Photo: Christopher Jonassen
I am thrilled to have teamed up with United Photo Industries to curate Anew, a group exhibition featuring nine photographers who unearth beauty in the seemingly irrelevant, everyday objects that most people disregard, revealing that unnoticed and banal items can sometimes be quite magical.
By concentrating more on light, color, form and texture, rather than on the item itself, the photographers in the show render these items somewhat unrecognizable even though the object has not changed form: it’s simply been re-imagined and has taken on a new life.
From Klaus Pichler’s surprisingly beautiful photographs of dust collected around Vienna to Christopher Johanessen’s “investigation” of used frying pans that look similar to planets to George Benson’s anonymous record sleeves carefully arranged by color, these photographers recognize that something special lies within mundane items. They also have the talent to elevate, transform and breathe new life into these entities so that they can be appreciated and admired where previously they were ignored.
Anew opens at United Photo Industries in DUMBO, Brooklyn on December 6, 2012 (6 – 9pm) and runs through December 30, 2012.
Photo: Barry Rosenthal
Photo: François Delfosse
Photo: Stephan Tillmans
Photo: Klaus Pichler
Photo: George Benson
Photo: Wendy Van Santen
Photo: Jean Paul Gomez
Photo: Robert Kamand
Dust # 03: Bed Articles Store ©Klaus Pichler
ANEW
A GROUP SHOW
CURATED BY ALISON ZAVOS
PRESENTED & PRODUCED BY UNITED PHOTO INDUSTRIES
Anew will focus on photographers who unearth beauty in the seemingly irrelevant, everyday objects that most people disregard, revealing that unnoticed items can sometimes be quite magical.
Feature Shoot’s Alison Zavos will be guest curating this special exhibition at the UPI Gallery, opening Dec 6, 2012.
Photographers working on projects that closely correspond to the exhibition theme are invited to submit up to six images for consideration and potential inclusion in the exhibition.
Submission Deadline: November 2, 2012
For more information: unitedphotoindustries.com/anew
This series, Middle Class Utopia, focuses in Austrian allotment gardens in and around Vienna, called ‘Schrebergärten’. These tiny gardens were invented in the late 19th century, mainly to provide space for the working class people to grow their own vegetables and fruits. Over the time, the use of these gardens changed and now they are mainly used for recreational purposes.
Twenty-six thousand of these gardens exist in Vienna. It’s a special kind of person who lives here – mostly older people, but also younger families who combine the advantage of urban life with the escapism of the garden colonies. Due to the strict rules of these colonies, concerning both the look of the gardens as well as the behaviour of the occupants, a special mood surrounds the gardens. The artificial idyll of the garden gets foiled by feelings of paranoia, fear and sometimes loneliness that surround the inhabitants.
Nature is declared friend and foe at the same time. On the one hand, the occupants enjoy the beauty and peace of nature – on the other hand, the natural growth of the plants is seen as the enemy that needs to be fought with scissors, lawnmovers and hedgetrimmers. This dichotomy leads to a slightly grotesque appearance of the gardens, looking like outdoor living rooms.—Klaus Pichler
Klaus Pichler is a fine art photographer based in Vienna, Austria.
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Dust # 03: Bed Articles Store
Dust as a by product of civilisation, the enemy of a sterile society, a constant presence hidden in corners, nooks and crannies. Also, a microcosm made up of multiple components, a combination of different colours, textures and structures, a construct reproducing itself. Every bit of dust is different, each space produces it’s unique type of dust, depending on its nature and its individual use.
Over the last two years Klaus Pichler had been looking for accumulations of dust, fluff and grime in various locations in and around Vienna. In commercial premises, factories, private properties, doctor’s surgeries, etc. It was important to him to offer a representative cross section of all basic functions of society, a kind of ‘typology of dust’ in its various shapes and forms. Pichler logged the ‘dust samples’ he had gathered in an archive and took photographs of them in a studio, all under the same conditions. The result was 99 photographs of dust which offer an insight into its surprisingly varied appearances.
Dust # 27: Pet Shop
Dust # 37: Ethno Fashion Store
Dust # 82: Police Station
Dust # 09: Soccer Club’s Fanstore No.1
Dust # 13: Furniture Store No. 01
Dust # 86: Soccer Club’s Fanstore No. 02
Dust # 18: General Merchandise Store
Dust # 23: Cafe No. 02
Dust # 08: Tailor No.1
Klaus Pichler was born 1977 and lives in Vienna, Austria. After graduating from university in 2005 he decided to quit his profession as a landscape architect and become a full time photographer- without any education in photography. The topics of his work are the hidden aspects of everyday life in its varying forms, as well as social groups with their own codes and rules. This work is from his series, ‘Skeletons in the closet’, which deals with the backstage environments and storage sites of the Museum of Natural History in Vienna.
