ASHOK SINHA: American Bagpipers

American Bagpipe series 

 Photograph © Ashok Sinha

American Bagpipe series 

 Photograph © Ashok Sinha

The series American Bagpipers depicts portraits of an Indian-American bagpipe band based in a Hindu temple in New Jersey.  The inspiration of Scottish bagpipes as the primary devotional music in the temple goes back to 1970 when the then leader of the faith,  Shree Muktajeevan Swamibapa was visiting his followers in London.  While he himself was a firm believer in music as a form of devotion, it was not until he heard a local Scottish bagpipe band leading the procession of followers to a concert at Trafalgar Square that inspired Swamibapa to instruct his devotees to bring bagpipes at temple ceremonies.  Since then, similar pipe bands have been established in Nairobi, Kenya, Bolton (UK) and Secaucus, New Jersey (the one pictured here).  As one band member said, "Its a brotherhood and the band is a great way to get the younger generation involved in the temple."

  

ASHOK SINHA

 Shot in Northern Sri Lanka for The Cartwheel Initiative, 2011

Photograph © Ashok Sinha

PORTRAITS EXHIBITION

Feb. 15 - March 23

The Center for Fine Art Photography

Fort Collins, Co

EARLY WORKS: Curated by Laura Moya and Laura Valenti Jelen. Entry Details

My First Polaroid Color Pack Land Camera – Maryland, mid-1970’s

When I was about eight, my grandfather gave me one of his cameras – a Polaroid Color Pack Land Camera. My grandfather was a camera buff – always at the ready at family gatherings.  He had recorded his intrepid life as an agronomist for the Foreign Service, taking his wife and three daughters though sojourns in Panama and Africa.

This specific photo of my Aunt Polly was taken by my young self in the back of my grandparent’s house on the eastern shore of Maryland. Polly was my favorite aunt – calm, gracious, loving, beautiful. She had four children but always had time to spend with me as well, patiently teaching me how to sew. When I took this photo, I remember a hot day, and the sound of the camera clicking through its motions. I remember the smell of the developing gel, pink and toxic, and being careful not to get it on my fingertips. Pulling back the sheet after waiting 60 seconds was like witnessing a magic trick – how could something so neat even be possible?

My Aunt Polly died this year at 59 of pancreatic cancer. She never drank nor smoked, or even wore makeup. She grew her own food, tended a flock of 50 Heritage chickens, and had a life-long faith in the Lord. This photo of her is how I will remember her, that specific moment in time my own magic proof of her true self. –Laura Moya

Early Works: Submission Details

 

Seoul, Korea 1982. Unhappy Kids at My Fifth Birthday Party

This is an image I took on my 5th birthday, in July of 1982. We were living in Seoul, Korea at the time. I love how the kids all look terribly bored. I suppose that even at a young age, I was boring my photographic subjects. Everyone probably wanted to get back to pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, or pass-the-parcel – and I just wanted them to pose for one more shot.

The political situation in Korea was very much in flux in the early eighties. I remember balloons from North Korea flying over that backyard, dropping hundreds of propaganda fliers about how fantastic life was in the North. I’d run around the yard catching them as they fluttered down.

This image is particularly poignant for me, because my friend Noelle, on the left of the picture, her sister, and their parents were killed a year later when the Russian military shot down Korean Airlines flight 007 for mistakenly crossing into Russian airspace just north of Japan. It was one of the most horrific events in the Cold War, and it’s haunted me since. At the time of this picture, we were innocent little kids at a (boring) birthday party, completely unaware of the political drama playing out on the international stage. When I look at it now, I see it as a picture about the last days of innocence. –Laura Valenti Jelen

Submission Details

Image & Narrative - Submit a PDF of your image(s) and your narrative piece(s) (limited to 250 words each) to: contact@earlyworksproject.org. Please see Entry Example page for format guidance. Entry Fee – There is no fee to enter your image(s) for initial consideration. Photographers who are selected by the curators for the  exhibition will be asked to contribute $25 at the time of selection. This fee supports printing, presentation, installation, and shipping costs associated with the exhibition. Multiple Submissions - Photographers may submit as many image/narrative pairs as desired. Deadline – Image/narrative submissions are due by Monday, February 4th 2013.

Exhibition Details

Selected photographers will be notified by mid-February and asked to send in high-resolution jpegs of their selected images by Monday, February 25th 2013. Printing services for the exhibition will be generously provided by RayKo Photo Center in San Francisco. Narrative statements will be edited for style and consistency, in collaboration with each photographer. After the physical exhibitions, the project will be moved to a virtual exhibition on this website. The site will serve as a longer-term record of the project, making it accessible to an even broader audience. –Laura Moya & Laura Valenti Jelen

Early Works: Submission Details

RAISSA VENABLES: I'm Not Interested In Reality

 Jewel Room, Grünes Gewölbe Dresden
Photograph © 2010 Raϊssa Venables

 

 Green Vault, Grünes Gewölbe Dresden
Photograph © 2010 Raϊssa Venables

 

x=X Atrium Ceiling, DZ Bank Berlin
Photograph © 2010 Raϊssa Venables 

As I photographically reconstruct these rooms, I experience the spaces in an obsessive manner that allows me to know them intimately. I do away with photography’s conventional one point perspective as I play with multiple vanishing points.–Raϊssa Venables

Raϊssa Venables creates rooms with multiple perspectives that then gain anthropological dimensions. Her work is featured in a group exhibition "I am Not Interested in Reality" in Berlin, Germany. The exhibition showcases five international photomedia artists "exploring the notion of reality, conceptually through approaches other than documentary."

I Am Not Interested in Reality
Gallery WAGNER + PARTNER 

to Nov. 30, 2012

With Erwin Olaf, Jorma Puranen, Natascha Stellmach,
Raϊssa Venables and Thomas Wrede

Raϊssa Venables is a graduate of SVA's Masters in Digital Photography. The School of Visual Arts 'Master of Professional Studies (MPS) in Digital Photography' is an intensive one-year or part-time two-year program that addresses the technical and creative needs of professional photographers, photography educators, and creative professionals who are looking to advance their technical skills in digital image capture, asset management, and high-quality output to create compelling and engaging images.

FAKING IT: The Opening for "Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop" at The Met

Io + Gatto, 1932 (right)  (c) Wanda Wulz

Curator Elisabeth Biondi with 

"Bill Cunningham New York" Producer, Philip Gefter

The Galleries were packed. 

 The following are just a few of the evenings guests.

Anderson & Low

Manga Dreams, Untitled (Kit The Swordsman) 2009

Edwin Low and Jonathan Anderson

 Gallerist Julie Saul, Jonathan Anderson and Edwin Low 

with Collector Wm Hunt

 

Mia Fineman, Asst Curator, Department of Photographs

 Edward Hill and Suzanne Bloom,

Known collectively as MANUAL

 Edward Hill, Osamu James Nakagawa, Suzanne Bloom

Okinawa 001, 2008 and Okinawa 009, 2008 
 by Osamu James Nakagawa

 Collector Wm Hunt and Author, Producer Philip Gefter 
 

Faking It:

 Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
October 11, 2012—January 27, 2013

VIEW:

Faking It: The Show | Faking It: The Curator
Faking It: The Opening

ERIKA DIETTES: Sudarios

SUDARIOS: Exhibition

Photographs (c) Erika Diettes

SUDARIOS: Exhibition

Photographs (c) Erika Diettes

SUDARIOS: Exhibition

Photographs (c) Erika Diettes

 SUDARIOS: Exhibition

Photographs (c) Erika Diettes

"The rivers of Colombia are the world´s largest graveyard."

I first met Colombian photographer Erika Diettes several years ago when she was exhibiting her very moving project SILENCIOS. Silencios was an ambitious project Erika compiled of portraits and testimonials of the Jewish population in Colombia that had survived the concentration camps of Nazi Germany during World War II. Please read more and view photographs of Erika's human rights projects on her website.  

Erika Diettes: SUDARIOS 

Capilla de Los Remedios

Santo Domingo, República Dominicana

September 4 - 30, 2012

 DRIFTING AWAY: Clothing of the Disappeared
Photographs (c) Erika Diettes

Clothing of the Disappeared
Photographs (c) Erika Diettes

In DRIFTING AWAY my intention is to draw attention to the victims of forced disappearances of the Colombian armed conflict. The project is a response to a number of press reports and news broadcasts which explain how the paramilitaries and the guerrillas torture people, mutilate them and make them disappear by throwing their bodies into a river. This is the source of the saying "the rivers of Colombia are the world´s largest graveyard".

To create an expression of this horrible situation, I decided to submerge pieces of clothing or personal objects of the victims in turbulent water, and then photograph them. I print these photographs on glass to convey the feeling of the ethereal and fragile character of life in those parts of our country.

These very large glass photographs are then displayed upright in the ground, like translucent tombstones in a cemetery. This way people can walk in and around them, and begin to experience the grief of loss. It has been very difficult for the families of the disappeared to feel the healing power of grief, especially since there is often no certainty whether one of the disappeared is actually dead or alive.

I started in Bogotá by looking for clothing or objects belonging to people who had disappeared. Then I continued my search in other areas of conflict, including Eastern Antioquia, Caquetá and Medellín, amongst other places.

During these macabre visits I was able to talk to the families of the victims, who are indeed the voice of all Colombia, clamouring not only for the respect for life, but also for the right to be able to bury their dead. — Erika Diettes

 Erika Diettes 

ICP: Rise and Fall of Apartheid

Nelson Mandela, Treason Trial, 1958. Photograph by Jurgen Schadeberg, Courtesy the artist.

 

Part of the crowd near the Drill Hall on the opening day of the Treason Trial, December 19, 1956. Unidentified Photographer, Times Media Collection, Museum Africa, Johannesburg. 

 

This landmark exhibition includes the work of nearly 70 photographers, artists, and filmmakers; and  encompasses the entire museum, including the exterior windows at The International Center of Photography (ICP).  

 

Nelson Mandela portrait wearing traditional beads and a bed spread. Hiding out from the police during his period as the “black pimpernel,” 1961. Photograph by Eli Weinberg, Courtesy of IDAFSA.

"Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life is an unprecedented and comprehensive historical overview of the pictorial response to apartheid that has never been undertaken by any other museum. This exhibition explores the significance of the 50-year civil rights struggle, from how apartheid defined and marked South Africa’s identity from 1948 to 1994, to the rise of Nelson Mandela, and finally its lasting impact on society."

"Curated by Okwui Enwezor with Rory Bester and based on more than six years of research, the exhibition examines the aesthetic power of the documentary form – from the photo essay to reportage, social documentary to photojournalism and art – in recording, analyzing, articulating, and confronting the legacy of apartheid and its effect on everyday life in South Africa."

"Apartheid was the political platform of Afrikaner nationalism before and after World War II. It created a political system designed specifically to promote racial segregation and enshrine white domination. In 1948, after the surprise victory of the Afrikaner National Party, apartheid was introduced as official state policy and organized across a widespread series of legislative programs...the system of apartheid grew increasingly ruthless and violent towards Africans and other non-white communities. Apartheid transformed institutions, maintaining them for the sole purpose of denying and depriving Africans, Coloureds, and Asians of their basic civil rights."

"...South African photography, as we know it today, was essentially invented in 1948. No one else photographed South Africa and the struggle against apartheid better, more critically and incisively, than South African photographers. It is the goal if this exhibition to explore and pay tribute to their exceptional photographic achievement."–The International Center of Photography

Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life was made possible with support from Mark McCain and Caro Macdonald/Eye and I, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, Deborah Jerome and Peter Guggenheimer, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation in honor of 30 years of committed ICP service by Willis E. Hartshorn.

September 14, 2012 – January 6, 2013 

International Center of Photography

1133 Avenue of the Americas, NY

ARLES REPORT: Pentti Sammallahti Retrospective

Photographs © Pentti Sammallahti
Click Images to Enlarge

Pentti Sammallahti Retrospective

Photographs © Pentti Sammallahti

Martinmere, England, 1996
Photographs © Pentti Sammallahti

Pentti Sammallahti Retrospective

Pentti Sammallahti Retrospective

"Pentti Sammallahti's work is a kind of space odyssey. From his viewpoint Earth is no higher than a man or bird, it's white as snow and just as pure. It is oddly peopled with familiar animals who make their way through the solitude of a place as yet undefined. It's a site unfinished to the extent that it's panoramic views frame no space; instead suggest a lateral continuity, a slipping toward somewhere else whether it be a place of ice or mist. Pentti Sammallahti is Finnish, a man of the North. Unable to tolerate either sun or heat, he is perfect connivance with a natural world in which he takes the role of fascinated predator, and whose austerity he sublimates in his work."

PENNTI SAMMALLAHTI RETROSPECTIVE
Exhibition presented by The Mejan Association

Les Recontres Arles Photography
Magasin Electrique
to September 23

"Avec l'aimable autoristion de sepis EYE, New York, de Photo Gallery International, Tokyo and the Pictura, Bloomington Gallery, Indiana. Mounting on canvas by Plasticollage."

The entrance has the only sign for the Pentti Sammallahti Retrospective, after you enter you are on your own trying to find where it's located.

Building #5

The Pentti Sammallahti Retrospective was located in the farthest building from the entrance in this large Industrial Park. No one at the Information desk had heard of this exhibit

Photo-Eye Gallery's Vicki Bohannon introduced me to the work of Finnish Photographer Pentti Sammallahti. Because she passed on her love of Sammallahti's images and exquisite toned silver gelatin prints, I went on a hunt for this exhibition in Arles. It shouldn't have been hard to find, however the persons at the Les Recontres Arles Photography Festival Information desk were impatient explaining where it was located, although there was no reason to be unhelpful - the office was empty, no lines, no crowds, no one else but us. We had to go back and ask a second time as no one could tell us the location they gave us. Second time, just as unhelpful, finally just having a taxi take us. Once at the location, a large industrial park, no one at their Information desk had heard of Pentti Sammallahti and couldn't tell us if there was a show of his work there or not. After we finally saw his name listed somewhere on our own, no one seemed to know which of the five buildings his work was in. After trekking to the farthest-out building, there was an entrance with his name on it, but once inside there was no indication how to find his work which turned out to be up only one of the three different staircases on the 2nd floor. This was one of the most beautiful exhibitions as a whole. Worth searching for and spending time in.

...and Pentti Sammallahti at Photo-Eye Gallery

...more on Arles here and here

ARLES REPORT: François Burgun's "Good Luck" at Hotel de L'Amphitheatre

Photograph © François Burgun

Photograph © François Burgun

Photograph © François Burgun

"An old machine of the 1930's lost in an amusement park. In 32 characters, you register a wish on a coin to remember...The enlargement of a corrupted coin laughs at our hopes, always vain." –François Cheval, Director, Musée Nicéphore Niépce

Series: Good Luck / Salem Massachusetts, USA
on display at Hôtel de l’Amphithéâtre, Arles

François Burgun Exposition, Hôtel de l’Amphithéâtre, Arles
(listed as many Photo Curators favorite Hotel here)

Look for signs around Arles to Burgun's Exposition

A few blocks from the Roman amphitheatre, Arènes d'Arles (dating back to 90 AD and seating over 20,000 spectators for chariot races and gladiator battles) is the beautiful Hôtel de l’Amphithéâtre which participates annually in the summer Photography Festival, The Rencontres d'Arles.

L’Amphithéâtre is currently exhibiting Photographer François Burgun's series, Good Luck / Salem Massachusetts USA until September 23. Burgun, from the east of France, received his Masters from The Académie des Beaux-Arts after attending the National High School of Photography in Arles where he graduated with honors in 2003. This year, Burgun began as "résidence d'artiste" with the Musée Nicephore Niepce, to work and prepare his exhibitions with curator Francois Cheval.

"I often went to the USA because I'm crazy about the culture which is so different from mine. I decided to go to the witches place (Salem, Massachusetts) to find the famous Salem Willows Park . Everything there was very cool. I found this old wooden machine which creates good memories in medal coins. I thought about all the people who had written something before ... and what is their life now? The Good Luck was so ironic that I decided to write about real life and if you survived it would be really Good Luck!"–François Burgun

Burgun's next exhibition, Narratives and Narrative Forms, will be in the Lianzhou International Photo Festival, November 2012.

François Burgun
Good Luck / Salem Massachusetts USA
Exhibition to September 23, 2012
Hôtel de l’Amphithéâtre, Arles

...more on Arles here and here

[Les Arènes is a painting by Vincent van Gogh, Arles, Fall, 1888]

ARLES REPORT: Josef Koudelka "Gypsies" Book Dummies

Roumanie (Romania), 1968
Photograph © Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photos
Click Images to Enlarge

Photographs © Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photos

Les Recontres Arles Photography
Josef Koudelka Exhibition, Arles, France

Les Recontres Arles Photography
Koudelka's exceptional photographs exhibited for the first time together

GYPSIES

"In 1975, the first edition of Josef Koudelka's photographs by Robert Delpire in a book that became a myth and was never published again. In 2011, Josef Koudelka exhumed a former dummy of the same book and decided to re-publish it with a larger amount of photographs."

The Koudelka exhibition's exceptional photographs, exhibited for the first time together, tells through published documents the story of those two books published with a 36 year gap."

Les Recontres Arles Photography

"Dummy identical to the book published in 2011, which will be published in this small format in autumn 2013."

"Czech Dummy (Please don't lose it again)"

Letter from Elliott Erwitt reporting to Josef Koudelka on the loss of the "Gypsie" dummy.

"In 1975, the first edition of Josef Koudelka's photographs by Robert Delpire in a book that became a myth and was never published again."

The Koudelka exhibition's exceptional photographs, exhibited for the first time together, tells through published documents the story of those two books published with a 36 year gap."

Les Recontres Arles Photography
Josef Koudelka Exhibition to September 23

Exhibition produced with the collaboration of Magnum Photos. Prints by Vojin Mitrovic, Georges Fevre, Picto. Framing partly by Circad, Paris.

...more on Arles here and here