GUP #013 - Belgium

Guide to Unique Photography e 5,- | $ 6,99 | ÂŁ 3,99

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The Belgium issue

Cover image Eddy Merckx © Stephan Vanfleteren

Contents 08 New(s) Update yourself.

19 Book Review(s) GUP’s fine selection of international book publications.

26 Photo File A short introduction to Belgium. A country full of melancholy.

28 Portfolio Stephan Vanfleteren His view at drastic changes and the breakdown of history.

41 Portfolio Toon Michiels Inspired by the book ‘The roundabout route to Santiago’ Toon Michiels made a wonderful journey.

50 Collectors Tip Dirk Braeckman (Eeklo, Belgium, 1958) looks deep into the being of things.

53 Portfolio Sofie Knijff Meet the family. Sofie captured her family during the hunting season and in the attic.

64 Inside Young collectors do not always take themselves seriously. They should.

6—7

66 Portfolio Carl De Keyzer Last year, Spanish immigrants won the right to vote. Magnum photographer Carl De Keyzer focused on the Chinese community in Madrid.

78 My Space Something new. And all yours.

80 Flashback Last November Dutch photographer Sofie van Dam visited the international show for 19th century modern photography - Paris Photo.

90 ToDo Photographer Gregor Servais gives the old bromoilprinting method a go.

93 Portfolio Debby Huysmans With ‘In a Valley’ Debby exposes a hidden community of pre-capitalist villages curved under the Carpathian hills.

102 Bkmrks Nine Belgian photographers to keep an eye on.

105 GUP Guide: Upcoming photography exhibitions

Europe USA/Canada Asia/Australia

Aircraft © Jeffrey Milstein, courtesy Young Gallery Feb 29 – May 17 (see GUP GUIDE page 118)

NEW(s)

Six REAL finalists In a further judgment round, six finalists have been selected for the REAL Photography Award 2007: Julian Faulhaber (Ger), Abelardo Morell (US), Hans-Christian Schink (Ger), Livia Corona Velazquez (Mex), Thomas Weinberger (Ger) and Danwen Xing (Chi). The final winner will be announced on March 20, 2008, the opening day

© Julian Faulhaber/REAL Photography Award

© Abelardo Morell/REAL Photography Award

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of the award exhibition in Las Palmas, Rotterdam.

The REAL Photography Award is a new and unique bi-annual photography award powered by ING Real Estate. It focuses on ‘Nature and Development and Architecture’.

The winner receives 50.000 Euros in prize money. www.realphotographyaward.com

© Livia Corona Velazquez/REAL Photography Award

NEW(s)

© Hans-Christian Schink/REAL Photography Award

© Danwen Xing/REAL Photography Award

GUP: Guide to Unique Photography

© Thomas Weinberger/REAL Photography Award

BOOKREVIEW(s)

Lima – Peru

Edited by Mario Testino Mario Testino: prolific photographer, no fixed abode.

He flies around the world shooting photos from Milan to Rio de Janeiro, Paris to New York. His roots, however, lie in Lima, Peru. Having bypassed Lima on his flight itinerary during the last few decades, Mario suddenly felt a strong urge to re-connect with his hometown. For the past couple of years he has paid more frequent visits to the Peruvian capital and rediscovered ‘his’ city and the artists within its’ walls.

This book is a colorful and diverse homage to his beloved city and its’ artists.

224 pages Hardcover Various artists English/Spanish/Italian Damiani editore ISBN 9788889431924 € 50.00

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BOOKREVIEW(s)

Carl De Keyzer is a dedicated Magnum photographer. This dedication is clear to see in his new book ‘Trinity’. The first part of the trilogy deals with ‘power’ in general, depicting power during times of war and in the European Parliament and Capital Hill.

De Keyzer worked at least 10 years on the first volume. It is not yet known when parts two and three will be available but one thing is for sure, these books will be gems. Keep your eyes open!

Trinity

by Carl De Keyzer

176 pages Hardcover Mets & Schilt ISBN 9789053305942

GUP: Guide to Unique Photography

Photo HistoryFile

Photography in

Terra Incognita

Belgicum Š Stephan Vanfleteren

What is Belgium? You must answer this question first before you can talk about their photography. Because, what does a Dutch person know about their neighboring country anyway? How do the Belgians look at their fatherland, and does Belgian photography exist?

Text: Han Schoonhoven 26 — 27

To begin with the last question: Yes. In 2005, the Belgian publisher Ludion published ‘Belgian Photographers 1840-2005’ containing images from and descriptions of 160 photographers. The principal difference between Belgian and Dutch photography is the strong influence surrealism had, and still has in the contemporary photography, on our southern neighbors. This is completely in line with the fact that surrealism had a major influence on Belgian painting and literature. In the Lowlands, surrealism was adopted by a few artists but never by a group or a movement. We can also uncover history in the Belgian company Gevaert, established in 1894 in Antwerp, and until recently a world brand in the photographic industry. Gevaert donated a part of their collection to the Fotomuseum Province Antwerp. Partly because of these donations the museum now has the largest collection of photografica in Europe. Belgium already had two photo museums (also the Institute in Charleroi) long before the Dutch had something comparable.

‘

is the Antwerp photographer Martine Franck. After leaving Belgium at a young age Martine Franck traveled halfway around the world, married Henry Cartier Bresson and adopted a French nationality.

Black-white My first in-depth acquaintance with Belgian photography took place in 1995 at an exhibition in ’Het Oog Van Hoorn’ (an exhibition space in a picturesque harbour town in North Holland). I wrote an article about the series of Carl De Keyzer and Stephan Vanfleteren for the monthly magazine Foto. In an interview with De Keyzer he told me he was going to show colour photos for the first time. He had been avoiding this because he felt that colour images evoked a kind of ‘television reality’. On request of the organization De Keyzer invited a young, promising colleague. This was Vanfleteren, who shortly prior to that had published his first photos in the Belgian newspaper ‘De Morgen’ and whose exhibition ‘Belgicum’ had been extended for two months due to great public interest. It turned

In spite of the rich (photographic) history Belgium struggles with its identity

A glance outside In spite of a rich (photographic) history Belgium struggles with her identity. Johan Swinnen (photography lecturer) in his article for the internet magazine Photoq about the exhibition and book ‘Belgicum’ (Stephan Vanfleteren) sees his country ‘evaporating’.

Others observe the language barrier becoming more influential on the focus of the French and Dutch speaking Belgian photographers. These photographers focus more frequently on the neighboring countries south and north of Belgium. A small country internationally orientated through necessity. This international orientation, a sort of world citizenship if you like, could explain the Magnum membership of three Belgian photographers. Magnum is still one of the most influential photo agencies in the world. Two of the three Belgian members were awarded with possibly the most important prize for photojournalism, the W. Eugene Smith Award: John Vink in 1986 and Carl de Keyzer in 1990. Harry Gryaert, born in Antwerp and living in France, is also a member of Magnum, as GUP: Guide to Unique Photography

’

out to be the most popular exhibition ever organized by the Antwerp Fotomuseum. The book has been reprinted twice since its’ first publication in 2007. All the attention for this project has been remarkable considering Vanfleterens’ rather personal vision of his country. The black and white pictures of his countrymen and the Belgian landscape are rich in atmosphere. In an optimistic mood, you could almost call them nostalgic. This photographer has a gift of being able to give the ever present ‘tristesse’ an association of a timeless bond.

The images of Stephan Vanfleteren have deeply touched his countrymen. Maybe here the same comment that the photography critic Johan de Vos made about the series ‘Made in Belgium’ of Harry Gruyaert applies: ‘a monument for an impossible country that wants very much to be impossible’.

Fotomuseum Antwerp: www.fotomuseum.be Fotomuseum Charleroi: www.museephoto.be

Portfolio Stephan Vanfleteren

Text: Han Schoonhoven

Stephan Vanfleteren

BELGICUM An examination of Belgium.

In his melancholic and lonely setting there is no place for the modern Belgian – the office worker who takes a holiday once a year, parties at the weekend and enjoys all the perks of Western prosperity.

With mixed feelings, he looks at drastic changes and the breakdown of history. Must the new always be at the expense of the old? Belgicum is a nostalgic observation of Vanfleterens’ motherland and as he himself says “a search for a lost identity of a 177 year old nation”.

GUP: Guide to Unique Photography

Portfolio Stephan Vanfleteren

Kees Scherer (1920-1993) was born in the Amsterdam working-class district called ‘de Jordaan’. Shortly after WWII, he began working as a freelance photographer and reached the pinnacle of photojournalism with high-profile reports about the flood disaster in the province of Zeeland (1953) and the Hungarian uprising (1956). He initiated World Press Photo in 1955 with Bram Wisman. In addition to his extensive work in colour, Scherer’s early work in black/white has also been receiving increasing attention in recent years. He depicted his favourite cities in exhaustive detail, namely Amsterdam, Paris and New York. (JR)

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GUP: Guide to Unique Photography

Portfolio Toon Michiels

Inspired by Cees Nooteboom’s travel book ‘De Omweg naar Santiago’ (‘The roundabout route to Santiago’) Toon Michiels made a wonderful journey. The Dutch photographer, working in Belgium traveled from Den Bosch to Santiago de Compostela from 1996 to 2007. At times with his bike, but mostly with his car he was continuously searching for paranormal images of nature, small signs of culture and situations with spiritual tones.

Portfolio Toon Michiels

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GUP: Guide to Unique Photography

Portfolio Toon Michiels

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GUP: Guide to Unique Photography

Collectors Tip

Text: Pim Milo

Dirk Brae ckm an Zeno X Gallery Leopold De Waelplaats 16 B-2000 Antwerp Belgium T: +32 321 616 26 W: www.zeno-x.com

A game of lines and patterns in tiled walls, windows, branches of trees, masonry, and variations in the landscape. The cracks in an oil painting or the stretch marks on a woman’s stomach.

The rhythm of a staircase. The textures of a carpet, fabric, wallpaper. Dirk Braeckman (Eeklo, Belgium, 1958) looks deep into the being of things.

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Braeckman cuts into time and space and offers us access to a closed world to which we attach meaning.

He doesn’t attempt to give a weight to this meaning.

He reduces and blows up the detail of the subject to become the main focus. The result is disquieting without becoming alienating. The underlying repetition and the balanced patterns give it this fine balance. It possesses purity, the purity of simplicity.

Braeckman approaches his subject so closely that the image becomes unavoidable, uneasy even. By keeping the images dark and grey or by printing the images out of focus, Braeckman eliminates the part of the information that could distract from the essence.

By doing this he avoids the anecdotes and the recognisable, for him it is about the image itself and the recording of the space.

He investigates things that could easily go un-noticed, places that give the impression of being inhabited in some way, where time has passed or where people have been through a lot, although you can never be sure of anything. Harsh, direct flashlight bounces off the photographed subjects. The image in a painting is burnt out, returned to an irregular, refracted level. My glance recoils. It demands effort to look at the deeper meaning within the image. The photos deal with what cannot be portrayed. Braeckmans’ theme lies in the twilight zone between concealment and exposure.

Images of empty interiors, apparently photographed as an afterthought, are interchanged with images of female nudes. Just as much as they are close-up, the images are subtle and steer away from emphasising form and texture. By placing the nudes next to the interiors Braeckman gives life to the inanimate objects and thus shows us death in life. His work straddles the line between life and death.

The twilight is accentuated by the deep blacks and sombre greys in Braeckmans monochrome palette.

These tints give the photographed subjects a barren quality and emphasize the desolation of the interiors and the female bodies. In spite of this barren quality, the photos are rich with nuance. Simultaneously refined and suggestive: you catch a glimpse of a personal story behind these big black and white, but prominently grey, photographs.

GUP: Guide to Unique Photography

Š Dirk Braeckman, 2006, 180 x 120 cm, gelatin silver-print mounted on aluminium (edition of 3) / courtesy Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp

Portfolio Sofie Knijff

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Portfolio Sofie Knijff

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Last year, Spanish immigrants won the right to vote.

Six Magnum photographers were each assigned a community to photograph for a period of one month.

Carl De Keyzer focused on the Chinese community in Madrid. In his series De Keyzer avoids, as much as is possible, Chinese restaurant and interiors. Instead he searches for settings that contrast with this closed community and thereby emphasizes the link with European history and culture.

Portfolio Carl De Keyzer

Madrid Inmigrante

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GUP: Guide to Unique Photography

Portfolio Carl De Keyzer

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GUP: Guide to Unique Photography

Portfolio Carl De Keyzer

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GUP: Guide to Unique Photography

Flashback

Last November the Dutch photographer Sofie van Dam visited The International show for 19th century modern photography - Paris Photo. Paris Photo is one of the most prestigious shows in the world with top international photographers represented by 83 galeries from 17 countries. In addition to looking at the exhibited works, Sofie also looked to the future.

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The Polish Danni Mroz (28) studies photography at Yale College of Wrexham in Wales. Upon completing her studies she would like to continue to University to further her learning and would like to become a promising portrait photographer. Her favorite photographers at Paris Photo are Maiko Haruki and Abbas Kiaostami.

Flashback

Karen Gruszka (27) is an actress from Poland and in Paris with a friend. Her friend takes her into the world of photography. First they visited an exhibition at the Pompidou, then Paris Photo and finally The Louvre.

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The Parisian Matthieu Rosier (23) studies photography at Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris.

He thinks Paris Photo is the most important place in the world to see photography and photographs. With his second visit he is looking for inspiration for his exam project ‘Underground Parking’. He hopes that in a few years his photos will also be shown at Paris Photo.

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© Jehsong Baak

Issue 12

Tesselschadestraat 15 Amsterdam The Netherlands www.hupgallery.com Open: Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 12.00 - 17.00 h. or by appointment

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© Willem Diepraam

12

The Amsterdam issue

Guide to Unique Photography e 5,- | $ 6,99 | £ 3,99 GUP International Photography Magazine Belgium

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h/April at HUP Gallery Amsterdam

The Belgium issue

e Netherlands

2.00 - 17.00 h.

Issue 13

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ToDo

The bromoil technique

At the start of the 20th century, bromoilprinting (favoured by picturalists) provided an efficient way to manipulate the reality of a photo and to create painting-like results.

Photographer Gregor Servais gives the old method a go. >>>

Portfolio Debby Huysmans

94 — 95

GUP: Guide to Unique Photography

Portfolio Debby Huysmans

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GUP: Guide to Unique Photography

Wildlife Refuge and Foundation, Eureka Springs, Arkansas, 2007 © Taryn Simon

FOAM Keizersgracht 609 1017 DS Amsterdam T: +31 20 551 65 00 www.foam.nl

An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar Taryn Simon – Apr 6

Cryopreservation Unit, Cryonics Institute, Clinton Township, Michigan, 2007 © Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon is one of two winners of the KLM Paul Huf Award.

Part of the prize is an opportunity to exhibit at Foam. Her exhibition is about her vision on America’s peculiarities.

It is the second one in a series of two shown in Foam.

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Reflex New Art Gallery Weteringschans 83 1017 RZ Amsterdam T: +31 20 423 54 23 www.reflex-art.nl

"Immaculee #1" Colour photograph on Fuji Cristal Paper 2007 © Miles Aldridge

"Blooming" Colour photograph on Fuji Cristal Paper 2007 © Miles Aldridge

Miles Aldridge

Apr 19 – May

Reflex Gallery has organized Miles Aldridge’s first worldwide show. Aldridge is an established photographer and has worked for Vogue Italia Numéro, The New York Times, i-D, Vogue Homme, and many others in recent years. For the most part he has been able to evolve his own style. Fashion and art are closely knit in his work.

Showing now in Amsterdam.

60 years MAGNUM Photos © David Seymour / Magnum Photos

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam Post CS Oosterdokskade 5 1011 AD Amsterdam T: +31 20 573 29 11 www.stedelijk.nl

– May 12

Up until now Magnum has been responsible for a lot of pictures of historic events that are still collectively remembered. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam will show the work of 83 of Magnums photographers, among them, Henri Cartier Bresson, Martin Parr, Susan Meiselas and Leonard Freed.

POPview – Mar 2

Seven European photographers were chosen from 35 entrants by a commission to show their work in the Melkweg Gallery. One of them was recently awarded the Lex van Rossen award. This award was founded as a tribute to the respected Dutch pop photographer Lex van Rossen, who passed away in February of 2007. The photo competition of POPview first came to light in Groningen and will now be shown in the Melkweg Gallery in Amsterdam.

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Melkweg Galerie Marnixstraat 409 Amsterdam T: +31 20 531 81 18 www.melkweg.nl

© Fleur Koning

Waterland Photo Gallery Roomeinde 13 1151 AL Broek in Waterland T: +31 20 403 8734 www.waterlandphotogallery.com

De Ontmoeting Fleur Koning

‘The meeting’ is a photo and video project where Fleur Koning had women in front of her lens whom she admired or had inspired her over the years. In the process of taking the picture, the women had to keep still for a long period of time. To make them feel at ease, Koning held the hand of each participant during the process. All photos were taken with a pinhole camera while filming at the same time.

© Fleur Koning

– Mar 24

‘Hotel’/Life As a Night Porter © Chris Shaw, March - April at HUP Gallery Amsterdam

£ 3,99

Tesselschadestraat 15 Amsterdam The Netherlands www.hupgallery.com Open: Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 12.00 - 17.00 h. or by appointment