Deutsche Börse Photography Prize
The Photographer’s Gallery
28 March – 1 May 2011
The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize rewards one living modern photographer, who has made the most significant contribution to the photographic medium in Europe over the previous year. The Photographers’ Gallery in London created the prize in 1996 and since 2005 Deutsche Börse has sponsored the event. The Prize highlights the finest photographic works, showcasing fresh talents.
Thomas Demand, Roe Ethridge, Jim Goldberg and Elad Lassry were nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2011. This selection, the fifteenth year of the Prize and the 40th anniversary of The Photographers’ Gallery, illustrated the diversity of the photographic medium, ranging from conceptual to social documentary photography.
Thomas Demand was nominated for his exhibition Nationalgalerie at Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany (18 September 2009 – 17 January 2010), travelling to Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (29 May – 22 August 2010). In this exhibition, Demand’s concise yet strangely unsettling images explore German social and political public life. Often using photographs drawn from the media, Demand turns these scenes into life-size and meticulously constructed three-dimensional paper models, that he then photographs.
Roe Ethridge was nominated for his solo exhibition at Les Rencontres d’Arles 2010, France (3 July – 19 September 2010). Blurring the boundaries of the commercial with the editorial, and the mundane with the highbrow, Ethridge’s conceptual approach to photography is a playful attack on the traditions and conventions of the medium itself.
Jim Goldberg was nominated for his exhibition Open See at The Photographers’ Gallery, London (16 October 2009 – 31 January 2010). Initiated through a Magnum commission, Open See documents the experiences of refugee, immigrant and trafficked populations who travel from war torn, socially and economically devastated countries to make new lives in Europe.
Elad Lassry was nominated for his exhibition Elad Lassry at Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland (13 February – 25 April 2010). In his seductive yet detached photographic and filmic works, Lassry renders the over-familiar and clichéd, whether it be a kitten, an attractive model, lipsticks, a carton of eggs, peculiar. Drawing on analogue source material as inspiration, such as advertising and stock imagery, Lassry’s over-saturated photographs are often collages of pre-existing images or newly staged studio photographs alluding to the visual language of product photography..
Conference: Exhibiting Photography
This three-day conference organised by the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM), University of Westminster addressed issues central to the curation and display of photography; the relationship between galleries, contemporary art and documentary practices; the notion of influence on photographic thought and practice; and the on-going obsession with photographic specificity in the art world. Speakers included Victor Burgin, John Stezaker, Jorge Ribalta, Hannah Collins, Marysia Lewandowska, Rut Blees Luxemburg and Simon Baker.
