GUIDO ARGENTINI was born in Florence, Italy.
He studied Medicine for three years at the university of Florence. At 23 he decided to turn his passion for photography into a profession and started to shoot fashion and beauty.

Since 1990 he has lived in the USA, in Los Angeles.

His work has been published by some of the leading magazines in the world such as “MarieClaire”, “Men’sHealth”, “Panorama”, “Playboy”, “Vogue”, “Max”, “Maxim” and many others.

In 2003, Guido Argentini’s first book, “SILVEREYE”, presented an exquisite series of studio and landscape nudes. That work was a reflection of the artist’s great personal passion for sculpture and dance.

In his second book, “PRIVATE ROOMS”, 2005, Mr. Argentini offers an entirely different type of personal journey, one where eroticism and beauty are clearly inseparable. Within these pages, we are invited to take a glimpse into a unique ‘feminine universe’.

This second book is the result of ten years of photographs, all taken in the intimacy of closed rooms, ancient villas, modern apartments, many hotels, from the most elegant five-star locations enriched with luxurious velvets and four-posted beds to the most squalid insignificant hourly-rate motels furnished with cheap plastic chairs and worn-out wallpaper. A universe where all these rooms become the theaters of the artist’s self-directed voyeuristic fantasies.

His latest book, “REFLECTIONS” was published in 2007. A vast collection of photographs of women looking at themselves in mirrors: a sort of unconscious research about the woman who studies herself, falls in love, and gets lost in her own image.

His next book is scheduled to be published fall 2009.

http://www.guidoargentini.com/

Garry Winogrand (14 January 1928, New York City – 19 March 1984, Tijuana, Mexico) was a street photographer known for his portrayal of America in the mid-20th century. John Szarkowski called him the central photographer of his generation.

Winogrand was influenced by Walker Evans and Robert Frank and their respective publications American Photographs and The Americans. Henri Cartier-Bresson was another influence although stylistically different.

Winogrand was known for his portrayal of American life in the early 1960s. Many of his photographs depict the social issues of his time and in the role of media in shaping attitudes. He roamed the streets of New York with his 35mm Leica camera rapidly taking photographs using a prefocused wide angle lens. His pictures frequently appeared as if they were driven by the energy of the events he was witnessing.

Winogrand’s photographs of the Bronx Zoo and the Coney Island Aquarium made up his first book The Animals (1969), a collection of pictures that observes the connections between humans and animals. His book Public Relations (1977) shows press conferences with deer-in-the-headlight writers and politicians, protesters beaten by cops, and museum parties frequented by the self-satisfied cultural glitterati. These photographs capture the evolution of a uniquely 20th and 21st century phenomenon, the event created to be documented. In Stock Photographs (1980), Winogrand published his views of the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show and Rodeo.

At the time of his death there was discovered about 2,500 rolls of undeveloped film, 6,500 rolls of developed but not proofed exposures, and contact sheets made from about 3,000 rolls.[2] The Garry Winogrand Archive at the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) comprises of over 20,000 fine and work prints, 20,000 contact sheets, 100,000 negatives and 30,500 35mm colour slides as well as a small group of Polaroid prints and several amateur motion picture films

Winogrand grew up in the then predominantly Jewish working-class area of the Bronx, New York, where his father, Abraham, was a leather worker, and his mother, Bertha, made neckties for piecemeal work.

Winogrand studied painting at City College of New York and painting and photography at Columbia University in New York City in 1948. He also attended a photojournalism class taught by Alexey Brodovich at The New School for Social Research in New York City in 1951.

In the early 1960s Winogrand photographed on the streets of New York City alongside Joel Meyerowitz, Lee Friedlander, Tod Papageorge and Diane Arbus.

In 1955 two of Winogrand’s photos appeared in The Family of Man exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. Winogrand’s first one-man show was held at Image Gallery in New York City in 1959. His first notable appearance was in Five Unrelated Photographers in 1963, also at MoMA in New York City, along with Minor White, George Krause, Jerome Liebling and Ken Heyman. In 1966 Winogrand exhibited at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York with Lee Friedlander, Duane Michals, Bruce Davidson, and Danny Lyon in an exhibition entitled Toward a Social Landscape. In 1967 he participated in the New Documents show at MoMA in New York City with Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander, curated by John Szarkowski.

John Szarkowski, the Director of Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, became an editor and reviewer of Winogrand’s work. Szarkowski called him the central photographer of his generation.

In 1964 Winogrand was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship Award to travel through America. Some of the results of this work were shown in the New Documents exhibition. He was awarded his second Guggenheim Fellowship in 1969 to continue exploring media events and their effect on the public. Between 1969 and 1976 Winogrand shot about 700 rolls of film at public events, producing 6,500 eleven by fourteen inch prints for Tod Papageorge to select for the exhibition and book Public Relations. Winogrand received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1975. In 1979 with his third Guggenheim Fellowship he moved to Los Angeles to document California. While in LA he developed 8522 rolls of film.

Winogrand worked as a commercial photographer between 1952 and 1954 at the Pix Photo Agency in Manhattan and from 1954 at Brackman Associates.

Between 1971 and 1972 Winogrand taught photography at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and between 1973 and 1978 at the University of Texas in Austin.

In 1952 Winogrand married Adrienne Lebow, separating in 1963 and divorcing in 1966, they had two children, Laurie and Ethan. Around 1967 Winogrand married his second wife Judy Teller, they were together until 1969. In 1972 he married Eileen Adele Hale, with whom he had a daughter, Melissa.

Winogrand died of gall bladder cancer, in 1984 at age 56. As evidence of his prolific nature, Winogrand left behind nearly 300,000 unedited images. Some of these images have been exhibited posthumously, and published by MoMA in the overview of his work Winogrand, Figments from the Real World.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Winogrand

Marcel Mariën (April 29, 1920, Antwerp – September 19, 1993, Brussels) was a Belgian surrealist (later Situationist), poet, essayist, photographer, collagist, filmmaker, and maker of objects.

Mariën is one of the most intriguing and elusive figures in the Belgian wing of the Surrealist movement. He was not only an artist, but also a publisher, a bookseller, a sailor, a journalist in China and an elaborate Surrealist prankster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Mari%C3%ABn

UK (Lives in London)
Representation
CLM
London/NY +44 (0)20 7750 2999

www.clmuk.com

Clients
Dazed & Confused, i-D, Jimmy Choo, Numero, Pop, Prada, 10, The Face, Vogue

David Slijper balances traditional and futuristic notions of beauty in his fashion photography. His conceptual and aesthetic tones enable his work to move smoothly, and with a pure visual grace, from editorial to celebrity to advertising. David Slijper balances traditional and futuristic notions of beauty in his fashion photography. His conceptual and aesthetic tones enable his work to move smoothly, and with a pure visual grace, from editorial to celebrity to advertising.

www.davidslijper.com

Baldovino Barani

http://www.baldovinobarani.com

Leonard Freed

Freed had wanted to be a painter, but began taking photographs in the Netherlands and discovered a new passion. He traveled in Europe and Africa before returning to the United States where he attended the New School and studied with Alexey Brodovitch, the art director of Harper’s Bazaar. In 1958 he moved to Amsterdam to photograph its Jewish community. Through the 1960s he continued to work as a freelance photojournalist, traveling widely. He documented such events and subjects as the Civil Rights movement in America (1964-65), the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and the New York City police department (1972-79). His career blossomed during the American civil rights movement, when he traveled the country with Martin Luther King, Jr. in his celebrated march across the US from Alabama to Washington. This journey gave him the opportunity to produce his 1968 book, Black in White America, which brought considerable attention. His work on New York City law enforcement also led to a book, Police Work which was published in 1980.

Early in Freed’s career, Edward Steichen purchased three photographs from Freed for the collection of the Museum ofModern Art.

In 1967, Cornell Capa selected Freed as one of five photographers to participate in  his “Concerned Photography” exhibition. Freed joined Magnum Photos in 1972. Publications to which Freed contributed over the years included Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Fortune, Libération, Life, Look, Paris-Match, Stern, and The Sunday Times Magazine of London.

In later years, Freed continued shooting photographs in Italy, Turkey, Germany, Lebanon and the U.S. He also shot four films for Japanese, Dutch and Belgian television.

http://www.magnumphotos.com/archive/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.PhotographerDetail_VPage&l1=0&pid=2K7O3R14GRLX&nm=Leonard%20Freed

“Choi visualizes the properties of each individual through one spreading rumor, one who has a huge head too heavy to stand up, one who begs for money with huge hands, one who has an extraordinary sense of smell, and one who has huge feet. In this series, Choi employs a partly hyper-realistic technique as well as other methods of exaggeration, abbreviation, and modification, using his own formative language.”  (Ki Hye-kyung, Curator of National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea)

For more information, visit DOOSAN Gallery.

Autodidact fashion Photographer.

Lior began his career as a journalism photographer.His interest later shifted from journalism photography to narrative based/fashion photography.

Lior’s range and veracity of his projects is one of the largest in the Israeli fashion Industry.

He enjoys different lighting, outdoor locations and artistic concepts. He always involved in concept & art of his projects.

http://www.liornordman.com

Spending a few days on each mixed media shot, prepping the plastic and other created pieces, Noemie otherwise finds photography to be relatively quick. To set aside enough time to fully devote to her new craft, however, Noemie followed up her Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design from Central Saint Martins with a Master’s degree in Photography from the Royal College of Art just last 2010. Much of her work was actually part of her final exhibition, revealing that the multitasking artist has definitely found her specialty.

Born in Paris

Lives and works in London

http://www.noemiegoudal.com

Sophie Delaporte (born in Paris, France in 1971) is a French fashion photographer and artist.

After graduating from l’ENSLL (Ecole Nationale supérieure Louis Lumière), Sophie Delaporte moved to London and started working for English press.

She met Terry Jones in London 1998, who commissioned her first fashion stories for ID magazine, in which she contributed a lot.
Her pictures has been featured in magazines such as Italian Vogue, Uomo Vogue, Vogue Nippon, Vogue China , i-D magazine, Another magazine and Interview in the US.

Sophie Delaporte’s work has been noticed from her remarkable use of colors and movement.

In september 2011 Vicki Goldberg wrote about her “Sophie Delaporte is a French fashion photographer who is on permanently good terms with fantasy and a cheerfully offbeat approach. She has a distinctive sense of color, a fabulist’s imagination, an edge of surrealism, and a knack for ambiguous narrative“

Beside her work for fashion, Her art work has been shown in six solo exhibitions in London, Paris, New-York and Tokyo.
Also widely in group exhibitions and international Art fairs as Art Chicago, Bâle Miami, Photo london,”Work on Paper” NY and Art Paris.

Recently, Sophie Delaporte has transposed her photographic universe into film.
In 2009, she directed her first beauty film produced by Première Heure, in which the music was composed by Mirwais.
In September 2011, Tim Newman asked her to create a concept and direct 50 shorts films for France Television, about the artistic influence of France abroad

Sophie Delaporte has produced photographs for brands such as Dior, Hermès, Lancôme, Astier de Villatte, le Bon Marché, John Galliano and others.

http://www.sophiedelaporte.com

Antoinette Frissell was born in 1907 in New York City, New York, but took photos under the name Toni Frissell, even after her marriage to Manhattan socialite McNeil Bacon. She worked with many famous photographers of the day, as an apprentice to Cecil Beaton, and with advice from Edward Steichen. Her initial job, as a fashion photographer for Vogue in 1931, was due to Condé Montrose Nast personally. She later took photographs for Harper’s Bazaar. Her fashion photos, even of evening gowns and such, were often notable for their outdoor settings, emphasizing active women.

In 1941, Frissell volunteered her photographic services to the American Red Cross. Later she worked for the Eighth Army Air Force and became the official photographer of the Women’s Army Corps. On their behalf, she took thousands of images of nurses, front-line soldiers, WACs, African-American airmen, and orphaned children. She traveled to the European front twice. Her moving photographs of military women and African American fighter pilots in the elite 332d Fighter Group (the “Tuskegee Airmen”) were used to encourage public support for women and African Americans in the military.

In the 1950s, she took informal portraits of the famous and powerful in the United States and Europe, including Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, and John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy, and worked for Sports Illustrated and Life magazines. Continuing her interest in active women and sports, she was the first woman on the staff of Sports Illustrated in 1953, and continued to be one of very few female sport photographers for several decades.

In later work she concentrated on photographing women from all walks of life, often as a commentary on the human condition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Frissell

He studied photography at the European Institute of Design and Visual Arts in Rome, and his work has appeared on many international publication such as L’espresso magazine, Vanity fair, Io Donna, The Daily Telegraph magazine, Time magazine, MarieClaire, geo magazine,The Sunday Times Magazine, Newsweek.

Since 2008 he started a closer collaboration with some of the most important international organization such as Greenpeace, MSF, Unitaid, United Nations, WHO and Action Aid.

http://www.giuliodisturco.com/

Filed under: Art photography, artist, Italy, journalist, Photographer, Photojournalism Tagged: art photography, artist, fashion week delhi, Giulio di Sturco, Italy, Kosi River, photographer, Photojournalism, Varanasi ]]> http://theworldofphotographers.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/di-sturco-giulio-photographer/feed/ 0 kroutchev sony_world_photography_awards_2009 (2) Giulio Di Sturco Varanasi india (3) In late August, the Kosi River in India overflowed (1) In late August, the Kosi River in India overflowed (3) In late August, the Kosi River in India overflowed (8) In late August, the Kosi River in India overflowed (10) new delhi 2008-fashion week Giulio Di Sturco (Grazia Neri) Giulio Di Sturco Varanasi india (1) Giulio Di Sturco Varanasi india (2) Giulio Di Sturco Varanasi india (3) In late August, the Kosi River in India overflowed (1) In late August, the Kosi River in India overflowed (2) In late August, the Kosi River in India overflowed (3) In late August, the Kosi River in India overflowed (4) In late August, the Kosi River in India overflowed (5) In late August, the Kosi River in India overflowed (6) In late August, the Kosi River in India overflowed (7) In late August, the Kosi River in India overflowed (8) In late August, the Kosi River in India overflowed (9) In late August, the Kosi River in India overflowed (10) new delhi 2008-fashion week new delhi 2008-fashion week sony_world_photography_awards_2009 (2) sony_world_photography_awards_2009 http://theworldofphotographers.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/posselt-laerke-photographer/ http://theworldofphotographers.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/posselt-laerke-photographer/#comments Sat, 18 Feb 2012 20:37:47 +0000 kroutchev http://theworldofphotographers.wordpress.com/?p=52865 Continue reading →]]> Laerke Posselt of Denmark has won the first Prize Portraits Singles with this picture of Iranian-born Danish actress Mellica Mehraban, in Copenhagen, May 4, 2011. The 27-year-old Iranian-born actress Mellica Mehraban grew up in Denmark, but debuted as an actor in Iran in 2011. Taking the leading role as a villain in the spy drama ‘Fox Hunting’, she learned firsthand about the culture of her native country: following a regime-approved script, she was required to wear a head scarf in all scenes, forbidden from swearing, and learned to show that she was in love with a man without telling him or touching him.

Currently living in Copenhagen, Denmark

http://posseltphotography.com

The photography of Alexandra Carr is a stellar fairy tale to read. Each image treats your eyes with sincerity. Seen as slow, graceful gestures captured in pure lighting, elegant fashion, stylistic treatments and soft textures. job well done.

http://www.alexandracarr.com

Dilia is originally from the Dominican Republic, and started taking pictures when she got her first camera at the age of 10

http://diliaoviedophotography.tumblr.com/

Frank Horvat was born in Italy in 1928.  During World War II he moved to Switzerland where at the age of fifteen he studied photography.  During the late 1940s he went back to Italy where he studied art and worked in advertising.  He eventually became a freelance magazine photographer. Horvat moved to Paris and joined the Black Star agency, known for its photojournalists, in 1956.  In 1957, he began his fashion career when William Klein introduced him to

In the 1970s, Horvat  focused on subjects such as trees, townscapes, sculptures, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  He has experimented with digital imaging since the late 1980s, while his visual diary A Daily Report: 1999,  served as a reminder of his credentials as a documentary photographer.

www.horvatland.com

Shauna Richardson’s background is in conceptual art.
The unique body of work she terms ‘Crochetdermy’ evolved out of the exploration of the theory that  ‘Anything can be art’. She uses crochet to sculpt realistic life-size animals – uncanny taxidermy-like forms. Crochetdermy combines themes such as objects, collecting, craft and realism and experiments with accessibility and audience. Richardson has received much critical acclaim. Her work is receiving worldwide media coverage and selling into collections across the globe. In 2009 Shauna won ‘Artists taking the lead’ part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad with the ‘Lionheart Project’. For two years she has been creating the largest single-handed crochet sculpture in the world. The finished piece will be housed in a mobile glass taxidermy style case and tour throughout 2012. lionheartproject.com

Despite the enormity of the Olympic project, in the last six months Shauna has managed to fit in a very unofficial portrait of Prince Harry commissioned by the Guardian Weekend Magazine, and winning ‘Best Sculpture’ and the ‘Overall Gold Award’ at Art of Giving held at the Saatchi Gallery. She will be exhibiting a life-size brown bear in ‘The Power of Making’ at the V&A – Sept 2011 – Jan 2012.

http://shaunarichardson.com

Filed under: animal, artist, concept, England, installation, Photographer, portrait, sculptor, subversion, surréalism, taxidermy Tagged: artist, conceptual artist, Crochetdermy, England, installation, photographer, portrait, sculptor, Shauna Richardson, subversion, surréalism ]]> http://theworldofphotographers.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/richardson-shauna-artist-crochetdermy/feed/ 0 kroutchev Night-Stag Arctic-Hare-3 Baboon Fox Harry1 Horse-head Lioness-head Night-Hare-Bridge Arctic-Hare-3 Baboon Bear1 Fox Fox-bench Hare-head Harry1 Horse-head Lioness-head Night-Baboon Night-Bear Night-Hare-Bridge Night-Hare-Pump Night-Lioness Night-Stag Panther Running-Hare Taschen-night http://theworldofphotographers.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/clang-john-%e6%b1%aa%e6%98%a5%e9%be%99-photographer/ http://theworldofphotographers.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/clang-john-%e6%b1%aa%e6%98%a5%e9%be%99-photographer/#comments Fri, 17 Feb 2012 05:33:38 +0000 kroutchev http://theworldofphotographers.wordpress.com/?p=52650 Continue reading →]]> “The mundane and the commonplace attract me—I always profess an affinity for subject matters closely related to my daily life. I often dwell upon urban and contemporary themes and landscapes; be it the city or its inhabitants. Intrigued by subtle changes in my environment, I find a corresponding shift in my feelings and thoughts. Hence, my images are a poetic reflection of myself in response to the nuanced changes in my environment.

In series like Silhouette/Urban Intervention (Black Tape), Strangers, Time, Out of Context, Beijing/NYC, Remembering Strangers, My Twilight Window and Self-reflection, I grapple with issues of estrangement and intimacy in an urban space; the displacement of familiar urban objects, views and perspectives; as well as our sense of identity and place in this world.

The deeply personal also occupies my work, specifically the themes of memory, identity and longing as a son living overseas for years and separated from my family back home. In series like Erasure and Guilt, I respectively explore the fears when contemplating the death of a loved one, and the guilt of disappointing our loved ones. Explorations of identity can also take a turn for the playful and provocative—as evidenced in lighter series like Beon Sleeps and Me and Friends.

Ultimately, a good photograph is one that brings us face to face with our own existence. It pulls the stranger standing next to us into the intimate radius of our life. It collapses the beauty and strangeness around us into one. It connects. A good photograph does all these” – John Clang.

http://www.johnclang.com

Bruce Wrighton’s artistic career consists of three projects made in the mid-1980’s with an 8 x 10” camera in the vicinity of his home in Binghamton, New York: Street Portraits, Dinosaurs and Dreamboats, and St. George and the Dragon.

Street portraits is a powerful yet tender series that places Wrighton in the tradition of Eugene Atget, Lewis Hine, and August Sander. It focuses on individuals and couples who were very much part of the working class, many of whom lived outside the mainstream of society. Carnival workers, a parking lot attendant, a security guard, were among the over 75 people that willingly agreed to pose as he composed their portraits with his cumbersome 8 x 10” camera. Each of them gave something of him or herself to Wrighton, who recorded their often bruised faces and tattered clothing with affection and respect.

Dinosaurs and Dreamboats celebrates the classic American cars of the 1950’s, juxtaposed with the older architecture of Binghamton. More than simply portraits of beautiful cars, these photographs transport the viewer back in time to an era when America was optimistic, upbeat, and full of swagger.

St. George and the Dragon represents an investigation into the power of images and icons, both secular and sacred, that Wrighton discovered around Binghamton in taverns, churches, and homes. Whether it is a glowing Wurlitzer jukebox under a floating Christ figure from a church basement, or a bucolic lake scene with a fisherman in a boat, painted on an old barroom wall, Wrighton sought to better understand the power of icons and images and how they make us focus and transcend our everyday experiences.

Bruce Wrighton lived and worked in Binghamton, New York until his death in 1988 at the age of 38.

laurencemillergallery.com/artist_wrighton.html

Filed under: Art photography, artist, body, Photographer, portrait, street photography, USA Tagged: american cars, art photography, artist, body, Bruce Wrighton, cars, classic american cars, photographer, Photojournalism, portrait, street photography, street portraits, USA ]]> http://theworldofphotographers.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/wrighton-bruce-photographer/feed/ 0 kroutchev wrighton Bruce-Wrighton (3) wrighton (6) wrighton (7) wrightonHome_CorvetteCurleys wrightonHome_ExtBackAlley wrightonHome_wellsApts wrightonHome_CornerTavern wrightonHome_KidCapWatch Bruce-Wrighton (3) Bruce-Wrighton (4) wrighton (1) wrighton (2) wrighton (3) wrighton (5) wrighton (6) wrighton (7) wrighton_bathroom wrighton_salvationarmy[1]-1 wrighton_yondas wrightonHome_arcade wrightonHome_CarFurniture wrightonHome_CarnivalCoupleBlue wrightonHome_CarnivalGroup wrightonHome_cinema wrightonHome_cloudsRoom wrightonHome_confessional wrightonHome_CornerTavern wrightonHome_CorvetteCurleys wrightonHome_courthouse_exit wrightonHome_courthouse_flag wrightonHome_courthousePortraits wrightonHome_curleys wrightonHome_diner wrightonHome_ExtBackAlley wrightonHome_ExteriorPaddys wrightonHome_FemaleSecurityGuard wrightonHome_girlCarnival wrightonHome_GirlLoveTshirt wrightonHome_greyhoundStation wrightonHome_JohnnyCashT wrightonHome_KidCapWatch wrightonHome_ManLeatherJacket wrightonHome_ManMantle wrightonHome_ManPaisleyShirt wrightonHome_ManPlaidVest wrightonHome_manRedCap wrightonHome_ManYellowShirt wrightonHome_paddys1 wrightonHome_PoliceAux wrightonHome_red&white wrightonHome_redRobin wrightonHome_storageStMarys wrightonHome_tavern2 wrightonHome_TeenLeatherJacket wrightonHome_UArizonaTshirt wrightonHome_wellsApts wrightonHome_WomanBalloon wrightonHome_womanGlasses2 wrightonHome_WomanPinkTop wrightonHome_womanPumpkinPie wrightonHome_WoolworthShopper wrightonHome_yellowdoor wrighton http://theworldofphotographers.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/devaux-thomas-photographer/ http://theworldofphotographers.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/devaux-thomas-photographer/#comments Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:06:21 +0000 kroutchev http://theworldofphotographers.wordpress.com/?p=52539 Continue reading →]]> Obscure and elegant, the work of photographer Thomas Devaux exists in the duality of spirit to which most personalities are confronted. It is in fact another who is depicted – surprised as the individual plunges deeper into the most profound reaches of his or her “internal state”. His work leaves one questioning the ephemeral character and even the very notion of evanescent beauty.  

Replete in classical references and reinvented mythological personalities, Thomas Devaux amuses himself by playing with different photography styles before finally covering his tracks, leaving behind a finished work that is beautiful yet technically mysterious to the naked eye. With photographic samples taken from the world of fashion, he separates the personalities and materials from their environment in order to duplicate them, decompose them in order to reconstruct. He pushes of the boundaries of photography so that the final artistic work nearly replicates the look and spirit of lithography.

Thomas Devaux loves deconstruction as much as he does balance. More precisely, the concept of “controlled balance” constructed with the exclusive express purpose of its own final destruction and his concept of dramatic isolation in which the personality “undoes itself” has become his irresistible fundamental esthetic.

These bodies, which guarantee their own destruction and which were only a short time ago impenetrable armors of the beautiful and the authentic, are henceforth confronted by the truth which is far from ideal: “Beauty is structured from the void”. What now awaits it?

http://thomasdevaux.com

It is the Sweden artist Sanna Dullaway who has recently started her own nusiness in restoring and coloring old and famous black and white photographies.

forrifarg.se/

André Lichtenberg (b.1964 – Brazil), currently lives and works in UK.
Andre’s personal work have been the recipient of numerous international Prizes & Awards, as well as, exhibited in prestigious art spaces, including: Museum da Republica (Rio de Janeiro – Brazil), Centro Cultural Sao Paulo (Brazil), The Photographers Gallery & Barbican Centre (London).

Lichtenberg’s works have become popular among art collectors in the last few years and are now part of several international private collections - ”including the personal collection of a Trustee of the Board of Museum of Contemporary Modern Art in Miami”.

http://www.photoandre.com

« Lou Ros, 26, began painting at the age of 17. He started doing graffiti for fun with friends on the walls of buildings. But this game soon became a real addiction to him. Subsequently, the fast and spontaneous simple tag that he performed gave way to more sophisticated and substantial works like murals.

Learning to paint on the job without going through art schools, Lou soon feels the limits of this street art, admitting himself that “there is an ethics of aesthetic beauty and repetition that eventually bores me. Painting beautiful is boring, while making a painting that has strength is quite another thing. So I started painting at home. ”

Back home, he enriches his reasoning and his practice of painting by privileging an attitude of truth and a more fundamental quest to his painting, “The living and vibrant line instead of nice clean straight line.”

With his drawings of dancers, his mother being a choreographer, Lou was able to exercise his talent in delivering a message and lyrical poetry of great subtlety. On this occasion, he developed an aesthetic wealth by restoring the strength and attitudes of expressive dance.

The light, thin, stealthy and evocative lines allow him to describe the figures and shapes of the dancers. Movements of steps and changing positions are reconstructed with an edifying accuracy. One can have the impression of watching a live choreography. The gesture is often beautiful and elegant, and a certain gracefulness appears in these works though in draft form. Besides, the unfinished nature of the sketch gives the opportunity for our imagination to continue the magic of dance.

Further on in his choreography paintings, the appearance of the incomplete form takes another dimension, like the peculiar art of this painter who defies categorization.

His paintings are representations of the visible world and his own inner world. With his magic paintbrush, colors fly, dance and rejoice with pleasure and passion marrying all developments and contortions of the dancer. In this pictorial choreography, there is an explosive, radiant and vibrant dramatization of colors.

One can sense the legacy of Cubism in the shapes, and the automatic writing of the surrealists … sometimes leaving the unconscious expressing itself.

This particular script is reminiscent of other painters such as Franta with his “écriture des corps” (Writing of bodies).

The concern that springs powerfully in the works of this young artist is perhaps this same act of knowledge as in Franta’s work : each work becomes a step towards “a future of spiritual maturity?

Thus, in these dance paintings, faces are almost nonexistent, scrambled, often confused with enigmatic expressions. The movements and shapes are only what counts… the strangely alone man in his agitation and almost always faceless.

In the series of paintings “Rouge Anglais”, the painter uses the same process. Sometimes a face appears and is often out of frame, as if the artist refused any access or visibility.

Moreover, this color called “Rouge Anglais” (english red), which is a synthesis based on earth and other minerals such as red iron oxide joined to ultramarine blue, gives quite a purplish aspect adding a sense of anguish.

In fact through his figures and faces, the artist wants to present the world as he sees it. He’s an uncompromising witness of his era.

His bloody, stained and sad self-portraits, are not ultimately his own. He doesn’t see any suffering (his own) and responds by saying: “Even in school, teachers would say I had a melancholic expression although I was fine. I see more of an anxious wait, some fear of saying too much and impoverishing
the image. I paint because I expect something out of it, it’s a never ending research. ”

That is why his work is like a parable polysemic pictorial. Lou certainly masters technique. He can decline his painting in an extremely nuanced way, alternating serious (portraits and self portraits) and light (dance) subjects.

His approach is neo-Expressionist in its chromaticism and freedom like presenting distorted or torn figures, weeping tears of blood. And what Kafka said about Picasso, one could say the same about Lou Ros works:

“In the distorted mirror of art, the reality appears undeformed”

Text by Christian Schmitt translated in english by Rachel Thomas.

http://louros.fr

Claes Oldenburg was born on January 28th, 1929 in Stockholm, he was the son of a Swedish diplomat stationed in New York. In 1936 his father was transferred to Chicago where Oldenburg grew up, attending the Latin School of Chicago. He studied at Yale University from 1946 to 1950, then returned to Chicago where he took classes at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. While further developing his craft, he worked as a reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He also opened his own studio and, in 1953, became a naturalized citizen of the United States. His first recorded sales of artworks were at the 57th Street Art Fair in Chicago, where he sold 5 items for a total price of $25. He moved back to New York City in 1956. There he met a number of artists, including Jim Dine, Red Grooms, and Allan Kaprow, whose Happenings incorporated theatrical aspects and provided an alternative to the abstract expressionism that had come to dominate much of the art scene. Oldenburg’s first show that included 3 dimensional works, in May of 1959, was at the Judson Gallery, at Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square. During this time, artist Robert Beauchamp described Oldenburg as “brilliant,” due to the reaction that the pop artist brought to a “dull” abstract expressionist period.

Sculptures, though quite large, often have interactive capabilities. One such interactive early sculpture was a soft sculpture of a tube of lipstick which would deflate unless a participant re-pumped air into it. In 1974, this sculpture, Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks, was redesigned in a sturdier aluminum form, the giant lipstick being placed vertically atop tank treads. Originally installed in Beinecke Plaza at Yale, it now resides in the Morse College courtyard.

Many of Oldenburg’s large-scale sculptures of mundane objects elicited public ridicule before being embraced as whimsical, insightful, and fun additions to public outdoor art. In the 1960s he became associated with the Pop Art movement and created many so-called happenings, which were performance art related productions of that time. The name he gave to his own productions was “Ray Gun Theater”.

His first wife (1960–1970) Pat Muschinski, who sewed many of his early soft sculptures, was a constant performer in his happenings. This brash, often humorous, approach to art was at great odds with the prevailing sensibility that, by its nature, art dealt with “profound” expressions or ideas. But Oldenburg’s spirited art found first a niche then a great popularity that endures to this day.

Between 1969 and 1977, Oldenburg was in a relationship with the feminist artist and sculptor, Hannah Wilke, who died in 1993. They shared several studios and traveled together, and Wilke often photographed him.

Oldenburg’s collaboration with Dutch/American writer and art historian Coosje van Bruggen dates from 1976. They were married in 1977. In 1988, he and van Bruggen created the iconic Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota that remains a staple of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden as well as a classic image of the city. Typewriter Eraser, Scale X (1999) is in the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden.

In addition to freestanding projects, they occasionally contribute to architectural projects, most notably the former Chiat/Day advertising agency headquarters designed by Frank O. Gehry in the Venice district of Los Angeles, California—the main entrance is a pair of giant binoculars. The advertising agency DDB is the current tenant.

Another well known construction is the Free Stamp in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. This Free Stamp has an energetic cult following.

In 2000, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

In 2001, Oldenburg and van Bruggen created ‘Dropped Cone’, a huge inverted ice cream cone, on top of a shopping center in Cologne, Germany.

His wife died on January 10, 2009, from the effects of breast cancer.

Claes Oldenburg supposedly has a work of art on the moon in the Moon Museum.

Paint Torch is slated for installation in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the fall of 2011. Paint Torch is a towering 53-foot-high pop sculpture of a paintbrush, capped with bristles that will be illuminated at night. The sculpture will be installed at a daring 60-degree angle, as if in the act of painting.

Claes Oldenburg is represented by The Pace Gallery in New York.

http://www.oldenburgvanbruggen.com/

Youssef Nabil observes his life as if he were in a cinema, watching and witnessing every minute of his own movie. He is fascinated by the idea that in cinematic stories the actors are playing a game in which nothing is real, and if they die in the film they don’t actually die in real life. When he realised, as a child, that many of his favourite Egyptian film stars were no longer alive, this kindled a desire to meet those who were still alive and to immortalise them for himself, before they die or before he dies. In so doing, he has created an imaginary reality that reflects both the paradoxes of the Middle East in our times as well as the fantasies and flamboyance of Egyptian movie stars in the cosmopolitan pre-revolutionary years in Cairo.

Nabil began his photography career in 1992 by staging tableaux in which his friends acted out melodramas recalling film stills from the golden age of Egyptian cinema. Later in the 1990s, while working as a photographers’ assistant in prominent studios in New York and Paris, he began photographing artists and friends, producing both formal portraits as well as placing his subjects in the realms of dreams and sleep, on the edge of consciousness and far from their public personas. On his return to Egypt in 1999 he further developed his unique approach to hand painted photography, with portraits of writers, singers and film stars of the Arab world. In recent years, especially since settling in Paris and New York, he has started producing self-portraits that reflect his dislocated life away from Egypt. In these liminal scenes he lingers between worldly realities and serene dreams, loneliness and fame, tinged with sex and death.

Nabil’s distinctive technique of hand-colouring silver gelatin photographs removes the blemishes of reality and recalls the heyday of Egyptian film. Nabil disrupts prevalent notions of colour photography and painting, as well as assumptions about the type of aesthetics associated with art and those identified with popular culture. His particular medium evokes a sense of longing and nostalgia and allows his photographs to flicker between our time and another era.

Nabil’s work has been presented on numerous solo and group exhibitions at venues including the British Museum, London; Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City; North Carolina Museum of Art, North Carolina; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle; Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town; Galeria Leme, São Paulo; Townhouse Gallery, Cairo; FotoFest Houston, Texas; Centre de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah; Kunstmuseum, Bonn; The Third Line Gallery, Dubai; Volker Diehl Gallery, Berlin; Galerist, Istanbul; Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla; and Aperture Foundation, New York.

Two monographs have been published on Nabil’s work: Sleep in My Arms (Autograph ABP and Michael Stevenson, 2007) and I Won’t let you die (Hatje Cantz, 2008).

http://www.youssefnabil.com