The photograph: an image of fact, an image of fiction. Almost two centuries on from when the first was created, this form of imagery still has the power to entertain, to educate, to shock and inspire. It's little wonder that photography fairs continue to draw huge crowds.
Following the third edition of PHOTOFAIRS in Shanghai last year, the fine art photography show has moved west, and this weekend it launches in San Francisco. Made up of highly curated handpicked pieces from around the globe, its aim is to focus on the contemporary; on new and adventurous ways of image-making.
Included within this year's edition of the fair is a separate platform: Insights. Co-curated by Alexander Montague-Sparey and Allie Haeusslein, this mini exhibition has New Approaches to Photography Since 2000 as its core, and includes many single-edition works from international artists (curated by Montague-Sparey) and West Coast photographers (selected by Haeusslein). "I think San Francisco has [wanted] something like this for a long time," says Montague-Sparey of the fair, on the eve of its opening. "I'm really excited that it's finally happening." Here, we explore four single-edition photographs appearing in the show; extraordinary pieces demonstrating excellence in both process and imagination.
Dutch artist Sebastiaan Bremer first started out recreating his own photographs with paint. In 1998, he attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, where he trialled his now [signature] style of drawing on photographs. Part of a wider series, this piece originates from a box of negatives Sebastiaan discovered featuring images of his parents and siblings on holiday in the Alps in 1973. (He had been too young to go.) "It is hard to make profound remarks about happiness for some reason," he says, reflecting on his practice. "Perhaps it's related to what is said about how hard it is to make a good comedy film; it's easier to faithfully depict drama. For me it is, anyway."
This series was born of Beethoven's Ode to Joy, he continues. "I set to work with the music blasting - to my ear it sounded heavenly and funky at the same time - and over a three-year period I made a series of works with the overall title Schoener Goettefunken after a line in Ode to Joy that translates as 'beautiful spark of the gods.' One by one I amplified the photographs with coloured marks of varying degrees of opacity, enlarging the scene and making the people in the pictures seem to interact, to be almost aware of the marks I added. I wanted them to realise the blissful perfection of the world they inhabited. I wanted them to recognise the joy in that time and that place, surrounded by sparks of the gods."