Photo News London: Rotimi Fani-Kayode at Autograph ABP and Jan Ŝvankmajer’s The Ossuary is screened as part of a Gothic Revival at the Institute of Contemporary Arts

© Rotimi Fani-Kayode, 'Black Friar', 1989, photo courtesy of Autograph APB

© Jan Ŝvankmajer, The Ossuary, 1970.

Scholar Kobena Mercer is presenting a keynote lecture, Rotimi Fani-Kayode: Themes, Inspirations and Influences, on the work of the late Rotimi Fani-Kayode at Autograph ABP in east London on Friday 3 June at 6:30 pm. This event is free but booking is essential. To book, follow this link.

The Ossuary, (1970, black & white, 10 mins) – a short film by Czech filmmaker and artist Jan Ŝvankmajer - will be showing at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London on Saturday 11 June as part of a two-day event Template for Terror: The Revival of the Gothic. Running at the ICA, London from 11 June 2011 – 12 June, the two-day event comprises a series of presentations and discussions looking at “the prevailing influence of the Gothic on contemporary culture”. If you haven’t come across Ŝvankmajer, I urge you to explore his hugely influential works, including his first feature film, Alice (1987) – a brilliant adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. See over for more on these events…

Ida Kar at the National Portrait Gallery and International Women’s Day Centenary Female Focus on Photography – 100

Bridget Louise Riley by Ida Kar, 1963 2 1/4 inch square film negative © National Portrait Gallery, London

Dame Barbara Hepworth at work on the armature of a sculpture in the Palais de Danse by Ida Kar, 1961 vintage bromide print © National Portrait Gallery, London

Ida Kar Bohemian Photographer, 1908 – 1974 has just opened at the National Portrait Gallery and runs until 19 June. Although I missed the press view last week, there’s plenty of time to see the show and get familiar with Kar’s work as I know little of it. Tomorrow, the Association of Photographers announces the judges for three of its competitions and on Wednesday night the winner and runners up for the Student Photographer of the Year 2010. And finally, j’arrive. I’m there at 100 women photographers featured in Hotshoe magazine and space for so many more.

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY – IDA KAR
This will be the first museum exhibition for 50 years devoted to Ida Kar and includes nearly 100 photographs, some not previously exhibited.

This exhibition of portraits by the twentieth-century pioneering photographer Ida Kar “highlights the crucial role played by this key woman photographer at the heart of the creative avant-garde. With striking portraits of artists such as Henry Moore, Georges Braque, Gino Severini and Bridget Riley, and writers such as Iris Murdoch and Jean-Paul Sartre, this exhibition offers a fascinating insight into the cultural life of post-war Britain and an opportunity to see iconic works, and others not previously exhibited”.

“Russian-born, of Armenian heritage, Ida Kar (1908–74) was instrumental in encouraging the acceptance of photography as a fine art when, in 1960, she became the first photographer to be honoured with a major retrospective in London, at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. She later continued to document conceptualist artists such as Gustav Metzger and John Latham and life in Cuba and Moscow. Featuring unseen archive material, this reappraisal provides a valuable record of the international art world as documented by Kar over three decades while literary subjects exhibited include Doris Lessing, Colin MacInnes and T S Eliot.”

Hotshoe magazine
2006-2007
Claudine Deury
Marion Poussier
Magali Delporte
Mireille Loup
Emma Critchley
Sara Haq
Boo Ritson
Melanie Rozencwajg
Katinka Goldberg
Jodi Bieber
Camilla Stephan
Susanna Majuri
Astrid Kruse Jensen
Polly Borland
Diana Lui
Indra Serpytyte
Zoe Hatziyannaki
Olivia Arthur
Nina Berman
Penny Klepuszewska

Royston Ellis, 1960 by Ida Kar © National Portrait Gallery, London

Samuel Selvon by Ida Kar, 1956 2 1/4 inch square film negative © National Portrait Gallery, London

Dame Margaret Natalie ('Maggie') Smith on the set of 'The Rehearsal' by Ida Kar, 1961 2 1/4 inch square film negative © National Portrait Gallery, London

Gagosian Gallery opens virtual doors to VIP Art Fair online – seven days to go

Gagosian Gallery launches its Viewing In Private Art Fair (VIP Art Fair) billed as “the world’s first exclusively online art fair”. Viewing in Private” has assembled 139 of the world’s leading contemporary art galleries from 30 countries in what they are calling an “unprecedented live event”.

TICKETS AND VIP TICKET BENEFITS
VIP Art Fair is free to browse, though registration is required.

VIP tickets allow for special access including:
Integrated chat and messaging system for live interaction with galleries
Eligibility to view galleries’ private rooms
Price ranges for each artwork, and ability to search within certain price ranges
Access to the VIP Lounge

HOURS
Opens on Saturday, January 22, 2011 at 8:00 a.m. EST and concludes on Sunday, January 30, 2011, at 7:59 a.m. EST.

You can browse online from Saturday, January 22 to Sunday, January 30, 2011 but if you want to go deeper into the experience and interact, you will have to pay $100 if you want to have unlimited access to the fair from now for the entire week or $20 after the 24 January.

EXHIBITION HALLS
The VIP Art Fair is divided into three distinct exhibition halls:
VIP Premier: comprised of 91 leading galleries, each presenting 15 to 20 works depending on booth size – large or medium.
VIP Focus: comprised of 24 galleries, each presenting eight works by a single artist.
VIP Emerging: comprised of 24 galleries, each presenting 10 works produced within the last two years by emerging artists.

“Increasingly over the last decade the artworld has gone global, with important events happening around the world. Art collectors from Dallas to Kuala Lumpur can find it difficult to travel to all of the events and yet they don’t want to miss out. Three years ago, when we began conceptualizing VIP Art Fair, we wanted to harness the international reach of the Internet to give access to the best contemporary art from anywhere in the world,” stated James Cohan, owner of James Cohan Gallery in New York and Shanghai.

Photo competition judging Hotshoe/Photofusion Annual Members Photo Show Award 2010

I have had a full on week of organising day workshops on marketing and social media for freelance creatives, so there has been precious little time to blog.

However, I’ve been listening to lots of comments on the pros and cons of social media and blogs such as “Why blog”, “Who reads it, anyway”, “Isn’t it too time consuming”, “Aren’t there too many out there? “How do you get yourself heard through all the noise?” “What’s the point?”.  Thankfully, I have a reprieve as I have signed off on the most recent features on photography that I have been commissioned to write – with Christmas coming up, deadlines are brought forward – so, it’s been a bit like the proverbial buses; they all come at once.

Today I’m off to Photofusion’s second members’ exhibition, AMPS/10 to see the work as I will be announcing the winner on Thursday.  The work on show “reflects the different genres, approaches and interests from photographers within the membership scheme and is open to annual members”.

This afternoon I will get a chance to look at the work of fourteen photographers who are showing prints, “either from a recently completed series, or a project in development” and will choose a winner with my Hotshoe hat on. The winner receives the Hotshoe Photofusion Award title,  an annual subscription to the magazine, a single-page feature including profile and image in the February/March issue of the magazine, and an interview with on the Hotshoe blog.

The public will also have a chance to vote for their favourite photographer, who will receive the “AMPS/10 Public’s Choice” at the end of the exhibition. it will be interesting to see what is selected.

Keep posted for news on the competition and other photo news

 

New show Romanian Pavilion opens at HotShoe Gallery, London

While the UK is debating its current political status of a hung Parliament, you can get an insight into the changes wrought in Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu’s rule at HotShoe Gallery where a new show Romanian Pavilion opens on Friday evening next week. The show runs until the 18 June.

© Dan Acostioaei, Reconstructionscapes (2005) and Bahlui by Night (2004) explores the unseen connections between power, economy and identity in his hometown Iasi, alongside the emergence of neoliberalist ideology.

Romanian Pavilion will “bring together five Romanian video artists, Dan Acostioaei, Sebastian Moldovan, Joanne Richardson, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor, whose works address the former communist president Nicolae Ceausescu’s failed utopian social experiments and subsequent dehumanising conditions, with an emphasis on the reality of the built environment and private life in Romania.The show is curated by visual artist and associate curator of the gallery Marcin Dudek with Simona Nastac. The exhibition design is  by Ioana Iliesiu.

© Joanne Richardson, In Transit (2008) is a diary of the artist’s journey through Romania in the year of its EU accession. The video reflects upon the re-writing of history and the link between images and memory

“Any utopia is obsessed with the rehabilitation of man and the condemnation of our happiness; to make a tabula rasa of the past, to install the reign of the new self; the perfect polis of human beings. The totalitarian regime in Eastern and Central Europe did precisely this: for almost half a century, it built new cities for the ‘new man’- displaced in flats that look like prison blocks. Drawing its inspiration from Corbusier’ and Gropius’ rational architecture, modernist social housing was applied widely in Eastern Europe in the 1960s, but its profoundly alienating consequences have become evident after the 1990s, alongside the emergence of capitalism.”