1900s

Coming Exhibition: Magnum – Contact Sheets

“Magnum – Contact Sheets”

Who:

Istanbul Modern

When: Feb. 26, 2015 – Aug. 2, 2015 (Hours Vary)

Where:

Istanbul Modern
Meclis-i Mebusan Cad. Liman İşletmeleri Sahası Antrepo No: 4, 34433 Karaköy – İSTANBUL

More Information: Here.

“Magnum – Contact Sheets” is a major exhibition that takes the contact sheet as the basis for exploring the creative process behind some of the world’s most iconic photographs from the Magnum Photos agency. The exhibition gives audiences remarkable access and insight into the decision-making processes of many of Magnum’s famous members through the inclusion of first-person accounts. With the development of digital technologies and their huge impact on photographic production, this exploration of photography’s analogue period sets out to both investigate and celebrate a technique that is becoming increasingly historic; to provide an “epitaph”, in the words of Martin Parr.

A contact print is obtained by exposing an image or a set of images against a single sheet of photographic paper of the same size as the negative. Often compared to an artist’s sketchbook, contact sheets are the photographer’s first look at what he or she has captured on the film roll. Because contact sheets provide raw images of the photographs, without any interventions in the process, they offer the artist an opportunity for self-criticism and making a choice. In this sense, looking at contact sheets is like entering the photographer’s private area of work, which he or she keeps secret. On the other hand, by showing us the before and after of the unique scene selected by the photographer, they enable us to witness how that moment came to be. They give the viewer a sense of walking alongside the photographer and seeing through their eyesas they capture the scene. Contact sheets give clues as to the artist’s working process, the way they approach the subject matter and the extent to which the selected snapshot reflects reality.

Shedding light on the behind the scenes process of Magnum photographers, the exhibition reproduces work from over seventy years of visual history, including the D-Day landings by Robert Capa, the 1968 Paris riots by Bruno Barbey, Stuart Franklin’s Tiananmen Square, the Vietnam war by Philip Jones Griffiths and 9/11 by Thomas Hoepker. It showcases iconic portraiture of political figures, actors, artists and musicians, from Che Guevara and Malcolm X, to Miles Davies and The Beatles. Contact sheets and photographs are accompanied by close-up details, articles, books and magazine spreads.

Coming Exhibition: Bharti Kher~ Not All Who Wander Are Lost

“Bharti Kher:

Not All Who Wander Are Lost“

Who:

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

When: July 1, 2015 – January 31, 2016 (Hours Vary)

Where:

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
25 Evans Way
Boston, MA 02115

More Information: Here.

Bharti Kher is the sixth artist-in-residence invited to create a temporary site-specific work for the Museum’s façade. Kher’s project reflects on maritime travel, highlighted by her interest in mapping and typography and references the migration of people in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Kher uses bindis, a popular forehead decoration worn by women in India, and a signature element in her work, to map demographic movement in an abstract way.

Bharti Kher’s (b. 1969, England) is an art of dislocation and transience, reflecting her own, largely itinerant life. Born and raised in England, the artist moved to New Delhi in the early 1990s after her formal training in the field. Consequently, the concept of home as the location of identity and culture is constantly challenged in her body of work. In addition to an autobiographical examination of identity, Kher’s unique perspective also facilitates an outsider’s ethnographic observation of contemporary life, class and consumerism in urban India.

Presently, Kher uses the bindi, a dot indicative of the third eye worn by the Indian women on their foreheads, as a central motif in her work. Bharti Kher often refers to her mixed media works with bindis, the mass-produced, yet traditional ornaments, as “action paintings.” Painstakingly placed on the surface one-by-one to form a design, the multi-colored bindis represent custom, often inflexible, as well as the dynamic ways in which it is produced and consumed today. The artist is also known for her collection of wild and unusual resin-cast sculptures and her digital photography.

Hmong traveling exhibit celebrates 40 years after Laos

“Hmong traveling exhibit celebrates 40 years after Laos”

by Stephen Magagnini via “The Sacramento Bee“

Forty years after Laos fell to the communists, decimating the Hmong people and their culture, a new generation of Hmong American leaders has emerged to preserve their heritage before it’s too late.

About 300 Hmong came to Will C. Wood Middle School in south Sacramento on Sunday to preview four new exhibits of photos and artifacts chronicling their recent history: “Hmong in Laos”; “The CIA’s Secret War against the Communists”; “Refugee Camp Life”; and “New Life in California.”

The displays were created by a group of 30 Hmong young professionals, business owners, educators and community leaders throughout California developing a traveling exhibit, the “Hmongstory40” project. They are urging families in Northern and Central California to “be a part of history” by sharing photos, artifacts and memories of their families’ journeys from Laos to Thai refugee camps and on to America.

Wood Assistant Principal See Lor, 42, who was born in Laos, taught for 10 years at Elder Creek Elementary. “Adults would ask the kids, ‘What is Hmong?’ and young Hmong kids had no clue,” she said. “They don’t know why they’re in this country. They don’t know that we’re political refugees forced to come here, not because (we) were dreaming big about America.”

Lor, clad in traditional Hmong silver and embroidery, said the children’s lack of knowledge about their culture and history “touched my heart and I knew I need to help preserve the history and the culture.”

Hmong history dates back more than 3,000 years. The Hmong once had their own kingdom in China, but they were crushed by the Chinese emperors and driven into the mountains of northern Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

According to the exhibit, “From developing a written language, to advancements in textiles, farming and fashion … the Hmong identity was strengthened, an identity that would be resilient and spirited enough to survive a secret war and eventual exile.”

At age 5, Lor fled with her family to Ban Vinai, the largest of the Thai refugee camps, where more than 40,000 Hmong awaited sponsorships to the United States. Lor, who came with her family to the United States and entered fourth grade in 1986, said she has no idea where she was born. “When I asked my mom, she said, ‘Joking Mountain.’”

Over the past 40 years, an estimated 250,000 Hmong refugees have resettled in the United States. “There are about 30,000 Hmong now in Sacramento and 32,000 in Fresno,” said Lar Yang, one of the exhibit organizers. He said he expects more than 100,000 people will view the traveling exhibit.

Hmong throughout California – inbcluding those in Sacramento Sunday — are being asked to contribute stories and memorabilia to the history project. The full exhibit is scheduled to go on display in Fresno during the Hmong New Year in December, in Merced in May 2016 and in Sacramento in the fall of 2016. Details are at hmongstory40.org.

“Thanks for coming today and caring about your history,” project director Lar Yang told the audience Sunday. “Now is the time to write the truth about our history before our elders are gone. . . . .”

Coming Exhibition: Dolce Vita? From the Liberty to Italian Design (1900-1940)

“Dolce Vita? From the Liberty to Italian Design (1900-1940)”

Who: Musée d’Orsay

When: Apr. 14, 2015 – Sept. 13, 2015 (View Hours Here)

Where:

Musee d’Orsay
1 Rue de la Légion d’Honneur,
75007 Paris, France

How Much: (View Pricing Here)

More Information: Here

“In Italy in the early twentieth century the decorative arts were used to interpret the desire for progress of a nation that had only just found its unity. Cabinetmakers, ceramicists and glass-makers all worked together with the leading artists, creating a veritable “Italian style”.

This period of extraordinary creativity is recalled through around a hundred works in a chronological display. The “Liberty” style, which came into its own at the turn of the century, is recalled with designs by Carlo Bugatti, Eugenio Quarti and Federico Tesio mixed with works by the Divisionist painters. A second section is devoted to Futurism, its esthetic inspired by progress and speed extending to every aspect of life.

Later, the return to classicism in Italy came in various guises, finding its expression in the ceramics of Gio Ponti or the glass creations of Carlo Scarpa, up to the stern language of the “Novecento”.
Meanwhile, the rationalist style marked the advent of modern “design”.“

Royal rickshaw comes home, to be displayed in central Vietnam

“Royal rickshaw comes home, to be displayed in central Vietnam”

via “Tuoi Tre News”

A rickshaw which belonged to a king of the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945), Vietnam’s last monarchy, has finally arrived home after some 100 years being away and will be put on display in the central region next week as a happy ending for insiders’ unprecedentedly concerted efforts.

The rickshaw, which was gifted by King Thanh Thai (1879-1954), the 10th king of the Nguyen Dynasty, to his mother during his lifetime, is considered a royal treasure which is highly cherished for its technical, aesthetic, cultural, and historical value.

The prized item was custom-made from “trac” wood encrusted with conch and boasts sophisticated carvings.

The rickshaw will be displayed at an exhibition, which is poised to run on Wednesday at Dien Tho Palace, part of the UNESCO-recognized Complex of Monuments in Hue City.

The palace is a prominent highlight in Hue, the capital city of the central province of Thua Thien-Hue.

The homecoming is the fruit of Vietnamese culture authorities’ campaign, with the leader of a Paris-based museum giving up its legal right to purchase the object and fund-raising efforts.

At an auction in Tours, France on June 13, 2014 of various treasured items, including King Thanh Thai’s rickshaw, Vietnam’s people won the bid for the vehicle for €45,000. The item fetched €55,800 including organization fees.

In an unexpected twist, Katia Mollet, a curator of the Guimet Museum, declared that France had the right to buy the rickshaw for the same price.

State-run organizations in France were entitled by law to purchase the items at the same price as that offered by the auction winners.

The Vietnam Embassy in France and Vietnamese culture authorities persevered in talking the French museum’s leader out of the intention, and sought for support from French cultural agencies and experts on Vietnamese culture for Vietnam’s bid to purchase the rickshaw.

Some days following the auction, the Guimet Museum, which is well known for its painstaking conservation of a number of Vietnamese artifacts and has helped promote them through its exhibits, gave up its right to buy the rickshaw.

Buu Y, a respected culture researcher in Hue, was taken aback by the full-length details of King Thanh Thai’s rickshaw in a record kept by the French auction company.

According to the auctioning record, the king sold his rickshaw and bed – another royal treasure – to Prosper Jourdan, head of the king’s escort team, who took it to France in 1907.

The rickshaw has seen repairs to and restoration of some of its parts since, the record added.

Jourdan’s heirs later decided to put these two invaluable items up for auction and expressed their wish that after the auction, they will be displayed in Hue, which was Vietnam’s imperial capital during the Nguyen Dynasty. . . .