Paul Graham wins Deutsche Börse Photography Prize!

©Paul Graham

Paul Graham (b. 1956, UK), has been awarded the 2009 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. At a special ceremony on Wednesday 25 March 2009, Jefferson Hack, co-founder of Dazed & Confused, presented the £30,000 award. The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2009 is presented by The Photographers’ Gallery and is on show until 12 April 2009.

The Prize is awarded to an international photographer for their significant contribution to the medium of photography through either an exhibition or publication, in Europe between 1 October 2007 and 30 September 2008. Paul Graham won for his publication a shimmer of possibility (steidlMACK, October 2007).

a shimmer of possibility comprises twelve individual volumes of photographic short stories of life in contemporary America. Graham infuses lyricism into the most mundane of everyday human activities – fetching mail or lighting a cigarette – and creates quiet photographic moments, ‘filmic haikus’, which suggest and hint at a narrative but ultimately remain open-ended. At once poetic and political, his photographs manage to draw out something truly profound from the almost-nothingness of everyday life.

Paul Graham was chosen by the Jury members, David Campany (writer/lecturer, University of Westminster, UK); David Goldblatt (photographer, South Africa); Chus Martínez (Chief Curator, Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain); and Anne-Marie Beckmann (Curator, Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Germany).

The other shortlisted artists in this year’s Prize, each awarded £3,000, are:

Emily Jacir (b.1970, Kuwait), Tod Papageorge (b.1940, USA) and Taryn Simon (b.1975, USA). The selection this year reflects the diversity of contemporary photographic practice and highlights issues of critical importance in our lives. For further information on each of the photographers’ work on display please visit the gallery website: www.photonet.org.uk

Brett Rogers, non-voting Chair and Director of The Photographers’ Gallery said, on behalf of the jury: ‘a shimmer of possibility sees Paul Graham pushing the photographic medium in many ways – through his acute observation of ‘bare’ life and diagnosis of the mood of contemporary America through its smallest details. Few photographic projects ever reach this level of subtlety, sensitivity and complexity.’

Alexandra Hachmeister, Head of Corporate Responsibility for Deutsche Börse, stated: ‘As title sponsor for the fifth year, we are delighted how the reputation of the Prize has developed, being the most prestigious photography prize in Europe today. We thank all those who have contributed – the Gallery staff, the Academy, the jury and above all the artists. We congratulate Paul Graham on being awarded the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2009.’

The Gallery is delighted to have been collaborating with Deutsche Börse Group as sponsors of the Photography Prize since 2005. Deutsche Börse Group is one of the world largest exchange organisations and a major sponsor of photographic art. Further information on Deutsche Börse Group and its photography collection can be found at www.deutsche-boerse.com/art

The exhibition will tour to C/O Berlin (29 May – 29 June 09) and to Frankfurt in late Summer.

WIPNYC - Lightside Individual Project Grant

©Birthe Piontek

Women in Photography, co-founded by Amy Elkins and Cara Phillips in June 2008 to showcase the works of female fine art photographers, is pleased to announce their first project grant, funded by Lightside Photographic Services/ and co-sponsored by LTI. The $3,000 grant award will provide funding to one female photographer to support project costs.

GRANT: $3000.00. One grant will be awarded

APPLICATION PROCESS OPENS: Wednesday April 1, 2009 12am
Link to online application will be made available on wipnyc.org.

DEADLINE: FRIDAY, MAY 1, 2009, 12AM

GRANT ANNOUNCEMENT: JUNE 10, 2009
Grant announcement will be made at evening event at the National Arts Club, Grand Gallery. There will be a reception for the grant winner and a slideshow presentation of their work. The Grant winner's work will be featured in a wipnyc.org online solo showcase opening on 6/16/09.

APPLICANT ELIGIBILITY
Applications will be only be accepted from photographers who are at least 18 years old, and who are NOT currently enrolled in any full-time or part-time degree program.

PROJECT ELIGIBILITY
Projects submitted for consideration can be new or ongoing. Applicants should submit no more than one proposal in support for one project.

REVIEW PROCESS
WIP’s curatorial staff, Amy Elkins & Cara Phillips will review projects for visual & conceptual strength, rigor of purpose, and clarity of stated
project goals.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
WIPNY will only accept online submissions.
Submission Fee: $20.00
Applicants must submit exactly five images. Each image must be:

JPEG format
72dpi
sRGB
650 pixels wide

Contact Info
BIO (Under 200 words)
CV

**Please direct all grant submission questions to the email address which will be made available as APRIL 1, 2009**

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Describe the project in 300 words or less* ( IN PLACE OF ARTISTS STATEMENT)
Please include: Project start date, or in progress staus. Estimated finish date?*
Please provide a detailed list of expenses. Itemize each expense and provide a dollar amount.*
Please list any estimated income or other funding sources.*

FORMAT Festival 2009

FORMAT 2009: PHOTOCINEMA - 6 March - 5 April, 2009(Exhibitions, Conference, Portfolio Reviews, Screenings, Workshops, Mass Participation, Talks, Tours and Events)Featuring David Lynch, Wim Wenders, Hannah Starkey, Jonas Mekas, William Eggleston, Cindy Sherman, Aaron Schuman, Eric Baudelaire,Siman Roberts, Edgar Martins and many more. Curated by Louise Clements. Patrons: Martin Parr, Brian Griffin.

Dean Hollowood

All images ©Dean Hollowood

These are a few images that Dean Hollowood submitted from his lovely little project Still Closer. The work, he says, is "informed by a long period of hearing loss and is a reflection of life viewed through the minutia of my domestic surroundings."

He kindly fills in the details and explained further:

"Ten years ago I was diagnosed with a degenerative middle ear disease. My hearing gradually deteriorated to the point where I could no longer recognise sounds outside my immediate environment. This had a profound effect on my physical and psychological outlook. Silence changes the way you look at the world, it enables us to observe and reflect without being disturbed. More importantly the work is an expression of the emotional response to silence encompassing notions of melancholy, isolation and humour.

Shot in landscape I reference cinematic psychodramas, each study is initiated through chance, part snapshot part staged. Focusing on the sculptural and abstract, and paying particular attention to colour I exploit the available light to fetishise the subject through the act of photography."

Dean studied at St Martins and went on to work in editorial and design, clients included the charity Shelter along with the Guardian and Sunday Times Magazines. More recently he has focused on self initiated projects and have exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, John Kobal Exhibition prize winner, The Lowry Centre, Salford and Four Corners Gallery in Bethnal Green. The project Still Closer was awarded the jurors choice prize at the 2008 Santa Fe Review project competition, and is about to be exhibited as part of the Format Festival, Photocinema in Derby.

Marc Serra-Happy People @Galeria H20, Barcelona

©Marc Serra

Marc Serra´s Happy People at Galeria H20 is a timely antidote to the stylistic trends that beset portrait prizes and their subsequent exhibitions where year in year out images of anonymous people stare vacantly into the camera, sombre and subdued. In fact the whole show flies in the face of any such depiction of people practiced in contemporary fine art photography. Favouring what is now perceived as an old-fashioned element, the smile, this photographic project muses reflexively on the idea of how we feel obliged to appear happy or express happiness to the world.

In order to produce the portraits for Happy People Serra set up a temporary photobooth in H20 and for one week in January and invited passers-by to come in and get their picture taken. Shooting his subjects with a digital camera in a mode that incorporates an automatic smile detection system, the shutter can only be released and the photo taken when the model smiles. What emerges from this entertaining series of intimate photographs is a portfolio that hovers somewhere between a conceptual play with the processes involved in image making and a questioning of the ways visual culture projects and perceives ‘the other’.

***
Marc Serra Happy People
Until 14 Feb
Galeria H20
www.h2o.es

Michael Itkoff

All images ©Michael Itkoff

Apologies to Michael Itkoff for taking way too long in putting up these images he kindly sent me. They are from his brilliant series called Wrecked. Here is his introduction to the project:

"The Bad Boys, Derby Boys, and All Banged Up are demolition derby teams from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. During the summer months members of the group work on junked cars with the intention of entering them into competition.

Derbys consist of one or more 'heats' where cars or trucks ram into each other until only one is able to move. An ambulance and fire truck is always on hand to evacuate injured participants and control any fires that may break out.

The demolition derby combines the love of cars with the love of destruction. This tradition may become threatened by dwindling oil supplies, but in the mean time, the sound of revving engines and crunching metal will continue to emanate from rural America."

Born 1981 in Philadelphia, Michael Itkoff is a photographer and a Founding Editor of Daylight Magazine. Itkoff has been a recipient of the Howard Chapnick Grant for the Advancement of Photojournalism (2006), a Creative Artists Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Arts Council (2007), and a Puffin Foundation Grant (2008). Itkoff's monograph, Street Portraits, will be published in January 2009 by Charta Books. He earned a BA in Photography from Sarah Lawrence College and will earn an MFA from the ICP-Bard program in 2010

You Can´t Spell America Without Eric

Powerhouse just sent me this info on You Can’t Spell America Without Eric, "a contemporary memoir of the people and places encountered by the artist during his travels throughout the United States. In the great tradition of the American road trip, Payson journeys from New York to Los Angeles with stops in the deep South and the sunbelt, documenting his encounters and revealing a dynamic diversity of experiences. With a keen eye for detail and razor-sharp wit, Payson dissects his America with a stunning Technicolor vision. Featuring an essay by Britt Salvesen, curator of the Center for Creative Photography, You Can’t Spell America Without Eric is the culmination of his compelling vision of American culture."