My memory has a hole. A big hole.
I don't know the nature of it, but maybe it connects somehow to the ozone holes in stratosphere.
I read / watch / research a lot but because of the hole, I keep forgeting everything very quick. It annoys me.
So, this blog is my attempt to record all my discoveries and keep them in one place where I always can come back.
You are more than welcome to follow me in it.

Friday 25 February 2011

E.O. Hoppé - a history of photography in one person

I went to National Portrait Gallery to see the works of E.O. Hoppé (1878-1972):

http://www.npg.org.uk:8080/hoppe/index.html

I have just come back from Berlin, where his works were shown as well in Berlinische Galerie:

http://www.berlinischegalerie.de/index.php?id=1045&L=1

Coinsidence? I don't think so.

The sekections of works were very different in both galleries. Berlin presents more of his type portraits and city landscapes. London shows his work with ballet dancers, portraits of famous people and women and late street photographs.
So, what I found intersting for myself (and that's the reason I have decided to make this post here):

1. What a great photographer he was and how forgotten he is.

2. I never heard of him in context of Djagilev's ballet seasons. He used to work a lot with them and keep taking portraits of leading dancers:

(he even hand-painted some photos!!! - another click with my interests)

2. I loved his not-sharp portraits made in 1900-1920s with large format. You usually expect some certain sharpness from these cameras and even the chemical processes were developed already to achieve stable results. But his photographs somehow look different for me, including series 'fair women':


3. I like the curatorial work on this show - the selection which was made and how it is presented goes through the history or technical progress of photography in 20th century. His early works are all on large format, after you can see he was using medium format and his subjects are now live/work/perform outside of the studio space:


And after 1940s, when 35mm cameras were invented, his angle and subject was radically changed and most of photos started to have a snapshot aesthtics which was inaccessible earlier.

Tuesday 22 February 2011

A bit music for today

Old school:
Bill Evans - American jazz pianist (1929-1980)


and New school:
Tigran Hamasyan - Armenian pianist, born in 1987.

his website:
http://www.tigranhamasyan.com/

I hope he will come to UK one day with a concert.

Thursday 17 February 2011

William E. Jones: The fall of Communism as seen in gay pornography

My new discovery for today: William E Jones: filmmaker, artist

THE FALL OF COMMUNISM AS SEEN IN GAY PORNOGRAPHY (1998)

Every image in The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography comes from gay erotic videos produced in Eastern Europe since the introduction of capitalism. The video provides a glimpse of young men responding to the pressures of an unfamiliar world, one in which money, power and sex are now connected.








Watch the film online here:
http://www.williamejones.com/collections/view/6/
video, color, 19 minutes

There are lots of other interesting works on the website

Saturday 12 February 2011

Anuschka Blommers & Niels Schumm

Being in Berlin, I visited a studio of photographer Jan von Holleben.
He showed a one book on one page of which my brains blew up.
That's the image on the page how it supposed to be seen:



But what is good thing about books: despite of some very heavy and huge sizes, books are easy to turn around and look at content as you want. So, of course, this page provokes you to turn it up side down:



So, let me introduce Anuschka Blommers and Niels Schumm who work together and produce such kind of blow-up-minds-images:


(common, turn ur laptop or head!)

They are commercila photographers working on commissions. But I like how they are doing it. So, I am checking some other their works on the web:
http://www.blommers-schumm.com/polaroids.php

Thursday 3 February 2011

Nick Veasey - X-Rays







Interesting artist was featured today in BJP.
Nick Veasey who is obsessed with image, X-Ray and internal beauty of objects.
It's interesting on his website to read about the process.

http://www.nickveasey.com/

I will keep an eye on him - let's see if he starts to do something more than just medical research of animals and objects which look nice but...I like more his installations with machines and people - crazy hard work.

Tuesday 1 February 2011

Philippe Parreno and Paul Fusco

Coming back to my post about Philippe Parreno's exhibition in Serpentine Gallery
http://mariakapajeva2.blogspot.com/2011/01/philippe-parreno.html
I wanted to make one more post about one of his video presented there called
June 8, 1968

There are some images of Magnum photographer Paul Fusco, based on whose photographs, Parreno produced his movie.







The whole Fusco's photo essay is here:
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP3=ViewBox&ALID=29YL534JKT9L&IT=ThumbImage01_VForm&CT=Album