I have some newly commissioned work on show at the Saatchi Gallery as part of their group exhibition FROM SELFIE TO SELF-EXPRESSION.

Dwellings
2017
C-type lambda prints
Each 76.2 x 60.1 cm

Photographing both found and artist-made structures, Dwelling explores the basic human desire for shelter. They link us with something much older and bigger than us; part of our collective imagination.

This series is a typology of dens in Hitch Wood, Hitchin. Most of the dens were already in existence, some I created. On one level they are one of the most basic forms of architecture and sign of human survival, on the other they are beautiful sculptural forms of self-expression.

The other artists in the exhibition are: Hannah Starkey / Jonny Briggs / Emma Critchley / Laura Pannack / Matt Stuart / Chris Nunn / Chris Levine / Tom Hunter / Alma Haser

From Selfie to Self-Expression, Saatchi Gallery, London SW3, from 31 March-30 May, free.

I have two video pieces included in this upcoming exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, London. They will be showing my Sight Sacralization Part 1 & 2 in the group exhibition ‘From Selfie to Self-Expression‘.

The show will be the world’s first exhibition exploring the history of the selfie from Velazquez to the present day, while celebrating the truly creative potential of a form of expression often derided for its inanity. Showing alongside examples of many influential artists’ work will be selfies that have quickly become icons of the digital era – from the beautiful and sublime to the mad, bad and downright dangerous.

selfie-v2

Rembrandt van Rijn Self-Portrait with Two Circles, Juno Calypso The Honeymoon Suite, Actor Benedict Cumberbatch jumps behind U2 at the 86th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #21.

The work of Sergei Vasiliev currently on show at the Saatchi Gallery as part of their group show ‘GAIETY IS THE MOST OUTSTANDING FEATURE OF THE SOVIET UNION’.

Sergei Vasiliev was born in 1937 in Chelyabinsk, Russia. After graduating from the MVD Academy, Moscow, he became a staff photographer for the newspaper ‘Vecherny Chelyabinsk’, where he has worked for the past thirty years. he has received many honours including International Master of Press Photography from the International Organization of Photo Journalists (Prague, 1985), Honoured Worker of Arts of Russia, and the Golden Eye Prize. His work has been exhibited internationally and is held in numerous museums’ collections. He is author of more than twenty books, including ‘Russian Beauty’, (1996) and ‘Zonen’, (1994).

FUEL Design published the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedia in three volumes in 2003, 2006 and 2008 respectively. The books are part of the permanent collection of the Design Museum, London.

The exhibition runs until 9 June 2013.

See more about the exhibition here: http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/russian_tattoo.htm?section_name=new_art_from_russia

 

‘Photography and the art world’: debate organised by Intelligence Squared.

Wednesday 25th April, 2012, Saatchi Gallery

The discussion will begin at 7pm and finish at 8.45pm.

“In 2010 the artist-photographer Paul Graham delivered a blistering presentation to the MoMA Photography Forum in which he said that “there remains a sizeable part of the art world that simply does not get photography”. Intelligence² recently ran a debate on the topic: “Photography will always be a lesser medium than paint.” At the 2011 Deutsche Borse Photography Prize there was outrage from certain quarters that the documentary photographer Jim Goldberg should be on the same shortlist as Thomas Demand and Elad Lassry.

So why is it that there is still this complicated, rivalrous relationship between the worlds of art and photography? Why is photography still referred to in a semi-derogatory way? What is it about photography that makes it, for some people, inherently of less worth when held up against other art mediums? Are photographers such as Walker Evans and Diane Arbus really lesser artists than their painter contemporaries, Mark Rothko and Ellsworth Kelly respectively?

This event, organised to launch the Saatchi Gallery’s major photography exhibition Out of Focus, comes at a time when the world of photography is going through one of its richest and also most challenging moments. Traditional boundaries between various territories within the world of photography – fashion, documentary, advertising and art – are blurring into one another in unexpected, exciting and not always tension-free ways; in some people’s eyes ‘straight’ photography is being usurped by conceptual photography; and with that, even the labels ‘artist’ and ‘photographer’ are the subject of debate.

During this discussion photographers Mitch Epstein and Hannah Starkey will join writer Geoff Dyer and curator Susan Bright to explore the relationship between art and photography. They will attempt to define what it is that is unique about photography and the creative act of making a photograph, and enlarge the way we view the world of visual art.”