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| John Stezaker, Muse (Film Portrait Collage) XVIII, 2012 |
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.)
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.
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| John Stezaker, Siren Song V, 2011
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| 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.
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| Pieter Hugo, Yakubu Al Hasan, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana,
2009
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| 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.
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| Rinko Kawauchi, Untitled, from the series Illuminance, 2009 |
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| 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.
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| Christopher Williams, Bläsing G 2000, Bläsing GmbH, Essen, Model: Christoph Boland, 15 November, 2010
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| Christopher Williams, Fachhochschule Aachen,
Fachbereich Gestaltung, Studiengang: Visuelle Kommunikation, Fotolabor
für Studenten, Boxgraben 100, Aachen, 8 November, 2010
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