Archives For photogram

Shimpei Takeda: Trace

June 10, 2013 — Leave a comment

SHIMPEI TAKEDA’s series Trace documents radiation in the soils via sites he picked in Japan. He rigged up a unique method to expose photographic paper to the soils radiation content. Like some sort of shaman/scientist he makes the invisible visible and records all his methods in this haunting project of Japan’s contamination and loss.

“Hardly anyone outside of Japan had heard the name “Fukushima” until last year, now it’s known around the world disgracefully. The nuclear fallout covered precious land where ancestors passed away. As the reading on the radiation meter climbed uncomfortably, it was such an odd and terrifying experience to collect soil samples as I felt like gathering somebody’s ashes.”

via SHIMPEI TAKEDA – Trace / Note.

In Art, Documentary, Photography , , ,
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Best Photographers in London Series: Susan Derges

June 5, 2013 — Leave a comment

Not a photographer in the classical sense yet Susan Derges is known for her images of water that encompass the reflected night sky. She produces mystical and moving photograms by placing photographic paper in rivers and shorelines at night. Her intensely poetic images are some of the most beautiful nature pictures ever made – and all without a camera. You can find her work in book Elemental.  Here is her Lecture at ICP.

 

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Exhibitions New York: Thomas Ruff @ David Zwirner

April 13, 2013 — Leave a comment
Not so sure about the 3D mars photographs (NASA could of put these images up… and let’s not forget how bad 3D imagery looks without the glasses). Can one actually live with these huge out of focus/registration 3D images or does one carry around a spare set of 3D glasses ALL THE TIME??? Hmmm… I hope I am wrong but this begs a closer look.  But I have to say the Man Ray inspired Photogram’s look incredible and no doubt save the show. Update to come…
Update: After seeing the show I walked away feeling a little confused. First of all I have a hard time with label “photograms” as I am pretty confident in saying that at no time was any object placed on a piece of photographic paper and exposed to light to make these big beautiful images. Especially not at the scale they are presented.  I have no problem that they are  abstractions built via a computer and then exposed as Lightjet images (as I presume they are). But to call them photograms is just incorrect and frankly a bit misleading. They need a new name – so why not call them Ruff-O-Grams?
The 3D ma.r.s images look just ok without the glasses and exactly what you expect with the glasses. So nothing really but a novelty image for me. The big surprise was the highly manipulated landscapes in the series. These are the best of the bunch and work as abstractions from afar and as highly detailed images of the martian surface. All in all a very beautiful show and worth the trip.
Thomas Ruff: Photograms & Ma.r.s  March 28 – April 27, 2013 at David Zwirner

via the gallery web site
Exhibitions New York: Thomas Ruff @ David Zwirner
In Art, Exhibitions, Photography , , , , , ,
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