Archives: Exhibitions

SWEET HARMONY: RAVE | TODAY is an immersive retrospective exhibition devoted to presenting a revolutionary survey of rave culture through the voices and lenses of those who experienced it.



The exhibition, opening 12 July 2019, will recapture the new world that emerged from the acid house scene and narrates the ascendancy of rave culture with the youth of today. Saatchi Gallery’s Director Philly Adams alongside co-curator Kobi Prempeh have assembled a comprehensive panel of visionaries including; Sheryl Garratt, Agnes Bliah, Juan Rincon (Voltage and SCI-Arc), Jorge Nieto (Creative Director of Village Underground) and Craig Richards, all of whom have made significant contributions in the execution of the exhibition. Their combined reflections have culminated in a unique and timely production staged over two main floors of the Gallery.



Sweet Harmony will feature multimedia room installations and audio-visual works by some of the rave movements’ most prolific and authentic visual commentators. The acid house revolution will be charted through typographic accounts, photo stories, live music events, talks and panel discussions by the movements’ architects and influencers. By reliving the revolution through the voices and lenses of those who experienced it, Sweet Harmony will portray the new world that emerged from the club scene of the 80s and 90s.



Headlining the experience are the artists and observers who captured and archived the atmosphere surrounding one of the biggest countercultural movements of the twentieth century, including photographers Tom Hunter, Vinca Petersen, Ted Polhemus, Dave Swindells and Mattko. Visitors of Sweet Harmony are invited to step into the glory days of rave culture and immerse themselves in the visually stimulating recollections, accompanied by Spotify curated playlists by music personalities related to the sub-genres of Detroit Techno, Acid House, Happy Hardcore, UK Garage, and Grime.



Saatchi Gallery will be hosting an exciting programme of live events in Gallery 10 alongside the main exhibition; bringing together an array of commissioned artworks and sound installation pieces from electronic musicians and visual artists including Lost Souls of Saturn, Carsten Nicolai (Alva Noto), Weirdcore and Conrad Shawcross.”



<|>Sweet Harmony will run from 12 July until 14 September 2019.

About the Artists

Dominic from Luton (born in Luton)

Rave would not have happened were it not for the boredom of suburbia and rural Britain. Dominic From Luton’s visual language draws on his relationship with his hometown Luton. His photographs invite audiences to consider how contemporary conditions such as history, identity, geography, space, place and culture, impact our daily lives.

James Alec Hardy (born in Colchester)

Immersing audiences with his video installation art, James Alec Hardy traces the history and development of perceptions in contemporary technologies. He explores the way colour intrinsically behaves, questioning ideas of visual perception and our relationship to digital technologies. He has previously exhibited at Kristin Kjellegjerde, London; ArtMoorHouse, London; FOLD Gallery, London; Vanity Projects; New York, amongst others. He currently lives and works in London.

Tom Hunter (born in London)

In the wake of the introduction of the Criminal Justice & Public Order Act in 1994, artist Tom Hunter set off from Hackney with a group of friends on a bus journey that was to take them to festivals and gatherings in Continental Europe. Hunter documented this odyssey in what became known as Le Crowbar, sharing with Sweet Harmony audiences the experiences of the free party traveller community.

Vinca Petersen (born in Britain)

Vinca Petersen is a photographer, installation, multimedia and performance artist engaging in the area of social practice. Her works document the expanded portrait of the generation’s collective identity and emerge from a social and political engagement with underrepresented communities. Petersen’s photography portrays close-up encounters of the 90s rave club-scene with an unflinching female gaze, capturing the unseen stories of the acid house scene at its peak in 1989 in raw ‘being-in-the-moment’ form. Through the vision of Petersen’s own journey, audiences are immersed in the party scene through the lens of a female raver. Her photo series archiving the techno-fuelled raves have been released internationally in No System (1999) with legendary publisher Gerhard Steidl.

Ted Polhemus (born in New Jersey, United States)

With his photography taken of ravers, Ted Polhemus explores and celebrates the extraordinary ways popular culture opens a wider into a broader understanding of society. Polhemus works as a marketing consultant, exhibition advisor and coordinator for special events including the ‘Streetstyle’ exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum (London) and ‘Style Surfing’ at the Karyn Lovegrove Gallery (Melbourne). His works have been exhibited at The Photographers Gallery, London.

Derek Ridgers (born in Chiswick)

Renowned pop culture photographer Derek Ridgers has spent over four decades capturing the explosion of subcultures from the 1970s to the present. Whilst he is best known for capturing the rise of early skinheads and Punk and the seismic scenes that existed in dark underground subcultures, acid house also caught Ridgers’ critical gaze and will feature as part of the exhibition.

Conrad Shawcross (born in London) and Mylo (born in Scotland)

<|>Conrad Shawcross will present an elevated overturned vehicle, with wheels spinning, as his own riff on the revellers who would squash into cars to drive around motorways, seeking out telling laser beams and lights that promised the revelry within.



Shawcross’ sculptural work encourages visitors to explore forms beyond their physical boundaries. Shawcross is the youngest living member of the Royal Academy and a previous Artist in Residence at the Science Museum between 2009 and 2011. In recent years he has exhibited at London’s Hayward Gallery, Tate Britain, the Musee d’art Contemporain in Lyon, ARTMIA in Beijing and has been commissioned for a number of public art projects.



<|>Myles MacInnes (Mylo) is a leading light within the Scottish pantheon of DJs. Famed for his 2004 debut album, Destroy Rock & Roll, Mylo has remixed for artists such as Amy Winehouse, Moby and The Killers. Mylo’s composed piece will be combined with Shawcross’ elevated overturned vehicle on a collaborative immersive installation for the exhibition.

Mattko (Matthew Smith)

The 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Act criminalized free parties and in accordance with its pivotal effect on rave culture is given prominent billing in Sweet Harmony. West Country photographic artist Mattko (Matthew Smith) documented the before, during and after of that process in his acclaimed book Exist to Resist, which tracks the history of rave activism, eco-protest and grass roots opposition from 1989 to 1997. With Sunnyside his sound system partners in rave crime he travelled the country making diary documentary work of personal truth to counter mass media demonization. His reportage depicts the raves they threw and the demonstrations they took part in as part of their daily lifestyle. More than ever a working contemporary artist Matt’s work now tracks 30 years of the evolution of British rave culture from outsider phenomenon to massive creative industry.

Ewen Spencer (born in Newcastle upon Tyne)

Ewen Spencer is a filmmaker and photographer chronicling youth cultures and subcultures around the world. Spencer’s photography draws a correlation between music genres and its influence on the style and sociology of the current generation – in turn raising questions concerning style and music when a multicultural, working class youth pre-dated social media and the internet. He has collaborated with notable musicians including The White Stripes, and has worked for Channel 4, Nike, and Adidas.

Dave Swindells (born near Bath, based in London)

Dave Swindells documented a wide variety of subcultures and club scenes from warehouse parties to Leigh Bowery’s Taboo before the explosion of acid house and rave began in the late 1980s. Swindells wrote about the clubs each week as Nightlife Editor at Time Out and also photographed the events for i-D, The Observer and The Face. His era-defining images set the scene for the spirit of the time, focusing on the ravers themselves and immersing visitors in the clubs, disused factories, bucolic rural locations and festivals as rave expanded in the 1990s.

Chelsea Louise Berlin (born in London)

Artist Chelsea Louise Berlin draws on her vast collection of ephemera from the early 1980s onwards to celebrate the lo-fi visual culture intrinsically linked to the UK club scene. With the archives tracing the history of club culture, her array of visual artefacts references her artworks. She takes the crucial parts of rave’s aesthetics into stunningly creative bodies of work to recall the acid house movement and its spread across the globe.

Seana Gavin (based in London)

Seana Gavin’s photographs document her life as part of Spiral Tribe, the sound system collective that influenced club culture for a decade onwards since its formation in 1990. Gavin was heavily involved in the free party movement from 1993 to 2003, spending long periods of time in convoys journeying with the collective. Her selection of photographs captures her unique perspective of life on the move and provide an alternative look on society. Gavin has been profiled in Dazed, Wonderland, AnOther Magazine, Twin, i-D Magazine, and Super/collider.

Project Zoltar

Celebrating fifteen years as London’s leading underground guerrilla multi-platform collective, Project Zoltar return as collaborators within Sweet Harmony’s Rave Room, creating an installation that will house live DJ sets. One of the founding collaborators alongside Kieron Livingstone, Dan Macmillan describes Zoltar as the “bastard child of acid house and punk rock, a Molotov cocktail of art, film, visual and clothing that imbues social commentary through our creations.”

Carsten Nicolai (born in Berlin)

Carsten Nicolai is an artist and musician known for his production work as Alva Noto and is part of a generational movement that works intensively in between music, art and science. Diverse musical projects include collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Ryoji Ikeda (cyclo), Blixa Bargeld or Mika Vainio. Nicolai toured extensively as Alva Noto through Europe, Asia, South America and the US. Nicolai will be exclusively providing visuals and beats from his recent UNIEQAV tour.

Lost Souls Of Saturn

Lost Souls of Saturn is a multidisciplinary project from Seth Troxler (electronic music DJ and producer) and Phil Moffa (DJ, producer and sound installation artist), combining music, imagery, and storytelling into an inextricably linked whole. ‘Transmission’ is a collaboration between the duo and Aaron Kulik (visuals), Marc Ippon de Romda (light Installation), ATO Designs (production design) and Andrew Lochhead (concept development). The interactive and immersive installation represents not only a significant creative output by the artists involved, but serves as a contemporary example of electronic music and rave’s ongoing and boundary pushing dialogue with the visual arts. Transmission premiered during Art Basel in June 2019, before making its UK debut at Sweet Harmony.

Jeremy Deller (born in London)

Jeremy Deller is a conceptual, video and installation artist working collaboratively to create works that instigate social interventions. Through an involvement with other people in the creative process, the Turner prize-winning artist deals with strong political aspects and acknowledges the power of collaboration. Deller’s works invite active participation, and present freedom of expression as a social vector to initiate dialogue between cultures, people, part, present, and what the future could be.

Minnie Griffith and Max Mcgarvie (based in Berlin)

Griffith and Mcgarvie grew up with Spiral Tribe and the Mutoid Waste Company, attending their first festivals during their formative years and developing a lifelong creative passion from their experiences at the heart of the rave movement. The two young DIY artists make electronic music, vivid graphics, and dynamic installations that are participatory and immersive. Just as raves occupied and transformed abandoned spaces, Max and Minnie invite audiences to collectively experience the essence and spirit of today’s raves, alongside consumerist mirage that raves subverted through collective experience.

Weirdcore (based in London)

Creating a commissioned piece for Sweet Harmony is Weirdcore; an experimental design and animation creator pushing the boundaries of consciousness and visual interpretation. He has collaborated with some of the most exciting modern artists and directors such as Aphex Twin, Charlie XCX, Skrillex, and Mos Def. Most recently, Weirdcore has created the CG world for Tame Impala’s “Cause I’m a Man” and is currently working alongside M.I.A on her new album visuals.

Adrian Fisk (born in Devon)

Adrian Fisk has documented youth counter-culture against the 1990s socio-political background, exploring themes of globalisation, urbanism and social activism. Fisk’s works have been featured in National Geographic, Vanity Fair, Vogue, i-D Magazine, and The Economist and exhibited internationally. His current work explores the theme of the ‘passage of the soul, during a journey of healing, through the use of psychedelic plant medicine’.

His short film installation commissioned by the Saatchi Gallery, ‘Burning Extinction’ (2019) captures the energy and intensity of the Extinction Rebellion climate protests in Oxford Circus London to the 1996 soundtrack ‘Babylon is Burning’ by Zion Train; a seminal track of the environmental movement in the 1990s.

Cleo Campert (based in Amsterdam)

Cleo Campert has been a recorder of the infamous RoXY’s parties; capturing friends as well as famous artists and DJs from all around the world to showcase the 90s venue’s historical impact on the rave scene. Her photographs archive the private after-parties, taken at urban, underground spaces that occupied the acid house scene.

Colin Nightingale and Stephen Dobbie

Creating Sweet Harmony’s experiential room “Getting to the Rave” are Stephen Dobbie and Colin Nightingale, who work on projects that involve immerse storytelling and challenge conventional forms of interacting with art through transformative ways. They most recently collaborated with Saatchi Gallery to create Beyond the Road, a multi-sensory world merging the worlds of visual arts, music and film.

Liam Young (born in Australia)

Liam Young uses speculative design, film and the visualisation of imaginary cities to open up discussions surrounding urban existence, and the roles of architecture and entertainment. His work explores the increasingly blurred boundaries among film, fiction, design and storytelling with the aim to imagining the future of the city. Young’s body of films use new technologies of image making, including drones and laser scanners, to narrate the urban implications that these systems give rise to.

Cyril de Commarque (born in France)

Artist Cyril de Commarque designs unique and interactive soundscape installations and architectural projects to reveal the importance of taking action as a collective for social change. Most recently, the artist created ‘Fluxland’, an interactive that saw the conversion of a former freight boat along the Thames into the platform hosting discussions surrounding art, philosophy and science.

His polyhedron installation piece ‘My Eden Is A Lie’ (2018) is a recurrent shape made of neon, metal and recycled plastic and symbolises a state of melancholia in response to what Cyril states as ‘our lost quest for a better world’.

Aida Bruyère (born in Mali)

Aida Bruyère creates visual works that are inspired by mainstream media and the symbolic codes of popular culture. Bruyère has taken from her own practice of the popular dancing cultures Booty Shake and Dancehall, uncovering an exclusively female ‘dancehall battle’ from which she draws her ‘Special Gyal’ project; an inventory of movements and postures that some women have appropriated so as to seek their empowerment against the tide of sexist and violent lyrics of the accompanying music.

Anna-Lena Krause (based in Berlin)

With her photo-series ‘The Aftermaths’, Anna-Lena Krause explores the ways sociological and cultural phenomena has shaped today’s youth. With a focus on identity, and the connections between people, Krause’s works question ideas of human diversity and similarities. She has had numerous group exhibitions, including the Voices Off in Arles (2016) and the European Months of Photography in Berlin (2016).

Matthew Wilkinson (born in England)

Matthew is an interdisciplinary artist that works to encounter, unravel and expose the hierarchical structures that govern our lives. Striving to provide a new lens on established situations through any means necessary. His work has been shown in London, Vienna and Los Angeles.

Molly Macindoe (born in Qatar)

Since the late 1990s, Molly Macindoe has been meticulously capturing the underground rave scene from an insider’s perspective. Shooting a world so removed from the throes of mainstream culture, Molly has created a body of work as authentic as the subculture she follows. Once described as an ‘unashamed champion of individuality’, she has provided unprecedented visual insight into an empowered world free of boundaries. Her ground-breaking book Out of Order documents her journey through ten years of the Free Party movement and is currently on its second expanded edition. Sweet Harmony’s selection includes images from the book but also reveals her latest work, showing how the scene has since evolved, survived and thrived up until the present day, in the changing conditions of the 21st Century Britain and spread beyond Europe and to the Middle East.

Mustafa Hulusi (born in London)

Mustafa Hulusi creates visually arresting artworks that are designed to be open-ended, depicting imagery that are universal in their narrative. Hulusi’s visual graphic ‘Expander’ is the lead visual for Sweet Harmony and will be used as part of the flyposter campaign. It will also be featured along the hallways, corridors and stairwells of Saatchi Gallery during the exhibition. Most recently, Hulusi has exhibited his solo shows at Patrick Painter, Los Angeles (2009) and The PAGE Gallery, Seoul (2015).

Immo Klink (born in Germany)

Immo Klink creates images across the genres of art, commercial, editorial and fashion photography. Taking documentary approaches into fashion as well as introducing commercial aesthetics into documentary, art or campaigning is a constant in his visual language. Klink examines political and social matters of our time. He has worked as an aide in German politics and engages as a political activist in the UK. After graduating with a Master of the Laws he briefly joined Wolfgang Tillmans’ studio in London. Immo has photographed and directed political campaigns. He has worked with Reclaim the Streets, The Space Hijackers, Climate Camp, Occupy and Extinction Rebellion.

Shaun Bloodworth (born in Sheffield)

Beloved music photographer Shaun Bloodworth spent years capturing the British underground dance scene, and has played a key role in documenting the evolution of Rinse FM. He had taken iconic portraits of artists including Flying Lotus, Skream, Benga, Hudson Mohawke, and Jackmaster. His photographs have been featured in the National Portrait Gallery’s collections.

Toby Mott (born in London)

Like many enduring passions, Toby Mott’s relationship with music started when he was a teenager. Mott’s career as an artist, designer and collector, stretches from co-founding East London art group the Grey Organisation in the early 1980s to creating the cover artwork for De La Soul’s 1989 breakthrough album 3 Feet High And Rising. The Mott Collection his expansive personal collection of subculture ephemera has recently led to curating exhibits and publishing several books. The Mott Collection has been exhibited widely including New York, London and Los Angeles.

Kindly supported by

Jack Arts Spotify SCI-Arc Dazed Pioneer DJ Roland L-Acoustics Village Underground

Presented by Vigo Gallery



When Ibrahim El-Salahi is drawing he gets lost in his work and has temporary respite from his chronic back problems. At 88 the ‘Godfather of African Modernism’ says it is the only time he has let up from the pain.



For the last two years he has created an extraordinary body of work from the comfort of an armchair, refusing to let physical restriction limit his ambition. He makes around 180 miniature drawings in pen and ink on the back of medicine packets and envelopes after consuming their contents.



These are drawings in their own right but they are also seeds for a very ambitious project. He wants to make larger scale work within his constraints and achieves this by using the drawings as a source or nucleus from which to create large unique mono-print paintings transferred by screen. The image is impressed onto strong woven linen canvas many times over until a thick inky texture is achieved, amplifying the character of the marks. Limited by his physical constraint this method allows him to do something that otherwise would have not been possible.



This approach of playing with scale and ways of engaging the viewer is not without precedent. Throughout his career he has returned to the nucleus versus the whole and the organic opening up of an image.



When he was in prison in the 1970s he drew on small scraps of cement casings, which he would join together whilst the guards were not watching to create a whole. Thereafter all his black and white works were expansive in nature, such as starting with the nucleus and adding pieces of paper, letting the work grow organically, or in series within notebooks.*



As far back as the 1950s Ibrahim was contemplating how to engage people’s attention, hence his first forays into what became known as the School of Khartoum. Disappointed by the lack of attention from his fellow countrymen and women when he showed his Slade work at the Grand Hotel in Khartoum in the late 1950s, he noted that by writing in Arabic calligraphy on the drawings it attracted interest and people paused to read. From there the words and letters slowly evolved as he explored the pictorial qualities and hidden shapes within calligraphic forms. It was a practical means to an end, a way into the work and a communication. The pain relief imagery now also includes a nod to these early works, as he makes use of the pictorial possibilities of braille on the medicine packets.



This body of work made despite and because of circumstance allows the viewer to delve into the mind of the artist and experience his memories of a long and fruitful life. Since completion of this project the artist has been inspired re-entering his new studio for the first time in over two years.

Biography

Born in Sudan in 1930, Ibrahim El-Salahi is one of the most important living African artists and a key figure in the development of African Modernism. El-Salahi grew up in Omdurman, Sudan and studied at the Slade School in London. On his return to Sudan in 1957, he established a new visual vocabulary, which arose from his own pioneering integration of Sudanese, Islamic, African, Arab and Western artistic traditions. In 2013 Ibrahim El-Salahi became the first African artist to be given a full retrospective at Tate Modern. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; The Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC; The British Museum, London; Tate Modern, London; The Guggenheim Museum, Abu Dhabi; The Ashmoleum Museum, Oxford, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE; The National Gallery, Berlin, and many others.



* The Guggenheim this January purchased a notebook of 83 drawings completed in the run up to his solo retrospective at Tate Modern in 2013. His prison diary was also purchased last year by MOMA and has just been co-published in Arabic and English editions with the Sharjah Art Foundation. The way he diligently set about producing this most recent body of work echoes the approach applied to these landmark works. It serves as a record of memory and contemporary experience fused with ambition to communicate.

KALEIDOSCOPE is an exhibition featuring the work of 9 international contemporary artists working across a variety of mediums, including Laura Buckley’s interactive large-scale kaleidoscope Fata Morgana.

The immersive piece will be making its first major public appearance as a part of the exhibition. Dazzling and disorienting, Buckley’s hexagonal walk-in installation invites the audience to be absorbed into the work through its mirrored walls, changing imagery and audio. It examines the distortion of human perception, moving from normal domestic spaces, to turbulent nautical vistas and eventually complete abstraction. From the disruptive work of Mia Feuer, who addresses the post-natural landscape and our effect on it, to Pierre Carreau’s emotionally charged depictions of waves, the diverse media on display form a kaleidoscopic representation of the world, revealing a constantly changing sequence of elements and mediums.

The exhibition presents an exciting mixture of contemporary artists from around the world. Other featured artists include Tillman Kaiser whose dynamic paintings and sculptural works are meditations of history, style and form; Whitney Bedford whose tempestuous seascapes act as motifs for connecting the past and the present, and the young painter Florence Hutchings who will be presenting a series of vivid still-life paintings inspired by everyday life.

CARMIGNAC PHOTOJOURNALISM AWARD: ‘ARCTIC: NEW FRONTIER’ BY YURI KOZYREV AND KADIR VAN LOHUIZEN

15 March – 11 June 2019



Yuri Kozyrev and Kadir van Lohuizen (NOOR) were awarded the 9th edition of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award dedicated to the Arctic. The endowment allowed them to carry out their pioneer double polar expedition ‘Arctic: New Frontier’.



Yuri Kozyrev travelled the route of the Russian maritime ports of the Arctic, accompanying the last remaining Nomadic people of the region, the Nenets, during their seasonal movement known as transhumance. This was interrupted for the first time in the Nenets’ history in 2018, because of the melting of the permafrost, and Kozyrev skirted the coast of the Barents Sea in the north of the country, and travelled aboard the Montchegorsk, the first container ship to use the Northern Sea route unassisted. He encountered people who had been made ill by nickel mining in Norilsk, and then travelled to Murmansk, where the first floating nuclear power plant is under secret construction.



Kadir van Lohuizen started his journey on the Norwegian island of Spitzberg in the Svalbard archipelago. He then followed the Northwest Passage, which is now the shortest route between Europe and Asia thanks to the melting ice. In Greenland, he met scientists who have recently discovered the existence of frozen rivers beneath the ice-cap, which are directly contributing to the planet’s rising water levels. South of Cornwallis Island, off the coast of Canada, he lived in the small community of Resolute, which has recently been home to a training facility for the Canadian Army, as climate change has led to ever-increasing routes through the Arctic region.Finally, he travelled to Kivalina, an indigenous village on the northern tip of Alaska, which, according to current forecasts, will disappear underwater by 2025.



The forces of tourism, militarisation, exploitation of gas and mineral resources, and the opening of trade routes mean that the Arctic is today the site of clashes between countries and multinationals who are locked in a chaotic competition for control of these zones, which have taken on strategic importance in the history of humankind due to the effects of global warming



The photographs in ‘Arctic: New Frontier’ by Yuri Kozyrev and Kadir van Lohuizen are an alarming testimony to the speed of transformation in the region and the upheavals that are taking place on a global scale.



About the Artists



Yuri Kozyrev



Yuri Kozyrev (Russia, 1963) has witnessed many world changing events. He started his career documenting the col- lapse of the Soviet Union, capturing the rapid changes in the former USSR for the LA Times during the 90s. In 2001, Yuri Kozyrev started to cover international news, working in Afghanistan and Iraq as a photographer for TIME Magazine. Yuri Kozyrev has received numerous honors for his work, including several World Press Photo Awards, the OPC’s Oliver Rebbot Award, the ICP Infinity Award for Photojournalism, the Frontline Club Award, the Visa d’or News and the Prix Bayeux-Calvados, and was named 2011 Photographer of the Year in the Pictures of the Year International competition.



Kadir van Lohuizen



Born in The Netherlands in 1963, Kadir van Lohuizen started his carrier as a photo-journalist in 1988 by reporting the Intifada. During the mid-1990s, he has covered conflicts in Africa and the aftermaths of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He is best known for his long-term projects documenting seven rivers of the world, which he roamed from source to mouth.



Kadir van Lohuizen has received numerous prizes and awards in photojournalism. In 2000 and 2002 he was a jury member of the World Press Photo contest and is currently on the supervisory board of the World Press Photo Foundation.



About the Carmignac Photojournalism Award:



In 2009, while media and photojournalism faced an unprecedented crisis, Edouard Carmignac created the Carmignac Photojournalism Award to support photographers in the field. Directed by Emeric Glayse, it funds annually the production of an investigative photo reportage on human rights violations and geostrategic issues in the world. Selected by an international jury, the laureate receives a 50.000€ grant, enabling them to carry out an in-depth research in the field, with logistical support from Fondation Carmignac. The latter presents a travelling exhibition and the publication of a monograph upon their return.



The 10th edition is dedicated to the Amazon and will address issues related to its deforestation. The laureate will be announced at the festival Visa pour l’Image, Perpignan, in September 2019.



About Fondation Carmignac



Created in 2000 under the initiative of Édouard Carmignac, Fondation Carmignac is a corporate foundation with an art collection of about 300 works, which also funds the Carmignac Photojournalism Award. The Collection, presented and shared inside the company’s offices, celebrates American art from the 1960s to the 1980s, with iconic works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Jean-Michel Basquiat, to 20th and 21st century masterpieces by Gerhard Richter, Willem de Kooning, Martial Raysse, Miquel Barceló or Ed Ruscha, and contemporary art including works by Zhang Huan and El Anatsui. In 2018, the Fondation opened a public site in Porquerolles, a Mediterranean island, where visitors can discover contemporary artworks of the Carmignac collection in the beautiful surroundings of a national park, along with a sculpture garden and temporary exhibitions every year. The island is not the result of a random decision: “As in all legends or initiatory journeys, the voyage to the island is always a dual crossing -both physical and psychological. It is about crossing over to the other side,” states the Director of the foundation, Charles Carmignac.



From the April 13th till November 3rd 2019, the Fondation will present a new exhibition.

Presented by Vigo Gallery.

The works in Jenny Watson: A Horses Tale were made in January and February of this year while Jenny Watson was on residency at the American Academy in Rome as a recipient of the Mordant Family/Australia Council Affiliated Fellowship. The spotted fabrics, in dress lengths that are common to each, were acquired in Japan. Real objects first appeared in Watson’s work Scrabble (1982), a studio wall installation that combined ballerina tutu alongside texts, images, and other found objects, and established the field for her future work. False horsetails, the other common element, normally used as an accessory for riding competitions, first appeared in the exhibition “Paintings with Veils and False Tails,” where Watson was the first female to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1993. The use of text and image is a recurrent theme that has been employed in various ways over the course of Watson’s career. Each fabric prompts an image that captures observations, dreams and emotional states. Associated texts may or may not relate to the image they are paired with.

Other solo exhibitions include The Fabric of Fantasy at the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney (2017) and Heide Museum of Modern Art (2018) and Here, There, and Everywhere at the Museum of Art Melbourne (2012).

About Vigo Gallery

Vigo represents emerging and established international artists, curating shows in both the public and private arenas. We advise several residencies and enjoy good relations with many Museums and Foundations from the TATE to the British Museum, MOMA, The Sharjah Art Foundation, The Metropolitan Museum and the Saatchi Gallery, and have placed more than twenty historic and contemporary works into the collections of prominent museums over the past three years. We have a particular interest in the African diaspora (Ibrahim El Salahi) and African American artists (Derrick Adams, Leonardo Drew) although our program is truly international working with artists and estates from Belgium, Russia, America and Japan alongside our British contingent.

In addition to our contemporary focus and primary program, the gallery also shines light on historically significant yet often undervalued artists with strong museum and curatorial followings.

Notable exhibitions are listed on our website and include: Bram Bogart, Derrick Adams, Leonardo Drew, Ibrahim El Salahi, Boyle Family, Marcus Harvey, Gavin Turk, Masaaki Yamada, Kadar Brock, Nika Neelova and Daniel Crews-Chubb.”

We live in an Ocean of Air is a virtual reality experience where the invisible connection between plant and human is revealed through breath. In a 20 minute experience cutting-edge technology illuminates the invisible- but fundamental- connections between human and natural worlds. You’ll be transported to an ancient forest and witness the majestic power of the largest organism to ever exist – the giant Sequoia tree..
Visitors are invited to step through the canvas to explore a magical world where the invisible exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide is beautifully brought to life. Untethered virtual reality, breath and heart sensors will track your real-time breathing and encourage you to reflect on our dependence and responsibility to the organisms we share our planet with.

We live in an Ocean of Air can be experienced both individually and collectively; experience prioritised over passive contemplation. The wider gallery allows multiple tiers of immersion, with large projection screens welcoming audiences into the heart of the environment, before expanding to reveal the scale of the digital forest that lies ahead.

Guests must be a minimum of 48 inches (1.20 m) tall and at least 10 years old to participate. If you are pregnant or have any medical condition which may impair your balance, please refer to our FAQ’s before booking.

About Marshmallow Laser Feast

Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) is a London based experiential collective that create immersive experiences, expanding perception and exploring our connection with the natural world. Fusing architectural tools, contemporary imaging techniques and performance with tactile forms, MLF sculpt spaces that lay dormant until animated by curiosity and exploration. Informed as much by playfulness as research, MLF break the boundaries to worlds beyond our senses.

Ara Güler was born in Istanbul 1928. Throughout his life he was a significant global representative of Turkey’s creative photography. He worked as Near East photojournalist for Time Life in 1956, Paris Match in 1958 and Stern magazine. Magnum Photos also published Ara Güler’s photos globally and in 1961, he had become the first Turkish member of the American Society of Magazine Photographers (ASMP).

In 1962, he was awarded the Master of Leica title in Germany and featured in a special issue of Swiss Camera magazine, one of the world’s leading photography publications. Güler also photographed the images for Lord Kinross’ Hagia Sophia Book published in 1971 and the cover photo on “Picasso: Métamorphose et Unité”, published by Skira Books to celebrate Picasso’s 90th birthday.

His images on art and art history were published by Time Life, Horizon, Newsweek and Skira Publishing House.

Güler’s photographs of Architect Sinan’s buildings were published in a book titled “Sinan: Architect of Séleyman the Magnificent” in France in 1992 by Edition Arthaud Publications and in the US and UK by Thames & Hudson Publications.

In 2002, he was awarded “the Légion d’honneur: Officier des Arts et des Lettres” by the French government, and in 2009 “La Médaille de la Ville de Paris” by Paris Municipality.

Güler was presented the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey Culture and Arts Grand Award in 2005, the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism Culture and Arts Service Award in 2008, Turkish Grand National Assembly Superior Service Award in 2009, US Lucie Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 and the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism Culture and Arts Grand Award in 2011.

He was also bestowed upon an “Honorary Doctorate” by the Yildiz Technical University in 2004, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in 2013 and Boğaziçi University in 2014.

Ara Güler Photography Exhibition has been curated by the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey in collaboration with Dogus Group Ara Güler Museum, Archives and Research Centre. Following the exhibition in London, Güler’s work will be exhibited in Paris, Kyoto, New York, Rome and Mogashishu.

Exhibition Schedule
April 2019 – LONDON, SAATCHI GALLERY
May 2019 – PARIS, POLKA GALLERY
June 2019 – KYOTO, TOFUKUJI TEMPLE
September 2019 – NEW YORK, SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
January 2020 – ROME, TRASTEVERE MUSEUM
April 2020 – MOGADISHU, TURKISH EMBASSY

throe on throe presents a major survey of works by acclaimed British artist Johnnie Cooper.

The exhibition comes at a time of heightened interest in the artist. In 2018, as part of its initiative to re-evaluate key twentieth and twenty-first-century artists, art publisher Black Dog Press produced a monograph documenting Cooper’s 50-year career; and this eagerly-awaited presentation – his first in London in three decades – will be complemented by further shows in the U.K. and America.
Displayed across two galleries, the show is comprised of more than 50 paintings and sculptures, including works from the 1970s – a time when Cooper appeared alongside Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth with his own solo exhibition to mark the Wakefield Silver Jubilee Festival – and culminates with his most recent atmospheric large-scale oil and acrylic paintings.

Cooper describes his approach to painting as three dimensional; accordingly, this exhibition begins with a collection of his early sculptural works. Chained to the Nest (1974), which depicts a newly-hatched bird struggling to extricate itself from a womb or nest, illustrates his attraction to, in his own words, ‘the physicality of the surface’, a quality evident in all his paintings.

Since the late 1980s, Cooper has tirelessly investigated the formal limits of painting, experimenting in many genres at his rural Worcestershire studio. throe on throe tracks this progression with examples primarily drawn from five bodies of work: Longdon Marsh (1996 – 2006), A Long Series Of Events (2014), Continuums (2011 – 2016), The Levant Series (2018 – 2019) – up to the present day, with a suite of spectacular paintings entitled The Listener Series realised between 2018 – 2019, works that display broad gestural brush strokes and reflect his love for the natural landscape.

Says Peter Murray, founder and executive director of Yorkshire Sculpture Park: ‘Cooper has devoted himself to the investigation of painting through colour, texture and gesture. At times his paintings have seemed to be an extension of his love of the English landscape with the flavour of English artists such as Ivon Hitchens. At other times, the influence of American Abstract Expressionists and Colour Field artists can be sensed, but always his work has an independent and expressive power of its own.’ (Johnnie Cooper: Sunset Strip, Black Dog Press, 2018) “

Says Saatchi Gallery Director Philippa Adams: ‘While this exhibition looks to the future, embracing a new chapter in Cooper’s journey, it also reasserts him alongside his peers as an important British artist.’

About the Artist:

Johnnie Cooper (b.1950, Wolverhampton) spent his early years in Saint-Eustache, a suburban town near Montreal, Quebec, where he was immersed in Native American visual culture, before returning to the UK in 1960. In 1970, he undertook studies at Staffordshire College of Art, advancing to the inaugural sculpture course, which was convened by the renowned cosmopolitan sculptor, Stuart Osbourne. Further postgraduate study followed at Bretton Hall, Yorkshire, where from 1976 onwards he was mentored by Peter Murray, Principal Lecturer in Art. Murray, now Chief Executive of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, organised for Cooper to exhibit works at the college in conjunction with the 1976 inaugural exhibition of Yorkshire Sculpture Park (located on the grounds of Bretton Hall). The following year, Murray invited Cooper to organise a solo exhibition of work to coincide with the 1977 Wakefield Silver Jubilee Festival, which featured sculpture by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. This opportunity led to media exposure and served to launch his career.

An intense period of formal experimentation ensued, leading Cooper to turn to painting in 1984. His first paintings were exhibited at the Crucial Gallery in Notting Hill, London.

Cooper has worked in art education throughout his career, appointed as Head of Art at Bredon School, Gloucestershire and lecturing at Oxford Tutorial College. In 2004, he was invited to lecture on European Romanticism for the Art History department at Kellogg College, Oxford University. In 2007, Cooper spent three months in Shanghai working as artist in residence and cultural ambassador for Oxford International College.

Cooper has shown work in Dallas and Shanghai. He has exhibited with the Free Painters and Sculptors Society, at the Manchester Academy of Fine Art, The Mall Galleries, and at the Royal Academy. His work features extensively in private collections. Cooper continues to investigate the formal and conceptual limits of painting, developing new processes that reprise motifs of his early sculptural practice and reflect his love for the natural landscape.

8070 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90048
17 February – 11 March 2019

BRITISH POP ARTIST PHILIP COLBERT’S FIRST U.S. SOLO SHOW ‘HUNT PAINTINGS’ AT SAATCHI GALLERY’S FIRST POP-UP EXHIBITION SPACE IN LOS ANGELES

Saatchi Gallery announce British artist Philip Colbert’s Hunt Paintings, presented by Unit London, and part of the Frieze Los Angeles Collateral programming. The exhibition is the London-based pop artist’s first solo show in America, and Saatchi Gallery’s first temporary gallery space in Los Angeles. The exhibition, curated by Sasha Craddock , will feature a series of large-scale paintings, a series of large scale sculptures, as well as a virtual reality experience, which will allow the audience to immerse themselves with Colbert’s Lobster alter ego in his World of Art. A lobster will be installed on the exterior roof, visible to all passersby on the busy street. The show will also feature a multimedia collaboration titled “Year of the Lobster” between Colbert and renowned auctioneer Simon de Pury. Presented as a satirical Pop Song crossed with an art auction, the video star’s Colbert’s alter ego Lobster. The saturation and layering is consistent with Colbert’s large paintings and reflects the advanced excesses of art, capitalism & technology in contemporary society and serves as an honest reflection of our hyper pop society.

Like British pop artists before him such as David Hockney and Derek Boshier, Colbert’s work is heavily connected to California and American pop culture, light, and landscape, as seen in the young artist’s surreal hyper pop works, which are highly influenced by the time the he spent in Joshua Tree.

The new vibrant canvases on view, including the monumental Hunt Triptych and Lion Hunt, maintain Colbert’s wildly exuberant style, while alluding to the compositions of Colbert’s artistic predecessors. Colbert’s ability to reference the epic narratives and heroic configurations of the Old Masters, from Reubens to Van Dyck, while presenting topical themes around digital media and contemporary consumer imagery, place him in a unique and influential position – from which he is simultaneously able to comment on the world around him, whilst maintaining a connection to the influence of those that have come before him.

The oil paintings challenge and toy with the viewer’s cultural vocabulary, superimposing commonplace banal objects onto painted faces and merging portraiture with popular culture in a Magritte-like fashion. Frequently narrated by the distinctive personality of Colbert’s comical lobster alter ego, he states, “I became an artist when I became a lobster.” A giant lobster figurine will feature in the Saatchi exhibition, alongside a lobster army, bringing to life Colbert’s artistic personality.

Colbert’s multidisciplinary approach, with a focus on oil painting, updates the legacy of pop art collage for the internet age, pushing the boundaries of artistic imagery and immersive experience.

Philip Colbert comments, “I am very excited to be showing for the first time in Los Angeles with Saatchi Gallery and Unit London. The time I spent in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree a few years ago had it a big impact on my creative language, which is very visible in my paintings. My new large-scale works in the show reflect the hyper saturation of our culture and our crazy, ferocious appetite for image consumption.”

Hunt Paintings marks Philip Colbert’s continued relationship with Saatchi Gallery and Unit London. Since his first Saatchi show in London over 2 years ago, Colbert’s intricate and complex works have garnered international acclaim and media coverage. In August 2018 he participated in Unit London’s iconic Looking For U Group Show, and has since held exhibitions at The Power Long Museum in Shanghai, China and MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) in Chengdu, China, Galerie Nichido in Tokyo, Japan and the Kasama Nichido Museum of Art in Kasama, Japan.

ABOUT PHILIP COLBERT

Living and working in London. Colbert is known for his multidisciplinary approach, creating a “World of Art”. Deeply entwined with pop theory, Colbert works across the mediums of painting, sculpture, clothing, furniture & design. Described as “the Godson of Andy Warhol” by Andre Leon Talley. Colbert’s large-scale oil paintings push the boundaries of contemporary narrative painting, they follow on from a dialogue established by artists such as Richard Hamilton, James Rosenquist a nd Roy Lichtenstein.

ABOUT UNIT LONDON:

Unit London remains firmly committed to its core principles that art should be celebrated, inclusive and undivided. Founded in 2013, Unit London was born from an innate desire to break down the barriers of elitism and create new innovative pathways into the contemporary art world, recognised for its pioneering approach to digital media and role in expanding and diversifying audiences using new technologies.