Video of the Saatchi Gallery Talk:
New Directions in Contemporary Photography
Charlotte Cotton, Anne Hardy, Clarisse D’Arcimoles and Aaron Schuman in conversation
7.30pm, Monday 17 January 2011
One of the great paradigm shifts in contemporary art over the past 20 years has been the movement of photography into the realm of fine art. The critical and commercial success of artists such as Wolfgang Tillmans, Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky, who are represented by contemporary art galleries, and the appointment of photography curators to top public galleries such as Tate Modern and Guggenheim, has ensured that the medium is increasingly regarded as a vital part of contemporary artistic practice. With digital techniques of manipulation becoming more and more advanced, photography stands to continually develop and change as a tool for artists.
Given that the first photograph was produced in 1826, why did it take so long for photography to be accepted by the art world? How reliable is a photograph as evidence of the real world? What makes a documentary photograph different from a ‘fine art’ photograph? How will the increasing impact of digital manipulation impact upon the medium? What might the future developments in photography be?
These are some of the questions that curator Charlotte Cotton, photographers Anne Hardy and Clarisse D’Arcimoles and Aaron Schuman will discuss as they explore the most pressing questions regarding photography today.
Speakers:
Aaron Schuman
Aaron Schuman is a photographer, editor, writer and curator. He has exhibited his photographic work internationally, and has contributed photography, articles, essays and interviews to numerous magazines and newspapers. He was the curator of ‘Whatever Was Splendid: New American Photographs’, one of the principal exhibitions at the 2010 FotoFest Biennial. He is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton and the Arts University College at Bournemouth, and is the founder, director and editor of the online photography journal, SeeSaw Magazine.
Charlotte Cotton
Charlotte is Creative Director at the National Media Museum, Bradford. Before that she was Head of the Wallis Annenberg Department of Photography at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), a Curator of Photography at the V&A for 12 years and then Head of Programming at The Photographers’ Gallery in London.
Clarisse D’Arcimoles
Clarisse D’Arcimoles is a French emerging photographer and installation artist currently based in London. After graduating from Set Design for Performance at Central Saint Martin’s, she began a Postgraduate course in Photography. During this period she started focusing on performance photography staged specifically for the camera, and exploring ways of documentation of performance art works. Her work is featured in Newspeak: British Art Now at the Saatchi Gallery.
Anne Hardy
Anne Hardy’s photographs depict fictional spaces which have both a magical and naturalistic quality. Constructed within the studio using a range of materials, from disintegrating found objects to natural forms, these spaces uncover the uneasy relationship between the natural and artificial. Anne has shown her work in many solo and group shows around the world, including the Saatchi Gallery’s current exhibition Newspeak: British Art Now. She lives and works in London.
