Letha Wilson

Starting with images of idealised American landscapes – Yellowstone, Yosemite, Utah – Letha Wilson transforms and alters her photographs by various physical means. In some works careful cutting, folding and curling of the paper creates enigmatic but immersive environments. In other more extreme (and for us more interesting) work she treats the prints more brutally, crumpling and crunching them up and pouring concrete on them in rough lines and pools. When set solid the prints have a heavy, almost sculptural, physical presence to them, as if Letha had managed to transport a cross-section of a national park into a gallery space. It’s a really interesting approach because giving the prints this physicality invites the viewer to interact with and interpret the pieces in their own way, instead of simply being presented with a landscape to look at.

Whilst her work would no doubt upset Carelton Watkins or Ansel Adams, when you see it in person it has a real visceral power to it, and takes landscape photography in a new direction.

All images © Letha Wilson

Noritoshi Hirakawa

When we first saw a handful of images from this series they evoked feelings of sympathy and vaguely voyeuristic arousal. It looked to be a particularly well-photographed reportage story on listless prostitutes, perhaps some poor girls destined for a life on the streets in...Cuba, say. But then we saw more images, and looked again, more intently, and realised this was something completely different; something quite incredible in fact. Japanese photographer Noritoshi Hirakawa, using a group of trained dancers and shooting on location at Mexican architect Luis Barragan's iconic, spartan, minimal house, has orchestrated a fascinating series that, through body language and suggested situations, explores ideas of sexuality, power and desire.  The sharp, clean lines of Barragan's house and its myriad courtyards, doorways, levels and spaces become a stage on which Hirakawa achieves remarkably powerful, suggestive images with the trust and complicity of the models. Who else but a dance troupe would be so unselfconscious and expressive, and also be so comfortable being photographed in staged photographs of such intimacy (look closely at the penultimate photo below). 

The images, all in black and white, are beautiful studies in composition, and by eliminating the acid colours Barragan was famous for, Hirakawa makes the viewer focus solely on the interplay of light, form and emotion that make up this amazing series.

All images © Noritoshi Hirakawa

There's Something Happening Here

Some self-promotion with the first post back since Summer. We've curated a group show of many of the interesting, brave and visionary photographers whose work we've looked at, admired and written about on here over the last couple of years. It opens at Brancolini Grimaldi gallery in Mayfair next Friday, September 14th. So if you like the work covered on this blog, go and take a look.

Steeped in the process of photography and versed in the psychology of the medium, the image makers in the exhibition are exploring angst, neuroses, notions of fragility and identity, perception and the subjectivity of photography itself. They come from a diverse range of backgrounds, from fashion and still life to complex conceptual work, their work defying simple categorization. Despite the diversity of their practice, shared interests emerge and the conventional boundaries of photography are challenged and played with. Clare Strand’s Exquisite Corpse re-imagines the fashion shoot as a macabre mediation on surrealism and mutilation. Appropriation also plays a major role in Nicole Belle’s Rev Sanchez series which uses negatives found in a thrift store featuring adolescents posing in a park. On closer inspection, it becomes apparent the artist has doubled, tripled or quadrupled each young person in different poses creating enigmatic portraits.

In the work of Jessica Eaton and Fleur van Dodewaard, it is the properties of image-making itself that are being explored and experimented with. Jessica Eaton’s striking abstract work includes homages to the work of Joseph Albers and Sol Le Witt using studio-based photography which plays with colour and form. Recording tones and shades rather than objects, her work is almost a record of pure technique. Fleur van Dodewaard similarly references the image-making process itself rather than the objects she photographs. Like Eaton, she creates images which are concerned with material, shape and colour rather than any fixed reality, and instead question the nature of photography and perception.
Together these artists are exploring the world and the medium of photography in bold and experimental ways, and we think they represent some of the most interesting talent working today. What emerges is a twisted, sometimes apocalyptic vision of a world that has slipped on its axis revealing something dark, disquieting and not yet fully formed. 
There's something happening here.

       

    

A few teasers from the show. For more information see www.brancolinigrimaldi.com

Fabrice Le Nezet

A French designer and director based in London, Fabrice Le Nezet has now turned his hand to sculpture, and with the first series shown here, 'Measure', he has created something fascinating and challenging. On first seeing these images we weren't even convinced they were real, but Le Nezet's huge concrete blocks, tethered by welded metal webs, are his attempt to "materialise tension, to make the notions of weight, distance and angle palpable.", as he puts it. These suspended masses of concrete have a real sense of threat to the viewer - similar to Richard Serra's iconic, menacing Trip Hammer which has lurked precariously over gallery visitors in Tate Modern and MoMA in New York - but the bright colours of Le Nezet's metal tethers offset this, and make the objects feel lighter and more frivolous. Speaking of which, another of Le Nezet's series, entitled simply 'Spring-Summer 2012' (final two images here) shows a different sculptural direction, with candy-coloured, vaguely anthropomorphic playful figures with more than a hint of the Memphis movement about them. 

Over to Le Nezet again, for the final word on 'Measure': "On my previous projects I was already working on simplifying shapes, using a minimal range of materials. This project was the next step for me as I worked on simplifying the concept itself. And because of the simplicity of the subject, I wanted it to be obvious. Obvious and massive."

 

All work © Fabrice Le Nezet

Albrecht Tübke





There are certain social situations which are great levellers, situations in which no material possessions or aspirational social markers give away anything about an individual. The beach is one such place (if you exclude which actual beach a person may be visiting) and someone sunbathing next to you or swimming near you could be a millionaire or pauper, a saint or a sinner. Albrecht Tübke's 'Heads', a series of portraits taken of swimmers, is a fascinating sociological study for these reasons and more. By shooting just the head and shoulders of his subjects, all emerging from the water and all fixedly staring at the camera, Tübke makes the viewer read the faces, imagine the character and speculate on who each person is. There is a real degree of trust needed in being photographed in such an intimate state - almost naked, no make-up, perhaps just some goggles or a hat to hide behind - and Tübke seems to achieve that. The way the sea reflects the sunlight to give such an all-round even light only enhances the lines, the colour of the subjects' eyes, the variations in skin tones, and makes this a study of different physiognomies; a riveting and beautifully simple set of photographs.
Tubke, born in Liepzig in 1971, has photographed many different portraits series over the years, his style inevitably drawing comparisons with Rineke Djikstra, and yet exploring wider themes in his work, including fashion and the subtleties of its many tribes.  As Tübke says: “I want to show people from a variety of different backgrounds, as I am interested in the range of ways in which people present their public face. Though constant exposure to the multitude of public personae with which we are presented, we have become anaesthetised to the range of individuals that surround us. In this project, I am attempting to distil out something of the essence of that individual.”
With this series, 'Heads' he does just that.

All images © Albrecht Tübke