veiled and enacted by an exceptional number of photographers.

This month, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London will exhibit a selection of works from this new visual landscape, in a show titled Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography (12 April – 17 July). Just 17 photographers were pulled from the stream by co-curators Tamar Garb and Martin Barnes, via a series of stringent criteria designed to illuminate the tense relationship South Africa has had with the depiction of its people. All the work has been produced over the past decade by practitioners living and working in South Africa, and all of it foregrounds a self-conscious engagement with the country’s distinct political and photographic past. Their voices are young and strong, capable, Barnes believes, “of holding their own on the worldwide market”.…….MORE

Figures & Fictions is on show at the V&A until 17 July 2011.
 Visit www.vam.ac.uk.

Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/feature/2036684/figures-fictions-contemporary-south-african-photography#ixzz1rYIm4W6s
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Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/feature/2036684/figures-fictions-contemporary-south-african-photography#ixzz1rYHXomva
Subscribe to BJP and save money. Click here to save 29% today.

This Must Be the Place by Pieter Hugo

Sean O’Hagan writes in the Guardian about Pieter Hugo and reviews “This Must Be the Place” Pieter Hugo’s photographic retrospective offers a provocative view of life on the edge of sub-Saharan African society

“Pieter Hugo’s photographs are problematic. That is part of their power and their resonance. He is a white South African who came of age as apartheid crumbled and, though he cites the great David Goldblatt as a formative inspiration, his photographs possess none of the powerful political thrust of an older generation of South African photographers, who had no choice but to deal with the harsh realities of the world around them.”..…..MORE

This is from Pieter Hugo’s website and specifically about this project

“THE DOG’S MASTER

These photographs came about after a friend emailed me an image taken on a cellphone through a car window in Lagos, Nigeria, which depicted a group of men walking down the street with a hyena in chains. A few days later I saw the image reproduced in a South African newspaper with the caption ‘The Streets of Lagos’. Nigerian newspapers reported that these men were bank robbers, bodyguards, drug dealers, debt collectors. Myths surrounded them. The image captivated me.”..….MORE

 

 

Deutsche Börse prize shortlist

The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize aims to reward a contemporary photographer of any nationality, who has made the most significant contribution (exhibition or publication) to the medium of photography in Europe in the previous year.

The Prize was originally set up in 1996 by The Photographers’ Gallery in London to promote the best of contemporary photography. Deutsche Börse has sponsored the £30,000 prize since 2005. The Prize showcases new talents and highlights the best of international photography practice. It is one of the most prestigious prizes in the world of photography. The Photographers’ Gallery and Deutsche Börse were shortlisted for Arts & Business International Award 2008 for their cooperation in the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.

Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2012

The four shortlisted artists for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2012 are Pieter Hugo, Rinko Kawauchi, John Stezaker and Christopher Williams.

Work by the shortlisted photographers will be shown in an exhibition at The Photographers’ Gallery, Summer 2012, followed by its presentations at C/O Berlin, Forum for visual dialogs and at the Deutsche Börse headquarters in Frankfurt.

Sean O’Hagan writing in The Guardian gives his view of the 4 shortlist photographers/artists or should that be artist/photographers?

“The 2012 Deutsche Börse photography prize shortlist is an intriguing one, not least because of the range of styles and subject matter broached by the four nominees. Interestingly, two of the photographers, Japan’s Rinko Kawauchi and South Africa’s Pieter Hugo, are nominated for work presented in book form, while both of the photographers nominated for their exhibitions, Britain’s John Stezaker and Christopher Williams from the US, are not photographers per se, but conceptual artists who use photography in their practice…………………..Decision time. The judges’ verdict seldom chimes with my wishful thinking – Jim Goldberg’s win, this year, was the exception to that rule – but, for the record, my heart says Kawauchi, but my head says Hugo. As is often the case with the Deutsche Börse prize, I may well be shaking my head in bemusement when the winner is announced next year.” read more here

Detail of Christopher Williams’s Bergische Bauernscheune, Junkersholz, Leichlingen, September 29th, 2009, 2010. Photograph: 1996-98 AccuSoft Inc

Detail of John Stezaker’s Marriage (Film Portrait Collage), XLIII, 2007. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, London

Rinko Kawauchi, Untitled, from Illuminance, 2009. Photograph: Rinko Kawauchi

Detail of Pieter Hugo’s Yakubu Al Hasan, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana, 2009. Photograph: Pieter Hugo/Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town and Yossi Milo Gallery, New York