09 september 2022, Flor Linckens
5x on show during Unseen
Unseen, the photography fair for contemporary photography, will take place from 16 to 18 September. Today, we'll highlight a number of interesting photographers who will show their work in the Westergas next week. Curious about what else will be on show? This weekend, the exhibition catalogue with all of the displayed works will be published on GalleryViewer.
Donavon Smallwoord, Languor 2, 2021, galerie wouter van leeuwen
Donavon Smallwood — galerie wouter van leeuwen
During Unseen you can get acquainted with the work of Donavon Smallwood, a photographer from New York who was recently named as one of the Foam Talents of 2022. During Unseen, he'll show work from his "Languor" series, which also serves as an ode to an unknown history behind New York's most famous park: Central Park. Because what many people don't know is that part of the park used to be the location of Seneca Village, a thriving community of predominantly African Americans. Many of them owned houses and therefore had the right to vote. Between 1853 and 1857, the city finalised the new plans for Central Park and 1,600 residents were evicted from the area—a reminder that gentrification is not a new problem. Last year, Smallwood won the Aperture Portfolio Prize and his work has appeared in numerous publications including The Atlantic, The New York Times, The New Yorker and The Guardian.
Joost Vandebrug, Exhilarating - E-I, 2022, Ingrid Deuss Gallery
Joost Vandebrug — Ingrid Deuss Gallery
The deeply personal series "Exhilarating" by the Dutch photographer, film and documentary maker Joost Vandebrug is about light and positivity, but started in a dark period in the artist's life. In 2017, Vandebrug stayed in his house in rural France, where he tried to take control of his anxiety. He largely confined his living space to an old chaise longue next to the window, where he watched the days go from light to dark to light. It became a way of making it manageable, controllable. Each work in this series consists of a hundred small handmade prints depicting overwhelming mountain landscapes that were captured every day before sunset. Together, they form an overview of the visually magical transition period between light and dark. The hundred images are attached with pins to emphasize the fragility of the process. For the photographer, the work symbolises the happy resignation to the idea that darkness can and will always rear its head, but that it is unmistakably linked to the light.
Satijn Panyigay, Twilight Zone (FOAM) 02, 2022, Galerie Caroline O'Breen
Satijn Panyigay — Galerie Caroline O’Breen
We've previously highlighted the series ‘Twilight Zone’ and the fascinating ways in which Satin Panyigay captures empty museums. During Unseen you will have the opportunity to discover her latest series, in which she immortalises the walls of Foam, one of the leading museums for photography in the Netherlands. Panyigay shows that a museum is more than a series of white backdrops. How do the spaces in which we look at art influence the ways in which we experience art?
Jan Pypers, Nightgardeners V, 2017, Contour Gallery
Jan Pypers — Contour Gallery
These days, many photographers are making concerted efforts to transcend the medium, for instance by combining analog and digital techniques in innovative ways. This includes Pypers, who makes carefully elaborated scale models for his photos, that are reminiscent of film sets. The artist has a background in the film world, where he developed a cinematographic eye and became acquainted with the possibilities of film sets, including forced perspective. Pypers takes the smallest details into account in its carefully built scale models. He subsequently edits the photos on his computer in post-production. When the image is complete, he destroys the scale model, leaving the photo as the only piece of evidence that this miniature world ever existed. The resulting images are exquisite, mysterious, poetic and dreamlike. They challenge your imagination, raise questions and are alienating and recognisable in equal parts.
Marjolein Blom, Untitled From: Failing Forward, 2022, galerie dudokdegroot
Marjolein Blom
The practice of Dutch artist Marjolein Blom is informed by her deep-rooted curiosity about how our universe works. And, by extension, the ways in which people try to get to a grip on that through science. She is particularly fascinated by the tension that is created by theories that seem counterintuitive, such as quantum physics and special relativity. She often leaves room for humorous and accidental elements. In the series "Failing Forward" (2021), Blom investigates the relationship between art and science and the observation that science and the general public have grown apart in recent years. For this series she used, among other things, images from the NASA archive.
