Alpine 12 In 2ohm2ohmwiring

Deutsche Börse Photography Prize
8 February to 6 April 2008
The Photographers' Gallery London

The Photographers' Gallery has a fantastic location and an unusual floor plan. The gallery 'at 5 Great Newport Street, but also to no.8. The two buildings are not communicating with their neighbors and they are hosting the same shows, half here and half there. These days there are the works of the four finalists Deutsche Börse Photography Prize is awarded annually to the professional who, during the previous year, has made a major contribution to photography. This year the finalists are John Davies (UK), Jacob Holdt (Denmark), Esko Männikkö (Finland) and Fazal Sheikh (USA).

If I had any ranking staff, crowned John Davies and Jacob Holdt, a dead heat.
Davis exhibits large format photographs, many in black and white, mostly taken between 1979 and 2005. The subjects on which returns are the views of British towns and open spaces, some other desert towns. Places seemingly forgotten, but which lead topography in their signs of recent history, industrial and post-industrial in framed photos of short texts on the side.

Jacob Holdt also tells a story, that large minorities of color in America, and does so through a choice among the thousand pictures ... he has done in five years, now projected onto a wall, all taken by hitchhiker on a trip in the early seventies. The shots of Holdt remain impressed by their intimacy '. It 'been able to reconstruct the heat and passion between a pair of African American boys in a house bare, blind reliance on the protection of the guns of a white middle-class family and the absolute degradation of the bands lowest in the society. Holdt and 'managed to capture the essence of American society of the seventies, with its passions and its contradictions, understanding photography as a means to raise awareness of the extreme social and racial injustice that he had met on his journey.

A complaint Fazal Sheik touches instead a well-defined part of the contemporary Indian population: women. They are the faces of these girls, mature, which set the goal of putting them or shun him. They have all experienced dramatic episodes of violence unprecedented in a country where their lives count for nothing and where the ultrasound is used only to find in advance the sex of the unborn child and to provide early abortion in case it appears female. The stories told in the texts next to the pictures are still so painful that eventually absorb all the attention, putting the background in sharp pictures themselves.

Completely different is the attitude Photographic Esko Männikkö that hunting has become a photographer in the eighties. In his work carries with it the memory of open spaces and quiet isolation in which people and animals living in parts of Lapland and Finland. "I'ma photographer of fish, dogs and old men," he once said.


Not to miss: Agecroft Power Station, Salford (Davis 1983), a coal plant in 1925, then closed. Now the same site is occupied by HM Prison Forest Bank for prisoners of 18-20 years, who play football in the picture as their forms, tiny in front of the immensity of the plant, are lost in a lunar landscape.

The Photographers' Gallery
5 & 8 Great Newport Street
London WC2H 7HY
Tube: Leicester Square

Orari di apertura
Lunedì – Sabato dalle 11:00 alle18:00
Giovedì dalle 11:00 alle 20:00
Domenica dalle 12:00 alle 18:00

Ingresso
Ingresso gratuito

Verizon Dvr Count Towards Nielson Ratings

COLAZIONE ALLA TATE

Non so se siete mai riusciti a fermarvi a Londra abbastanza for a long time to fully enjoy the privilege of joining the Tate Modern, but only for half an hour, the time to see a Rothko, then continue your walk on the Thames. I got used to so fast that I think I will struggle to do without it.

The tradition of free access to culture in Britain is long. The oldest museums (National Gallery, British Museum, Tate Britain) had been opened, the eighteenth and nineteenth century and then in the Victorian era, in order to contain and preserve the treasures that belonged to citizens, allowing them to enjoy it every time wishing to do so. too good to pass unscathed the dark days of history. A crackdown has in fact been given by the Iron Lady who imposed many museums the introduction of a ticket, an initiative that had a heavy impact on the number of visitors. The man was the turning point that Tony Blair before embarking on controversial policies, has had time to reopen the museum to a crowd not paying. The proposal was: abolition of the ticket for the permanent collections in exchange for tax breaks and government support in case of major expenses. And it worked. Today, most museums are free admission, along with a constellation of galleries and exhibition spaces. And all far from bankruptcy. The Tate Modern in spite of the astronomical costs of restructuring, has a budget surplus that makes frequent acquisitions.

Then there's a trick?
Moreover, there are three: the maintenance of the tickets for temporary exhibitions, the presence of a well-stocked bookshop opening of adorable Cafe and Tearooms, in bright rooms, furnished in keeping with the style of the museum in they are inserted, but always with taste. Surrounded by a peaceful chatter, you can have a tea with a blueberry muffin or a slice of those delicious cakes beloved by the British. In larger museums, such as the British or the Victoria & Albert can even have a full meal, a Sunday lunch a bit 'different. There is restored by the stand of the exhibition will retrace mentally (and gently) works seen and then get back on path. Finally, the idea is good.

strategies to increase familiarity with art, museums and so on exist and have already been lapped. It would be nice that Italian museums are shaking off the dusty patina of boredom that sometimes surrounds them to once again become places to live, open to the public in the true sense of the word.