Blogs

The National Gallery has a number of events around its Seduced by Art: Photography Past and Present exhibition which runs from 31 October 2012 - 20 January 2013.

• 27 October there is a colloquium in the exhibition space in the Sainsbury Wing on Level -2. Numbers are very limited and by invitation only.    
• 1 November, Hope Kingsley, co-curator, will give a free lunchtime lecture in the Sainsbury Wing lecture theatre: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/calendar/lunchtime-talk-1-november-2012
• 9 November Chris Riopelle and Hope Kingsley will be 'in conversation' 
• 14 November at the Courtauld is a free research seminar. This is not bookable so arrival early to secure a place. http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/events/2012/autumn/nov14_HistPhoto.shtml
• There will also be artist's talks and workshops on other dates 

Full details are available below and further events will be added throughout the exhibition's run.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/seduced-by-art-photography-past-and-present/*/tab/2 

I have attached an article on William England I wrote for the current issue of “Stereo World” magazine. Please have a look at it –  maybe you can help answer some questions.

Article reproduced by kind permission of http://www.stereoworld.org/

Thanks and best regards

Gerlind

Stereo%20World_Wm%20England.pdf

Expanded Photographies is a two-day symposium exploring ideas of photographic technology, notions of 'expanded' practice and rethinking photography within this context. It takes place on 25-26 October at Southampton Solent University. Amongst the speakers is Charlotte Cotton. See: http://www.expandedphotographies.com

Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales and the European Centre for Photographic Research (eCPR), University of Wales, Newport are pleased to announce a series of free lectures reflecting on photography and the Museum. To launch the series, leading Spanish artist Joan Fontcuberta, reflects on his edited anthology ‘Photography - Crisis in History’ of 2002 on 17 October 2012. The book explored the significant challenges of producing histories or archaeologies of photography. For this lecture he will offer a fresh perspective - 10 years on - of these complex relationships in a new age outlined by the internet and digital culture.

With nearly four decades of dedication to photography, Fontcuberta has developed artistic and theoretical work that focuses on conflicts between nature, technology, photography and truth. The lecture series accompanies a major project being undertaken by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales to work on its rich and diverse historic photographic collections – a project made possible through a major gift from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. 

In partnership with the eCPR, at University of Wales Newport, the lecture series will reflect the exciting work that the Museum is undertaking from 2012 to 2015.

A full programme of forthcoming lectures will be available shortly.

For further partner details visit:
http://www.newport.ac.uk/research/ResearchGroups/ecpr/Pages/eCPR.aspx
http://www.museumwales.ac.uk

Doors to the Reardon Smith Lecture Theatre open from 5.15
The event is FREE but booking is essential as places are limited.
To reserve your place, please email: Historic.Photography@museumwales.ac.uk

Photography is an art form of modern times, but it also arises from artistic traditions that long predate its advent. The new National Gallery exhibition, Seduced by Art: Photography Past and Present, is a three-way project which argues that historical art was an engine for early photographic invention, and that both those precedents inspire today’s photography.

This exhibition takes a different tack to surveys of well-known relationships between fine art and photography. This is not a review of photography’s many ruptures with the past, nor does it inventory the coincidences with contemporaneous art, whether Pre-Raphaelite, impressionist, or surrealist. Photography’s debt to historical art is more than imitation or homage; historicism validates new art in the conventional terms of the old. Seduced by Art aims to develop an artistic dialogue between past and present, and this seminar will address that axis with an introduction to the exhibition.

Details can be found here.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Modernism and Modernity - The circle of photographers Gustave Le Gray (1850-1860) - details of which can be found here.

The photograph was just ten years ago, when a generation of men and women under the umbrella of Gustave Le Gray, painter, chemist, "photographiste" inventor sets a new artistic language in complete break with the traditions inherited from Renaissance.

Accommodated in a large house phalanstery limits of Paris by a benevolent master, these practitioners of the new art lovers from the aristocracy or the bourgeoisie easy for most, design instinct irrevocable identity of the new medium. As in the construction of images in the treatment of the subject, their recognizable style allows the concept of school. In this period so fruitful beginnings of the Second Empire (1850-1860), well before the daring celebrated impressionism, photographers circle Le Gray will foreshadow the revolutionary vision of the next century.

They shed new light on the works of Henri Secq, Charles Adrien Tournachon or Negro, Anne and Marc Mondenard Pagneux, with access to public and private collections of the most prestigious, reveal a body recently discovered unpublished authors: the revelation of the production and Count Alphonse Delaunay Du Manoir disrupts long fixed hierarchy. Linking parts and unknown masterpieces found in 193 events can be held about one argued. A directory of authors, due to Vincent Rouby, brings an amount of new information that will identify future appearances ...

The authors, historians and critics of the photograph "primitive" by their texts thematic profiles, engage in uninhibited reading the origins of photography.

Media Space's Gala Opening has been put back to June - on a day yet to be confirmed - according to information published by the Science Museum for its Patrons. The brochure notes: 

Media Space gala opening
Date to be confirmed
Join us for the gala opening of our new flagship gallery. Using the unrivalled collections of the National Media Museum, Media Space will present photographers’ and artists’ perspectives on science, technology, photography and visual media through a rich programme of exhibitions and events.

This represents a change from the previously published March or 'Spring' opening previously publicised.

BPH exclusively published the first photograph of Media Space recently (http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/michael-wilson-honoured-and-media-space-revealed) 

In 1889, upon returning from a trip home and after finishing his term working for his brother-in-law in Lucknow, Bremner set up on his own in Karachi. Over the years he based himself in studios from Karachi to Lahore during the winter, moving to mountainous towns such as Simla during the stifling summers.

Like many commercial photographers in India he relied on portraiture to keep his business operating on a day-to-day basis but he still found time to complete personal projects. In 1900, he produced a collection of photographs called ‘Baluchistan Illustrated’, showing the diversity of the landscape and local customs. Several of his photographs depict apparently everyday scenes, although on closer inspection many are artfully arranged compositions.

Bremner produced several photographs of Indian artisans at work which hint at the abundance of material wealth that placed India at the heart of Britain’s colonial economy. Such images satisfied the huge interest in the subcontinent that had been fuelled by the International Exhibitions of London (1886) and Glasgow (1888). Displaying a rich selection of art wares, fabrics, carpeting, carved furniture and curiosities, these major events catered to the European consumer’s conception of India. The 1888 Exhibition, which included demonstrations by native craftsmen, presented Victorian Glaswegians with the opportunity to observe at close quarters some of the more ‘exotic’ subjects of their Empire.

Throughout his travels Bremner was struck by the expanse of the Indian landscape. His photographs often used the familiar European visual language of the Picturesque, nowhere more so than in Kashmir. Travelling there in 1896, he was following in the footsteps of poets, artists and early photographers. Like countless others before him he compared the scenery to that of Switzerland, writing: ‘Switzerland is without the charm of oriental life, the quaint manners and customs of the people . . . which all add to the attractions of a trip to the Valley of Kashmir’.

Details of the exhibition can be found here. On 8th November, Sheila Asante, Migration Stories Curator, gives an insight into this photographic display which explores the work of Bremner and his forty years working on the Indian subcontinent.

Since 1978 the History and Archives department of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie (DGPh) has given an award that recognises scientific research into the history and theory of photography. A call for the 2012 award has been made.  

The Erich Stenger Award was initially aimed exclusively at published books, it was transformed into an advancement award in 1981.

 Its present reorientation as the DGPh Research Award for the History of Photography emphasizes the award’s international, broadly-based orientation to all elements of the photographic. Besides traditional history and theory of photography, topical areas are thereby also addressed that deal with photography’s societal significance and the traces that it has left behind, beyond its own object, in societal life.

The award is aimed at researchers from all fields of the humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences whose scientific work represents an autonomous, innovative, and original contribution to these areas.

Applications and manuscripts for the DGPh Research Award for the History of Photography may be submitted in either English or German. It is possible to divide the award into two halves. Allocation will be the decision of an expert jury, whose decision will be published. The jury may hand the award to one applicant or to two applicants in equal parts. The jury’s decision will be final and binding.

The award is worth a total of 3,000 Euro and will be handed over at a public ceremony.

Required submissions:

• a completed manuscript in paper form () and in electronic file form (pdf). 
• The final date for submissions is 1 December 2012 (date of postmark). Recipient’s address is: Geschäftsstelle der DGPh (Overstolzenhaus, Rheingasse 8-12, D-50676 Cologne, dgph@dgph.de).

To be enclosed with the application:

• An abstract of the submitted work (approx. 3,500 keystrokes), including information regarding the status of the manuscript (dissertation, research project – funded or not funded), essay (accepted in specialist magazine or not accepted); is there already a publisher for this manuscript (target publication date); has publication of the manuscript already been funded by another body?
• A Curriculum Vitae (résumé)
• A list of publications

More information about the German Photographic Society: www.dgph.de

Did you know that the ground where Brent Cross Shopping Centre (in London NW4) is currently situated was once the chemical works site of Johnsons of Hendon?

Johnsons of Hendon Limited began with a goldsmith named Richard Wright with a business in 1743 in Maiden Lane in the City. John Johnson took over the business and was the first independent Assayer in the City. In 1839 Johnson and Sons began making chemical salts of silver and gold for Fox Talbot’s photographic process.

The photographic chemical side of the business grew rapidly and in 1927 the offices and warehouse were moved from Finsbury (23, Cross Street, Finsbury, London E.C) to Hendon. The company became so closely identified with the district and its address (their Head Office and Chemical Works were located at 335, Hendon Way, London, NW4) that in 1948 the company name was officially changed from Johnson and Sons, Manufacturing Chemists Ltd; to Johnsons of Hendon Limited.

You can read more of it here and here.

DCMS has released visitor numbers broken down by month for various UK museums for financial years from 2004/5 to 2011/12. BPH has published these in the past.  These have been put together in an accessible form and are available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbdEpQUFZHUC0yYUtXUHZxczFIc0NBSHc#gid=5

The figures for the first few months of 2012 appear to show an increase in numbers compared to 2011 reflecting the opening of the new Life Online gallery. 

The National Media Museum numbers are shown below: 

The Black Star Collection of approximately 292,000 black and white photographs is one of the world’s most significant collections of photojournalism. Tracing the social and political history of the 20th century, the iconic images were gifted to Ryerson University by an anonymous donor. The Black Star Collection now makes its home at the Ryerson Image Centre (RIC), Toronto's newest cultural destination.

The collection includes spectacular images of famous figures from every avenue of life (Marilyn Monroe, Fidel Castro, Muhammad Ali, Marc Chagall, etc.) as well as photo essays documenting key historic events of the past century, such as the Great Wars, the Spanish Civil War, the American Civil Rights era and the Vietnam War.

New York’s Black Star Agency commissioned the images for publications that defined 20th century journalism, including Life, Look, The Saturday Evening Post, The New York Times, Time and Newsweek. The agency worked with some of the most influential photographers in the history of photography: the father of modern photojournalism, Henri Cartier-Bresson, legendary war photographer Robert Capa, Britain’s famed Bill Brandt and the early 20th century female photographer Germaine Krull among many others.

“The Black Star Collection forms a valuable repository of collective global memory,” says John Isbister, Interim Provost and Vice President Academic, Ryerson University. “The Black Star Collection — the single largest gift of cultural property ever made to a Canadian university — has allowed us to build our Centre on a foundation that will lead to years of cutting edge scholarly research and creative activity.”

The story of The Black Star Agency is fascinating in and of itself. In 1935, Ernest Mayer, owner of the Berlin-based Mauritius photo agency, fled Nazi Germany, bringing with him some 5,000 images to New York. Together with fellow émigrés Kurt Safranski, a literary editor, and Kurt Kornfeld, a literary agent, he created The Black Star Agency, located in the Graybar building near Grand Central Station. The Black Star Agency went on to represent major photographers documenting cultural, social and political history.

Ryerson University has been entrusted with preserving this historic visual archive, and making the photographs accessible to the public through exhibition and publication. The Black Star Collection - the “raison d'être” of the RIC, as Doina Popescu, Director of the Ryerson Image Centre, puts it - already functions as muse to Canadian artists and image makers. The Ryerson Image Centre’s grand opening exhibition, Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection, features the multi-disciplinary response of internationally renowned Canadian artists Stephen Andrews, Christina Battle, Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Stan Douglas, Vera Frenkel, Vid Ingelevics, David Rokeby and Michael Snow, to the collection. Reflecting on their respective processes of working with the Black Star Collection, each of the artists has also produced six artist pages for the exhibition catalogue. Their interpretations bring new and contemporary meaning to the powerful, historic Black Star Collection.

Co-curated by Doina Popescu, Director of the Ryerson Image Centre, and Peggy Gale, Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection opens on September 29, 2012 to December 16, 2012

New works by Stephen Andrews, Christina Battle, Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Stan Douglas, Vera Frenkel, Vid Ingelevics, David Rokeby and Michael Snow inspired by the Black Star Collection at Ryerson University.
Curated by Doina Popescu and Peggy Gale. 

Ryerson Image Centre: 33 Gould Street, Toronto, Canada

Admission to The Ryerson Image Centre is free.
www.ryerson.ca/ric

Image: Charles Moore; Reproduction from the Black Star Collection at Ryerson University. Courtesy of the Ryerson Image Centre

Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection is made possible through the generous support of the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Ryerson University, the Goethe-Institut Toronto, Partners in Art, The Howard and Carole Tanenbaum Family Charitable Foundation, and The Paul J. Ruhnke Memorial Fund.

The Ryerson Image Centre (RIC), a new public gallery in the heart of the city, has opened heralding the transformation of Gould Street into a public cultural destination and a pedestrian-friendly environment, complete with the Ryerson Image Centre art gallery, adjacent park with pond and rock garden, Balzac's café, outdoor patio, trees, and a car-free street.

The RIC is part of Ryerson University's major city-building initiative in the core of downtown Toronto – Canada's economic, academic, research and cultural capital. The RIC is located in the new Image Arts Building, designed by Toronto-based Diamond Schmitt Architects, one of the world’s top ten design firms for the cultural building sector.

The Image Arts Building is a rare example of a building that is digitally programmable, making the structure itself a work of art as the public and artists can program the illuminated glass walls transforming Toronto’s night time skyline. The building also features the Salah J. Bachir New Media Wall, a unique grid of arts-dedicated LED screens that are visible from the street. “The Ryerson Image Centre is an international academic facility for teaching, research and exhibitions, but it is also a terrific opportunity to make so many of Ryerson’s holdings - amazing images and works of art - accessible to the public,” said Sheldon Levy, President of Ryerson University. “We are thrilled to be opening this new gallery in the heart of our campus, in the heart of our city.”

The inaugural exhibition, Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection, co-curated by Doina Popescu, Director of the Ryerson Image Centre, and Peggy Gale, features new work by eight of Canada’s foremost artists. Internationally-renowned Canadian contemporary artists Stephen Andrews, Christina Battle, Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Stan Douglas, Vera Frenkel, Vid Ingelevics, David Rokeby and Michael Snow have each created new work, commissioned for the grand opening of the Ryerson Image Centre and inspired by the Black Star Collection at Ryerson University.

The RIC grand opening also features an exhibition of works by current students and recent alumni of the School of Image Arts, entitled The Art of the Archive, curated by Gaëlle Morel, Exhibitions Curator at the Ryerson Image Centre. The Ryerson Image Centre brings an exciting new voice to the arts dialogue in Toronto and across the country. Exhibitions and public programs that reflect highly relevant contemporary themes speak to and welcome people from many different walks of life, part of a growing trend toward creative inclusion and openness that will bring the world to Toronto.

Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection is made possible through the generous support of the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Ryerson University, the Goethe-Institut Toronto, Partners in Art, The Howard and Carole Tanenbaum Family Charitable Foundation, and The Paul J. Ruhnke Memorial Fund. Ryerson Image Centre Grand Opening Saturday, September 29, 2012 7 p.m. to Sunday, September 30, 2012 7 a.m. Part of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection New works by Stephen Andrews, Christina Battle, Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Stan Douglas, Vera Frenkel, Vid Ingelevics, David Rokeby and Michael Snow inspired by the Black Star Collection at Ryerson University. Curated by Doina Popescu and Peggy Gale. September 29 - December 16, 2012 Admission is free. Ryerson Image Centre: 33 Gould Street (one block northeast of Yonge and Dundas), Toronto, Ontario, Canada www.ryerson.ca/ric