15 september 2023, Flor Linckens
3 previews at Unseen: Queer reflections, wafer-thin paper and dystopian imaginations
It is an event we look forward to every year: Unseen. The photography fair is celebrating its 11th edition this year and once again, it has a promising setup: 72 galleries from all over the world will present work that conveys the versatility within the medium. You can also visit the Book Market, that houses 65 publishers, and of course the exciting UNBOUND section, where artists consider the boundaries of the medium only as a suggestion — resulting in ten fascinating installations. Immerse yourself in the kaleidoscopic world of photography and buy your tickets on unseenamsterdam.com. In the online catalogue you can explore the works on show in advance and in the article below, we highlight three photographers who will present their work at the fair.
Ali Tahayori, Inverted Pink Triangle (Self-Portrait), 2023, 2023, THIS IS NO FANTASY
This Melbourne-based gallery showcases work by Iranian-Australian artist Ali Tahayori, who arrived in Australia in 2007 with degrees in both medicine and photography. In his work, he expresses his (queer) identity, a sense of home and belonging as well as his Iranian heritage. His pieces reflect Persian paisley prints, ancient Iranian philosophy and geometric and kaleidoscopic mirror elements from the traditional Āina-Kāri tradition. In his work, Tahayori opposes the oppression of the LGBTIQA+ community in his home country and at the same time, he hopes to mirror your gaze as a viewer. For example, the artist presents hand-painted self-portraits which render him vulnerable, but by placing mirrored elements over his face, he refracts and fragments your gaze and reflection. In doing so, he invites you to imagine what it is like to walk in the shoes of someone with a complex, beautiful, rich and occasionally contradictory identity. In some cases, the artist places secret messages in his work, which shows that artists will always find a way to convey their message, even when faced with censorship. The pink mirrors also refer to the pink triangles that were used by the Nazis during the Second World War to mark and persecute queer people. Tahayori powerfully appropriates these triangles.
Anna Lim, Hidden Cut, 2020, AN INC.
This gallery from Seoul is presenting work by Anna Lim and Piotr Zbierski at Unseen. In her work, the South Korean photographer Anna Lim regularly plays with the assumption that we can become involved in a crisis situation at any given time — a notion that isn't unheard of if you consume the news on a daily basis and certainly not if you lives south of North Korea. Her works resemble an aestheticised disaster simulation and say something about our dormant feelings of unrest, but also about the sensational ways in which our media depict (potential) disasters, especially in the context of repeated nuclear missile tests in North Korea. In 2019, the artist won a Photo Folio Review prize during Rencontres d'Arles.
Gregor Törzs, Ultramarine, 2023, Persiehl & Heine Galerie für Fotografie
Persiehl & Heine Galerie für Fotografie
Persiehl & Heine Galerie für Fotografie stems from a gallery that was founded in Hamburg in 1821. At Unseen the gallery is showing a duo presentation by Sarah Moon and Gregor Törzs. Törzs initially started his career in the fashion, film and advertising world. When he moved to Los Angeles at the age of nineteen, he studied special effects, lighting and cinematography, among other things. Back in Germany, he developed his own photography style, for which he uses various types of paper — including wafer-thin Japanese Kozo and Gampi paper — and a combination of a contemporary outlook and traditional and analogue photography techniques, including hand-printed platinum prints that require a lot of technical skill. His work is marked by a love for nature and a sense of nostalgia. In an interview with Metal Magazine he stated: “I strive to portray the emotion that’s best described as the feeling you have when remembering something. When you think of the most beautiful thing that ever happened to you, it carries this sweet melancholic feeling. That is my function, and everything I photograph and how I print it, follows as its form.”
