Photography - Competitions

The following photography competitions are waiting to be won:

• The Terry O'Neill Award - deadline 22nd October, 2010.

This competition invites the submission of between 3-6 images as an exhibition series. Images must fall into the criteria of reportage, fashion, documentary, landscape, wildlife, portraiture, or fine art photography. Terry O'Neill, himself, has an exhibition showing at the Richard Goodall Gallery in Manchester until16th October: Bardot, Bond, Beckham and Beyond: Photographs by Terry O'Neill.

Terry O'Neill, Brigitte Bardot

• Document 2011: The War on Want Photographic Award - deadline 12th April 2011.

The theme for this year’s competition is: The New Austerity: Surviving without a safety net. Last year's winner was Gareth Kingdon from University of Wales, Newport.

One of Gareth Kindon's winning pictures: Andrew's House, Kibera Slum, Nairobi, Kenya.

Et enfin, si vous savez comment prendre des photographies en Français, pourquoi ne pas essayer cette compétition?

• Prix HSBC pour la photographie - deadline 30th November 2010

Exhibition Roundup - October 2010

An occasional, and highly selective, pick of current and forthcoming exhibitions.

Klara Lidén, Self Portrait with the Keys to the City 2005 (See Serpentine, below)

The Liverpool Biennial continues through to 28th November. The theme is ‘Touched’, embracing the meanings both of physical contact and emotional effect. This is explored through a wide range of installations, events, talks and exhibitions (see website for full programme and map). Adrian Searle's review picks out the film work of Ryan Trecartin showing at 52 Renshaw Street as the highlight. The ‘Touched’ exhibition at Tate Liverpool features performance and interactivity in a show including: Magdalena Abakanowicz (Poland), Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan (Philippines), Nina Canell (Sweden), Wannes Goetschalckx (Belgium), Diango Hernández (Cuba), Jamie Isenstein (United States), Eva Kot’átková (Czech Republic), Otto Muehl (Austria), and Franz West (Austria). Concurrent with the Biennial in Liverpool are the Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2010 at The Coach Shed (18th Sept – 13th November) and the John Moores Painting Prize 2010 at the Walker Art Gallery (18th Sept. – 3rd Jan. 2011). (And the £25,000 winner is... Spectrum Jesus by Keith Coventry, below.)

Keith Coventry, Spectrum Jesus, 2009

The 4th Brighton Photo Biennial, runs from 2nd October until 14th November and will feature a series of exhibitions, New Documents, curated by Martin Parr as well as a full programme of talks and events, see BPB website for details. Alongside New Documents there will be an exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe’s work at Towner in Eastbourne. (See Jonathan Jones: Robert Mapplethorpe: Sexual Terrorist). Like the Diane Arbus exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary (ends 3rd October), this exhibition of more than 60 photographs by Mapplethorpe is one of the Artist Rooms given to the nation by Anthony d’Offay.

Robert Mapplethorpe, Patti Smith, 1975

The big shows at Tate Modern, for October are Paul Gauguin (30th September - 16th January) and on 12th October the latest Turbine Hall installation (the Unilever Series) will be unveiled: this year the daunting commission has been given to the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.

Over at Tate Britain, the Turner Prize exhibition opens on 5th October and will run until 3rd January 2011. The shortlisted artists are: Dexter Dalwood; Angela de la Cruz, Susan Philipsz and The Otolith Group. The winner will be announced on 6th December. Continuing at Tate Britain are Eadweard Muybridge, Rachel Whiteread Drawings (both until 16th January 2011) and Fiona Banner’s installation of jet fighters (until 3rd January 2011).

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Double Mattress Yellow), 1991

The Arts Council's quinquennial survey of British art, British Art Show 7, begins its run on 23rd October in Nottingham, with shows at Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham Castle Museum and New Art Exchange. The exhibitions will be on until 9th January, 2011, after which they will tour to London, Glasgow and Plymouth. Subtitled In the Days of the Comet, the show is intended as a pulse check on the state of British art today.

For a more commercial take on the state of contemporary art the Frieze Art Fair (14th – 17th October) is the place to be.

The Ikon Gallery in Birmingham is showing an intriguing double bill of Kitagawa Utamaro and furniture by Donald Judd: A Good Chair is a Good Chair (both 22nd Sept – 14th Nov). Also in Birmingham, is Steve McCurry – Retrospective, at Birmingham Museum (until 17th October).

Kitagawa Utamaro , Lovers in the upstairs room of a teahouse, from Poem of the Pillow, 1788

The Serpentine presents the first major UK exhibition by Swedish artist Klara Lidén. Working with installation, video and architectural intervention Lidén explores spaces for living. (See article by Sam Thorne in Frieze Magazine.)

Right at the end of the month (from 29th Oct - 27th Nov) the 20th Hereford Photography Festival promises to be an exciting event.

MA Fine Art show - Cheltenham (20th Sept - 1st Oct, 2010)

Modern British sculpture in Gloucester

Sarah Lucas, Stanway John, concrete and bronze, 2008

Gloucester Cathedral, in association with Pangolin Editions (the sculpture foundry in Chalford, nr Stroud), is hosting an exhibition of modern British sculpture entitled Crucible. The 76 works on show include sculptures by an impressive list of artists, including, Sarah Lucas, Damien Hirst, Antony Gormley, Marcus Harvey, Lynn Chadwick, Eduardo Paolozzi, Phillip King...

The exhibition runs until 30th October, 2010.

Crucible, has been tagged, in its publicity, as the sculpture exhibition of the decade; while that remains to be judged, the Royal Academy of Arts has announced its forthcoming major survey show, Modern British Sculpture, which may well be the sculpture show of the next decade. It will run from 22nd January – 7th April 2011. More on that story, later.

An Important Message About the Arts - from David Shrigley

What might funding cuts mean for art and culture? David Shrigley debates the isssues in this animated film: An Important Message About the Arts.


















Cover of book by David Shrigley: Human Achievement, 2003, London: Redstone Press

Exhibition Roundup - September 2010

An occasional, and highly selective, pick of current and forthcoming exhibitions.

Page from the original catalogue for This Is Tomorrow, 1956

In 1956 the Whitechapel Gallery presented the seminal exhibition This Is Tomorrow, organised by the Independent Group, which, arguably, kicked off Pop Art. This month (from 9th September until 6th March 2011) the gallery revisits that exhibition. No doubt, Richard Hamilton's collage Just What is it that Makes Today's Homes so Different, so Appealing?, will be featured - but will Robby the Robot be there?

Left, Richard Hamilton, Just What is it that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? as it appeared in the 1956 catalogue, right, Robby the Robot (star of Forbidden Planet, 1956) making his appearance at This is Tomorrow.

Eadweard Muybridge: The Photographer Who Proved Horses Could Fly is at Tate Britain from 8th September until 16th January, 2011. (See articles in Guardian, by Rebecca Solnit: Eadweard Muybridge: Feet off the Ground and Peter Conrad: Eadweard Muybridge: Pioneer Photographer)

Eadweard Muybridge, Lantern Slide EM8129 ‘Horse and Cart’, 1877 (From The Muybridge Collection, The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames.

Also at Tate Britain, Fiona Banner's installation of 2 jet fighters (see also earlier entry, below) continues until 3rd January, 2011.
In what might prove to be an interesting and perhaps poignant counterpoint to Banner's fighters, Jeremy Deller's installation of a bomb blasted car, Baghdad, 5th March, 2007, goes on display at The Imperial War Museum from September 9th.

.

Left , Fiona Banner, Harrier, 2010, right Jeremy Deller, Baghdad, 5 March 2007. Images from Tate Gallery and Imperial War Museum respectively.

At Tate Modern, there is the last chance to catch Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera (closes 3rd October), (see review in The Guardian and feature by Blake Morrison), and at Nottingham Contemporary, Diane Arbus also continues until 3rd October. The exhibition of 69 photographs by Arbus is one of the first showings of Anthony d’Offay’s remarkable gift to the nation of 'Artist Rooms'.

Diane Arbus, Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C., 1962

Gagosian Gallery (Davies St.) presents new work by Rachel Whiteread (7th Sept. - 2nd Oct.), which is complemented by an exhibition of her drawings at Tate Britain (8th Sept. - 16 Jan., 2011) (see reviews by Adrian Searle and Laura Cumming).
White Cube (Mason's Yard) is showing Darren Almond: The Principle of Moments and Sadie Coles HQ is showing Gregor Schneider: Fotografie und Skulptur (until 2nd Oct.).

The Liverpool Biennial kicks off on 18th September and runs to 28th November.

Finally, Andrew Stonyer (Professor of Fine Art, University of Gloucestershire) is showing his Audio Kinetic Solar Sculpture at Fermynwoods Contemporary Art in Northamptonshire, until 26th September. The piece is described on the Gallery’s website, as follows: this innovative installation is suspended within the central point from the branches of three alder trees… The work … responds to changes in sunlight and to the daily cycle of the sun. Sound & movement are produced by the actions of plectrums positioned on circular disks, which are rotated over wire strings via low-voltage power generated from solar photocells in the tree canopy. The plectrums’ speeds vary according to the intensity of the sunlight, altering the sound; the piece literally orchestrates the shifts in light like a ‘solar Aeolian harp’.

Corinne Day, 1962 - 2010

Corinne Day died on 27th August, 2010: see her obituary in The Guardian. See also appreciations by Charlotte Higgins, Corinne Day: Raw Genius, Sean O'Hagan, Corinne Day: She Added Grit to the Glamour of Fashion Photography, feature by Sheryl Garratt, Corinne Day: Pioneer of a New Kind of Beauty, and Corinne Day's website.

Kate's Flat, by Corinne Day, 1993