Sunday 15 July 2012

Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2012 - Photographers' Gallery

John Stezaker, Muse (Film Portrait Collage) XVIII, 2012
Work by the artists shortlisted for the 2012 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize is on display at The Photographers' Gallery until 9 September 2012. The artists are: Pieter Hugo, Rinko Kawauchi, John Stezaker and Christopher Williams. 
Read Sean O'Hagan's review of the exhibition; O'Hagan suggests that Stezaker is a stronger contender for the award. Trouble may follow if he wins: that one of the most prestigious British awards for photography, hosted by the leading British photography gallery, might go to an artist who isn't actually a photographer, could cause disgruntlement in some quarters! (See also earlier post, below.)
The brief biographies below are from The Photographers' Gallery website.

John Stezaker (b.1949, UK) 
Nominated for his exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (29 January – 18 March 2011).Stezaker's collages examine our multi-faceted relationship to the image. Through his juxtapositions of found photographs, illustrations and stills taken from books, magazines, vintage postcards and classic movies, Stezaker adopts the content and contexts of the original images to convey new and often poignant meanings.
John Stezaker, Siren Song V, 2011
John Stezaker, Misfit: Marriage (Film Portrait Collage) XLIV, 2010
Pieter Hugo (b.1976, South Africa)
Nominated for his publication Permanent Error, published by Prestel (Germany, 2011).
Permanent Error centres on a vast dumping ground for technological waste on the outskirts of Ghana’s capital city Accra, and the young slum-dwellers whose survival depends on processing and burning this discarded material.
Hugo's photographs of this bleak landscape question the ethics of our rapid consumption of ever-new technology and its hidden consequences.
Pieter Hugo, Yakubu Al Hasan, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana, 2009
Pieter Hugo, Untitled, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana, 2009
Rinko Kawauchi (b.1972, Japan)
Nominated for her publication Illuminance, published by Editions Xavier Barral (France, 2011).
Hailed for her ability to turn the mundane into the extraordinary and poetic, Kawauchi's work explores themes of life, death and the everyday.
Illuminance, the result of both commissions and personal projects, spans fifteen years of her practice. Using a soft palette of colours and masterful composition and editing skills, her images evoke moments of dreams, memory and temporality.

Rinko Kawauchi, Untitled, from the series Illuminance, 2009
Rinko Kawauchi, Untitled, from the series Illuminance, 2007
Christopher Williams (b.1956, USA)
Nominated for his exhibition Kapitalistischer Realismus at Dům umění České Budějovice, Budweis, Czech Republic (5 May – 12 June 2011).
Williams has been creating images of cameras, models, vehicles and other technical apparatus for the last forty years. Alluding to and borrowing from the world of advertising, his conceptual approach continuously questions our understanding of reality as reflected and communicated to us through photographs.
Christopher Williams, Bläsing G 2000, Bläsing GmbH, Essen, Model: Christoph Boland, 15 November, 2010
Christopher Williams, Fachhochschule Aachen, Fachbereich Gestaltung, Studiengang: Visuelle Kommunikation, Fotolabor für Studenten, Boxgraben 100, Aachen, 8 November, 2010

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