Arts Writers Grants Program

Yes! This is exactly what I want to see more of! Organisations that support and stimulate writing on art. Here is an announcement for their fantastic opportunity:

GRANTS FOR ARTS WRITERS

Online application form opens -
Monday, April 27, 2009
Application Deadline -
Monday, June 8, 2009

http://www.artswriters.org

The Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program supports individual writers whose work addresses contemporary visual art through grants ranging from 3,000 to 50,000 USD.

Writers who meet the program's eligibility requirements are invited to apply in the following categories:

• articles
• blogs
• books
• new and alternative media
• short-form writing

They regret that due to legal constraints they can only fund U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and holders of O-1 visas. This is very disappointing for us arts writers this side of the Atlantic but for those of you who are lucky enough to tick the right boxes please visit http://www.artswriters.org for more guidelines and additional eligibility requirements.

ART WRITING WORKSHOP

The Arts Writers Grant Program is pleased to announce a new writing workshop offered in partnership with the International Association of Art Critics/USA Chapter. For more information, please visit http://www.aicausa.org

Sebastian Lemm

All images ©Sebastian Lemm

Thanks to Sebastian Lemm for sharing his Strata series with me. It is nice work but I must say that I am of the opinion "once you have seen one, you have seen them all". This might come across as somewhat churlish however, since I can imagine that viewing these images on a computer screen does them no justice at all and am sure they are very impacting and quite sensual when they are experienced as a nice glossy prints hung on a sterile white wall. Perhaps it is the case of the same photograph repeated, because they are not so much representations of trees in their various forms of visible difference, but rather a sustained search for the thresholds of visibility.

Have a read of his personal statement to get a better idea of the concepts he is working with and his various sources of inspiration:

"As a photo-based artist, I see myself as the link between two realities—the one outside of the camera and the one that begins once the photograph has been taken. Rather than documenting or ‘capturing the moment,’ I want to show what is not immediately visible.

My work is informed by nature in a broad sense. Visually, I am fascinated by seemingly random structures in the natural environment and I see parallels to patterns or events in my own life. Taking a more wide-ranging definition of nature, I am attracted to subtleties of human interactions, the subconscious and physics’ theories about dimensions that are outside of our perception. Although these ideas may not be inherently obvious in my images, they do have a significant impact on my artistic process.

Apart from experiences in my own life, inspiration for my work comes from concepts of Romanticism especially those of Caspar David Friedrich, texts by Edmund Burke (Sublime and Beautiful), Gilles Deleuze (Rhizome) and Roland Barthes (Camera Lucida) among others."

Sebastian Lemm, a native of Germany, relocated to New York City in 2000 after receiving a diploma (MFA equivalent) from Berlin University of the Arts. Sean Kelly Gallery featured Sebastian's photo-based work in “Unframed First Look” curated by Adam Fuss, Jack Pierson and Cindy Sherman in 2004. Since then, Sebastian had group and solo shows at galleries and cultural organizations throughout the US, including Platform Gallery (Seattle, WA), Bank Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Ellen Curlee Gallery (St. Louis, MO), and Margaret Thatcher Projects, Pierogi Gallery, Michael Mazzeo Gallery, James Cohan Gallery (auction), Nurture Art, and Art Omi (all in New York).

Critical recognition has come from Art in America, The New Yorker, Art World (UK), NY Arts Magazine, Time Out Chicago as well as 2wice Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Palm Beach Daily News, The Village Voice, and numerous visual art blogs such as Art Moco, Jörg Colberg's Conscientious blog and I Heart Photograph. His work has also been selected for editorial features in H-Magazine (Spain) and Someone’s Garden Magazine (Japan) and was included in the book Light and Lens by Robert Hirsch. In 2008, the Goethe-Instituts in Chicago and New York hosted artist talks with Sebastian Lemm and critics Gregory Volk and Michael Weinstein.

Sebastian’s pieces are included in private and corporate art collections.

It´s official! Martin Parr to curate BPB 2010!

Martin Parr, the internationally respected photographer and curator, has been appointed Guest Curator for Brighton Photo Biennial's fourth edition, taking place in October and November 2010.

Martin Parr said, "I am looking forward to having the opportunity, through Brighton Photo Biennial, to share some of my passion for photography by exhibiting some recent finds of new work. I also want to build on the success of the last Biennial by focusing more on placing shows within Brighton & Hove and making the event a centre of dialogue and discovery."

Helen Cadwallader, Executive Director of Brighton Photo Biennial said, "I am absolutely delighted that Martin has accepted our invitation to curate BPB 2010. Myself, the Biennial team and the Biennial partners are really looking forward to working with Martin and the exciting possibilities this presents."

Since 2003, Brighton Photo Biennial has established itself as one of the most important celebrations of international photography in Europe delivering a series of challenging and stimulating events for both the general public and art specialists. The Biennial is a partnership organisation and works with a diverse and exciting range of galleries, visual arts organisations and educational institutions in the city of Brighton & Hove and in cities and venues across the South East region.

Brighton Photo Biennial runs a continuous education programme that is active during and between Biennials, creating grass roots projects with local communities, artists and individuals.

Please refer to the BPB 2010 press release on the bpb website.

Jongchul Lee

All images ©Jongchul Lee

Jongchul Lee was born and raised in South Korea. His name, which means 'religion and philosophy', has been an appropriate predictor of his interests: He studied Buddhism and Sculpture in Dongguk University (2005) and Photography at the New England School of Photography (2007). Through his work, Jongchul explores the interplay between self and surrounding. He currently lives in New York City.

He recently got in touch and sent some work my way. Jongchul clearly has a good eye and these particular images are well composed, there is no doubting that, but I found myself wanting to reach out and know more. He needs to tell a story to match the pictures. Reading Lee´s statement, he does in fact acknowledge this particular fallibility of photography that I am talking about. He asserts:

"Because of the dynamic nature of the individual, I have always been drawn to portraiture. I photograph individuals to whom I feel an initial attraction and try to discover the root of that attraction throughout the session. However, as it always is with the pursuit of knowledge, the more I learn, the more I question. I inevitably walk away from portraiture sessions wondering more about my subjects, not less. This collection of portraits chronicles those initial curiosities and the failure to discover resolution."

It is interesting to think about how the camera lens both masks and unmasks what it focuses on. Art is by nature theatrical, even if its subjects are real people in real situations they are still destined to become actors in their own plays.

This brings me onto the following announcement. In the next issue of 1000 Words we will examine the numerous forms of relationship between the photographer and the photographed in our special edition, The Portrait as a Stage. 1000 Words is therefore now calling for submissions from fine art photographers in the portraiture genre.

Photographers, if you would like your work to be considered for a feature in 1000 Words please submit the following via email:

-A short introduction of 100-150 words that describes the body of work
-The working title
-A portfolio of 10-15 low res JPEGS that form part of the project
-A brief biography of 100 words that outlines your education and professional experience
-A link to your website so we can see more of your work

Email submissions to: submissions@1000wordsmag.com

Kirill Golovchenko

All images ©Kirill Golovchenko

While I thoroughly enjoyed rummaging through these images Kirill Golovchenko sent me I still couldn´t help but feeling it was a bit of a mixed bag. I won´t go as far as to say a project is only as a strong as its weakest image or anything like that but it is well worth reminding ourselves of the importance of editing work. The presentation must resolve into a series of solid images that demonstrate a consistency in idea and/or pictorial form otherwise it is not going to cut it. The thing is with 7km - Field of Miracles is that the great images are really great but the bad ones, well, they just lower the overall standard. Lesson: Edit people then edit some more. Don´t be afraid to be ruthless.

Behind the scenes with Martin Schoeller

Following on from our female bodybuilders feature in 1000 Words #4, I decided to post this short clip from a documentary about Martin Schoeller and his work to show what goes on during one of his photoshoots. Enjoy!

1000 Words #4 online now!

Dear All,

Spring has finally arrived! Exciting things are sprouting up everywhere and 1000 Words #4, our first title of 2009 is online now! To view it please go to:

www.1000wordsmag.com

In this issue we feature portfolios from:

Zoe Strauss
Walter Martin & Paloma Muñoz
Martin Schoeller
Mark Power
Izima Karou
Alice Myers

There are also book reviews of:

Welcome to the Garden by Frank Darius
Pitch Blackness by Hank Willis Thomas
The Birthday Party by Vee Speers
The Meadowlands by Joshua Lutz

And this issue´s multimedia piece is:

The Anatomy of a Street Photograph by Nick Turpin

Once again, thanks to the artists, writers and to Santiago Taccetti at CCCH design studio, Barcelona for all their wonderful contributions to this project.

Best,

Tim Clark, editor-in-chief