In the United States, there are many cities called Rome. These pictures document the photographer’s journey from Rome to Rome across North America. Fuelled by a curiosity for these parallel ‘eternal’ cities, this body of work subtly mixes genres. Here, the American road trip meets the postcards of imperial Rome. Both subjects have been overly photographed; with their essence exhausted by representation, the allure of the American Dream and a never-ending fascination with the remnants of history.
Notes by Béla Feldberg is a product of growing up in an international hub and Germany’s financial capital, Frankfurt am Main. Designed by JMMP (Hamburg) and written by Dan Kwon (Frankfurt/Seoul), Feldberg’s book is a coming-of-age affair by the emerging artist, and contains minimal text and b/w analogue photography from untold dérives in the compact German city of Europe’s only skyline, aka “Mainhattan”.
German artist Kai Althoff (born 1966) is renowned as a figurative painter and creator of all-encompassing poetic environments that incorporate textiles, photographs, drawings and artifacts. Althoff draws from a wide range of literary, cultural and artistic influences in his work, and for his unique display at Whitechapel Gallery in London he pays tribute to British potter Bernard Leach (1887–1979), selecting around 20 of Leach’s ceramic vessels and tiles from the 1920s onward to be displayed in specially designed vitrines.
Bernhard Cella’s sweeping pictorial documentary of convalescent men present us with an iconography of a century of medical progress and, by the same token, with a typology of the mise en scenes of soon-to-be homecoming patients. These staged pictures open up a counter narrative to that of vigorous, unscathed, and invulnerable masculinity. They invariably invoke calamitous moments, sustained injuries, the scars of war as well as the causes and circumstances preceding a fateful event that no camera was there to capture. Their insistence on calm, deceleration, casual gestures, and lightheartedness in the photographer’s presence cannot hide this fact. Or, as Paul Virilio put it, “images are ammunition, cameras are weapons.”
50-year-olds: they’re hung up in streets, stuck in dull, damp plastic sleeves; they are taped to lampposts, to electricity substations or traffic signs, or they’re attached to trees with drawing pins.
This publication and exhibition explore the typically Dutch tradition of publicly displaying home made photo collages throughout streets and neighborhoods in celebration of a person’s 50th birthday.
Almost reminiscent of missing pet posters, amateur portrait photographs are distributed and displayed by being taped onto lamp posts and stapled to trees by friends or relatives, at the mercy of public opinion. Exposed to judgment and ridicule by friends, family and strangers, due to the usually demeaning nature of the photographs through unflattering holiday photos and the likes, individuals are exposed, raised out of anonymity and placed in the public eye.
To an extent the street becomes an exhibition space for the non art-oriented person. It’s a document of the democratisation of the public domain, through a tradition which allows artistic expression and experimentation for anyone, under the gaze of a watchful even if disengaged audience.
The presented collection of posters, possibly a study of non-intentional art under the scrutiny of the public eye, constitutes an archive and an ode to amateur, home made graphic design, made possible through the democratisation of artistic means and software such as word art, paint and clip art. A non-hierarchical demonstration of taste and aesthetic is catapulted into the streets and now gathered in the exhibition space. Perhaps involuntarily, the posters bear a sense of humour and irony to the rest of the on-looking public.
Blerta Hoçia reflects on the consequences of the pandemic in Albania, from the quarantine of the population to the state of siege, where as a result basic human rights were significantly reduced. Her adultery tells the story of one night, that of May 17, 2020, the demolition of the National Theater and police violence against citizens, artists and activists.
First edition of 100, 2022 Numbered and signed by the author
Markus Ziegler was born in Heidelberg in 1981 and is both of German and Mexican background. He graduated from photography school in London in 2003 where he pursued his interest in architecture through the camera. He currently lives in the mountains of Southern California with his family.
Into the wild. Frank ocean blond Requiem for a dream. Dschungel buch. Tomaten käse brot. Frag mich einfach hallodannysommerfeld@gmail.com Salad days MacD Helgeee S. Stefaaaan M Skate! Alle/s ❤️
