Saturday, May 30, 2009

Auckland Public Library - The Photo Book


At 2pm tomorrow, Sunday May 31st, at Auckland's Central Public Library I will be talking about the photo-book. Among other things, how the photo-book has become an important and lasting vehicle for the presentation of photographic series and how it has become a significant rival and alternative to the showing of photographs on the gallery wall. I will also be talking about and showing my new book YOU WON'T BE WITH ME TOMORROW. The picture here shows some of the photo-books I've made since my first in 1993.

Bath Street Gallery - BIG WORK



And here is the BIG WORK which I will install at Bath Street. First show at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in 2002, it consists of 240, A3 prints hung together to make an installation 1.8 x 16.8 m.

Auckland, Bath Street Gallery - BIG WORK, small works






Here are five of the small works that I will show at my Bath Street Gallery show which opens Tuesday of next week, June 2. The works, each in an edition of five measure 640 x 480 mm. They include images made in Auckland, Paris and Genoa together with two works made in Auckland from my "S" series. These works are all from my new book work YOU WON'T BE WITH ME TOMORROW, to be launched at Bath Street on Tuesday night. This artist book, under my own imprint FAQEDITIONS has been produced in a limited edition of 100 copies, each signed and numbered.

Paris - La Force de l'Art


Last chance this weekend to see LA FORCE DE L'ART, La triennale de l'art en France, showing in the magnificent Grand Palais in Avenue Winston Churchill. If the art doesn't get you the building will. It was at the first Triennale in 2006 where I made a number of the portraits for my book I LOOK AT YOU, YOU LOOK AT ME. How time flies.....

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Bill Jay dies on May 10th


CURATOR, AUTHOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER
BILL JAY PASSES AWAY IN HIS SLEEP

"Everything about photography, everything I write about photography, everything I photograph has a feedback system which says: This is what it's like to be human."--Bill Jay in a 2007 interview by Darius Himes of the Photo District News.

Bill Jay passed away in his sleep in Costa Rica Sunday night, May 10th. As Tucson photography dealer Terry Etherton noted in an email to fellow AIPAD photography dealers, "For those of you who knew Bill, you understand what a huge loss this is to the photography world."

Bill Jay began his career in the U.K. His first article to appear in print was published in "Practical Photography" magazine, then the largest circulation monthly in Europe, when he was only 19 years old. It was the start of career writing about the photography medium that extended over more than 40 years.

He later became the first director of photography at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and was the first editor/director of "Creative Camera" magazine from 1968-1969. In 1970 he founded and edited a new London-based journal, "Album". It only survived for one year, 12 issues.

To pay the bill during this early period, he was also picture editor of a large circulation news/feature magazine and the European manager of an international picture agency. He left England in 1972 to come to the U.S.

After studying with Beaumont Newhall and Van Deren Coke at the University of New Mexico, he founded the program of photographic studies at Arizona State University, where he taught history and criticism classes for 25 years.

Bill Jay published over 400 articles and was the author of more than 20 books on the history and criticism of photography. Most of these books have been published with Chris Pichler of Nazraeli Press, a former student of Jay's. Some
of his recent titles include: Cyanide and Spirits: an inside-out view of early photography; Occam's razor: an outside-in view of contemporary photography; USA Photography Guide; Bernard Shaw: On Photography; Negative/Positive: a philosophy
of photography; 61 Pimlico; Sun in the Blood of the Cat; Men Like Me, etc.

Jay was also frequently asked to contribute essays to monographs by well-known photographers, such as Jerry Uelsmann, Bill Brandt, Michael Kenna and Bruce Barnbaum.

Until his retirement, Bill Jay was a frequent guest lecturer at symposia and conferences and at colleges and universities in England and Europe, as well as throughout the U.S.

His own photographs have been widely published and exhibited, including a solo show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His previous monograph, "Photographers Photographed", included a selection of the thousands of portraits
he has taken of prominent individuals of the medium of photography, a database of which is located at the Center of Creative Photography, which also houses his research archives.

The photograph is one I made of Martin Parr and Bill Jay at the Wellington Photography Festival

Friday, May 1, 2009

Paris May 1st


Spring day in Paris today..... how pleasant to be in the gardens at Palais-Royal