Picasso at Work

Cannes, 8 February 1956. The photojournalist David Douglas Duncan stops his car in front of Villa La Californie, residence of one of the most famous artists of all time: Pablo Picasso. In his hand is a ring especially made for Picasso, who appreciates the gesture and invites him into his home, his studio and his intense life.  With Stephanie Ansari and Tatyana Franck as its curators, Picasso at Work. Through the Lens of David Douglas Duncan brings together in the Museo Picasso Málaga 115 photographs selected from among the thousands that Duncan took of the artist and his milieu in those years. www.museopicassomalago.com

[RETROSPECTIVE] Brian Duffy

The first ever full-career retrospective of the legendary British photographer opens to the public on July 8th 2011, coinciding with the publication of Duffy – the first and only book of the photographer's work. Duffy infamously quit photography in 1979 when, at the height of his career, he took the majority of his photographic work into the back garden and set it on fire. Featuring more than 160 images painstakingly rediscovered by Duffy’s son after years of searching through archives and publications around the world, this exhibition has truly risen from the ashes. On view July 8 to August 28 at Idea Generation in London. www.gallery.ideageneration.co.uk

Hungarian Rhapsody

Martin Munkacsi, Carole Lombard, Hollywood, 1937

Brassaï, Robert Capa, André Kertész, László Moholy-Nagy and Martin Munkácsi each left Hungary to make their names in Germany, France and the USA, and are now known for the profound changes they brought about in photojournalism, as well as abstract, fashion and art photography. Others, such as Károly Escher, Rudolf Balogh and Jószef Pécsi remained in Hungary producing high-quality and innovatory photography. A display of approximately two hundred photographs ranging in date from c.1914–c.1989 will explore stylistic developments in photography and chart key historical events. These striking images will reveal the achievements of Hungarian photographers who left such an enduring legacy to international photography. Exhibition organised by the Royal Academy of Arts on the occasion of the Hungarian Presidency of the EU 2011. On view from June 30 to October 2 at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. www.royalacademy.org.uk

Daido Moriyama: Memoirs of Light

Daido Moriyama, Hippie Crime 1970

"Photographs are the footprints of light and memory, photographs are the history of memory. The myth of the light." Daido Moriyama "Memories of Light" traces the journey of a wandering photographer who, after half a century on the road, had only guides for his memory and memories. Born in 1938 in Osaka, Daido Moriyama has experienced war, the defeat of Japan, the U.S. military occupation, the rise and decline of the "economic miracle." The Polka Gallery in Paris presents "Memory of Light" an exhibition of Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama.

Daido Moriyama, Aomori, Japon, 1971

Daido Moriyama, Tokyo, 1978

Daido Moriyama, Halo, 1976

www.polkagallerie.com

The Caillebotte Brothers' Private World

From 25 March to 11 July 2011, the Jacquemart-André Museum is presenting The Caillebotte brothers’ private world. Painter and photographer. An encounter between Impressionism and photography, this exhibition evokes the artistic and private world of the Caillebotte brothers. www.musee-jacquemart-andre.com

STEFANIE SCHNEIDER's Polaroids

STEFANIE_SCHNEIDER_2

"Stefanie Schneider's scintillating situations take place in the American West. Situated on the verge of an elusive super-reality, her photographic sequences provide the ambience for loosely woven story lines and a cast of phantasmic characters.  Schneider works with the largely uncontrollable chemical mutations of expired polaroid film stock. Chemical explosions of color spreading across the surfaces undermine the photograph's commitment to reality and induce her characters into trance-like dreamscapes. Like flickering sequences of old road movies Schneider's images seem to evaporate before conclusions can be made - their ephemeral reality manifesting in subtle gestures and mysterious motives. Schneider's images refuse to succumb to reality, they keep alive the confusions of dream, desire, fact, and fiction." www.instantdreams.net

Photographers: April-lea

"My work created as a photographer is part of a longstanding relationship with the camera that began with modeling. I have a fondness for film and a deep desire to photograph people as people, breaking from expected norms of beauty. In my work, I look for emotion, try to tell a story, and reveal the beauty in my characters. Beyond the aesthetic qualities imparted by instant film and long exposures, my empathetic relationship with the person in front of the camera infuses my images with comfortable intimacy and perhaps a touch of nostalgia. I create timeless images using various film formats including Polaroid. I am a purist at heart."

 

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Overpainting in Twentieth Century Press Photography

Before the invention of photoshop in 1991, it was commonplace for press agencies and the photographic departments of newspapers and magazines to enhance, crop and embellish their press photographs prior to publication. An upcoming exhibition, entitled Overworked: Overpainting in Twentieth Century Press Photography,  at Flash Projects UK explores the ways in which photographs were worked-over in paint, gouache, watercolour and pencil prior to their publication, challenging the veracity of the image.

www.flash-projects.co.uk

Burning Camera: Fernell Franco's Prostitutes

Fernell Franco worked as reporter and advertising agent. Throughout his career his professional duties crisscrossed constantly with brilliant results. The series Prostitutes is the starting point of an exhibition that encompasses his analysis of urban life as well as his experimental take on temporal processes. On view until July 4 as part of Photo España 2011 at the Bellas Artes De Madrid. www.bellasartesdemadrid.com

Henry Wessel: Vintage Photographs

Since the 1960s, Wessel has photographed vernacular scenes of the American West, particularly in California. Immediately drawn to the quality of light he encountered during a visit from New York to Los Angeles, Wessel moved cross-country to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1971. From stretches of dusty highway to modest California bungalows framed by telephone poles and palm trees, Wessel's often spare and solitary images capture the idiosyncrasies and irony of American life with a wry objectivity. His photographs of parking lots, beach-goers, and shrubbery -- all illuminated by the brilliance of Western light -- find beauty and intrigue in the commonplace and document the social landscape in a manner that is casual yet formally compelling. Pace/MacGill Gallery is presents Henry Wessel: Vintage Photographs, on view April 21 through July 8, 2011. The exhibition marks Wessel’s first show at the gallery and features over 30 vintage gelatin silver prints made between 1968 and 1987. www.pacemacgill.com