James Rajotte

PhotoEspaña Must-Sees 

From The Louvre and its Visitors, Alécio de Andrade

 

PhotoEspana is fast approaching and if you are planning to attend this year, I have a list of must-sees. The english version of the official website is pretty useless in terms of finding out information about the exhibits, so I hope this guide helps. Here is a run-down of my picks for this year:

 

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Lartigue's Floating World 

Bichonnade, 40, Rue Cortambert, Paris (1905)

   The photograph Bichonnade, 40, Rue Cortambert, Paris (1905) (above) is perplexing. It looks like the photographer has asked a complicatedly-dressed young woman to jump off of the stairs for a picture. And it's not just a couple of stairs, it's like six or seven, and in the picture the woman looks like she is flying. At the turn of the 20th century, when photography was still a highly exclusive activity, left to professional practitioners and serious amateurs, who would have taken a picture like this?  The answer is a curious, pre-pubescent, affluent boy named Jacques Henri Lartigue. In a time when not many eleven-year-olds had access to photography, Lartigue's pictures stand out in the history of photography for their precociousness and their desire to make the world float.

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La habitación de los Sueños 

Where Children Sleep (2010) by James Mollison

The weekly supplement Semenal to the newspaper El Pais in Spain continues to advocate for children's right around the world (see earlier post) this week with a portfolio from photographer James Mollison. The diptychs presented in the article come from Mollison's newest monograph called Where Children Sleep, published by Chris Boot in 2010. About the work Mollison states, "My thinking was that the bedroom pictures would be inscribed with the children's material and cultural circumstances; the details that inevitably mark people apart from each other."

 

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Jean-Luc Mylayne at the Museo Reina Sophia 

No. 284, February-March 2004

November 19 - April 4, 2011. Palacio de Velázquez. Parque del Buen Retiro

Currently on exhibit in the Palacio De Velazquez, a recently-renewed exhibition hall from the 1880's, are the elusive and magical images of Jean-Luc Mylayne. Mylayne's instinctual desire to photograph something as simple as a bird is unusually deep. For over thirty years he has been going to great lengths to communicate that even the most common robin or bluebird exists in a different, better world than we do.

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Voix Pictures: A Modern Independent Agency  

Voix Pictures out of Zaragoza, Spain follows the traditional model of news photography agency, but aims to serve more than just news outlets. They have (or are attempting to) combine[d] multidisciplinary skill sets in hope of serving a wider client base, all the while keeping in mind their goals as humanist documentary photographers. I recently asked them a few questions:

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The Internet and Collectives from a Spanish Perspective: Rafa Alcacer  

Image from the portfolio of Rafa Alcacer

Since I have moved to Madrid, I have been tring to get a sense of what the photography community is like here. It is in this attempt that I came upon the work of Rafa Alcacer the internet collective he belongs to, Strange.rs.

First, Tell me a little about yourself

I'm married and the father of a 6 year old girl. I don't make a living out of photography.

 

Tell me what you think about photography on the internet and where it might be going

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Fashion Photography Favored in Madrid  

Installation view of Todo O Nada in Madrid

 

Juergen Teller

"Calves and Thighs"

Sala Alcala 31

Madrid, Spain

June 9 – Sept. 19, 2010

Mario Testino

"Todo o Nada"

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

Sept. 21 – Jan. 9, 2010

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Infancia 

Isabel Muñoz, "Infancia," Caixa Forum, Madrid, Spain.

Sept. 16, 2010 – Jan. 15, 2011

Marking the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of a Child, an ambitious photographic survey is now on view at the Caixa Forum in Madrid. The exhibition uses articles from the official UNICEF framework—that states that all children, no matter what the nationality have the same rights—as a platform to advocate for disenfranchised children around the world.

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Photo-Bookworks Symposium at Visual Studies Workshop 

July 1-3 Visual Studies Workshop
Rochester, NY

The following is a brief conversation with Tate Shaw, director of the Visual Studies Workshop, in regards to the upcoming Photo- Bookworks Symposium.

What is the goal of the Symposium?
A few years ago we started recognizing that a lot of photographers were using print-on-demand services to make books, rather than portfolios, to present their work. But many of these photographers aren't thinking enough about sequencing, pacing, or the possibilities for different materials to support their ideas. The goal of the symposium is to expand the potential for the photo book-as-art within a new production generation--in an era with access to print-on-demand and desktop publishing--in order to educate on the distinctive time/space art of the photo-bookwork.

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