Vivianne Sassen /// Sketches

Viviane Sassen - Sketches from misha kominek on Vimeo.
le site de Viviane Sassen

William Egglestone in the real world /// Directed by Michael Almereyda /// 2005

Iain Baxter& : Canadian perspective /// Centre Culturel Canadien, Paris

Artiste à l’origine de l’art conceptuel au Canada, Iain Baxter& produit depuis une quarantaine d’années des œuvres et des idées audacieuses, singulières et « sensibles » qui étonnent et déstabilisent tant la critique que le public. Il a d’abord étudié la zoologie et la biologie, poursuivant ensuite des études en psychologie de l’éducation, en philosophie et en beaux-arts, suivies par une étude du zen au Japon en 1961 grâce à une bourse octroyée par le gouvernement japonais – un parcours inusité qui a jeté les fondements d’une pratique prolifique. Dès 1966, Iain Baxter& se fait connaître en réalisant l’installation Bagged Place qui reconstituait une maison moderne, avec son mobilier et ses objets quotidiens, soigneusement emballés dans du plastique transparent. La même année, Baxter& fonde la N.E. Thing Co. (la compagnie était une entreprise commune de Baxter& et de son épouse Ingrid, mais elle a été dissoute lorsqu’ils se sont séparés, en 1978), grâce à laquelle il a élaboré une esthétique qui interrogeait les structures impliquées dans la création et la production d’une œuvre d’art, le système de l’art et ses modalités de mise en marché tout comme l’organisation de la pensée elle-même. Il a également initié différentes pratiques au Canada telles que la réalisation de la première installation, l’usage de la boîte lumineuse ou encore l’expérimentation des technologies de l’information qui lui ont permis de réaliser des œuvres à distance.
lire la suite 
plus d'info
illustrations 1_ Quater Mile Landscape, P.E.I., 1969, Stop Viewing (extrait) ///  2 et 3_ Portfolio of piles, 1968 (extrait)

Pekka Niittyvirta /// corrupted

Niittyvirta's creative work contains a very strong dimension of improvisation and intuition. His extensive production does consist not only of the various photographic works but instead reaches out far beyond his main tool - the camera. The abstract glamour of the visual effects has been produced with the combination of the different digital methods and utilizing the knowledge of the digital, biological and chemical processes. This means that the outcome of the pictures is not based only on the traditional photographic conventions.

Niittyvirta is also fascinated by the forces of the social circumstances. The series "Greetings from Helsinki" takes a socio-political aspect to social alienation with a dark humor. Works in the series "unDisciplined Events" explore the relationships of the scenery; the space and a human being - public and the private. The pictures bring into the focus the built-up environments and the effects that they have on our daily decisions and the activities of the different groups.
son site

Illustrations:  1 _ Pekka Niittyvirta,  corrupted,  "Paris Hilton (Dog Chromosome X, Poodle)", 2010, 145 X 105 cm (Image is created by inserting genetic data (dogs chromosome X) to the source code of digital image file) /// 2_Pekka Niittyvirta,  corrupted, "Broken Idyl (Burma)", 2008, 46 X 30 cm (Image is modified by insertion of phrases from the propaganda newspaper New Light Of Myanmar to the digital image file's source code)

Cindy Sherman /// Sprüth Magers Gallery, London

Since the beginning of her career in the mid 1970s Sherman has used herself as the ostensible ‘canvas’ in her works, seamlessly combining the roles of director, model and photographer to create an array of intriguing and provocative personas. Whilst the photographs feature Sherman as the sole human subject, they do not, however, convey her likeness as a self-portrait would. A remarkable performer, in this latest work Sherman captures the subtle distortions of her face and body on camera, rendering her almost unrecognizable as she adopts outrageous guises and utilises her recent embrace of digital techniques to manipulate the scale of each character, their features, and their surroundings. The various personas animating this new body of work were created as shrines to nondescript, eccentric characters who might also be seen to denote sentries, guarding the entrance to some fabled land, casting ambiguous and disconcerting glances at the viewer. The monochrome character in the three-figure panel is the only member of the cast to seemingly blend into the background, inviting the viewer into this surreal universe with its backdrop of faux-French décor populated by a rabble of hippy-circus types. The combined costumes, poses and facial expressions change dramatically from one figure to the next, enabling the viewer to observe the artist’s permutations of identity from a seated fragile middle-aged dame to an unconvincing medieval soldier. Each character poses against an incongruous backdrop - a landscape image printed in black and white - reminiscent of ‘toile’: a type of decorating pattern frequently used on home furnishings and wallpaper. Toile was traditionally used to tell a story yet the bucolic settings in Sherman’s new work create quite the opposite effect, heightening the ambiguity and alienation of the characters while further complicating the narrative. The Untitled (2008) series was characterised by a group of almost life-size ageing American socialites. In the
photographic murals, the figures are enlarged even further to epic proportions, the grand scale serving to intensify the tension, vulnerability and uncertainty exuded by Sherman’s theatrical types. The athleticism of one figure is subtly undermined by the detail of Sherman’s performance; the pulled up sport socks & trainers, cropped blonde wig and colourful batons do not reveal the same pride or superiority implied by the character’s confident stance and haunting glare. The same black trainers reappear on another of the characters, implying that they are all mysteriously linked together. Indeed Sherman’s abandonment of make-up in favour of minor digital adjustments unintentionally results in the disquieting affect that each figure stems from the same ‘family’. Sherman’s decision to eschew make-up as the most effective means of accentuating or de-emphasising the features brings us back to her earlier works such as the Rear Screen Projections series from the early 1980s, whereby she used subtle distortions in lighting, camera angle and costume to achieve a contrasting look.
vues d'exposition sur le site de la galerie

Illustrations 1 &2_ Cindy Sherman, Untitled, 2010, Pigment print on Phototex adhesive fabric, dimensions variable

Sander Meisner /// Melancolia

Sander Meisner (1979) is a self-taught photographer living and working in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. While he searches for beauty in the melancholy and desolation of overpasses, construction- and industrial areas he creates a certain tension by photographing these places from an unexpected angle, venturing out into the city discovering colorful beauty in the desolate corners of the gray man made structures. Registration or the level of control over light through a lens is just the method. To truly get to the value of photography, Sander tries to do more than just capture reality, he tries to alter it, transform it. He tries to control the frame in such a way it generates an angle that enables him to construct new mindsets, new insights and identities. Sander exposes the sleeping infrastructure of the urban environment and turns these usually overlooked corners into objects of desire. The lack of light and extremely long exposure of the photographic film add a secondary effect; any interaction of human movement becomes totally invisible. His pictures have an almost soothing sense of solitude.
son site


Illustrations: Sander Meisner, tunnel #7, tunnel #8, 2009

Taryn Simon /// Contraband

The following 1,075 photographs were taken at both the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Federal Inspection Site and the U.S. Postal Service International Mail Facility at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York. From November 16, 2009 through November 20, 2009, Taryn Simon remained on site at JFK and continuously photographed items detained or seized from passengers and express mail entering the United States from abroad.

Taryn Simon was born in New York in 1975. Her most recent work, Contraband, which includes 1075 photographs of items detained or seized from passengers and express mail entering the U.S. from abroad, exposes the desires and demands that drive the international economy as well as the local economies that produce them. Her previous work, An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, reveals that which is integral to America's foundation, mythology and daily functioning, but remains inaccessible or unknown to a public audience.
lire la suite sur son site

Illustrations: 1_Taryn Simon "Nesting dolls with Disney characters, Snow White (counterfeit)NESTING DOLLS (COUNTERFEIT)" /// 2_Taryn Simon "Cigarettes, eight cartons, Marlboro (passenger declined to pay tax) (abandoned) CIGARETTES & TOBACCO (ABANDONED/ILLEGAL/PROHIBITED)"

Barney Kulok /// Simple facts /// Rêves dystopiques

Barney Kulok’s Dystopic Dreams:

Some people meditate to connect with their muses. Others find an unsuspecting ingénue, cast off from a Seven Sisters college. However, photographer Barney Kulok is a much simpler man. "I smoke cigarettes and listen to Jimi Henrix really loud and drive fast." When looking at one of Kulok's pieces, the visceral reflection of his creative process is apparent in his finished piece. "I'm usually trying to answer some formal or conceptual question." Kulok's kinetic snapshots find inspiration in all sots of characters. "My brother Sam," Kulok says, "an incredible jazz guitarist and probably the best artist I know, so he inspires me in all sorts of ways -- visual and otherwise." But Kulok is in the enviable position of knowing his idols personally -- artists such as Sebastian Bear-McClard ("He's just an old friend from school -- far from my idol," Kulok cheekily corrects me) and Vik Muniz among others. "They've always challenged me to push harder." lire la suite
Déclic Kulock article en français d'Anaïd Demir ici
le site de Barney Kulok

Illustrations: Simple fact (extracts) 1_Untitled (stain) ///  2_Untitled (covered) ///  3_Untitled (of and)

Lucas Blalock /// patterns, mirrors, fake fruit: photography like algebra

 My work is engaged in the ways that falseness/mechanics in pictures can bring us closer to the world. I pursue this through a variety of overlapping strategies that in some way alienate the “natural” view in the hope that the viewer will, by engaging this alienation, come into more active terms with the picture.

entretien avec Luca Blalock

son site
Illustrations: 1_loop-loop (picture for NM), 2009 /// 2_untitled (3,1,4,1,5,9,7,2,3,6), 2009

Chris Wiley /// The surface of things

Artist's Statement

Sometimes when I look through the viewfinder and see the little corners of the world light up, they shimmer with such a suchness that my pupils dilate. Who knew that so much could happen in such small places, when they fill up with light and presence? Who could have overlooked them?

Bio/Resume

Chris Wiley is an artist and writer who lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He holds a BA in photography and art history from Sarah Lawrence College and an MA in contemporary art theory from Goldsmiths College, University of London. He has shown his work in New York, Philadelphia, Germany, and in various online publications. He is a contributing writer to Kaleidoscope and has written for various other publications including Abitare and Cabinet. He has also previously worked on curatorial projects at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and is currently working in this capacity on the 8th Gwangju Biennial in South Korea.
more on  chriswiley.net

Illustrations 1 et 2: Chris Wiley "the surface of things" (extract)

Joachim Schmid /// ABC Artists' Books Cooperative

Joachim Schmid collecte des images depuis 1982. Toutes ses publications sont disponibles et visibles en ligne sur ABC. Ses derniers travaux sont réalisés à l'aide de google map, à partir des milliards d'images publiées sur flickr.

son site

illustration: Joachim Schmid, O Campo, pigment ink print, 27 x 36 cm image on 30 x 40 cm paper, ABC edition /// Joachim Schmid, "Meetings" (extract), 2003-2007

Les 9 yeux de google street

 voir ici:
Jon Rafman

Thomas Struth /// Galerie Max Hetzler

Struth changes the context of the technological sublime by transferring the motives into the gallery space: Anonymous sculptures reveal structures that are incomprehensible to the majority of spectators while the viewer is confronted with alienated forms of industrial and technological progress. Titles, such as Tokamak Asdex Upgrade periphery, intensify the formality in photographs that analyze and document the human ambition and the progress of today’s industries. Also on view are photographs that record architectural sites in Korea, including an oil platform and a shipyard, strongly contrasting with the advanced technologies of the former. The depiction of the image’s architecture seems to create iconographic and hyperreal manifests of the present.
 lire la suite sur le site de la galerie Max Hetzler
vues de l'exposition

Illustration: Thomas Struth, Chemistry Fume Cabinet. The University of Edinburgh, 2010. Digital C-Print, 120,5 x 166 cm.

Stephen Gill /// Le documentaire conceptuel

Born Bristol, UK 1971. Lives in Hackney, London.
Stephen Gill was introduced to photography at an early age by his father, and his first photographs reflected his interests in birds, animals and music.
Stephen’s photographs are now held in various private and public collections and have also been exhibited at many international galleries and museums including London’s National Portrait Gallery, The Victoria and Albert Museum, Agnes B, Victoria Miro Gallery, Galerie Zur Stockeregg, Gun Gallery, The Photographers’ Gallery, Palais des Beaux Arts, Leighton House Museum, Haus Der Kunst and has had solo shows in festivals including - Recontres d’Arles, The Toronto photography festival and PHotoEspaña.
Stephen founded his publishing imprint Nobody in 2005 in order to exercise maximum control over the publication process of his books. His overriding intention is to make the book the finished expression of the photographs, rather than just a shell in which to house them. Experimentation with materials, and a hands-on, tactile approach to maquette making lead, in many cases, to his finished books having an individual, unique presence. This tactile approach includes materials and techniques such as lino cut printing, letter press printing, mono prints, spray paint, rubber stamps and on occasion entire books are manufactured and assembled by hand in Stephen’s Hackney studio. He considers the bookmaking process to be a key final stage in the production of his photographic works, and he aims to make books that are conceptually consistent with their content. All decisions made during production are therefore directed by the requirements of the work rather than any external influences or considerations.
son site

Ligovsky Prospekt

Réalisation: R.Renault & L.Hammadouche
Production: Ceros
Ce montage de 34 mètres sera présenté par la galerie Serge Plantureux lors de Paris-Photo

le fond de dotation Clémentine:

Constatant que depuis leur invention, les épreuves photographiques sont devenues parmi les plus fidèles témoins matériels de l’histoire culturelle, le Fonds de Dotation Clémentine soutient les initiatives qui rendent celles-ci accessibles, favorisent leur étude matérielle ainsi que la construction d’une généalogie culturelle attachée aux documents d’époque.
Les collections du Fonds de Dotations couvrent les différentes périodes de la photographie partout où celle-ci a pu parvenir. Le catalogue sera mis en ligne dès cet été, il est composé d’une dotation initiale et de dépôts.
Nos publications sont des expérimentations proposées comme des outils d’analyse de l’histoire matérielle de la photographie. Vous trouverez sous l’intitulé « carnets de Clémentine » cet ensemble déjà publié ou en projet. L’Association des Amis de Clémentine assure la publication et la distribution des carnets.