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Stories Beneath Absence

2012-09-04T14:07:04Z

DUST: Egypt's Forgotten Architecture, Xenia Nikolskaya, Dewi Lewis Publishing, £30.

Egypt is one of the most densely populated countries in the world and has a colonial history that stretches back centuries. From 1882 until 1952 it was under British rule although nominal independence was granted in 1922, with the exception of four ‘reserved’ areas: foreign relations, communications, the military and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

Between 1860 and 1940, Cairo and other large Egyptian cities witnessed a major construction boom that gave birth to extraordinary palaces and lavish buildings. These incorporated various architectural styles, such as Beaux-arts or Moorish Revival, with local design heritage influences and materials. Today many lie empty and neglected, with no legislation protecting historic buildings less than 100 years old from demolition.

In 2006, Russian-born photographer Xenia Nikolskaya began the process of documenting these extraordinary structures. She gained exceptional access and photographed at some 30 locations including Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor, Minya, Esna, and Port Said. Sadly, the state of Egypt’s colonial architecture is now rapidly succumbing to time, real estate frenzy, and an ongoing overpopulation crisis. Since she began the project a number of these spaces have been demolished, whilst others have gone through a process of regeneration and modernization.

Dust is not just a documentation of these fascinating architectural spaces, it also traces the idea of a typology of absence. The project was completed in January 2011, just before the Egyptian revolution of 17 January.

Avoiding any kind of nostalgia, the book challenges its reader: going back to this Egyptian dust also takes us deep into our own expectations of life and notions of legacy.

Nikolskaya lives between St. Petersburg, Stockholm and Cairo. She currently teaches photography at the American University in Cairo, and works as a curator/project leader at the Swedish Institute and the Centre for Contemporary Art and Architecture, Stockholm.

-J.C.N.

A German Photographic Premonition

2012-09-04T14:06:28Z

Road Map to Happiness Pictures of a Street 1979-1981, Edited by Die Photographische Sammlung / SK Stiftung Kultur, texts by Gabriele Conrath-Scholl, graphic design by Jutta Herden, Hatje Cantz, €49.80.

A book such as this represents a unique contribution to German post-war rebuilding history, as a cross between factual inventory and personal enthusiasm: serial photographs of imagination and the reality of everyday life on a street in Dortmund. Somehow, seen through our eyes today, it is hard to accept it as the reality of that period; acceptance, however, enables us to penetrate the flavor of German life at the time.

Between 1979-81 Wilhelm Schürmann (born in 1946) created a series of photographs of the neighborhood surrounding his childhood home on Streinhammerstrasse in Dortmund. During his forays, the artist captures, with both intensity and humor, facades, displays in store windows, living rooms, and residents, unfolding a fascinating panorama presented here for the first time on such a scale. His images portray the Ruhr district, symbolizing the euphoria of Germany’s economic miracle and the ensuing phase of disenchantment.

Wilhelm Schürmann is not just a photographer, but also a well known collector and curator of contemporary art. This is the first publication of the photographs he took between 1979 and 1981 in Steinhammerstrasse. Having grown up there, Schürmann not only examines the many facets of his own background but relates impressions of a German cosmos, a small world full of descriptive details. A “roadmap to happiness,” a brochure for a lottery outlet peeking out of a pants pocket, is only one example of his many fabulous images.

–J.-C. N.

Master Nunn

2012-07-09T14:53:15Z

Call and Response, by Cedric Nunn, Hatje Cantz, €20.95.

In the 1980s, many documentary photographers in South Africa were mobilized and marshaled into taking sides against apartheid. This activist stand was clearly manifested in the work of Afrapix, a photographic collective founded by photographers such as Paul Weinberg. In 1981 at the age of 24, Cedric Nunn started taking photographs, and soon joined Afrapix. Like many, he would feel the need to witness the social and political consequences of apartheid. Afrapix came out of the Culture and Resistance festival and symposium. In this new book by Nunn, Rory Bester reminds us that by 1977, there were only 220 ‘black journalists’ compared to 3,761 ‘white journalists’. The first group of images by Nunn covers the period from 1982-84, as he focused on the state of neglect, dilapidation, and general poverty in KwaZulu-Natal. Then, until 1990, as political unrest intensifies and the State of Emergency is imposed, his pictures are characterized more by funeral processions, mourners and the destruction of dwellings. The last period ends with the release of political prisoners and the first democratic elections in 1994. Nunn’s most powerful images are about individuals and lives in places far from the noise of rallies and parades. KwaZulu-Natal has holds no secrets from him, in particular during apartheid, when he was capturing the minutiae of life in his native rural South Africa.

His ability to let the individuals portrayed fill the space in the frame, brings a special texture to his pictures. They’re full of complexity and humanity. After 30 years of work, he is among the masters of his league. That what’s the book is all about.

–J.C.N.

Reality is Over the Top

2012-07-09T14:52:02Z

Up and Down Peachtree: Photographs of Atlanta, by Martin Parr, Contrasto, €30.

When, in the past year, the iconic British photographer Martin Parr created his first commission for a major American art museum, he visited the Georgia National Fair, a Roller Derby, CNN, the World of Coke, and the ‘always-more’ world. Parr cannot betray his own eyes, but to some extent he can hardly believe them. This is perhaps one of the main reasons why he has become such an iconic photographer – he documents his vision and his astonishment. The world delivers moments of colorful emotion and intense revelation to this honest Brit. When he shoots pictures, he appears to be almost in a state of panic himself. “I feel some kind of documentary responsibility, trying to show what’s happening here through my eyes.”

Parr is not trying to make fun of his subjects. Traveling through Peachtree State (the nickname for Georgia), Parr moves among the ordinary, indigenous population and his picturesque testimony is vivid. With Up and Down Peachtree: Photographs of Atlanta, Americans may learn something about themselves – and might not be pleased. Parr has no intention to be critical, he is simply present, and, in a state of mild shock: just looking at people. None of them have been coerced to look as they do, with or without lipstick, dressed or undressed. Every country, every museum should commission Martin Parr to capture moments in our daily lives; we would probably all be surprised to see what passes through the lens. Let’s hope we would have enough of a sense of humor to look at our images honestly, before asking ourselves what’s so odd about us.

-J.C.N.

A Ritual of Loneliness

2012-05-18T18:42:02Z

365 Days: A Catalogue of Tears, by Laurel Nakadate, Hatje Cantz, €45.

On 1 January 2010, Nakadate (born 1975 in Austin, USA) decided to cry every day for a year, documenting the action in photographs and initiating a ritual that would let her “deliberately subject herself to sadness.” It will probably take the reader a few pages to fathom the simple idea of this ritual. It is not an exhibitionist kind of happening, nor a provocation. It is the daily ritual of a weeping ceremony, a long lasting draining of buckets of tears and suffering from Nakadate. “What do they mean?” The artist wants us to enter into the question, explore her loneliness, discover its purpose. And she delivers a lot of herself, her intimacy, femininity and feelings. As each photo draws you a little closer to the central character, step by step you begin to journey not only towards her, but into your emotions. Laurel Nakadate is known for her powerful video film, and photographic works in which the artist, her subject, and the viewer are entangled in unsettling performances of seduction, power, trust and tenderness. With her Catalogue of Tears, Nakadate achieves a unique book, one that you open with apprehension: something might happen to you. Human nature is right there in front of us and this is probably the most striking thing about it. We’re a beautiful animal, even when so lonely.

-H.M.

In the Footsteps of Humboldt

2012-05-18T18:24:47Z

Ruta del Sol, by Frank Gaudlitz, Hatje Cantz, €39.80.

Frank Gaudlitz lives and works in Potsdam. Having studied photography under Arno Fischer from 1987 to 1991 at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, Gaudlitz has received many national and international cultural grants. His work can be seen in major photography collections in Germany and he has mounted numerous solo shows both in Germany and abroad. On his journey through South America, Gaudlitz followed an important historical route in his attempt to photograph important sites from the 1799 research expedition undertaken by Alexander von Humboldt (the Berlin-born naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist, Wilhelm von Humboldt), who laid the foundations of the study of bio-geography. Without knowing it at first, Humboldt traveled twelve hundred kilometers across the Andes along the Incan Ruta del Sol (Way of the Sun). Starting at the Rio Mayo in Columbia, then crossing Ecuador with its breathtaking volcanoes Cotopaxi and Chimborazo, and finally approaching Trujillo in northern Peru, Gaudiltz captured stunning photos of sites along this historical route. Besides black-and-white images of landscapes, dotted with roads, rivers and small villages, Gaudlitz also took portraits of the local peoples, exposing a multi-faceted image of contemporary society – from indigenous peoples in their simple huts and houses, to the wealthy elite in Quito, capital of Ecuador. The real charm of Gaudlitz’s book lies in its unexpected dual readings. Not only does it bring you into the lives of the people the photographer encounters, but each subject is also giving back something very intimate to Gaudlitz. Their eyes speak the truth. This is the point at which a photographer becomes great.

- H.M.

Back in the Subway

2012-03-06T17:40:55Z

Subway by Bruce Davidson, Steidl 48€

For several years now, publisher Steidl has been republishing photographers whose work, often out of print, represents a cornerstone in the story of photography and its dissemination. In this way, artists such as Robert Frank, William Eggleston or Lewis Baltz – who have always believed in the importance of publication in book form – have been able to bring their work to the public eye again. Now photographer Bruce Davidson will see his work reprinted. Following Circus, England/Scotland 1960 and the magnificent collection Outside Inside, printed in 2009, his series on the New York metro, Subway, has just been reissued.

When Davidson carried out this work, in the early 80s, the New York subway was a dangerous place: no day passed without some act of aggression or violence. In the fine introductory text, the photographer explains how he prepared himself, like an athlete or explorer, to face any situation, to overcome fear and to venture out on the rail network well beyond Manhattan, through devastated or well-kempt neighborhoods. He describes the poverty, the unlikely encounters by day or by night, and how he dared to take pictures with flash amidst this human magma. Beyond the views and the voyage framed by the train windows, beyond the incredible presence of taggers’ graffiti dripping endlessly all over the carriages, Subway is a book portraying men and women, rich and poor, in a theatre that neutralizes all social differences. Davidson began the work in black and white, but, quickly struck by the combination of artificial light and metallic reflections from the surface of the train, was persuaded that the images required color. This is exceptional in his oeuvre. Subway is a rainbow ride from slums to city skyline. We encounter the human condition through a unique collection of portraits and attitudes, captured in the cool tones of the legendary kodachrome. Bruce Davidson remains faithful to the human commitment that drew him to photograph life in Harlem or the Civil Rights Movement – a story told by a perceptive and generous observer.

By B. F.

Looking at The People

2012-03-06T17:26:37Z

Another Country, Mitra Tabrizian, Hatje Cantz, 39,80 €

Powerful ideas may come from simply slowing down, taking time or stepping slightly outside ordinary life. Expressing unusual viewpoints without seeming artificial or awkward requires great artistic sensitivity. Mitra Tabrizian has a graceful and effective way of redirecting our view of reality. Her images group people and reality, yet there is space for questioning. In the foreword to Another Country, David Green writes, “Over the last decade, Tabrizian has produced a body of work that seeks to explore the political, social, and psychological dimensions of contemporary existence…” whether dominated by the logic of corporate culture and the exigencies of global capitalism, by the logic of religious order or by the law of urban tribes. No small accomplishment. The central idea is to draw us out of our prejudices and preconceptions. To achieve this, Tarbrizian poses her figures in her chosen settings, thereby provoking a sense of oddness, unnaturalness. The power of her work is breathtaking – the more you look, the more you want to see through her eyes. A new master photographer.

By H. M.

Taryn Simon’s American Index

2012-01-13T13:54:19Z

An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar Taryn Simon with a forword by Salman Rushdie, an introduction by Elisabeth Sussman and Tina Kukielsky and a commentary by Ronald Dworkin, Steidl, 65 €

Published in 2007 and reprinted one year later after winning the ICP Infinity Award, An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar by photographer Taryn Simon is a fascinating book. Compiled as an inventory of the most hidden aspects of American society, of what lies beneath and what determines its identity, it is more than a collection of images.

The first and the last pages of the book are an indicator of the complexity involved in carrying out a work of this scope. It must have taken several years and a lot of persuasion to photograph these hidden places, usually forbidden to public view. From the ideogram floating in blue radioactive light, to the polite but negative response offered by Disney Publishing Worldwide, the sites and the encounters photographed by Taryn Simon are as varied as they are improbable, hovering on the borderlines of power and daily life.

The precision of her choice of places and subjects reveals the structure and conceptual rigor of Taryn Simon’s work. In one image, the photographer unveils the top secret headquarters of the CIA through her collection of images, and in another, a body-freezing facility, symbol of our dreams of immortality, or, further on, the magnificent ritualistic ceremony of the Sun Dance, returning us to an awareness of the earth and its elements. Geographical, political or religious, whether dedicated to research or territorial security, these places appear brightly lit, taken head-on. With this perspective, the photographer confers a sense of the abstract or fantastic on each image, complemented by the warm tones of the prints.

Each photograph is accompanied by a text which describes the scene in an objective and informative way. This association of image/text is at the heart of Taryn Simon’s work. The gap between the two forms of representation creates a distance, a space, that the photographer enjoys exploring.

With An American Index of the Hidden and the Unfamiliar Taryn Simon succeeds in illuminating the obscure –and sometimes disturbing– places which, even beyond American shores, reflect our own society’s development and the threats associated with it.

By Benoit Fougeirol

Living in Supercells, Motherships and other Sculptures

2012-01-13T13:53:40Z

(Mamatis 1, Dighton, Kansas, 2011)

Supercell Kevin Erskine, texts by Richard Hamblyn and Redmond O’Hanlon

Hatje Cantze, 78 €

If Mother Nature has her own knights, they might look a little like the phenomena that Kevin Erskine has been chasing since he was a boy. In the introduction to this fantastic book, Richard Hamblyn locates Erskine’s work in its proper context and heritage: “When landscape painter J. W. Turner had himself tied to the mast of a storm-lashed steamship in the winter of 1841, he said he doubted whether he would survive the ordeal, but felt obliged to record if he did. ‘I wished to show what such a scene was like’… Yet the result remains one of his most celebrated works, ‘Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth’ (1842), a stupefying vortex of paint and power.”

Erskine and Turner are related by much more than their enthusiasm for storm-chasing. Art is their common DNA –although Kevin Erskine may have a slight advantage in terms of the subject matter, since he grew up –so they say– in the midst of a tornado. In 1966, at the age of ten, Kevin and his family moved from Sharpsburg, Illinois, to Hoskins, Nebraska –a small community in the heart of ‘Tornado Alley’. On June 5, 1968, an EF4 tornado with wind speeds of 200 miles per hour ‘visited’ his hometown –so Erskine could really understand first-hand the meaning of the word ‘destruction’. A few years later, aboard his first pick-up, Erskine pursued more of nature’s ‘fear and awe’, becoming part of the thrill-seeking generation –if not exactly the perfect ‘Yahoo’ prototype of radio-techno-hunting. To Erskine and his large-format camera, technology required to capture the image takes a back seat. To stand beneath a supercell structure that envelops you and the horizon –wherever you look in any direction– is the moment when you can measure and capture the breathless beauty of nature. Should we ask Benjamin Franklin why he followed the course of a northeastern ‘big storm’ all the way from Philadelphia to Boston in October 1743? Maybe, looking at Kevin Erskine’s work, we can understand part of the answer: each of these powerful knights is nature’s way of reminding us that man is simply human. In these changing times, it is worth being reminded of this message. During the many years he has spent under such ferocious skies, Erskine has found a very self-effacing way of looking at these living sculptures –which is the reason why his work makes such a profound impact.

By Jean-Christophe Nothias

(Mothership, Clayton, New Mexico, 2009)

(Supercell, Hugo, Colorado, 2011)