timelightbox:

Photographs by Asger Carlsen

Opening this evening in Germany: Hester, photographs by Asger Carlsen at Dittrich & Schlechtriem: 

In HESTER, The figure is documented then re-presented disfigured and sculpted digitally. “They are anonymous beings. Stripped of their identities, they are distinguished only by the black and white color of their skin, their muscular or obese build, and small details such as birthmarks dotting their skin or painted toenails.“

Carlsen “captures images of models as well as additional imitations of body parts made of modeling compound. In the subsequent time-consuming process of digital editing…he assembles the individual parts that appear in the pictures so as to obscure the sutures. So the photographic act properly speaking is the work of a brief moment in relation to the creative process” which concludes the artwork.

For more information, visit the gallery’s website here, or visit Asger Carlsen’s website here.

Mack has had another strong year in 2012: they seem to be on most people’s best books of the year lists with Elementary Calculus, Another Language, Lick Creek Line or The Present. One of their recent books has become a personal favourite: Jason Evans’s NYLPT. I knew Evans mostly for his colour work, so this book of B&W multiple exposures from New York, London, Paris and Tokyo came as a bit of a surprise. Like its cover, the book is delightfully straightforward, a series of randomly layered street exposures that reflect the way that expectation blends with reality in our experience of the city. This could have been a sprawling mess, but his visual style works perfectly for this approach. The book also is a really enjoyable and unfussy object: I particularly liked the simple touch of the facing page for each image progressing from black to white as you flick through the pages. (For a man that has a website called The New Scent it’s also appropriate that this book smells inky-great).

Gomma Books have just released Mono, Volume 1, a collection of black-and-white contemporary photography. The list of participating photographers is long (Anders Petersen, Andy Spyra, Antoine D’Agata, Chris Rain, Daisuke Yokota, Devin Yalkin, Francesco Merlini, Gabrielle Duplantier, Giancarlo Ceraudo, Hans-Christian Schink, Jacob Aue Sobol, Jan von Holleben, Jukka-pekka Jalovaara, Keizo Kitajima, Kim Thue, Maki, Marco Vernaschi, Margaret M. de Lange, Michael Ackerman, Olivier Pin Fat, Roger Ballen, Scot Sothern, Sebastian Liste, Sofia Lopez Mañan, Stephane C, Susu Laroche, Tomasz Lazar, Trent Parke and Tricia Lawless Murray) but there is a strong current of photography in the Anders Petersen vein here. Interestingly they crowd-sourced the text for the book, asking bloggers, critics and curators each to write a few words about a particular series (full disclosure: I was asked to write the text on Michael Ackerman). As the title suggests there are two more volumes of Mono to come and there is already a shortlist of photographers for Volume 2 on the Gomma Books website. This is the second of two excellent collections of contemporary photography released this year, the other being Nocturnes by AM Projects which I also recommend checking out

(ed. Thanks to Mrs Deane for the correction re Nocturnes not actually being all black-and-white).

I first came across Luke Stephenson’s series, An Incomplete Dictionary of Show Birds, when he was featured in Foam magazine’s Talent issue #24. The series has just become a book and the results are in keeping with the bird portraits themselves. It’s a delightfully simple little book that shows these incredible little creatures at their best and gives a glimpse into the crazy sub-culture that revolves around them.

It’s currently art fair madness in Miami and for the occasion Paddle8 is organising (the first?) exhibition of animated gifs, Moving the Still, selected by a rather random assortment of people including James Frey and Michael Stipe. The exhibition is being hosted on Tumblr but there is also a ‘live’ exhibition in Miami. I’m not sure how you exhibit animated gifs or even if that is really necessary, but I would be fascinated to see what the curators have come up with… and how long it takes before the visitors’ eyes start bleeding.

photolia:

2 venues for Japanese Photobooks: A Reading Room and An Online Space

Sponsored by:
International Center of Photography Library
Photobook Facebook Group
E-mail: NY10x10@gmail.com

10x10 Japanese Photobook Reading Room

Dates: September 28-30 2012, from 3 pm to 9 pm
Opening…

Forget about the Olympics. There is a great new exhibition now up in London at the Photographers’ Gallery on Contemporary Japanese Photobooks. Curated by Ivan Vartanian and Jason Evans, this is the first photobook exhibition I have heard of where you are actually encouraged to touch the books. They’ve also done a great tumblr for the exhibition with a list of all the photographers and books, and a discussion section so you can share your love for the Japanese photobook.

Hennessy Youngman has squeezed your $100,000 MFA onto a DVD and now it costs $4.99 (plus shipping and handling).

Great 5-min video narrated by Tom Waits on the artist John Baldessari who is great and who I really need to know more about. More videos like this please.

Full-length documentary on Daido Moriyama, “Near Equal Moriyama Daido” (via American Suburb X).