calendario eventi  :: 

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16/5/2013

Three exhibitions

Foam Photography Museum, Amsterdam

Foam 3h: Lara Dhondt – Memento

This spring Foam 3h will premiere Memento, the latest series by Lara Dhondt. In her work, Dhondt documents forgotten and found objects, materials and locations in the urban landscape. She does this in an effort to give marginal places a human dimension or dignity. Dhondt's interventions seem casual and are often nearly invisible. If one looks very closely, however, the care and precision with which the interventions are constructed become clear. The exhibition in Foam will feature black-and-white images from the Memento series, printed on rusted steel, cardboard and wood - materials that change over the course of time by reacting to their physical circumstances. Three-dimensional work from the Primary Stages series (2012), a map and Antropomorphe (2012), the 8-mm projection that she made in collaboration with Portuguese artist André Catalão, will also be shown.

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Stephen Gill - Best Before End

Foam presents the first retrospective exhibition of English photographer Stephen Gill (Bristol, 1971). The Best Before End exhibition comprises a large number of series that Gill has made over the past fourteen years in and around the London Hackney district, as well as recent work being shown for the first time at Foam. The series in the exhibition all endeavour to reflect and respond to various aspects of life in this quickly changing district, which Gill has portrayed over the past years from the micro to macro level. Chronicler, visual poet, anthropologist, sociologist, alchemist and conceptual artist: Stephen Gill is a unique maker of images who is constantly putting the photographic medium to the test and is able to create a visual language where documentary photography, coincidence, experiment and interventions are closely linked.

After devoting himself to documentary studies of Hackney's urban landscape for years, Gill's approach changed when he realised the limitations of this method of working. He has made various efforts to escape the technical restrictions of photography. The 2001 Hackney Wick series meant a new and liberating way of working. The images in Hackney Wick were made with a plastic camera that Gill had bought at a jumble sale. Because of the plastic lens and lack of control over shutter speed and focus, Gill felt that these photos, with their blurriness and limited clarity, came much closer to capturing the essence of the place.

With the realisation that documentary photography was often incapable of expressing concepts that were far more than purely descriptive, Gill began to make more and more use of the weaknesses of the medium. He took advantage of coincidence and employed manual interventions to help him to reveal what was most essential in his subjects. Among his working methods were burying photos (Buried), creating lavish collages with flowers and seeds (Hackney Flowers) and placing objects in the camera so that they left their traces on the film, causing confusion about the scale of the images (Talking to Ants).

Gill's most recent series Best Before End was created with the aid of energy drinks which resulted in fantastical, abstract and vividly coloured works that through their intensity reflect contemporary, hectic urban life. First, he placed objects in the camera before taking the photographs, as he had done in the previous series. The negatives were later immersed in the energy drinks, which made the images shift their positions, disruptions to appear and softened the film emulsion. This made it possible to manipulate the emulsion - to stretch it, move it, tear it and to separate the various layers of the film, which were then reworked with a soft brush.

In addition to the photo series, each of which shows another of Gill's subjects or concerns, the exhibition includes an overview of his publications. Gill is internationally esteemed as a significant maker of photo books, because of the special and tactile quality of the publications produced by Nobody, his own publishing house. Gill considers these publications to be the final stage of his photo series.

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Monica Nouwens - Look At Me And Tell Me If You Have Known Me Before

In her project Look At Me And Tell Me If You Have Known Me Before, Dutch photographer Monica Nouwens captures the ambivalent appeal of one of the world's greatest cities: Los Angeles. Nouwens depicts the lively DIY subculture of the city she lives in. Her personages truly belong in hip, young L.A. and live in the context of a city and culture facing a financial and moral crisis. Her work blends roughness, sensuality and emotional moments into a fragile but timeless image of beauty and the human condition. The exhibition will be on show at Foam from 17 May, featuring a selection of photos from this special project. The atmospheric images of Monica Nouwens will also be shown in a dazzling multimedia installation.

In Look At Me And Tell Me If You Have Known Me Before, Nouwens provides a picture of a group of people who have abandoned the dominant consumer culture, in search of a more personal, smaller-scale and more poetic alternative. In photos shot mostly at night, Nouwens gives a romantic, fleeting impression of their lives. Her cinematographic photos of gatherings, parties and activities in L.A. allow broader insight into the relationships between people and their urban and social environment. Nouwens' images do more than simply record a moment in time. Look At Me And Tell Me If You Have Known Me Before offers a glimpse into a collective psyche that reflects the hopes, fears and nightmares of an entire generation.

Nouwens has been portraying marginal urban communities in America for more than fifteen years: from idealistic utopians, neo-art communities and anarchistic movements such as 'Food Not Bombs' to disillusioned, drug-addicted commandos returning from the war in Iraq. Nouwens is fascinated by the wealth of social manifestations in the city. Over the years her view of society in America and Los Angeles has undergone a significant development, from outside observer to involved insider. Ultimately this has formed the basis for the more personal and independent work Look At Me And Tell Me If You Have Known Me Before. This is where her experience, lifestyle, artistic vision and love-hate relationship with the city come together.

Monica Nouwens (Netherlands, 1964) has been an artist in residence at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, and attended the California Institute of the Arts. In addition to her independent projects, her work has been regularly published in print media. She previously worked with Volume, Domus and V Magazine and her work has appeared in publications such as Vogue, Archis and Surface. In recent years Nouwens' work has also been on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam, and Ron Mandos Galerie, Amsterdam. Her work is included in a number of prestigious collections such as the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Salvatore Ferragamo, Florence, and Levi's, London.

Look At Me And Tell Me If You Have Known Me Before is a Paradox production. This project is made possible by the Mondriaan Fund, VSBfonds and Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst.

The exhibition Look At Me And Tell Me If You Have Known Me Before by Monica Nouwens can be seen from 17 May - 14 July 2013 in Foam. Open daily 10am - 6pm, Thurs/Fri 10am -9pm.

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Image: Trenton 2012 (c) Monica Nouwens

Communications department
telephone: +31 20 5516500 or via foam@foam.org

Foam
Keizersgracht 609 1017 DS Amsterdam
Hours:
Daily 10am - 6pm
Th/Fr 10am - 9pm
1 Jan 12pm - 6pm
Closed 30 April (Queensday)
Admission:
Adults € 8,75
Students/65+ € 6,00
CJP € 4,50
Children<12 free

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