Cheryl Dunn lives and works in New York, she's an accomplished filmmaker and photographer. Always pointing her camera at the people, places and cultures that she finds most fascinating. The corners of life that most of society over look. she started out taking photographs of misfits and outsiders in New York and moved on to film in 1997; shooting her first feature 'Sped' - A series of vignettes on young artists from the skateboarding world. 

"By pointing the lens at something. I am asking a question, and the photograph is sometimes the answer" - Lisette Model.

New Gallery Ivory & Black in Soho proudly present Cheryl Dunn's new exhibition "Sometimes The Answer". It features a wide range of the photographs from Dunn's 30 years of signature documentation. "At first It may seem ambiguous. But I think it is timely, given the political climate in the world and our inundation with media, collective sanity i very difficult. Nothing is cut and dry, so the answer needs to come from within. When I feel insane, I head to the streets" - Cheryl Dunn. Within this selection of work Dunn lets her instinct guide it, inviting the viewer to draw their own conclusion and revise their own opinions, or see things in a new light. The exhibition is accompanied by the release of a limited edition artists book of her photographs. 

Dunn's photographs feel like a fresh view on documentary photography, I found the exhibition very interesting and the work was aesthetically beautiful. I was just a little surprised about how little work was exhibited, perhaps it was because the exhibition space was fairly small. 

images available at:

http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php/opening-photos/4292-cheryl-dunn-londons-new-ivory-a-black. Last Visisted 24th Apr 2012

http://www.ivoryandblack.com/

Imperial War Museum Ori Gersht

This Storm Is What We Call Progress

The Storm Is What We Call Progress if a new exhibition at London's Imperial War Museum by Israeli born artist Ori Gersht. He often deals with issues of conflict, history and geographic place within his works. The three central pieces of this exhibition disguise dark and complex themes beneath the beautiful imagery. "Will You Dance For Me?" Shows an 86 year old dancer rocking back and forth in a chair as she slowly recalls her experiences as a young woman in Auschwitz. She was punished for refusing to dance at an SS officers party and had to stand bare foot in the snow. She pledged to dedicate her life to dance if she survived. This video was perhaps one of his pieces that haunted me the most. The woman's pain filled face of terrifying memories as she rocked back and forth brought about feelings of agonising insanity. The film "Evaders" spans across two screens and explores the mountainous path of the Lister Rout, used by many to escape Nazi occupied France. The film focuses on Jewish writer and philosopher Walter Benjamin, whose own words give the exhibition it's title. The photograph "Chasing Good Fortune" examines the shifting symbolism of Japanese cherry blossoms, which came to be linked with Kamikaze soldiers during the second world war.  

image avalible at: 

http://crggallery.com/2012/01/ori-gersht-at-the-war-museums-london-25-january-2012-to-29-april-2012/. Last visited 24th Apr 2012

http://www.iwm.org.uk/sites/default/files/images/local/722_EvadersGnuineFractal.jpg. Last Visited 24th Apr 2012.

http://www.artknowledgenews.com/09_05_2011_01_06_16_ori_gershts_films_and_photography_at_the_santa_barbara_museum_of_art.html. Last Visited 24th Apr 2012.

Ori Gersht

Ori Gersht was born in Tel Aviv in 1967; he's an Israeli fine art photograper, and is currently a professor at the university for the creative arts Rochester, Kent. He has lived and worked in London for fifteen years now and his work is both video and photographic. Ori Gersht's explores themes of life, death, violence and beauty, his films and photographs may be compared to paintings in their display. His photographs and films transcribe images of site of historical significance the Judean Desert, Sarajevo, Auschwitz, the Galicia region of Ukraine, the Lister Route in the Pyrenees (on which Walter Benjamin made his ill-fated exodus from Nazi-occupied France)—into ciphers of psychological disruption. Gersht's photographs and films provide a meditation on life, loss, destiny and chance. His works depict the catastrophic violence of past wars, it reminds us of our past, present and future, and the fragility of life itself. He took the photographs of the rear window series from the same window in his flat over a period of two years; "The series calls into question our familiarity with our own natural habitat, pointing out the gulf between the sky that we believe we know, and that of the photographs: a gap between the mechanical, attentive and unassumptive vision of the camera, and the presumptive and subjective vision of the human eye." Ori Gersht. 

Image available at:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/p/photographs-by-ori-gersht/. Last Visisted 24th Apr 2012.


http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/29219-popup.html. Last Visited 24th Apr 2012.


http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/29217-popup.html. Last Visited 24th Apr 2012.


V&A. (unknown). Photographs by Ori Gersht. Available: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/p/photographs-by-ori-gersht/. Last accessed 24th Apr 2012.

Pieter Hugo

The Hyena & Other Men

Pieter Hugo is a South African photographer from Cape Town who works mainly within the realms of portraiture photography which takes on both documentary and art traditions, he mainly focuses on African communities. He is a self taught photographer, generally known for using his Hasslebald camera shooting in the 4x5 format, with one of his main influences being South African photojournalist Daivd Goldblatt. 

Although Pieter Hugo's work is said to be 'problematic', which is part of their power and resonance. Hugo's most famous works are of The Hyena & Other Men, which consists of a group of Nigerian men in an urban setting who have tamed Hyenas and Baboons. The photographs stirred up different reactions such as inquisitive, disbelief and repulsion. Of course most people in Europe were concerned about the animals welfare and several animal rights groups contacted Pieter Hugo, although the men had permits for the animals. People would often miss the point of the photographs as they were more focused on the animals, but of course why do these people feel the need to catch these wild animals in order to make a living. 

Over the past year Pieter Hugo has been photographing a dumping ground in Ghana for global electrical waste. The area is on the outskirts of the slums and is inhabited by cattle and people who walk over piles of motherboards, monitors and discarded hard drives. There is a pit in which they burn the discarded electrical's in order to harvest precious metals, when Hugo asked them what they called this place of burning they simply replied "For this place we have no name. Their response shows the situations forced upon marginal communities. It is stated that Western countries produce around 50 million tons of digital waste, 25% of this waste is collected and recycled effectively whilst the rest is shipped off to developing countries. Which is said to be used in order to help them and create jobs, when in reality its dumped on their land and they are left with discarded materials. 

Mikko Takkunen. (2011). Pieter Hugo's "Permanent Error". Available: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/feature/2076648/pieter-hugos-permanent-error. Last accessed 24th Apr 2012.

Sean O'Hagan. (2012). This Must Be the Place by Pieter Hugo - review. Available: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/08/this-must-be-the-place-review. Last accessed 24th Apr 2012.

The Hyena and Other Men Images found in book:

Pieter Hugo and Adetokunbo Abiola (2007). The Hyena and Other Men. -: Prestel. all.

Permanent Error Images found at: http://www.yossimilo.com/artists/piet_hugo/?show=0&img_num=12#title. Last Visited 24th Apr 2012

Nan Goldin

Gilles and Gotscho embracing, Paris, France by Nan Goldin, 1992

Nan Goldin is an American photographer who has had the most direct and obvious influence on the photography of intimate lives. Her thirty year exploration of her 'family' of friends and lovers not only shows the the story of their intimate lives and depicts their relationships, but her work sets a standard for the way that intimate photography is created and judged. Goldin began taking pictures of her friends in the early 1970's, however it wasn't until the 1990's that she gained acclaim and a place in the art market. Goldin's first photographs that she took in her late teens, were a series of black and white images entitled 'Drag Queens'; which portrayed the daily lives of two drag queens that she lived with and shared their social circle. 

In the mid 1970's Goldin attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. During a year our when she had no access to a dark to to develop her black and white film, Goldin began to use colour slides and has used colour ever since. 

Nan Goldin moved to Manhattan in 1978 and continued to record the events, situations and developing friendships within the bohemian circle which she had become a part of. The first public showings of her slide images were in New York clubs in 1979, her audience were mostly artists, actors, filmmakers and musicians and many of them appeared in the images. Her first book "The Ballad of Sexual Dependancy was a personalised contemplation of subjects as sexual relationships, male social isolation, domestic violence and substance abuse. Goldin's essay in this book talks about her psychological need and obsession to make photographs of her loved ones, she talks about the effects of her sisters suicide when she was aged only eleven years old. In the 1980's Goldin was invited to exhibit her art around the world and she started to have solo exhibitions. Her photographs became a record of the impact of HIV and AIDS related illness' and drug addiction. 

Sometimes Goldin is seen as only recording bohemian and counterculture lifestyles, as her life and intimate circle changes, new subjects emerge. Recently Goldin has broken her drug addiction and quite literally has begun to see more sunshine, she has incorporated daylight into her photographs which became something very new to her work. 

Cotton, C (2009). The Photograph as Contemporary Art. 2nd ed. Holborn, London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. 136-139.

Layton. (2008). Nan Goldin. Available: http://clickphotos.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/nan-goldin/. Last accessed 24th apr 2012.

Postmodernism

Post modernism is often about what can and cannot be considered art, the father of this is Marcel Duchamp who exhibited the 'fountain' which was just a urinal placed in a room, now there are photographs of this piece and one could often find themselves asking is the urinal the artwork or is the photograph the artwork - it's almost subjective. Another famous for postmodernism is Tracy Emin who has exhibited such works as her unmade bed and a tent filled with the names of people she had slept with.
Currently on at the Tate is an exhibition that is said to be a retrospect thus far into the career of Damien Hirst, although I have yet to visit this exhibition I have read a lot about him and his work recently. In the Evening Standard it said that sometimes Hirst gives instructions to people with whom he works to create certain pieces of art work and although they are not directly done by his own hands he still calls it his piece of art work that sells for around the same amount of money as something he would have produced himself. Hirsts work often crosses boundaries between science, art and popular culture, best known for his natural history instillations with animals suspended in formaldehyde which features his infamous shark - the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living.
But Hirsts work is very controversial and he receives a fair amount of criticism and praise in the art world, "He is either the presiding genius of contemporary British art, justifiably making a fortune by thrilling audiences with his memorable reflections on life and death. Or he is an empty con artist, making a fool of us and raking in millions from buyers with more money than sense." 

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain.
Image available at: http://techbiotic.com/kwknoxartblog/?p=145. Last Visited. 6th Apr 2012.


Damien Hirst, Shark.
Image available at: http://edwardlifson.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/mies-fish-tank-reminds-me-of.html. Last Visited. 6th Apr 2012.


Mark Brown. (2012). Damien Hirst Tate Modern retrospective opens. Available: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/apr/02/damien-hirst-retrospective-tate-modern. Last accessed 6th Apr 2012.

Lucian Freud Portraits

“Kate Moss & Lucian Freud in bed”

David Dawson

2010

Lucian Freud was one of the greatest realist paintings of the twentieth century. Family, friends and lovers were his subjects and sometimes when no-one else was available, himself. Sitters were drawn from all walks of life, from the aristocracy to the criminal underworld, but he rarely took on commissions. Freud's portraits often recorded the life of a relationship. Highly personal and private they are a record of time spent behind the closed door of the studio. The exhibition spans seven decades and is arranged chronologically, beginning with his early explorations of portrait.
Freuds early portraits are very flat and illustrative, they are almost unrecognisable from his later more recognised works.
I must admit I enjoyed the exhibition a lot more than I first thought, looking at Freud's earlier works through to his very last unfinished painting before he passed away last year aged 88. A lot of the paintings have a strange uneasy feeling about them when you catch the eye of the sitter. It has been said that freud would arrange the sitter a certain way, perhaps giving them a chair or just the cold wooden floor to pose upon. Within the paintings are a tremendous amount of detail and tone, what you don't get from looking at the photographs of Freud's work is the harsh texture of the paint. However you can see the way he studies a persons presence and aesthetics, it's almost as though he is describing them through painting them as well as the experience and tensions of being in a room with the sitter.

Images taken from postcards

“Kate Moss & Lucian Freud in bed”

David Dawson 2010

Image available at: http://enversendroit.tumblr.com/post/19230062087/kate-moss-lucian-freud-in-bed-david-dawson. Last Visited. 6th Apr 2012


Man with a Feather (Self-portrait), 1943.
Image available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2012/feb/08/lucian-freud-national-portrait-gallery. Last Visisted. 6th Apr 2012