Michael Pritchard's Posts (2976)

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To provide opportunities for early-career training for PhD students, the V&A has made available a range of doctoral placements based in collections departments, archives, the National Art Library, research, and collections care and access. Each placement is a discrete project designed by members of V&A staff (who will also act as the placement’s supervisor), involving collaborative as well as independent research.

The RPS Medical Group was founded in 1946. While the Group continues to exist, its collection of an estimated 4,000 photographs and archival papers, dating from the 1910 until the 1990s, now forms part of the V&A RPS collection.

The collection appears to have been formed as a resource for teaching and research, a record of technical advances, a platform for the recognition of photographers and hospital photography units, and as a visual record of surgical procedures, medical conditions and pathology.

The collection has a UK focus, with works by key practitioners such as the Group’s founder, Rosalind Maingot (1894-1947) and radiographer John Arthur Fairfax Fozzard (1905-93). It also contains the work of photographic departments including St Bartholomew's, Royal Free, St Thomas’ and Guy’s hospitals in London.
The collection contains some sensitive and graphic imagery. Ethical considerations will be a key factor in considering approaches to its cataloguing, research and dissemination. The student would be expected to seek advice from the V&A terminology group and experts outside of the museum sector.

The main tasks are to survey the material and its physical condition, categorization and organization, to organize and rehouse items in appropriate storage, research and write a summary and to catalogue a selection of the holdings.

This is an unpaid doctoral placement that is financially supported by the successful applicant’s PhD stipend in line with UKRI guidance.

See: https://vam.current-vacancies.com/Jobs/Advert/3519937?cid=3279&rsid=24732&js=0&LinkType=1&FromSearch=False

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To provide opportunities for early-career training for PhD students, the V&A has made available a range of doctoral placements based in collections departments, archives, the National Art Library, research, and collections care and access. Each placement is a discrete project designed by members of V&A staff (who will also act as the placement’s supervisor), involving collaborative as well as independent research.

The project will investigate holdings related to Latin America in the V&A Photography Collection. It will focus on objects acquired between 1850 and 1950, to situate findings in the context of early global networks and institutional connections to Latin America that can be mapped through photography. Many relevant holdings feature in bound photographic albums from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which are largely uncatalogued and undigitised. Other relevant holdings include topographical imagery, travel photographs and photographs of Latin American artefacts, as well as work by well-known photographers from the 20th century.

The placement will produce a survey of holdings related to Latin America in the Photography Collection, outlining historical context, scope and content. It will create a findings list for uncatalogued objects; and undertake more detailed provenance and object-level research for a defined group of material, resulting in new or enhanced catalogue records. The student will be encouraged and supported to write a blog post and lead a Print Room event relating to their work.

The project builds on momentum across the V&A to engage with Latin America. It will contribute new ways of thinking through institutional histories, and ripen collections for use in the Photography Section’s contemporary commissioning programme.

This is an unpaid doctoral placement that is financially supported by the successful applicant’s PhD stipend in line with UKRI guidance.

See: https://vam.current-vacancies.com/Jobs/Advert/3515597?cid=3279&rsid=24732&js=0&LinkType=1&FromSearch=False

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To provide opportunities for early-career training for PhD students, the V&A has made available a range of doctoral placements based in collections departments, archives, the National Art Library, research, and collections care and access. Each placement is a discrete project designed by members of V&A staff (who will also act as the placement’s supervisor), involving collaborative as well as independent research.

The V&A has recently acquired a collection of over 2,000 photographs by Bert Hardy (1913-95). Hardy was chief photographer for Picture Post magazine from 1941 to 1957. His work represents a highpoint of 20th century British photography and international photojournalism. The photographs in the acquisition span his entire career and consists mostly of vintage prints and some Kodachrome slides. The V&A seeks a student to work with Photography Curators on cataloguing the collection on a database and to organise, number, sleeve and box the photographs. The student will also be expected research a specific aspect of the collection that links with their interests.

This is an unpaid doctoral placement that is financially supported by the successful applicant’s PhD stipend in line with UKRI guidance. full time

Details: https://vam.current-vacancies.com/Jobs/Advert/3519915?cid=3279&rsid=24732&js=0&LinkType=1&FromSearch=False

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Newcastle's Side Gallery - update

12201226483?profile=RESIZE_400xSide Gallery which had temporarily closed last year and was under threat of permanent closure (see here) having lost its Arts Council National Portfolio status and funding has provided an update of its position. In 2023 is secured over £50,000 as part of a Crowdfunding exercsie and it has just been awarded a £236,000 grant by The heritage Fund which 'secures our building for the next year, which will allow us to host pop-up exhibitions and do comprehensive cataloguing.'

Side's statement sent to those who had supported its Crowdfunder says: 

When we last emailed you in March we had several exciting updates to share about the collection, however, the future of Side Gallery was still uncertain… 
We had one final funding application under review, which if not won would mean the permanent closure of the Side Gallery. 
I am pleased to announce that we have been awarded a £236,000 grant by The Heritage Fund thanks to National Lottery players. 
This grant secures our building for the next year, which will allow us to host pop-up exhibitions and do comprehensive cataloguing.
But this grant isn’t just about the gallery, it’s much bigger.
This means exploring new partnerships and ensuring we are more connected to working photographers and the North East arts community. 

This grant will enable us to run a 12-month project that includes:

  • Expanding our team (new roles to be announced soon)
  • Business & Resilience Development
  • Creating new exhibitions representing many viewpoints, nurturing an inclusive culture
  • Exploring new ways to collaborate with new artists, audiences and lifelong supporters. 
  • A comprehensive, publicly accessible catalogue of the AmberSide Collection

The grant puts us on the path to reopening the gallery, but we not going back to business as usual; instead, we are forging a new direction that is mindful of our original principles.

We have a long way to go, but we would not have made it this far without you
Your donation to #SaveSide allowed us to protect the collection and gallery space and spend time creating the highest-quality funding applications. 
Thanks to you and the 2,000 others who care deeply about telling North Eash stories we #SavedSide. 

We’ll share updates and stories from the project along the way, and can’t wait to see what this next chapter brings for the collection and photography in the North East. 

All the best, 

Laura Laffler

Amber Film & Photography Collective

See: https://www.amber-online.com/side-gallery/

 

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Acclaimed British photographer Roger Mayne (1929–2014) was famous for his evocative documentary images of young people growing-up in Britain in the mid-1950s and 1960s. This exhibition, of around sixty almost exclusively vintage photographs, includes many of his iconic street images of children and teenagers, alongside an almost entirely unknown selection of intimate and moving later images of his own family at home in Dorset, as well as those taken on his honeymoon in Spain in 1962.

Self-taught and influential in the acceptance of photography as an art form, Mayne was passionate about photographing human life as he found it. This is the first exhibition of his work since 2017.

Roger Mayne: Youth
14 June-1 September 2024
Denise Coates Exhibition Galleries
London, The Courtauld
See: https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/exh-roger-mayne-youth/

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12633103699?profile=RESIZE_400xThe photographs in this exhibition do not depict rare or special things. They show toothpaste, tombstones, and hats. But these familiar trappings of everyday life will be, at times, unrecognizable—so altered by the camera as to constitute something entirely new. Enticing consumers with increasingly experimental approaches to the still life genre, the photographs featured transform everyday objects into covetable commodities. The camera abstracts them from functional use, at times distorting them through dizzying perspectives and modulations of scale. Spanning the first century of photographic advertising, the exhibition will illustrate how commercial camerawork contributed to the visual language of modernism, suggesting new links between the promotional strategies of vernacular studios and the tactics of the interwar avant-garde. Corporate commissions by celebrated innovators, including Paul Outerbridge, August Sander, and Piet Zwart, will appear alongside obscure catalogues and trade publications, united by a common cause: to snatch the ordinary out of context, and sell it back at full price.

The Real Thing: Unpackaging Product Photography
until 4 August 2024
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
See: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/the-real-thing-unpackaging-product-photography

Image: Anton Bruehl (American (born Australia), Hawker 1900–1982 San Francisco, California)

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12630108489?profile=RESIZE_400xWith the most extensive retrospective of her photography yet staged in the UK, Tate Britain celebrates Lee Miller as one of the 20th century's most urgent artistic voices.

First exposed to a camera by working in front of it, Miller was one of the most sought-after models of the late 1920s. She quickly stepped behind the lens, becoming a leading figure in the avant-garde scenes in New York, Paris, London and Cairo.

The exhibition will showcase Miller’s extraordinary career, from her participation in French surrealism to her fashion and war photography. Exploring her artistic collaborations, the exhibition will also shed light on lesser-known sides of her practice, such as her remarkable images of the Egyptian landscape in the 1930s.

With around 250 vintage and modern prints, including those never previously displayed, the exhibition reveals Miller's poetic vision and fearless spirit.

Determined to forge her own path, she later commented, ‘It was a matter of getting out on a damn limb and sawing it off behind you.’

Lee Miller
Tate Britain
2 October 2025 – 15 February 2026
https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/lee-miller

Image:  Lee Miller, Model with lightbulb, Vogue Studio, London, England c.1943. © Lee Miller Archives, England 2024. All rights reserved. leemiller.co.uk

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12629995497?profile=RESIZE_400xTate Modern, London, has given advance notice of a new exhibition Global Pictorialism which will run from 4 December 2025-25 May 2026. It is being developed and researched by the Tate's new photography curator Charmaine Toh.  Discover how pictorialism, the first international art photography movement, developed across the world from the 1880s to the 1960s.

Bringing together over fifty artists from Shanghai to Sydney, New York to Cape Town and Brazil to Singapore, this truly international exhibition takes a fresh and inclusive look at the history of art photography. Featuring never-before seen works from around the world alongside pieces from Tate’s Collection, Global Pictorialism highlights the vast and varied artistic possibilities of photography as a medium.

Global Pictorialism
4 December 2025-25 May 2026
London, Tate Modern
https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/global-pictorialism

Image: Luo Bonian, Drawing Water from a Well series, May 1932 ©️Luo Bonian, Courtesy of Luo Bonian Art Foundation and Three Shadows +3 Gallery

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12615017252?profile=RESIZE_400xThe Bill Douglas Cinema Museum in Exeter has announced the inaugural Stephen Herbert Award, which will enable a researcher to come to the museum to consult the museum's early cinema or optical media holdings. The award is named after the much loved and hugely influential film historian Stephen Herbert, who died last year. The award has been kindly gifted to us in Stephen’s name by his partner Mo Heard and we welcome applications that focus on the areas that particularly excited Stephen; the optical media that preceded cinema, such as magic lanterns, illusions, stereoscopes, and animated toys, and the first couple of decades of cinema history in the 1890s and early twentieth century. Material collected by Stephen has been donated to the museum recently, such as his work on magic mirrors and the pioneer Wordsworth Donisthorpe. Applicants could consult these items, or any of the other extensive holdings at the museum from a variety of donors on moving images from the 17th century up to around 1918. Go to www.bdcmuseum.org.uk for more information on our collections.

The award is for up to £500 and we particularly welcome applications from early career scholars or from independent researchers who might otherwise find it difficult to afford to visit Exeter. The monies are to be used for travel and accommodation costs incurred while visiting the Museum to undertake significant research that will be enhanced by access to our collections. Proposed research should contribute to publications or other demonstrable outcomes, such as films or artworks. Successful applicants will be required to write a blog post for the museum’s website about their research following their visit.

See more and apply: https://www.bdcmuseum.org.uk/news/the-stephen-herbert-award/

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A new blog discusses the University of Cambridge 1897 vote on whether to allow women the titles of their degrees, and looks at the photographs that recorded extraordinary scenes.  The vote (Spoiler alert) went badly against the women and it was not until 1948 that women were finally admitted to full membership of the University. A day and night of riotous celebrations by the male undergraduates followed. Shop windows were broken, a giant bonfire was lit in the Market Square and fuelled with pillaged shutters and any other wood that the students could lay their hands on.

The extraordinary scenes of 21 May 1897 were captured by photographers stationed on rooftops and high places around the Senate House, where the voting took place. Photographs by Messrs Stearn on the Cambridge Digital Library capture the massed crowds and the excitement of the men spilling out of the Senate House after the result was announced. Of all the photographs, surely the most iconic is that of the crowd beneath the notorious effigy of a ‘new woman’ bicyclist in blue bloomers and pink bodice, suspended from a window above the Bowes & Macmillan (now Cambridge University Press) bookshop. The effigy was later pulled down and decapitated by the jubilant undergraduates.

Read the full blog and see the photographers here: https://specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=28325

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Presented at the André Malraux Museum of Modern Art – MuMa, the exhibition Photographing in Normandy (1840-1890). A pioneering dialogue between the arts aims to highlight the decisive role that Normandy played in the beginnings of photography. Exhibiting photographs on the occasion of the fifth edition of Normandie Impressionniste and especially for the 150th anniversary of the movement, makes perfect sense, as painting and photography have maintained close links, underpinned by a spirit of invention, of emulation and innovation which led to the renewal and multiplication of images in the nineteenth century.

The exhibition brings together masterpieces of painting and photography, from pioneers to the biggest names, including amateurs. Iconic works rub shoulders with rare or little-known works. The variety of formats and techniques allows us to understand the extraordinary technical abundance of these beginnings of photography. The paintings of Impressionist and pre-Impressionist painters come from the prestigious collections of the MuMa, the Musée d'Orsay, the Fine Arts museums of Amiens, Caen, Honfleur and Lyon (including Jongkind, among others). Courbet, Dubourg, Boudin, Pissarro, Monet …) alongside photographs by Hippolyte Bayard, Stéphanie Breton, Hippolyte Fizeau, Gustave Le Gray, Henri Le Secq, the Macaire and Warnod brothers, John Ruskin, William Henry Fox Talbot … Near two hundred works are to be discovered.

12614613057?profile=RESIZE_400xA field of experimentation and innovation for the greatest photographers since the 1840s, whether inventors or artists, Normandy is the ideal place to measure the reciprocal influence of the arts. Photography records a rich heritage whose fragility and importance we then measure, follows the progress of the transformation of the coasts by seaside architecture and the arrival of rich summer visitors, seeks the picturesqueness of the countryside, tackles the scenes of genre and maritime views very clearly asserting his artistic ambitions.

The period covered by the exhibition extends from the first years when photographic techniques were disseminated, until the dawn of a new era, that of cinema and the democratization of photography, notably via photo clubs. The animated image was then close to marking the end of the century, and the creation of photographic companies reflected the renewed accessibility to the process. The precursors, the professionals and enlightened amateurs are no longer the only creators of images. Another story begins.

Photographing in Normandy 1840-10890
25 May-22 September 2024
Details: https://www.muma-lehavre.fr/fr/expositions/photographier-en-normandie

Image: Alphonse DAVANNE, N°2 Etretat Left cliff , 1864, Print on albumen paper from glass negative, 24 x 31 cm. Paris - National Library of France

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We are pleased to invite you to the 2-day symposium Vestiges of Memory: Intersections between Photography and Autobiographical Memory held at the University for the Creative Arts in Canterbury on 18 – 19 July. Across two days, this research symposium sets out to explore new ways in which 21st century artists, photographic practitioners and other researchers interrogate, mine, imagine, respond to, question and reflect upon intersections between autobiographical memory photography.

Vestiges of Memory: Intersections between Photography & Autobiographical Memory
Thursday 18th July – Friday 19th July 2024
The University for the Creative Arts, Dover Road, Canterbury CT1 3AN Information, programme and registration: https://www.uca.ac.uk/events/research/vestiges-of-memory

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12568973856?profile=RESIZE_400xeidolon is delighted to announce the launch of its first international grant for projects which explore, promote and conserve vernacular photography. The deadline for submission is 30 August , and applications can be made under two categories, with a total of €25.000 to be distributed. The eidolon Grant is an international programme that is presented annually to artists, academics, professionals, researchers, collectors and vernacular photography enthusiasts whose past work and proposed project is centred around the image heritage of everyday photography.

The eidolon Grant aims to promote the recognition of vernacular photography and everyday imaging, and their relationship to ways of seeing. We seek to encourage the writing of texts that explore everyday imaging’s interesting aspects, and illuminate unfamiliar corners of this visual history that we all know and recreate daily. 
 
The eidolon Grant aims to identify phenomena, collections, histories, practices, and trends within vernacular photography with the aim of offering new interpretations and analyses. Thematising both photographic heritages and contemporary photographic practices is eidolon’s mission and we invite you to join us in this important exploration. Each chosen project will contribute to the enrichment of our institution's program in the coming year.
 

Details: https://everydayphotography.org/centre/grant#about

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12546548652?profile=RESIZE_400xVisual Arts Worcester (VAW) is honoured to host the British photographer Adam Fuss who will be in conversation with art historian Geoffrey Batchen. Adam Fuss is a contemporary British photographer. Known for his ethereal images created using a photogram technique in which objects are placed directly on light-sensitive painter, Fuss achieves a poetic sense of detachment and wonder throughout his work. As reviewed in The New Yorker: “A restlessly inventive photographer, Fuss has made some of the most exciting, mysterious and provocative images of the past twenty years.” Widely shown, his work is represented in many American and international collections, including: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Geoffrey Batchen is a specialist in the history of photography and taught art history in Australia, the United States and New Zealand before coming to the University of Oxford in 2020. He began his career as a curator, having edited art magazines, hosted a radio show, and published a variety of books.

In conversation with Adam Fuss and Geoffrey Batchen
Tuesday, 28 May 2024 at 1730

Free admission
Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre, Worcester College, Walton Street, OX1 2HB
Booking here: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/visual-arts-worcester/in-conversation-with-adam-fuss-and-geoffrey-batchen-free/e-zlgdde

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For the upcoming book 'Roaming Britain: Gypsy, Traveller, and nomadic communities in the British built environment', RIBA will be commissioning a photo essay from a photographer of Gypsy, Roma, or Traveller heritage. The photographs should reflect the subject of the book, but this is left open for interpretation.

The photographs will also be acquired into the RIBA Collections and will form part of a touring display organised by RIBA in collaboration with colleagues from the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A).

Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller photographers, from smartphone hobbyists to professionals, who are currently living in the UK are invited to apply. The successful candidate will be awarded £3,500 and will need to complete the work by Friday 20 December 2024. The completed body of work should consist of 10 to 15 images.

The commission is funded by RIBA thanks to the generosity of Donald and Nancy Notley.

Applicants should provide an outline of how they might approach the subject, as well as reasoning behind their chosen approach. Some themes they may want to consider, but are by no means required to, are:

  • interactions with public space
  • identity, tradition, and legacy
  • adaptation and resilience

Full details: https://www.architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/knowledge-landing-page/roaming-britain-open-call

Image: Photograph of Travellers’ encampment at Corke’s Meadow, St Mary Cray, London, by Reginald Hugo de Burgh Galwey, 1954 (Architectural Press Archive / RIBA Collections)

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Chicwick Auctions is to offer an archive of photographic works and personal effects of Wolfgang Suschitzky in an auction on 6 June 2024.  The material is desecribed as 'A large collection of negatives, transparencies, personal records, photographic equipment, and selection of photographs, dating between the 1960s and the early 2000s, many with Suschitzky's handwriting, captions, notes, and labels affixed to objects'. It is estimated at £1000-2000. 

19th & 20th Century Photographs
6 June 2024 at 11000
Details here

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12545790688?profile=RESIZE_400xLempertz auction house is offering a Lippmann interferential colour process self-portrait of Richard Neuhauss photograph dated 1901 in an auction on 4 June 2024. The lot is estimated at €6000-8000. A comparable piece can be found in the Albertina Museum in Vienna. Neuhauss was closely associated with the Lippmann process. 

 

Lot 501
DR. RICHARD NEUHAUSS
Blankenfelde 1855- 1915 Groß-Lichterfelde
Self portrait, 1901

Interferential photograph (Lippmann process). 6.9 x 4.7 cm (8.5 x 6.3 x 1.9 cm).. Signed, dated,
titled and inscribed "Lippmann's Verfahren" in ink on the verso.
Estimate € 6,000 - 8,000

Provenance
Private property, Northern Germany
Supplement:
Anonymous
Stufenfarbentafel (Agfa), not dated
Interferential color photography (Lippmann process)
6.7 x 8 x 1.5 cm

Read more here (Präsentationen_1246_lot 501_en.pdf)

Details: https://www.lempertz.com/en/catalogues/lot/1246-1/501-dr-richard-neuhauss.html

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12507377276?profile=RESIZE_400xThe British Library is seeking a cataloguer to work on an archive of modern architectural drawings, photographs and maps related to Hampi Vijayanagara, a UNESCO World Heritage site in south India.

This archive, known as the Vijayanagara Research Project, was formed by Dr John Fritz and Dr George Michell from 1986 to 2006 and features the work of a number of architectural historians who systematically documented the topography and archaeology of the site. These important archaeological records provide a chronological continuation of the Library's historical collections related to the site and acts as an important resource for researchers working on cultural heritage. The collections were donated to the British Library in 2016.

The post-holder will be required to arrange, catalogue, edit metadata as well as research and identify archaeological and architectural sites in South Asia in order to make the collection accessible to users.

See full details: https://www.vercida.com/uk/jobs/cataloguer-of-visual-arts-british-library-st-pancras

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12507236898?profile=RESIZE_400xDalkeithPhoto is an exciting new exhibition running at Dalkeith Palace from 8 September-6 October 2024. Featuring an exhibition of The Buccleuch Family Album Collection (first showing), work by Calum Colvin and RPS touring exhibition ~ Squaring the Circles on Neo Pictorialism ~ including Céline Bodin, Susan Derges, Joy Gregory, Takashi Arai, David and Angela Chalmers, Spencer Rowell, Tom Hunter, Ian Phillips McLaren and David George.

As part of this an impressive cast of expert speakers will be celebrating and exploring DalkeithPhoto, Neo Pictorialism and much more through presentations and conversation on Saturday, 7 September 2024. This symposium is a must for anyone interested in contemporary and historic photography.

With an introduction from Zelda Cheatle, photographer, curator and author and keynote speaker Sara Stevenson and talks from artists exhibiting in the accompanying exhibition Squaring the Circles: , the full symposium programme follows below.

Changing Ideals in Pictorial Photography. Pictorialism and the Royal Photographic Society. Michael Pritchard, Photo historian, Consultant

Constructed Photography. Exhibiting Scottish artist Calum Colvin in conversation with Squaring the Circle artists Tom Hunter and Spencer Rowell.

Cameraless Imagery and Early Printing Techniques. Artist Alex Hamilton in conversation with artists Susan Derges, Angela Chalmers and Joy Gregory.

Scottish Archives, Photographic Albums, Aristocracy and Collections. A conversation with Walter Dalkeith, Luke Gartlan and Alex Lindsay.

Keynote lecture: The Two-way Gaze: Scotland and the Invention of Social Documentary Photography. Sara Stevenson, photographic historian, writer and expert on early Scottish photography.

The Art and Application of the Daguerreotype.Takashi Arai, artist.

Tour of the Exhibition, the Interaction of Painting & Photography, Pictorialism and Neo Pictorialism with exhibiting Squaring the Circles artists Tom Hunter, David George and Celine Bodin.

Tickets are available priced £55pp. Tickets include refreshments and a light lunch.

Book here: https://www.dalkeithcountrypark.co.uk/event/dalkeithphoto-symposium/

Details of Dalkeith Photo2024 are here: https://www.dalkeithcountrypark.co.uk/event/dalkeithphoto/

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Peter Kennard is a London-based artist and activist, and Emeritus Professor of Political Art at the Royal College of Art. A new exhibition, Archive of Dissent, marks one of the most extensive displays of Peter Kennard’s work to date and has been specially conceived for Whitechapel Gallery. Taking over three galleries within the former Whitechapel Library space, the exhibition brings together work from across the artist’s prolific and influential five-decade career, offering an important repository of social and political history while illuminating an artistic practice that has continuously countered and protested the status quo.

Since the 1970s, Kennard has produced some of our most iconic and influential images of resistance and dissent. From the Vietnam War, Anti-Apartheid Movement, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), and Stop the War Coalition campaigns in the 2000s, through to the present wars in Ukraine and Gaza and his ongoing commitment to environmental activism, Kennard has developed a unique visual practice that bridges art and politics for a broad range of audiences.

Reflecting the history of the spaces’ former library function, Kennard’s proposition for the exhibition takes the form of an active and constantly evolving archive, much of which will be presented as printed material displayed on walls, placards, in vitrines or on lecterns. These include the newspapers where his images were first published, as well as the posters and books through which they continue to circulate.    

The exhibition delves into the artist’s process of making, beginning with a selection of the distinctive photomontages he has been making since the 1970s. Inspired by the work of John Heartfield (1891–1968), who pioneered montage as a political tool in the 1930s, Kennard’s montages deconstruct familiar and ubiquitous images and re-imagines them through different formats and scales of publication. The works not only serve to expose the relationship between power, capital, war and the destruction of planet Earth but also ‘to show new possibilities emerging from the cracks and splinters of the old reality’. 

Archive of Dissent also includes two of Kennard’s most recent and ambitious installations Boardroom (2023) and Double Exposure (2023) which use light, glass and projection to deconstruct the medium of photomontage, as well as a new work, The People’s University of the East End (2024). Taking its title from the colloquial name for the former Library space, the work draws attention to its original purpose as a democratic local resource, while continuing to harness and evoke the iconography and forms of protest.  

Peter Kennard comments: “My art erupts from outrage at the fact that the search for financial profit rules every nook and cranny of our society. Profit masks poverty, racism, war, climate catastrophe and on and on…Archive of Dissent brings together fifty years of work that all attempt to express that anger by ripping through the mask by cutting, tearing, montaging and juxtaposing imagery that we are all bombarded with daily. It shows what lies behind the mask: the victims, the resistance, the human communality saying ‘no’ to corporate and state power. It rails at the waste of lives caused by the trillions spent on manufacturing weapons and the vast profits made by arms companies.”

Peter Kennard - Archive of Dissent
23 July - 24 November 2024
London: Whitechapel Gallery
https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/peter-kennard-archive-of-dissent/

Image: Peter Kennard, Thatcher Unmasked, 1986, Photomontage – Gelatin silver prints with ink on card. a/political collection. Courtesy the artist.​

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