March 4

We are not Martians – the photography of Edward Burtynsky

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(By Cesare Alemanni)

Image from www.edwardburtynsky.com

The art of canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky reminds us of the movies by Godfrey Reggio. Similarly to the work of the Koyaanisqatsi director, the images of Burtynsky are focused on human intervention over the environment. His favourite subjects are big massive constructions and urban landscapes that often he portrays as abanonded by mankind. For this last reason his work could even remind of some apocalyptic themes like those in Cormac Mc Carthy’s The Road or J.G Ballard’s literature. His naturalistic aesthetic tells us, without any explicit polemic intent, that our intervention over earth’s soil will survive us, but perhaps our pervasiveness could not be the right way to deal with our planet. Read more

February 24

Gentlemen of Bacongo by Daniele Tamagni. Book presentation @ Forma, Milan

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(All images © Daniele Tamagni)

Tomorrow, february, 25

h 6.30 pm

Forma. Centro Internazionale di Fotografia

Piazza Tito Lucrezio Caro, 1

20136 Milano

info@formafoto.it

Gentlemen of Bacongo by Daniele Terragni

Book presentation

Photographer Daniele Tamagni, designer and stylist Marina Spadafora, Francesco Benvenuti Arborio di Gattinara, Trolley publisher Gigi Giannuzzi and Contrasto director Denis Curti will attend and debate on the book.

Download the invitation

Don’t miss the chance to get introduced to the world of style and fashion of Congo Sapeurs that photographer Daniele Tamagni depicted in his, “Gentlemen of Bacongo”. The book is a colourful journey through the streests of Brazzaville and Kinshasa by young photographer Tamagni who has distinguished himself by his sociocultural research on Afro-Caribbean subculters around the world. Tamagni’s interviews to Congolese sapeurs open us the doors to the SAPE creed, the Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People who perform and live the dandy-like dressing codes of elegance and behaviour. Refined, respected and admired like real vip by their communities sapeurs inherit and revive the French colonial roots and – despite living in slums and poverty – carry on the daily mission of elegance started by Grenard André Matsoua, the first Grand Sapeur who came back from Paris dressed as a genuine French flâneur in 1922. Tamagni’s eye immortalizes the paradoxes of the sapeur life and brilliantly captures the conflicting belief in good taste performed by gentlemen you wouldn’t expect in the Republic of Congo or in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The eternal and boundless longing for beauty keeps a constant factor of human condition. Aesthetics can be comforting! Read more

January 18

The Self Assigned Photographer. Farewell to Dennis Stock

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American photo journalist Dennis Stock, also renowned for shooting some of the most famous portraits of celebrities like Audrey Hepburn and James Dean, has died last week. See a tribute video at Magnum Photos.

January 8

MilanoCittàAperta, Journal of Urban Photography. New perspectives on the city

Filed Under architecture, arts, ideas, web | 1 Comment

Dear readers, in case you don’t already know MilanoCittàAperta, Journal of Urban Photography , it’s high time you knew this open collective and have a look to its fine Milan reportages. You could be the next photographer to release your research on the metropolis and let your work be known worldwide! What we appreciated the most of this photographic Milan insight, apart from the obvious good quality of the snap selection, is the attitude of its authors. The editorial team and contributors are all very young but passionate and fierce in their mission, directly dating back to the modern photojournalism of Henri Cartier-Bresson. In times of thought standardization and political genuflection, it’s cool to read someone utter a manifesto and remind us that, quoting Miciap:

“every click/shot corresponds to a reality fragment captured forever, rescued out of becoming and given to timelessness. The photographer can offer his ethical look through his aesthetical look and viceversa [….]. We want to get down to reality and disclose its secrets, use the photographical act to give body to our personal experiences. We declare Milan ‘open city’ and accept the war within the confused chaos of the city. The same city we love and, as photographers, we try to understand and let you know. To know it is to change it.”

© Nicola Bertasi, 2009, Milano, Islands; MilanoCittàAperta, issue #0, summer 2009

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December 22

More pictures from the Marina Ballo Charmet exhibition

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(All photos courtesy of Marina Ballo Charmet)

Berlino

Parigi

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December 21

At Land: Bodyscape & Cityscape
Marina Ballo Charmet @ Storefront, NYC

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At Land: Bodyscape & Cityscape – Photographs and Video by Marina Ballo Charmet
Curated by Jean-François Chevrier
Nov 19 2009 – Jan 9 2010
Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11:00AM – 6:00PM
Closed Sunday and Monday.

The work of photographer and artist Marina Ballo Charmet, whose formal training is as a psychoanalyst, is centered on what she describes as “inattentive, unintentional observation, irrational and without direction”.
This retrospective exhibition, curated by critic and writer Jean-Francois Chevrier, presents a selection of photographic and video works produced since 1995 that investigate a variety of subjects ranging from the ordinary and the mundane in the urban landscape to the human figure. Ballo Charmet’s work constitutes less an attempt to provide a pictorial rendition of these subjects than an endeavour to evoke the “unperceived” in our daily experiences. Her photographs of the urban landscape concentrates on shreds of the city: details of sidewalks, the upper levels of buildings that pulse in and out of the margins of our field of view; her exploration of the human body concentrates on specific areas such as the area between the breast and the mouth, the first field of view a baby becomes familiar with.

The images featured in her Parks series – an ongoing project that has taken her to public parks in Milan, London, Berlin, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Madrid, Lisbon, Palermo and New York – are photographed close to the ground, revealing each park as its own universe. Ballo Charmet’s work is less an exercise in representation of her chosen subjects – whether they be details of cities, urban landscapes, portions of the human figure or parkscapes, than an investigation of how we perceive them. Read more

December 15

9 architetti x 9 paesaggi italiani. Photogallery

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(Text by Angelica Di Virgilio, photos © Vincenzo Caputo)

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A couple of weeks ago we presented you 9 architetti x 9 paesaggi italiani, held in Bari and open until January 30, 2010. Today we show you a selection of photos of the exhibition display by Vincenzo Caputo. The setting was realized by architect Mauro Sàito within Teatro Margherita, a location still on the stocks waiting for a more definitive future and use.

Entering the foyer you find yourself in a long peninsula-shaped area, an hypothetical section of Italy presenting, from North to South, the showcased project models realized by the architects invited to join the exhibition (Stefano Boeri, Cecchetto & Associati, Gambardellarchitetti, Garofalo Miura Architetti, Metrogramma, Nowa, Mauro Sàito, Beniamino Servino, Studio Archea): from the Domus Malles project by Metrogramma in Bolzano, to Nuovo Ospedale del Golfo in Formia (Latina) by Garofalo Miura Architetti, up to the deep south with the ICS Square project by Nowa in San Michele di Ganzaria (Catania). Read more

November 30

Welcome to Espaiñ. New book by photographer Jordi Bernadó

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(All materials courtesy of ACTAR)

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Jordi Bernadó’s new photography book, Welcome to Espaiñ, recently released by Actar is an irresistible bad trip among the streets of Spain. Humourous and audacious his images get the viewer inside an unreal, or too real, spanish landscape. Fiction becomes true and reality blurs into phantasmagorical. Bernadó’s eye and acumen reveal the anecdotical in each photograph and a non-recognizable gaze of Spain comes out. It’s a different Spain. It’s Calderón de la Barca (La vida es sueño), Goya, Cervantes, Gondry…it’s an architect’s vision and pun, a great traveller’s look on his country. After portraying the most important urban settlements worldwide and being internationally featured, Bernadó hit the mark with his homeland. Read more

November 19

Nowhere Tribes / Frogmen of the Land/ Off Town by Filippo Romano @ Triennale

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[Read the Italian version of this post]

Three works by Filippo Romano featured in the “Città Fragile” (Fragile City) exhibition curated by Aldo Bonomi, hosted by Triennale from November 19, 2009

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Planning Fragile City has been a chance to gather and structure three recent works by Milan-based photographer Filippo Romano, regarding the complex relationship between cities and the humans populating them.

cartolina Nowhere Tribe

Nowhere Tribe is the story of a group of kids, and in particular a couple living on the streets of Milan, who in the last years has moved to Madrid. Begun in the winter of 2004, Nowhere Tribe is a document, almost a family album capturing – often intimate – moments in the daily life of a group of 20-year-olds. Read more

November 5

Informal Cities, art project on informal living worldwide exhibited in Mumbai

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mumbai
INFORMAL CITIES
Mumbai 31 October – 8 November 2009

Coomaraswamy hall, Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya
formerly Prince of Wales Museum of Western India

M. G. Road, Fort, Mumbai, India
info: +46 7 077 55 014

Artists: Stefan Canham & Rufina Wu, Francesco Jodice, Maria Lantz, Anna Erlandson, Johan Rutherhagen, Michele Masucci & Sofia Wiberg, Erik Rosshagen & David Herdies, Monika Marklinger, Johan Widén

Curatorial team: Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Anna Erlandson, Maria Lantz, Michele Masucci

Informal_Cities© Maria Lantz, Roof-top view of Dharavi

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