13 May 2013 written by Cecilia Manfredi in
Focus on
If you are interested in photography and roam the Internet looking for interesting stuff as much as we do, chances are you already know CULT – but perhaps you don’t know the people behind it. One of them is Ramon Haindl, whose own work is as interesting as his taste. His photographs’ consistently display a neat composition matched up with a sharp sense for striking colour combinations. Haindl comes from documentary photography, and his pictures are indeed a mix of truth and mise-en-scène. Even the least competent eye would not be able to attribute authenticity to his photographs without acknowledging their beauty. They are authentic because the author reveals a particular sensibility towards his subjects and a remarkable ability to explore different places and realities, often met by chance. And at the same time they’re beautiful, the expression of a recognizable style without clichés.
Born in Bavaria in 1983, Ramon Haindl is a graduate in Visual Communication of the School of Applied Sciences in Mainz. He has realized several fashion shoots and ads, such as the one for Velour AW 2011, and videos like the À Nos Amours project (a series of intimate short portraits). Haindl is now based in Frankfurt and runs Cult together with Evelyn Dragan. Find more of his work on his website and Tumblr.
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- Photographers:
Ramon Haindl
11 Apr 2013 written by Maurizio Di Iorio in
Exhibitions
Thomas Ruff‘s work is currently being exhibited at the David Zwirner Gallery in New York; the show presents two productions by Ruff, including the world premiere of the series “photograms“. Working in distinct series since the late 1970s, Ruff has approached different genres of photography, including portraiture, architecture, astronomy, the nude, surveillance imagery, and reportage. This is Ruff’s seventh solo show since his joining David Zwirner in 2000.
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- Photographers:
Thomas Ruff
10 Apr 2013 written by Cecilia Manfredi in
Focus on
Style and substance are sometimes bafflingly considered as competitors in an artist’s work, while it would be more correct to expect that – in order to create something remarkable – they should actually compenetrate each other. This is what happens in the work of Thomas Albdorf.
Thomas Albdorf’s photographs deal mainly in manipulation of the landscape and composition, characteristics that underline the thoughtfulness of the author’s process and his ability: Albdorf shows a deft hand in taking objects and refashioning them in new tools or shapes (from a few stacked bricks resembling a staircase to more conceptual results).
The landscape is often treated as part of the work itself and becomes almost sculptural in and of itself, particularly in the series “Soft and Lucent” and “I’m not yet out of the Woods”.
Thomas Albdorf was born in Linz in 1982 and is now based in Vienna, Austria. After working as graphic designer and art director, he is now studying Transmediale Kunst at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna. His work has been exhibited in Europe and in the US. You can find more of his work on his website and his Tumblr.
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- Photographers:
Thomas Albdorf
28 Mar 2013 written by Cecilia Manfredi in
Focus on
It’s a well-established prejudice that fashion photography represents the more superficial end of the photographic world spectrum; the same view, however, can be refuted as often as it is deemed right.The work of Blommers and Schumm is an example that disproves that prejudice. Their main focus is portraiture and still life, which informs and influences their fashion work as well. Their portraits – at times displaying something of a 70s vibe – are usually shot against a neutral background, often in cold colours. The subjects faces maintain a blank expression that contributes to bring forward the cleanness and the pure lines of the compositions. Besides portraiture, their photographs cover the entire range between playful and experimental, often mixing the two for enticing results – such as the editorial for Baron Magazine, in which everyday objects are photographed in a way that is suggestive of sex but never explicit – or the photographs for Hector – a series where the theme “fashion on strike” is dealt with by keeping the images hidden beneath an optical effect.
Anushka Blommers and Niels Schumm are a Dutch photographic duo. Both born in 1969, they have been active for fifteen years and their photographs have appeared on a variety of publications (Interview, The New York Times, Visionaire, several editions of Vogue, AnOther, Self Service, The Gentlewoman and more). Their work has been exhibited all over the world and included in private collections.
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19 Mar 2013 written by Maurizio Di Iorio in
Books
In An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, Taryn Simon compiles an inventory of what lies hidden and out-of-view within the borders of the United States. She examines a culture through documentation of subjects from domains including: science, government, medicine, entertainment, nature, security, and religion. Confronting the divide between those with and without the privilege of access, Simon’s collection reflects and reveals that which is integral to America’s foundation, mythology and daily functioning.
Taryn Simon: An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar
Text by Ronald Dworkin, Tina Kukielski, Salman Rushdie, Elisabeth Sussman.
First published in 2008, and now commanding high prices second-hand, Taryn Simon’s
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- Photographers:
Taryn Simon
13 Mar 2013 written by Cecilia Manfredi in
Books
Tania Shcheglova and Roman Noven, also known as Synchrodogs, have been a fixture here on Disturber since the interview we published two years ago – and they’ve come a long way. Their photographs, raw and experimental, have been featured on international publications such as Dazed & Confused (USA), Vice (USA), Neon (Germany), L’Imparfaite (France), Novembre (France/Switzerland), S magazine (Denmark), I Love Fake (UK), Vision (China) and The British Journal of Photography (UK), as well as exhibited all over the world.
Byzantine is their debut monograph and collects some of their most striking works; the volume itself, published by Éditions du LIC, is a large format clothbound hardcover book, published in a limited edition of only 460 copies.
Byzantine is available here.
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06 Mar 2013 written by Cecilia Manfredi in
Focus on
I allow the viewers to question whether they are truly subjects or merely objects. I strive to depict an image that remains pristine and foreign to the viewers.
Pastel nuances, strategic cuts, neat lines, Yayoi Kusama-like polka dots: Ina Jang‘s photographs employ few characterizing traits and work them into striking images that often walk the line between substance and pure style – managing to retain the force of impact of the former together with the aesthetic beauty of the latter.
Jang’s work deals with the erasing of identity and the compenetration of artistic formats (“I’d like to think of my work as a humble mixture of graphic design, sculpture, drawing, performance art and even clothing design”, she has stated); her light touch is all but superficial and evokes a certain playfulness that enriches her pictures while making useless the need for a “message”.
Ina Jang was born in South Korea and is now based in New York. Her work has been exhibited all over the world and has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Dear, Dave Magazine, Jalouse British Journal of Photography and Time Magazine’s Light Box.
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- Photographers:
Ina Jang
21 Feb 2013 written by Cecilia Manfredi in
Interviews
15 Feb 2013 written by Maurizio Di Iorio in
Exhibitions
ADAM BROOMBERG & OLIVER CHANARIN / TO PHOTOGRAPH THE DETAILS OF A DARK HORSE IN LOW LIGHT
Johannesburg Gallery: until Saturday 16th February 2013
In their latest exhibition for the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin employ the little-known Polaroid ID-2 camera, once used by SA’s authorities to produce pass-book portraits. According to South African born Broomberg, the ID-2 has a flash-boost facility, enabling photographers to take detailed, reliable photographs of black faces – something that proved notoriously difficult with Western film stock, which was developed largely for a white audience.
“Black skin absorbs 42% more light. The button boosts the flash exactly 42%,” Broomberg explained to The Guardian newspaper. “It makes me believe it was designed for this purpose.” Yet, rather than use the camera for portraiture, the pair have photographed South Africa’s beautiful flora, using the land camera, in both its white and black skin settings, to celebrate the country’s bounty and diversity, while keeping in mind its choppy past.
14 Feb 2013 written by Maurizio Di Iorio in
Focus on
Images of disquieting and exotic-looking animals, modern machines looking like decorations of the past, portraits characterized by an ambiguous temporality: what do they have in common? Nothing, if they were not linked by a poetic, ironic and romantic imagery that reconciles observation with the imaginary. The series Curioso, by Olga Cafiero, is an inventory of photographs that express the dichotomy between art and science, nature and objects that, taking inspiration from the Renaissance Kuriositätetenkabinette (cabinets of curiosities), have the artistic intent of rebuilding the Universe in one room, as if everything were a singular organism. A sort of reconstruction of the cosmos through a hodgepodge of things that are rare and particular but always connected. Because it’s true: nothing is independent and central; each single part is just a detail of a bigger mosaic. Olga Cafiero‘s work is filled with enigmatic and lyric contents, it’s a Tillmansian reading of the medium, the real and perhaps only alternative to the conventional idea of beauty.
In my work, I question the professional practice of photography — architecture, still-life or scientific ones — which I use to build my collection and for which I then seek a shape, a way of rendering. I choose my subjects mainlydriven by fascination and curiosity, two feelings which I aim to transpose into images. In order to achieve this, I seek the underlying tensions between the images by linking contrasted subjects so to awaken the reader’s curiosity and to intrigue him.
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- Photographers:
Olga Cafiero
