WILLAS contemporary

Jimmy Nelson

Artist: Jimmy Nelson. Title: Laurelle | Zuid-Beveland, Zeeland | 2021 
Work: 120 x 180 cm  Frame: 140 x 200 cm - Unique print - edition of 1 + 1 AP - Courtesy WILLAS contemporary.

Jimmy Nelson

Between the Sea and the Sky

WILLAS contemporary is proud to be the first to present Between the Sea and the Sky by Jimmy Nelson outside the Netherlands.

Fourteen carefully selected, large-scale photographs will grace the walls of IVAR Stockholm, Tändstick Palatset, opening on March 17th, 2023. Jimmy Nelson will be present for the opening. The exhibition lasts until the 12th of May and is open by appointment.


Whilst reflecting on restrictions during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, Jimmy Nelson realised he didn't have to travel far to discover exceptional human beauty; he could also create art closer to home. A new project emerged: Between the Sea and the Sky, where he depicts 20 communities in traditional dress and the environment that formed them, the Netherlands. The result reveals a key part of Dutch identity that has almost completely disappeared into oblivion. 

For centuries, the Dutch have battled the water, keeping their country—nearly a quarter of which lies below sea level—safe. This has required great strength, solidarity, and stamina, resulting in the typical Dutch traits that have shaped Dutch culture and identity. 

The exhibition includes intimate portraits and iconic landscapes captured with a custom-made 10 x 8 analogue plate camera. The unusually large negative gives the artwork definition and perspective, which creates a romantic atmosphere, much like a painting by the Dutch masters of the Golden Age. As they walk, talk and dance, they offer a glimpse into how they interact with each other, merging with horizons of seaports, golden dunes and vast vistas dotted with windmills—the landscapes they call home.

"The lines on your faces are etched onto the map of our time, drafting contemporary contours that speak volumes. These images don't just contain the frozen seconds of the camera's shutter but the centuries of tradition, hardship and resilience you as subjects brought to this infinitesimally brief moment of stillness and silence that we shared."

- Jimmy Nelson

Besides the stunning photography, the book Between the Sea and the Sky is filled with stories, tales and mesmerising illustrations that convey the typical beliefs, traditions and history that bind these communities together. The art book's hand-drawn illustrations and maps depict the most iconic landmarks, mythical characters and natural elements.

ABOUT JIMMY NELSON

Jimmy Nelson has photographed Indigenous cultures his entire life. This passion gave birth to his first book, Before They Pass Away, in 2013, followed by Homage to Humanity five years later in 2018. Nelson raises up the people on the other side of his lens in a way that gives extraordinary, often forgotten communities a visible platform full of dignity.

Through his passionate portraits, the artist celebrates human diversity and beauty. Nelson’s dream is for humanity to connect through a deep sense of love for oneself, each other and the Earth. Only then shall we preserve our precious planet. Jimmy continues the voyage of discovery. To conceive the definitive multi-media experience to enable the viewer to come as close as possible to experiencing genuine human empathy with the other. This story revolves around the journey of Jimmy and his 10x8 analogue camera. 

Before They Pass Away is presented by museums and galleries worldwide, such as Fotografiska in Stockholm, Camerawork in Berlin, and Sotheby's in London. Corporate and private collections are collecting works from the series. In Norway, leading collections such as The Statoil Art Collection and Nordic Choice Art and Design has acquired works from Before They Pass Away. 

The Before They Pass Away prints are chromogenic prints mounted on aluminium in nut wood frames behind museum glass. Each motif is available in 4 sizes within a limited edition of 19. The prices rise within the edition. All prints are delivered with a stamp of authentication and accompanying certificate. Prices begin at € 5.000.


For the best online presentation of Jimmy Nelson’s work - we highly recommend visiting www.jimmynelson..com

Between the Sea and the Sky

In his new book  Between the Sea and the Sky Jimmy Nelson depicts 20 communities in traditional dress and the environment that formed them, the Netherlands. The result reveals a key part of Dutch identity that has almost completely disappeared into oblivion. As a full immersion in the rich culture of his adopted homeland, Between the Sea and the Sky is also Jimmy Nelson’s most personal book to date.

Order the book


EARLIER WORKS BY JIMMY NELSON

 

Jimmy Nelson's talk at Litteraturhuset in Oslo.

 

Nick Brandt

Nick Brandt - Lucio and Chascas - Bolivia 2022 - Archival pigment print. Courtesy WILLAS contemporary




The Day May Break

BY NICK BRANDT

The Day May Break, photographed in Zimbabwe and Kenya in late 2020 and in Bolivia in March 2022 are the first parts of a global series portraying people and animals impacted by environmental degradation and destruction.

The people are badly affected by climate change - some displaced by cyclones that destroyed their homes, others such as farmers displaced and impoverished by years-long severe droughts. The photographs were taken at sanctuaries or conservancies. The animals are almost all long-term rescues, victims of everything from the poaching of their parents to habitat destruction and poisoning.

These animals can never be released back into the wild. As a result, they are habituated, and so it was safe for human strangers to be close to them, photographed together in the same frame.

The fog is the unifying visual. We increasingly find ourselves in a kind of limbo, a once-recognizable world now fading from view. The fog, created by fog machines on location, acts as an echo of the suffocating smoke from the wildfires, driven by climate change, devastating so much of the planet.

However, in spite of their loss, these people and animals are the survivors. And therein lies possibility and hope.



The Day May Break, and the earth may shatter.

Or The Day May Break…. and the dawn still come.

Humanity’s choice.

Our choice.




The Day May Break Chapters I and II and Sink / Rise is a travelling exhibition produced by Nick Brandt in close collaboration with WILLAS contemporary.

The exhibition has been exhibited at Oslo Negativ in Oslo and at the Green Tech Festival in Berlin. The Day May Break has also been presented in New York, Shanghai, Paris, London, Dubai, and Monopoli (Italy).

The exhibition The Day May Break chapters I and II and Sink /Rise is currently on view at Newlands House Gallery in the UK.

For the best visual presentation of The Day May Break and Sink / Rise - we recommend to visit the exhibition at Newlands House to see the prints as they should be seen - mounted and framed behind museum glass.

If you are unable to visit Newlands House, do get hold of the books The Day May Break I and II and Sink / Rise published by Hatje Kantz, or visit Nick Brandt’s webpage nickbrandt.com in fullscreen.


For information on prices and availability of the limited edition artworks, contact us - or visit the WILLAS contemporary ARTSY page for updated information.

A percentage of the print-sale proceeds is evenly distributed on a biannual basis to each of the people photographed, as a kind of ongoing royalty payment. The Day May Break is a carbon-neutral project.







Previous exhibitions with WILLAS contemporary



Made, written & narrated by photographer Nick Brandt, he tells the story behind the concept of the photo series "Inherit The Dust". The first of two videos written and narrated by Nick Brandt about Inherit the Dust. Produced by Fotografiska Museum, Stockholm, as part of a major exhibition of Inherit The Dust, May-September 2016.

Inherit The Dust by Nick Brandt

Since 2001, Nick Brandt has documented the vanishing natural world and animals of East Africa. Three years after the conclusion of the African trilogy, ‘On This Earth, A Shadow Falls, Across the Ravaged Land’, Brandt has returned to reveal the environmental damage striking the East-African territory.

The photographs of life-size panels of animals in locations where they used to roam, but as a result of human impact on the environment, no longer do, carry an important message.

It is a general assumption that the destruction in Africa has to do with poaching and feeding the unstoppable demand for animal parts from the Far East. However, the problem is more complicated as it is also linked to the world’s overpopulation and the limited amount of space and resources. 

The monograph Inherit the Dust, published by Edwynn Houk Editions was released in March 2016. The book’s release coincided with the roll out of accompanying exhibitions featuring large-scale prints in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, Stockholm, and London, among other cities. 

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International press about Inherit The Dust

“The wasted lands in Inherit The Dust were once golden savannah, sprinkled with acacia trees, where elephants, big cats and rhinos roamed.  

These now dystopian landscapes - as Nick Brandt’s unvarnished, harrowing but stunning work reveals - brings us face to face with a crisis, both social and environmental, demanding the renewal of humanity itself.”

- Kathryn Bigelow, Film Director, The Hurt Locker

“Nick Brandt’s astonishing panoramas are a jolting combination of beauty, decay, and admonishment ... an eloquent and complex ‘J’accuse’ ... A collision between Bruegel and an apocalypse in waiting.”

— Vicki Goldberg, art critic, author


“Nick Brandt’s latest work is both gorgeous and disturbing… Brandt has deftly turned his art into a call for action.”

— Jack Crager, American Photo, 10 Best New Photobooks Spring 2016

 

“Brandt’s new collection is his most powerful and heart-wrenching to date.”
— The Daily Beast

“Nick Brandt’s epic panoramas serve as a heart breaking epitaph to a paradise lost.”
— Sunday Times UK

 “An evocative portrait of change and loss”.
— Wall Street Journal

 

Big Life Foundation

In 2010, Brandt co-founded Big Life Foundation, a non-profit organization protecting 2 million acres of ecosystem in East Africa. With nearly 300 rangers, poaching has been dramatically reduced in the region, and is one of the few conservation success stories currently in East Africa.

For more information: www.biglife.org

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Fotografiska in Stockholm.

For more information: www.fotografiska.eu

 

Jimmy Nelson

JIMMY NELSON

Jimmy Nelson was born in Sevenoaks, Kent, in 1967. He is currently based in Amsterdam, and his work takes him all over the globe. Nelson spent five years travelling across Europe, Asia, Africa and the South Pacific, visiting 35 indigenous tribes between 2010 and 2013 before publishing the book Before They Pass Away, which has become an international success.

Since the beginning of 2016, Jimmy has been on ten new journeys. This is the start of a new book, published in the autumn of 2018. For this second book, Jimmy plans to visit another unique 34 indigenous cultures around the globe.

From the northern reaches of Siberia with the Khanys reindeer herders to the deep jungles of Papua New Guinea with the Kaluli, from the Himalayas with the Sharchop in Bhutan to the last hidden outposts of Africa with the Mundari in isolated South Sudan.

Nelson’s work seeks to provoke a discussion and dialogue about the longevity of these rural communities, many of which face the effects of climate change, global industrial expansion, and conflicts. 

Before They Pass Away is presented by museums and galleries worldwide, such as Fotografiska in Stockholm, Camerawork in Berlin, and Sotheby’s in London. 

Corporate and private collections are collecting works from the series. In Norway, corporate collections such as The Statoil Art Collection and Nordic Choice Art and Design have acquired works from Before They Pass Away.

The Before They Pass Away prints are archival prints mounted on aluminium in wooden frames behind museum glass. Each motif is available in 4 sizes from a limited edition of 19. The prices rise within the edition. All prints are delivered with a stamp of authentication and accompanying certificate. 

 
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Steinar Christensen

Click to play video from the installation and preview at WILLAS contemporary´s inaugural exhibition Still Lifes by Steinar Christensen. 

Steinar Christensen - Still Lifes

“Look. And then look again. The first you notice might be the aesthetics. And if you look again, you might discover the other side.”

Steinar Christensen [1946 - 2020] was always an artist in progress, offering many surprises in his unpredictable oeuvre. He left no clear signature and moved effortlessly and freely between various media. He has done performances, worked with sound and music, created huge installations and objects such as Stella Maris in Artscape Nordland. In recent years he chose to express himself mainly through photography.

Just as poetry represents the densification of an expression, Christensen developed a unique visual language. His recent works are condensed, layers on layers becoming almost impenetrable. The various symbols may seem detached and casual at first glance, however, Christensen invites us to look again. His work opens for both paradoxical constellations and existential situations and serves as silent warnings of the state of our civilization.

Christensen was a professor and Dean at the National Academy of Art in Oslo, professor at Western Norway Academy of Fine Arts and Valand Academy in Gothenburg, and guest professor at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen.

His work has been exhibited in renowned galleries in Norway and abroad. Christensen has represented Norway at La Biennale di Venezia, his works are included in numerous private and museum collections, including the National Gallery, the Henie Onstad Art Centre, Oslo Municipality Collection, The Equinor Art Collection, and Norwegian Cultural Council.

 

Steinar Christensen - Formuesforvaltning

It is with great pleasure we, in close collaboration with Formuesforvaltning, invite you to celebrate Steinar Christensen's 70’ birthday.

Steinar Christensen [1946] has always been an artist in progress, offering many surprises in his unpredictable oeuvre. He has no clear signature and moves effortlessly and freely between various medias. He has done performance, worked with sound and music, created huge installations and objects such as Stella Maris in Artscape Nordland. In recent years he has chosen to express himself mainly through photography.

Just as poetry represents densification of an expression, Christensen has developed a unique visual language. His recent works are condensed, layers on layers becoming almost impenetrable. The various symbols may seem detached and casual at first glance, however Christensen invites us to look again. His work opens for both paradoxical constellations and existential situations and serves as silent warnings of the state of our civilisation.

Christensen is a professor at Western Norway Academy of Fine Arts, Valand Academy in Gothenburg and the National Art Academy, and guest professor at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen.

His work has been exhibited in renowned galleries in Norway and abroad. Christensen has represented Norway at La Biennale di Venezia, his works are included in numerous private and museum collections, including the National Gallery, the Henie Onstad Art Centre, Oslo Municipality Collection, The Statoil Art Collection and Norwegian Cultural Council.

 

Installationshots - Formuesforvaltning Oslo

 

Jean-Michel Fauquet

Installation shot - Traces of Being by Jean Michel Fauquet at WILLAS contemporary in Oslo.

Jean-Michel Fauquet - Traces of Being

Jean Michel Fauquet was  born in 1950 in France. He lives and works in Paris. Over the past 30 years, the artist has created his own complex and fascinating universe consisting of photography, painting, drawings and sculpture. Fauquet collects cardboard boxes and basic materials which he processes into timeless objects with a surface resembling worn leather. The artist paints on the silver gelatin print with thin layers of dark oil paint, making each photograph a unique and organic piece. Jean-Michel Fauquets work has  references to baroque paintings and Film Noir. In the Merz series he pays homage to Kurt Schwitters.  

In addition to his fascinating still-lifes, he photographs landscapes and staged portraits with a similar aesthetics. When mounted together in Fauquet´s characteristic polyptychs,  the viewer is invited to visit his universe, and perhaps triggered to construct a tale from his or her own memory and imagination. Jean-Michel Fauquet’s work is found in major public collections such as Fonds National d’art Contemporain, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Maison Européenne de la Photographie and Musée National d’Art Moderne.  Fauquet has published more than twenty books and catalogues. 
 

 
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LOOK AGAIN

WILLAS contemporary is pleased to present its first group show - LOOK AGAIN. 

Look. Then look again. The first you might notice is the aesthetic. Then you might discover the other side. The artists technique and aesthetic differ, but they all have one thing in common. They strive to create art that makes us question ourselves. Art that makes us look at the world from a different perspective.

Photographs by Roger Ballen, Nick Brandt, Steinar Christensen, Jeff Cowen, Arno Rafael Minkkinen and drawings by Kjell Torriset.

Our opening hours this summer are Tuesday - Saturday 12-5 pm and by appointment via www.willas.com

NICK BRANDT [1966]

Elephant with Wasteland - Inherit the Dust - 2015 - Nick Brandt

Nick Brandt is an English photographer who photographs exclusively in the African continent, one of his goals being to record a last testament to the wild animals and places there before they are destroyed by the hands of man. Three years after the conclusion of his trilogy, “On This Earth, A Shadow Falls Across the Ravaged Land”, Nick Brandt returns to East Africa to photograph the escalating changes to the continent’s natural world.

In a series of epic panoramas, Brandt records the impact of man in places where animals used to roam, but can no longer do. In each location, Brandt erects a life size panel of one of his animal portrait photographs, setting the panels within a world of explosive urban development, factories, wastelands and quarries.

Works from ‘Inherit the Dust’ by Nick Brandt will be presented as a solo show at WILLAS contemporary opening on September 15th, 2016.

ROGER BALLEN [1950]

Eugene on the Phone - 2000 - by Roger Ballen

Over the past thirty years Roger Ballen’s distinctive style of photography has evolved using a simple square format in stark and beautiful black and white. In his earlier works his connection to the tradition of documentary photography is clear, but through the 1990’s he developed a style that he describes as documentary fiction. After 2000 the people he first discovered and documented living on the margins of South African society increasingly became a cast of actors working with Ballen in the series “Outland and Shadow Chamber” collaborating to create disturbing psychodramas.

The line between fantasy and reality in his more recent series “Boarding House and Asylum of the Birds” has become increasingly blurred and in these series he has employed drawings, paintings, collages and sculptural techniques to create elaborated sets. People are now often absent altogether; replaced by photographs of people used as props, by doll or dummy parts. Ballen has invented a new hybrid aesthetic in these works but one still rooted firmly in photography. His collaboration with the South African rap group Die Antwoord in directing the music video ‘I Fink you Freaky’ has so far been seen by over 80 million people.

STEINAR CHRISTENSEN [1946]

Old Masters - 2016 - by Steinar Christensen

 

In a sense, Christensen’s work demonstrates his ability to open up discussions across genres and may be interpreted as comments on the current state of civilization. He demonstrates a unique ability to renew his artistic expression, yet his work primarily displays traditional still-lifes, incorporating both contemporary elements and art historical references.

The artist collaborates with experts in specific disciplines and embraces new techniques and materials, in constant search to visualize his social engagement. A common characteristic in Christensen’s work is the absence of people, however his art clearly expresses the Human condition. Christensen is well known for his photographic work with reference to the 17th century Dutch Golden Age as well as his monumental steel sculptures, star installations and international performances. In his most recent work he envisions the subject of death, through Kerberos, the dog of Hades, who guards the entrance to hell and devours the flesh of those who pass.

JEFF COWEN [1966] 

MOANA - 2007 - by Jeff Cowen

Jeff Cowen is recognized by his painterly and sculptural mural-sized compositions. During nearly 30 years now, black-and-white film photography has been at the center of Jeff Cowen’s art practice. His work incorporates subject (matter) such as the human figure, landscapes, still life and abstractions. He is captivated by what he calls the non-moment, the point in time just before or after something has happened. In his continual search for the unseen, Cowen’s imagery confronts our habits as visual voyagers and does not conform to any genre.

Cowen challenges the boundaries between photography, painting and sculpture. The artist works on thick silver based paper and adds a sense of form and depth by ripping the prints to pieces before re-assembling them to make something even more beautiful. Furthermore he experiments with various chemical treatments, specialized darkroom techniques or painted color.

ARNO RAFAEL MINKKINEN [1945]

Laurence Ta Cenc - 2002 - by Arno Rafael Minkkinen

For nearly 45 years now, Minkkinen has devoted his work exclusively to the nude self-portrait as a primary vehicle to express the human condition through images made in natural and urban landscapes. His photographs encompass several other genres, such as art performance, the male with female nude, and landscape photography, resulting in a body of work that challenges classification. Inviting the viewer to become a voyeur of sorts, he captures the beauty of being part of something bigger and more permanent than one’s own naked self.

KJELL TORRISET [1950]

Torriset´s interest in Art History, languages, literature and philosophical themes is evident in his fragmentary imagery. In his drawings, the rich and distinctive repertoire of shapes, architecture and written language are significant themes and articulated in a spontaneous but nuanced expression. His diverse methods form a dialogue between recognizable symbols and abstract structures, a visual universe where an enigmatic existence often emerges. The timelines intersect with these creations that carries within themselves the past and present where the human condition is considered in a wider historical perspective. In this exhibition we present Arctic Stare - an installation consisting of 32 individually framed drawings.

'I suppose its an ambitious work and one that I worked with over some time. I think I did decide that the drawings, as the work grew,  belonged to each other in some way and that I eventually wanted them exhibited together - as one piece.

They represented my many interests, my approach, all that I wanted my art to reflect, my interest in history, politics, religion, literature etc etc. and that gradually the dialogue between and across the work could come to the fore and demonstrate a coherence, or even the disjunction, in this  broad conversation - with so many voices, and that you as a viewer also became part of that conversation and made the connections that were needed. The sum of the many parts became the work, although many of the drawings could stand on their own, the chorale took on its own expression.

The title 'Arctic Stare' has been borrowed from a photo caption in W.H.Auden and Louis MacNeice's book "Journey to Iceland" from 1937 where the authors became aware of the nordic tendency to stare unrestrained, as if in a trance, at the world. Where I grew up we used to call this "Saude-stirren", the way sheep or the bovine creatures stare in almost hypnotised concentration and curiosity back at you.'

Kjell Torriset - June 2016.

Jan C Schlegel

Jan C. Schlegel - ICONS - Tribes Of Our Generation

Jan C Schlegel

Tribes of Our Generation

Ever since the origins of humanity, geography has determined which culture, nation or ethnicity we belong to. Globalisation changes this, leaving many of us with unresolved questions. How do we become part of a culture? What are the mechanisms that determine the tribe we belong to - and how we choose to present ourselves?

Jan C. Schlegel is internationally recognised for his many classic and timeless portraits of indigenous people from around the globe. He recently made a fascinating discovery. He found aesthetic elements and symbols he recognised from his many travels within our own culture. Schlegel started making contact with people from different subcultures that interested him, and invited them to his studio. His subject matter in Tribes of Our Generation are people who act as role models in their subcultures, people who are linked together on instagram and other social media.

Jan C. Schlegel [1965] was born and raised in Schwarzwald in Germany. He discovered photography at an early age. Schlegel works with a large format camera on traditional film. His images are not digitally edited - but magnified in a traditional darkroom and partially toned using an intricate technique that makes each photograph unique.

WILLAS contemporary is the first gallery to present 'Tribes of Our Generation' by Jan C. Schlegel. We invited the Norwegian Art Critic Lars Elton to write an essay on Schlegel's work. Tribes of Our Generation can be a gateway to increased understanding and respect for subcultures in our own society.

 

Technical information:

The black and white photographs from Jan C. Schlegel are taken with a 4x5 field camera (Ebony SV45 Ti) on traditional film (Kodak Tmax 400). The Negatives are developed in Kodak D76 Developer 1+1 dilution.

To enhance shadow detail and the appearance of sharpness, each Negative is sandwiched with a traditionally made unsharp mask. Highlight masks are used to increase highlight details in most of his prints.

Nothing is digitally edited, and the pictures are enlarged on fiber base photographic paper (Fomabrom Variant 111).

Afterwards each photographic print is partly toned (own mixture) in order to give each picture its special inner dynamics and depth. Often this process takes several hours and turns out differently with each print. This way each print is unique.

To finish the process, each picture is Selen toned which guarantees its maximum life and enhances the depth in the shadows.

The pictures are mounted on aluminium boards.

 

 

Yana Kryukova by Jan C Schlegel.

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Vincent Peters

"It's really more about the emotions you feel when you look at something, emotions which then stay with you, than what the image itself portrays. The emotions which created the associations. The emotions which took you to a place you wouldn't have found if it wasn't for the experience of looking at the image. Everything is really about projections and, in some ways, photography shows traits of psychoanalysis. Every time I see a photo I've taken, I also see myself and the choices I made in creating that particular image. With the help of the camera, the subconscious is moved one step closer to the conscious, and this applies equally well to the viewer"

The men and women captured by fashion and portrait photographer Vincent Peters often have two things in common. They are famous for reasons which make them familiar faces to most of us. And they act as a canvas on which we, as viewers, paint a picture which says more about us and modern times than it does about them. The exhibition Light Within, which opens on 24 May, showcases some 50 set pieces of shadow and light shaped by Peters.

He greets the world with an open heart and an equally open mind. You can almost physically feel the emotional contact between subject and photographer in Vincent Peters' images. Tenderly and with respect, he captures a moment in that meeting, so that we too can share it and immediately begin creating our own unique associations to what we think we see.

For Peters, his analogue photography is an opportunity to convey human contact, without the need of being provocatively shocking to make an impact. He feels that we're losing the value of human contact and that increasingly more of our digital age is about eliciting a reaction rather than establishing communication.

"That for a long time the role of the artist was to push forward into the unknown. But relentlessly breaking taboos is a dead end street that makes art focus on itself , today it seems as much important to find back to the authentic essentials of our emotions in observing and feeling things. Recreate the connection that is sometimes lost", says Peters.

"One of the most important aspects of Vincent Peters' work is the light, or absence of light. The way in which he uses light and shadow plays a central role, with Peters able to choose what is revealed and what is concealed. Using an analogue camera, he captures his subjects with a finesse resulting in intimate, beautiful and sensual portraits, the gestures and poses often borrowed from romantic Hollywood films of the 1950s and 60s", explains Jessica Jarl, Exhibition Producer Fotografiska International.

Fotografiska is now hosting the exhibition Light Within. Common to all is that you're almost guaranteed to recognise their faces, even though you've almost certainly never met them. They're namely all hard workers in industries built on the creation of myths, dreams and archetypes for others to relate to.

"Taking a photo is like summarising an entire conversation in a single word. It's all about empathy and trust. An image becomes special when it conveys something about the subject, the photographer and photography as an art form. In fact, a portrait says more about the times than the person. In different times we seek out different role models, different archetypes to relate to in trying to understand our time. Think of the difference between John Wayne's hardened sheriffs in the 50s and Dustin Hoffman's protagonist in The Graduate in the 60s. Both represent their times and express totally different versions of masculinity. Just like 60s icon Marilyn Monroe and 70s political activist Jane Fonda, two very different female ideals who perfectly reflected their times and contemporary expectations."

As a child, he grew up in Bremen with a father who'd spent much of his own childhood in the cinema, moments of respite from the harshness of post-war Europe. A diversion he passed on to his son, Vincent, who himself compares his photographic style to the light and shadow of the film world, always captured by an analogue camera.

"I want to convey something genuine without the technology getting in the way of that meeting. There's a need for frank, intimate storytelling which creates communication and understanding between us. For us, with the help of photography, to see ourselves and our fellow man without complicating matters and becoming so fixated with the technology that it takes precedence over the human element. For me, the meeting is always centre stage, and using analogue technology to preserve our photographic heritage is a means of upholding an important tradition."

Text is from the Fotografiska website.

 

Kjell Torriset

Kjell Torriset - Tegninger / Drawings

Kjell Torriset was educated in London and Oslo and has since 1993 been living in East Sussex, England. Throughout his rich, poetic imagery and extensive exhibition activity, Kjell Torriset has acquired a central position on the Norwegian Art scene. In 1992 he was selected as the official exhibitor at Festspillene in Bergen and in 1999 Torriset’s work was presented in a solo exhibition at the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo. Torriset has executed large-scale commissions for Oslo University Library and other institutions. His works are included in collections such as the British Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art and The National Gallery of Oslo, The Astrup Fearnley Museum, The Norwegian Arts Council, Oslo Municipal Collection, as well as in numerous private collections.  

Kjell Torriset’s interest in Art History, languages, literature and philosophical themes is evident in his fragmentary imagery. In his drawings, the rich and distinctive repertoire of shapes, architecture and written language are significant themes and articulated in a spontaneous but nuanced expression. His diverse methods form a dialogue between recognizable symbols and abstract structures. A visual universe where an enigmatic existence often emerges. The timelines intersect with these creations which carry within themselves the past and present where the human condition is considered in a wider historical perspective.  

The book 'Tegninger – Drawings’ which is designed in close collaboration with designer Henrik Haugan from Snøhetta and published by Press Publishing, will be launched in conjunction with the exhibition.  

The exhibition ‘Tegninger – Drawings’, also designed in collaboration with Henrik Haugan from Snøhetta presents drawings, paintings and installations.

Private Preview, March 11th, 2016 from 18.00 to 21.00 [by invitation only]

Official Opening & Book Signing, March 12th, 2016 from 12.00 

 
Kjell Torriset - Collector's Edition
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Arno Rafael Minkkinen

Arno Rafael MInkkinen - Tree Climber Fosters Pond 2022 - Courtesy WILLAS contemporary

Arno Rafael Minkkinen - Tree Climber Fosters Pond 2022 - Courtesy WILLAS contemporary

“Art is risk made visible”

By restricting himself to self-defined limitations, he seeks to keep everything the same, and yet every picture is always different. I know of no one in the history of art whose persistence of vision and practice has extended nonstop for Two Hundred Seasons.

While his art can be seen as part of the conceptual approaches taken by artists such as Bruce Nauman, Lucas Samaras, and Cindy Sherman, Minkkinen is Minkkinen, flouting all and any classification. Arno is pure poetry, and his oeuvre is an enduring, contemporary homage to the relationship between nature and humankind.

— Ellen K Willas

Arno Rafael Minkkinen Kerttu, Koli, Finland, 2011 Courtesy WILLAS contemporary

Biography

Arno Rafael Minkkinen is a Finnish-American photographer, essayist, educator, and curator with well over 100 solo shows and 200 group exhibitions at galleries and museums worldwide. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design, studying there with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. His teaching career began in Finland (1974-76) at the University of Industrial Arts in Helsinki (Aalto University today). He served as an assistant professor at the MIT Creative Photography Lab (1977 to 1981) where monthly exhibitions, high-profile lecture series, and a graduate program were initiated, including the New American Nudes exhibition and catalog Minkkinen curated in 1981 through Morgan & Morgan. The CPL years are part of the ongoing new MIT Museum’s retrospective exhibitions. Currently Nancy Donahue Emeritus Professor of Art at the University of Massachusetts Lowell (1987 to 2015) and docent at Aalto University (1992 to the present, Minkkinen also served as a visiting professor at Vevey’s École d’Arts Appliqués in Switzerland (1994 to 2003) and later at the Bilder School of Photography in Oslo, Norway.

Major monographs include Frostbite (Morgan & Morgan, 1978), Waterline (Marval, Aperture, and Otava, and winner of the 1995 Grand Prix du Livre, Rencontres d'Arles), Body Land (Motta, Nathan, and Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997), SAGA: The Journey of Arno Rafael Minkkinen: Thirty-Five Years of Photographs (Chronicle Books, 2005), Homework: The Finnish Photographs, 1973 to 2008; Balanced Equation (Lodima Press, 2010), and Minkkinen (Kehrer Verlag –German Photobook Prize for Monograph of the Year 2019 | 2020 and Honorary Book Award from the Finnish Book Prize Jury in 2021).

Minkkinen’s works are held in over 80 prominent museum and institutional collections worldwide, such as the Musée d’art Moderne and the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, the Musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the High Art Museum in Atlanta, the National Art Gallery in Ottawa, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, and the Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki. Major solos have recently been held in contemporary art museums in Lima, Zagreb, and St. Petersburg, Russia along with 50-year retrospectives at Fotografiska Stockholm and Tallinn, Munich’s Kunstfoyer, and La Patinoire Royale in Brussels.

Minkkinen is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Grant (1991), the Massachusetts Arts Council (1994), the Order of the Lion First Class Medal of Knighthood from Finland (1992), the Finnish State Art Prize in Photography (2006), the Lucie Award in Fine Art (2013), a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2015), the Pro Finlandia medal conferred on the Centennial of Finnish Independence (2017, and the Honored Educator Award from the New England Regional (2015) and National Society for Photographic Education (2019).

An artist talk with Arno Rafael Minkkinen & Ellen-K Willas recorded at WILLAS contemporary in April 2017.

Sizes and Prices:

Arno Rafael Minkkinen´s photographs are archival pigment prints on museo rag paper, luster surface. The prints are available as small prints in editions of 25 (50 x 60 cm) and the mural size (100 x 130 cm) in an edition of 10. Prices range from $5000 - 50.000 USD depending on size and place in the edition.

A few of the motifs are also available in an extra large size -approx 150*180 cm.

Installation pictures from ARNO RAFAEL MINKKINENS exhibition at WILLAS contemporary in Oslo.

MINKKINEN - monograph

MINKKINEN

This monograph is spanning five decades of work by the acclaimed Finnish-American photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen (b. 1945).  The 330-page hardcover book depicts over 270 images since 1969 to the present with important works from all 50 years. More than half of the images are largely unpublished, including over 100 recent works since 2005, with numerous discoveries from the 1980s and 1990s, plus significant groundbreaking images from the early 1970s, years before the self-portrait entered the mainstream of contemporary photography.

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