LUIGI GHIRRI
‘Kodachrome’

Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
06.03.2013 - 20.04.2013

Matthew Marks is pleased to announce Luigi Ghirri: Kodachrome, the next exhibition in his gallery at 526 West 22nd Street. The exhibition consists of 25 vintage color photographs included in Ghirri’s seminal 1978 publication and exhibition of the same title. This is the first time these important works will be exhibited in the United States. It is also the first one-person Luigi Ghirri exhibition at Matthew Marks Gallery.

In 1978 Luigi Ghirri self-published his first book, Kodachrome, an avant-garde manifesto for the medium of photography and a landmark in his own remarkable oeuvre. Ghirri presents his surroundings in the book in tightly cropped images, making photographs of photographs and recording the Italian landscape through its advertisements, postcards, potted plants, walls, windows, and people. His work is deadpan, reflecting a dry wit, and continuously engages with the subject of reality and of landscape as a snapshot of our interaction with the world.

‘The daily encounter with reality, the fictions, the surrogates, the ambiguous, poetic or alienating aspects, all seem to preclude any way out of the labyrinth, the walls of which are ever more illusory… to the point at which we might merge with them… The meaning that I am trying to render through my work is a verification of how it is still possible to desire and face a path of knowledge, to be able finally to distinguish the precise identity of man, things, life, from the image of man, things, and life.’ [Luigi Ghirri]

Born in 1942, Luigi Ghirri spent his working life in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy, where he produced one of the most open and layered bodies of work in the history of photography. Although he exhibited extensively during his lifetime, and was at the height of his powers when he died in 1992, it has only been after his untimely death that his true achievement has begun to be appreciated.

© Matthew Marks 

OPEN CALL ‘SPORT’
Alexey Tikhonov 
‘Street Football’ 

Street football is not really a sport. Yes, it’s sometimes about competition and kind of personal glory, but there 

is a thing that really paces it apart - it doesn’t have to have designated place. In fact the opposite is true - street football is all about conquering urban landscape and converting it to something other, just for fun. It is especially interesting when recreational zones in the city are weak or underdeveloped, when children have to mark some corners as their own and make their own playgrounds. And that is in itself a ritual. By playing football they impose set of strange rules on different landscapes and declare that places as their own.

‘Primapersona’ is a biannual magazine that features unpublished autobiographical texts, whether they are memoirs or autobiographies, diaries or letters that are traces of life written by “ordinary people”. The magazine gives voice to the National Diary Archive of Pieve Santo Stefano in Italy, and moreover, to the general debate on the issues of autobiography. 

In each issue, depending on the subject matter, are presented excerpts from these texts, from all periods of our recent history and from all regions of Italy. Their responses act as in an indirect dialogue with the study and theoretical reflections of those who, anthropologist or historian, sociologist and linguist, philosopher and writer,  are convinced that writing is a gesture of inquiry. (to understand something more of ourselves).

Photography has an important role in this magazine. In each article, words torn from the diaries and autobiographical memories are accompanied by images in black and white. Photographs  are carefully selected to dialogue with rather than interpret these words.

Urbanautica will take part in this new issue dedicated to Sports by suggesting a series of photographic projects that will be collected through an open call. In addition our editorial manager Steve Bisson will write a specific essay.

Submission have to bent sent to info@urbanautica.com. Deadline for submission March 4, 2013.

© Alexey Tikhonov 

ANASTASIA BOGOMOLOVA 
‘Recall’

For the last four years I have been studying the story of my family, again and again building upon my relatives’ pictures. I’ve been showing these old photographs to my kith and kin and incessantly making them reminisce some other details, reconstruct events in their memory, reiterate the same old tales. Eventually, though, the picture of my folks’ lives has not cleared up. At some moment I was under an impression that I was looking into a dark deep well, trying to make out the reflection from its bottom, but the mirror of the water had been disturbed ever and anon by the stones relentlessly falling from above, and there were rings in the water.

As long as the memory itself lives and remains flexible, as long as it is not petrified, there is not a single chance at trying to bring to a halt this flood of recalls and capture images frozen in time. Faces of the past — past youths, lived and forgotten lives – never freeze forever. Images of the past, images of the whole generations of a family — they get farther away from the present, they are constantly revived in our multiple recollections – and they change relentlessly. Some of the features are erased; some of them come back to surface. Again and again we address our own and other’s memory and we have to finish writing family stories and to touch-up portraits of our own relatives.

© Anastasia Bogomolova 

NATALYA REZNIK
‘Looking for my father’

My mother was always dreaming of an ideal man. When we were watching movies of 60-70’s with french and italian actors (Belmondo, Delon, Mastroianni, Marais), she was always excited and often said to me «I always liked that kind of man!».

I was always interested to meet my father. Last time i saw him when I was three years old. I decided to reflect this idea using photography. I do not remember how he looked like, I do not have any image of him in my memory, I rather try to «find» him by means of photography, to create memories which i never had — memories about family with my father.

She met my father in Sochi, it was a «resort» roman, which soon ended up with a marriage. She did not know much of him, only that he was a captain and worked somewhere at North Russia. They never lived together. He usually came for a few weeks and then dissapeared. At some point my mother found out that he has another wife and a child. She could never forgive him and soon they divorced.

In her albums there was almost no photo left of my father — not only she divorced with him, but also destroyed all the photos of him including those from the wedding day. However, I was able to find a few images from an old black and white passport photo machine. They were together on this shots, however one can not really see his face — images are quite small and he always wears «aviator» glasses. He looked like a young Belmondo. On these images they are kidding together, kissing each other and smile a lot. One of those photos I kept for my self (my mother never liked this and was trying to find out why I want to have his photo for a long time) and since then keep it in my wallet.

Really, what for do i need this photo? Sometimes I just want to look at it and imagine that my father, although i never met him, was as beautiful as Belmondo. On some occations I proudly show this photo to friends («My partents in the ’70s»). Even if this photo never existed, I should have created it in Photoshop.

This project is very personal, somewhere inbetween documentary and fiction, where the dreams of my mother are real, but the memory, I created for myself based on them, is fictional. I used in the project old photos from the album of my mother and reconstructed our new memory “with the father” using the portraits of movie-stars from the ’70s.

© Natalya Reznik 

OPEN CALL ‘SPORT’
Vivien Ayroles

Ski resort in the French Alps called “Les Arcs”. During summer, the place is crowded by people coming here for hiking and during winter there are all the possibilities of snow: ski, snowboards, snowshoe…

‘Primapersona’ is a biannual magazine that features unpublished autobiographical texts, whether they are memoirs or autobiographies, diaries or letters that are traces of life written by “ordinary people”. The magazine gives voice to the National Diary Archive of Pieve Santo Stefano in Italy, and moreover, to the general debate on the issues of autobiography. 

In each issue, depending on the subject matter, are presented excerpts from these texts, from all periods of our recent history and from all regions of Italy. Their responses act as in an indirect dialogue with the study and theoretical reflections of those who, anthropologist or historian, sociologist and linguist, philosopher and writer,  are convinced that writing is a gesture of inquiry. (to understand something more of ourselves).

Photography has an important role in this magazine. In each article, words torn from the diaries and autobiographical memories are accompanied by images in black and white. Photographs  are carefully selected to dialogue with rather than interpret these words.

Urbanautica will take part in this new issue dedicated to Sports by suggesting a series of photographic projects that will be collected through an open call. In addition our editorial manager Steve Bisson will write a specific essay.

Submission have to bent sent to info@urbanautica.com. Deadline for submission March 4, 2013.

© Vivien Ayroles 

JEREMY FREEDMAN
The Illusion of Validity

I am interested in making photographs as much as pictures.  Sometimes photographs have too much “reality” for my taste.  And of course it’s not really reality, but a kind of photographic reality, one which may constrict experience and not open the eye or the mind.  I’m interested in a different kind of focus, one that lets the mind wander inward a little bit.  My various techniques are ways of isolating and concentrating the experience of seeing.  And for me, pictures are as abstract as words.

© Jeremy Freedman 

OPEN CALL ‘SPORT’
Bogdan Gulyay
‘Kickboxing’

This series is about young guys, that come to the gym every day, starving themselves and sweating their guts out with trainings. They have chosen kickboxing as a way of their physical and spiritual development. They aspire for looking courageously, to be tough and strong. But let`s have an attentive glance: in each of them a little unconcerned boy looks through the mask of the brave fighter. 

‘Primapersona’ is a biannual magazine that features unpublished autobiographical texts, whether they are memoirs or autobiographies, diaries or letters that are traces of life written by “ordinary people”. The magazine gives voice to the National Diary Archive of Pieve Santo Stefano in Italy, and moreover, to the general debate on the issues of autobiography. 

In each issue, depending on the subject matter, are presented excerpts from these texts, from all periods of our recent history and from all regions of Italy. Their responses act as in an indirect dialogue with the study and theoretical reflections of those who, anthropologist or historian, sociologist and linguist, philosopher and writer,  are convinced that writing is a gesture of inquiry. (to understand something more of ourselves).

Photography has an important role in this magazine. In each article, words torn from the diaries and autobiographical memories are accompanied by images in black and white. Photographs  are carefully selected to dialogue with rather than interpret these words.

Urbanautica will take part in this new issue dedicated to Sports by suggesting a series of photographic projects that will be collected through an open call. In addition our editorial manager Steve Bisson will write a specific essay.

Submission have to bent sent to info@urbanautica.com. Deadline for submission March 4, 2013.

© Bogdan Gulyay

BERTIEN VAN MANEN
‘Easter and Oak Trees’

Bertien van Manen’s blissful images of family holidays in den Eikenhorst (literally meaning Nest of Oak Trees) from the 1970s are the subject of her latest publication, Easter and Oak Trees.

It was her son, one of the primary subjects in the series, who recently reminded van Manen of the archive. Lightness dominates these black and white images, and the obvious pleasure, family warmth and security of her children and family in the less politically correct ‘70s. Children pose, play and run but ultimately the photographs communicate the intimate comfort that comes with family, uninhibited in their expression and exposure to the camera. Easter and Oak Trees offers an enticing invitation to share a small part of this familial idyll.

The images raise the question, could a photographer still do this in 2013? Could she photograph her children naked, footloose and carefree, acting up to the camera with fake cigarettes and a bottle of beer? Or is this spontaneity, this innocence, lost thanks to rancid affairs and small-minded moralism?

Whilst this work is some of the earliest made by van Manen, it has all the qualities found in her mature work. “One recognizes the lyrical looseness, the sensuality and the melancholy but also a striving for balance and composition. Her photographs look like free, insouciant improvisations on themes, that later, in ‘a Hundred Summers a Hundred Winters’ or in ‘East Wind West Wind’ have taken shape in a more outspoken way”. Hripsimé Visser.

© MACK

OPEN CALL ‘FAUNA’
L E N E   M Ü N C H 
‘The Island of Riems’ 

The island of Riems is a place known as the »Island of Diseases«, the »Island of Viruses«, or even the »Mad Island«. For more than 100 years the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute (FLI) has been situated on this small german island in the Baltic Sea. Behind high barbed wire fences, very well isolated from the outside world, highly contagious animal diseases are researched in FLI. Mad cow disease, bird flu and hoof-and-mouth disease are the better-known pathogens out of the many more strains of blight studied on this island.

In modern laboratories of the highest level of security, the scientists of the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute are developing vaccines against such killer viruses. The biggest part of the laboratories can only be acceded in aseptic protective clothing. The building is permanently under low-pressure to prevent anything from escaping. Therefore the researchers can only leave the building completely naked through a lock, where warm water is automatically sprayed on them for

several minutes. They call it the »showering out«. For animals, on the contrary, there is no escape. They leave the island only in a cremated state. Even the effluent of the animals is heated highly enough to kill every last germ. The FLI is one of the most isolated research institutions in the entire Republic of Germany.

The particular location of the institute on the island is due to the discoverer of the viruses: Mr. Friedrich Loeffler. When he was trying to find a way to contain hoof-and-mouth disease on the mainland during the end of the 19th century, the disease tended to disperse on many occasions to the neighboring farms. Under pressure from the local population Mr. Loeffler was banished to the nearby Island to continue his research in isolation and safety.

 FAUNA’ is a new call open to any suggestions on photographic series related to animals. We will be posting the best submissions on Urbanautica and related channels. Deadline is February 18th. One project selected from among those submitted will be published and printed on the 4th issue 4 of “Stand Quarterly” magazine together with the works of Alec Soth, Céline Clanet, Vincent Fournier and Trine Søndergaard. Stand is an advertisement-free photographic journal showcasing the work and thoughts of various contemporary photographers from all areas of the world. Submissions of the series are welcome at info@urbanautica.com or directly on our facebook page. Steve Bisson curator and art director of Urbanautica will also be selecting works for future exhibitions. The selection is made on series (full project). Yet we accept single images to share with our readers here on facebook… Thank you all and best wishes!!! 

© Lene Münch  

OPEN CALL ‘SPORT’
Robert Rutoed

“I feel more affinity to anarchy and contradiction than to reason and sense. For that hundredth of a second, the protagonists in my photographs are my comrades-in-arms. As the marathon runner that to avoid rubbing his nipples raw from the friction generated by his t-shirt, he covered the nipples with band-aids. 

‘Primapersona’ is a biannual magazine that features unpublished autobiographical texts, whether they are memoirs or autobiographies, diaries or letters that are traces of life written by “ordinary people”. The magazine gives voice to the National Diary Archive of Pieve Santo Stefano in Italy, and moreover, to the general debate on the issues of autobiography. 

In each issue, depending on the subject matter, are presented excerpts from these texts, from all periods of our recent history and from all regions of Italy. Their responses act as in an indirect dialogue with the study and theoretical reflections of those who, anthropologist or historian, sociologist and linguist, philosopher and writer,  are convinced that writing is a gesture of inquiry. (to understand something more of ourselves).

Photography has an important role in this magazine. In each article, words torn from the diaries and autobiographical memories are accompanied by images in black and white. Photographs  are carefully selected to dialogue with rather than interpret these words.

Urbanautica will take part in this new issue dedicated to Sports by suggesting a series of photographic projects that will be collected through an open call. In addition our editorial manager Steve Bisson will write a specific essay.

Submission have to bent sent to info@urbanautica.com. Deadline for submission March 4, 2013.

© Robert Rutoed

OPEN CALL ‘FAUNA’
DWI PUTRA SEPIYANA
‘Animal Portraits’

I like to observe my surroundings, including the animals. I thought it would be interesting to look at them from human perspective. It means that taking their portraits, just like humans. The reason why I took the portraits of the animals around me is because I want to present the animals that I am familiar with in a different setting. That way, we can see their expressions that are different with different animals. With these portraits, most people tend to interpret the animals’ feelings and personalities based on their previous experience or something they were exposed to in the past related to the animal.  However, do we know their real feelings and emotions? An example would be the portrait of the Tokay gecko that has an open wide mouth. It looks like it is smiling widely, when in reality it is actually opening its mouth to bite. If people never know about Tokay gecko they tend to assume that it is a cute happy animal or perhaps they have a totally different interpretation based on their own perspectives. I wonder if animals actually posses the same expressions and feelings like human, or maybe they don’t at all.

 FAUNA’ is a new call open to any suggestions on photographic series related to animals. We will be posting the best submissions on Urbanautica and related channels. Deadline is February 18th. One project selected from among those submitted will be published and printed on the 4th issue 4 of “Stand Quarterly” magazine together with the works of Alec Soth, Céline Clanet, Vincent Fournier and Trine Søndergaard. Stand is an advertisement-free photographic journal showcasing the work and thoughts of various contemporary photographers from all areas of the world. Submissions of the series are welcome at info@urbanautica.com or directly on our facebook page. Steve Bisson curator and art director of Urbanautica will also be selecting works for future exhibitions. The selection is made on series (full project). Yet we accept single images to share with our readers here on facebook… Thank you all and best wishes!!! 

© Dwi Putra Septiyana

OPEN CALL ‘SPORT’
Rose Marie Loisy

A few months spent with children and teenagers partially-sighted and blind in a school allowed me to discover another way to surpass limits. By the sport, they adapt themselves, invent and are engaged in a competition with themselves, in a pleasure of the effort and the feeling of strong emotions, everything becomes accessible. 

‘Primapersona’ is a biannual magazine that features unpublished autobiographical texts, whether they are memoirs or autobiographies, diaries or letters that are traces of life written by “ordinary people”. The magazine gives voice to the National Diary Archive of Pieve Santo Stefano in Italy, and moreover, to the general debate on the issues of autobiography. 

In each issue, depending on the subject matter, are presented excerpts from these texts, from all periods of our recent history and from all regions of Italy. Their responses act as in an indirect dialogue with the study and theoretical reflections of those who, anthropologist or historian, sociologist and linguist, philosopher and writer,  are convinced that writing is a gesture of inquiry. (to understand something more of ourselves).

Photography has an important role in this magazine. In each article, words torn from the diaries and autobiographical memories are accompanied by images in black and white. Photographs  are carefully selected to dialogue with rather than interpret these words.

Urbanautica will take part in this new issue dedicated to Sports by suggesting a series of photographic projects that will be collected through an open call. In addition our editorial manager Steve Bisson will write a specific essay.

Submission have to bent sent to info@urbanautica.com. Deadline for submission March 4, 2013

© Rose Marie Loisy

LUCA QUAGLIATO
Marinaleda 

Another interesting stories featured by the friends of Habitat. The online mag focuses on ”alternative” housing. The object of Habitat is to build a collection of works by photographers, artists and researchers dealing with the refusal of the urban housing standard.

“It’s a community of farmers, and the land where they live is the result of the struggle lasted more than 10 years after the fall of Franco’s regime. The expropriation was the only way to get the land, to farm, to build houses and give a concrete place for the political life of a community that want to manage their own work in an independent way, without relying on the capitalist system.

From farming to the canning factory, up to the distribution the agricultural, the cooperative manages the whole production process, preventing speculation from the private. Salary is equal: 47 € per day for 6 and a half hours of work and this is also the wage for the other employees of the municipality. If you need a house, you can build it with your own hands, and the municipality provides materials, project, ground and help in labor. Loan is 15 € per month for 90 years (just over 15,000 € in total). The major institution inside the community life is the labor union, the Colectivo de Unidad de los Trabajadores, the main character of all the struggles over the years to defend the agricultural work. People’s assemblies are made inside the building of the labor union, that’s the main democratic tool used to talk and discuss about issues related to job, politics and daily life in town. The radio and television of the municipality are also used as another way to compare with the citizens. 

Marinaleda still fight against the european economic crisis and against the capitalist system that does not like a socialist enclave, admired by those who come from outside, against the modern apathy that leads the young to not believe in the fight. Marinaleda is not perfect, but it’s an experiment as concrete socialism apparatus, organized and recognized by institutions in a capitalist Europe that needs radical changes to moving forward.”

© Luca Quagliato

ANDREAS MASS
Invisible Horizons

A series about Hong Kong and essentially an introspective examination of a phenomenon that I experienced during my stay in the vertical alpha city. By capturing urban and suburban places, I tried to explore the intriguing shifts in my spatial perception. 

Here’s the link to the book:
Here’s a link to a selection of photographs from the series.

© Andreas Mass

FORMAT13: FACTORY
The Archive of Modern Conflict 

Notes Home celebrates the holiday time of factory workers, a key and vital part of their working lives and occasions that were eagerly anticipated and commented on through postcards sent back to friends and family. 

Featuring postcards sent home from English holiday resorts like Morecambe and Blackpool right through the twentieth century, Timothy Prus and Edwin Jones from the renowned Archive of Modern Conflict, have selected and edited the postcards, some of which have been enlarged for this exhibition. 

Notes Home also features brochures and posters that were part and parcel of the holiday experience. The Archive of Modern Conflict (AMC) is an independent publisher based in London which mostly publishes books with or about photography and art.  Established 20 years ago in London, it contains around 4 million photos including works by many well-known figures as well as thousands of unknown photographers. 

© FORMAT

FORMAT13: FACTORY
Album Beauty

‘Album Beauty’, an exhibition of found photographs curated by Erik Kessels, is an ode to the vanishing era of the photo album. Once commonplace in every home, the photo-album has been replaced by the digital age where images are now jpegs and live online and in hard drives. These visual narratives are testament to the once universal appeal to document and display the mundane. Often a repository for family history, they usually represent a manufactured family as edited for display. The albums speak of birth, death, beauty, sexuality, pride, happiness, youth, competition, exploration, complicity and friendship.

Curated by Erik Kessels in collaboration with Foam Amsterdam. 

© FORMAT 

OPEN CALL ‘FAUNA’
MIKE TITTEL 

An ongoing series of birds and industry!

 FAUNA’ is a new call open to any suggestions on photographic series related to animals. We will be posting the best submissions on Urbanautica and related channels. Deadline is February 18th. One project selected from among those submitted will be published and printed on the 4th issue 4 of “Stand Quarterly” magazine together with the works of Alec Soth, Céline Clanet, Vincent Fournier and Trine Søndergaard. Stand is an advertisement-free photographic journal showcasing the work and thoughts of various contemporary photographers from all areas of the world. Submissions of the series are welcome at info@urbanautica.com or directly on our facebook page. Steve Bisson curator and art director of Urbanautica will also be selecting works for future exhibitions. The selection is made on series (full project). Yet we accept single images to share with our readers here on facebook… Thank you all and best wishes!!! 

© Mike Tittel 

JULIA BORISSOVA
The Farther Shore

The story began in the 1930’s on the Volga river. During the construction of Rybinsk and Uglich hydrosystem and filling of the reservoir a 4 6oo sq. km the whole area was flooded. 800 villages and towns, 3 cities, 5 monasteries, hundreds of churches and old cemeteries have gone under water.

The stories say, some people refused to evacuate from their homes and preferred to die. The others had to begin a fresh start in some new and unknown places. I took these pictures in the towns which were flooded only partially. Now they look almost the same as in the 1930’s, and when I come there I always face the past. 

Can I show something which doesn’t exist anymore? Can I reflect time which goes by, the vulnerability and fragility of the present? Or reflect something which can’t be seen but is deeply felt by everyone, the nostalgia, the impossibility of return to the past?

I took most photographs using film and no special post-production. The resulting images are able to indicate the time gap between past and present which seems an important part of the story to me. 

I do not want to focus on the major events which took place 70-80 years ago. I neither want to emphasize the sense of drama, rather to pay attention to the transience of life: may be that perspective could make us view the today’s situation differently.