Way back in the mists of time, pre 9/11 when Americans loved terrorists and donating to their favourite charity the IRA, when the Kennedy family thought FAR & AWAY was a documentary, in the town that suffered most, Belfast, they set up a photographic archive of events that were happening on their streets. Collecting since 1983 and amassing half a million images often by unknown photographers such as the photograph of a paramilitary 'punishment' above BELFAST EXPOSED has continued to be community focused while also exhibiting work by acclaimed local and international photographers. This strikes me as a model that more cities including this one would do well to adopt.
If only Manchester had a few quid to spare to start things off but I know they haven't, what with the recession and all, they have to cut costs.
I think that Ray Lowry was probably a little bit more ROCK 'n' ROLL than his namesake old L.S. It's great that he's got THIS retrospective in the city of his birth Salford. Shame it's twelve months after his death but I suppose better late than never. HERE for more of his work.
In a Vain attempt to become cool through association I would like to draw your attention to this From the CLUBBRENDA website:
Having first begun in 1999 as an ‘avant-garde’ performance night at Manchester’s Star and Garter, Club Brenda is fast approaching a decade of subversive art thrills. Presenting the city with diverse performance and music, the innovative club night remains loyally attuned to the sounds of the Manchester DIY underground, from emerging bands and musicians, to a network of artists, photographers, film-makers, designers and poets.
‘Imagine what a club would be like if it combined bands, performance art and a deliberately eclectic music policy…if it reached out to everyone: gay, straight, black, blue; but in particular, welcomed life’s uglier ducklings – the outsiders, the strange ones…’
To mark this occasion we are launching the limited edition Brenda book, Strange Trees, which moves through the history of club Brenda, using a series of classic narratives to form a dark urban fairytale, alongside a series of commissioned photography and artwork. Instead of Jack and the Giant, we have Dirty Honky, turning vaudeville tricks for magic beans. Savage Wolf prowls through the ever-changing forest but isn’t quite the predator we expect, and the same goes for Holly Gore, who some like to call the witch… in the strange forest of Club Brenda, no one remains what they were…
Limited edition prints and posters from acclaimed artists including Rachel Goodyear will be available to buy on the night, along with copies of Strange Trees. Also, exclusively to the launch, limited edition paintings will be for sale from leading Northwest artist and Strange Trees contributor David Hoyle, perfect for Christmas presents. Music will be provided by DJs and bands on the Switchflicker Records label.
The launch will take place at Urbis, Manchester’s contemporary art space in Cathedral Gardens, on Tuesday 1st December 2009 from 7:30pm – 10:00pm.
Don't be taken in by those "puppy dog" eyes. Blacklab have teeth and they are chewing holes in PARIS PHOTO and using the Art Market as a doggy chew. Great stuff from Manchester's new(ish) photo blog. Where are my portraits folks?
Hope you're well - I'm writing with an online photo request and hope you have a few moments to share your insight -
I'm looking for a contemporary art photograph that says WINTER - I'm planning to feature the photographer in my holiday email, which drops next month. All of us are spending time with quality photographs on a daily basis, so I'm hoping you have some compelling suggestions I should consider?
I put out a call on Flak Photo's Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/flakphoto and a handful of solid submissions have already come in. This is very informal - I'm hoping that some of you can point my eyes at some interesting work to fit this project.
Feel free to share the call with fellow blogger/photographers you think would be interested in contributing ideas - artists can submit their images at min. 1000 px wide to my attention at photo@flakmag.com
Following on from the last post regarding ICO Gallery Our Kid sent me THIS link. I was getting really pissed off with this numpty and then I read all THISpsycho babble and realisedthat I had come across, and fallen for another nutter that from time to time one meets online (Why not SEND me your portrait?). David I'll add you to the "Delusional" link section as soon as I create one...........
Telling things as they are often pisses people off. Nothing wrong with that but you have to realise that it makes you enemies. I've managed to make some three and a half thousand miles away.
If you read this blog on a regular basis you may remember a post about a gallery in NY that spammed me saying they wanted me to take part in an exhibition all I had to do was send them X amount of dollars for a marketing package. Obviously not being born under a fucking tree I didn't fall for it and posted about it here in my own delicate way. Imagine my surprise when I received the below email earlier today..........
Mr. Page,
We have seen of your Manchester Photography blog, and we're writing to inform you that our information must be removed immediately!
You know nothing of the gallery business. What you have stated is your fantasy. It is rumor, it is slander, and if you do not remove it immediately, we will contact the server and initiate a lawsuit.
It is unfortunate that so many people are subject to the delusions and propaganda concerning the gallery business, vilifying the very people who are making a difference in the art world today. Do your homework rather than spewing lies. Do you claim to know how prominent gallery's are doing business? You are guessing; shame on you!
Cease and desist immediately, or we will take action against all involved parties.
Sincerely,
A really really cool proper Gallery guv, honest would I lie to you? No son you put yer money away, on my muvver's life. Gallery, (obviously this last bit was added by me, just in case some fuck stupid Art world weasel thinks I'm just mis-quoting them)
What other people have to say about them . HERE oh yeah and HERE It was that "shame on you" bit that hurt the most.
So here's a notice to you. Keep sending me threatening emails and I'll keep posting them...........
" MANCHESTERPHOTOGRAPHY taking on scammers, bullies and Shylock's since 2007"
Monday, 23 November 2009
"A successful photo is only a preliminary step toward the intelligent use of photography... Photography is like a mosaic that becomes a synthesis only when it is presented en masse"
Celebrity portraiture normally leaves me cold. Peacocks posing so what? I've had to change my opinion in light of THE HALF exhibition at THE LOWRY. Simon Annan has spent 20 years photographing actors backstage in London's West End during 'The Half', the half hour before the curtains go up. This is a real tour de force with some stunning Black & white portraits beautifully printed and plenty of them. For me they hark back to a time gone by, they have a classic feel and they are non the worse for that. If you get a chance go and see It's on until 3rd January.
Two of my favourite things, photography and cycling in one magazine, Tip top! plus some lovely illustration great articles, lovely smelling ink and paper stock and hardly any adverts and all for £7.... When magazines are folding left right and centre THIS is an absolutely brilliant new(ish)title.
Available at MAGma books on Oldham street if in Manchester.
Considering the pickle we seem to be in with flooding here in the UK, I'm surprised that more photographers aren't making it their subject matter. Not to worry, Jonathan Olleyhas it covered, with his series SEA WALLS- UNITED KINGDOM.
The Manifesto Club campaigns against the hyperregulation of everyday life. We support free movement across borders, free expression and free association. We challenge booze bans, photo bans, vetting and speech codes - all new ways in which the state regulates everyday life on the streets, in workplaces and in our private lives.
We believe that the freedom issues of the twenty-first century cut across old political boundaries, and require new schools of political thought, and new methods of campaigning and organisation.
I'd have called them the common sense club! HERE for plenty of articles about erosion's of civil liberties and the NEW LABOUR Liberal PC Gestapo permeating into all aspects of modern British Life.
HERE for the one that most affects us "POLICING THE PUBLIC GAZE: THE ASSAULT ON CITIZEN PHOTOGRAPHY.
I've been thinking of doing this for a while but the events of yesterday's post have spurred me on. It's kind of made me realise, that networks and institutions we are creating here on the web maybe more transitory and ephemeral than we think. Things are not being built here out of stone. Blogs, & bloggers will come and go we are here at this moment in time and the documentarian in me wants to seize the moment. So I propose a bit of fun and will you help?
Over the years I've interacted with many of you in one way or another, some of you I like to think have become my friends. Some of you I have gone on to meet 'face to face' but many of you I have never seen. So I want you to send me a picture of yourself. I thought it would be a bit of fun to get a rogues gallery going on. I thought I would have a bit of an exhibition of you all here at MANCHESTER PHOTOGRAPHY over the Christmas period.
So if we've ever communicated with each other due to this blog then please send me a picture of yourself. Choose your weapons. You can use any camera you like 5x4 to camera phone. I'd like them to be from the waist up (See above piccy) to get some uniformity to the set, black & white or colour is OK. Shall we say 1000 pixels widest side @ 150 dpi? You can send them as jpegs to me at info@manchesterphotography.com
I like to think that we have a little community going on in photo blog land and I'd love a record of the people involved at this moment in time. I might fall on my arse with this but I really hope I don't as I think it will be fun........
I remember way back in the mists of time (2007) when I started this blog. I had no real idea what format it was going to take other than it was loosely going to be about Manchester & photography (can you see how I came up with the name?)
Starting a blog is, for the first few posts a bit like shouting into the dark, you have no idea who if anyone is out there. And this went on for a while until I stuck a statcounter on here, I knew then that a couple of people were at the very least stumbling across my posts.
The first big land mark for a blog is when people start to leave comments, that's the important bit, that's when you start to connect with folk, that's the first evidence that you have of an audience. You have started to meet people and discover, albeit virtually, interesting people and fantastic things you may not have other wise come across. Tom was one of those people and his blog was one of those creations. Tom was one of the first ever people to leave comments here at MANCHESTER PHOTOGRAPHY, the first human contact I received here in cyberspace, other than someone who just kept calling me a wanker that is.
So it's with great sadness that I have learnt that he has hung up the blog. I think it's a real shame and a genuine loss to not only the photo blog world but the world in general. Tom has been a true pioneer of British photographers using the Internet, running his blog since January 2006 with almost daily uploads of photographs of this nations capital city. Never using the blog to massage his ego as so many of us do, I believe that it was acting as a worthwhile and increasingly complete mammoth documentation of modern London. Tom's understated style ran through the thousands of images without detracting from the near forensic inspection of almost every detail of London town. Finished sooner than I think it should have been, I really do believe that Tom has made a most complete Document, of London between 2006-20010. Wishing Tom all the best, here's to one of the best and most worthwhile photo blogs on the web..............
Thank fuck for that. NASA have found water on the moon and Google are almost as excited by this as they were last week by the anniversary of Sesame street.
I like these pictures made from the images that come with the frames, it's a nice bit of fun. I'm not sure why he has to re-work them with the contents of used 'johnnies' though? more making photo's with the aid of body fluids HERE.
"Photographers such as Ed Burtynsky have been dashing about in record numbers chronicling and documenting the incredible industrial and manufacturing transformation that is the current day wonder called China. And while some such as Lu Guang have concentrated magnificently on the horrendously destructive environmental effects, few if any have looked beyond the mainland to notice the impact this emerging powerhouse has had on other developing nations".........
I spent the day in olde Lancaster today, went on the very interesting Lancaster Castle Tour. Them "olden times" people, jeez what a load of nutters. They believed in witches and all sorts of madness like hanging people. The last fella to get hung there was in 1910 and apparently he was innocent. Thank fuck we stopped that shit. Thank fuck we don't think like that anymore. Thank fuck that we have out grown mumbo jumbo ideas like 'Evil'. We realise now that there's no such thing, right? We are clever enough to know that we should banish such stupidity in order to understand why certain people act in atrocious incomprehensible ways and because some actions are so incomprehensible we owe it to humanity to find out in a grown up and responsible manner why certain individuals behave in that morally wrong and harmful way.
Or we could stick some gargoyles outside our doors and watch Channel 4.........
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . . Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.
8 October 1917 - March, 1918
Tomorrow as we stand there for two minutes of silence and contemplate decade after decade, century after century of corpse mountain making, it might also be worth realising that neither photography nor painting music nor poetry have ever managed to prevent it happening again and again. In this circumstance Art clearly has no power to bring about change. So that begs the question, why do we bother still making it?
I love stark, heavy contrast, chaotic yet lyrical Japanese photography. I can't do it myself for shit. I've tried around Manchester, doesn't work, at least not for me. I thought it maybe had something to do with the Japanese mindset. I'm beginning though to think that a trip to Tokyo may well facilitate the ability. Take for instance Jacob Aue Sobol and I TOKYO.
I would just like to say a big thanks to everyone who came to the opening on Wednesday night. Considering the crappy weather and the fact that it went "Head to Head" with THE CUBE opening, we were well chuffed with the turn out. It was great to catch up with some older friends new babies belonging to friends and finally making real of virtual friends. The show is on at URBIS, Manchester until the 12th.
OPULENCE Peter Ainsworth, Marc Burden, Manuel Capurso, Ania Dabrowska, Hannah Dakin, Ellie Davies, Vron Harris, Jochen Klein, Richard Kolker, Rita Soromenho, Gill Vaux
Exhibition: 4th December 2009 - 2nd January 2010 Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 6pm PV: Thursday, 3rd December, 6 -9 pm The Feast: Monday, 14th December, 7.30 - 10 pm
In the run up to, and during the Christmas holiday Latitude Photographers take residence in a disused shop in the East End. As part of photomonth09, the artist collective curates a show that critically explores the notion of Opulence. Responses to the theme encompass artists' considerations of its meaning in our culture, asking whether opulence is an antidote to the recession, aspirational escapism, or a Utopian ideal. The abuse of wealth has caused economic and social neglect, so how have perceptions of opulence shifted within the contemporary psyche? The show, consisting of photography, video, sculpture, and installations, will be presented as a period of dialogue: where the works can relate to each other, rather than an ultimate presentation of artistic statements. In exploration of the theme the exhibition also highlights the nature of artistic collaboration. This period of reflection will be celebrated during the key point of the exhibition, the Feast - a black tie, artists' talk around a dinner table in the gallery space. Guests from the public will be invited to participate in the event– the culmination of the artists' investigations of the theme. Latitude Photographers is a group of international, emerging artists working in London. It has developed out of a co-operative response to debates within contemporary art and a desire to push the boundaries of photographic practice. Defined by experimental enquiry the ethos of Latitude is to incorporate differences in approach while retaining the feel of a group response. http://www.latitudephotographers.com/ admin@latitudephotographers.com To reserve an invitation to the Feast: ritalatitudephotographer@googlemail.com
press image: Marc Burden, Test Piece for 12 Rivers, 2009
Another interesting show put together by this London based bunch. They really are producing some tiptop work. If this level of 'original thought' spreads my
NEW CLICHES series of posts may become redundant! What's more they're UK based albeit London. Not NY or Chicago, not Gemany or Netherlands. UK.
A true master of twentieth century painting, Bacon had a well publicised and honest relationship with photography as revealed HERE.
Sunday, 1 November 2009
Four pictures from my new ongoing series SEMI-DETACHED. Here they are ready to go to Urbis to be included in a group show together with the MEATYARDS ARTS collective. Although the series is not complete I thought this would be a good chance to give it it's first airing, (and I'm getting bored with keep looking at "25 Weapons")
SEMI-DETACHED "Could there be a more utterly British dwelling than the Semi-Detached? Straddling social divides and sharing partition walls the Semi is king of suburbia,"
Is the tag line for the series. The exhibition is on between 4th & 12th November at Urbis, Cathedral Gardens, Manchester.
All Images copyright Mark Page
Cheers to Marcus Doyle who sowed the seeds for this series!
I'm not sure if I love this about modern Britain or hate it. We adopt something like "trick or treating" from America and put a very British spin on things. We don't bother dressing up or taking our cute little toddlers around for sweets. What happens near me at least is some 17 year olds turn up at your door wearing tracky's with a can of Stella in their hand. Now correct me if I'm wrong but that's not the spirit. That's at the very best begging and at the worst money with menaces.
And while I'm at it and full of Autumnal cheer, upon leaving our local supermarket I heard the charming chirp of a small urchin. "Penny fer guy mate?" "No change" I replied and doing a double take I noticed this little angel had no Guy. I question him. "You've not even got a Guy" I say accusingly. The cherub looked at me and says, "Well I'm not goin to fucking drag it up ere am a?"
Way back in the mists of time, pre 9/11 when Americans loved terrorists and donating to their favourite charity the IRA, when the Kennedy family thought FAR & AWAY was a documentary, in the town that suffered most, Belfast, they set up a photographic archive of events that were happening on their streets. Collecting since 1983 and amassing half a million images often by unknown photographers such as the photograph of a paramilitary 'punishment' above BELFAST EXPOSED has continued to be community focused while also exhibiting work by acclaimed local and international photographers. This strikes me as a model that more cities including this one would do well to adopt.
Tale One.
Tale Two. 
