Berenice Abbott “Waterfront South Street” 1935. Image from photographyinamerica.wordpress.com
The European Month of Photography, or EMoP, is a yearly photo-centric event hosted in eight of Europe’s thriving capitals throughout October. Steered by a network of photography institutions, hundreds of shows are filled with groundbreaking photography that stretches and challenges the medium’s technical and visual potential. Spanning Paris, Berlin and Vienna, each city has its own monumental programme that can feel overwhelming at first glance. In an effort to alleviate the stress, we’ve compiled a list of the top 10 must-see shows during EMoP 2016.
Berlin
Edmund Kuppel for the Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2016
Akademie der Künste
During this year’s EMoP, the prestigious “Käthe Kollwitz Prize” will be awarded to the photographer, sculptor and media artist Edmund Kuppel. With a specific focus on his output in the Sixties, The Akademie der Künste will honour the artist by showcasing his seminal film “Cabinet of Ferdinand von Blumenfeld” based on “bistro landscapes” along with the premiere of his film “Les marches du héros absurde”.
Berenice Abbot’s “New York, 1930’s” Image from photographyinamerica.wordpress.com
Berenice Abbott
Martin-Gropius-Bau
Berenice Abbott shot to fame following the publication of her “Changing New York documentary photo collection” between 1929 and 1939. Her images crystallise the time of New York’s rapid modernity which contrasts Victorian architecture with its cowboy saloons alongside towering skyscrapers and large advertising billboards.
Leica Oskar Barnack Award nominee: Guillaume Herbaut, “Ukraine: Maidan to Donbass” Image from http://leica-oskar-barnack-preis.de
The 2016 Leica Oskar Barnack Award Exhibition
Neue Schule für Fotografie
The prestigious 36th Leica Camera AG photography competition will feature work by twelve artists competing for one of the best paid awards in the field. An international jury looking for photographers with “unerring powers of observation” between humans and their environment will select the winners of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award and the Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award.
Louisa Clement, Anna Vogel and Moritz Wegwerth
Galerie Sprüth Magers
Kunstakademie Düsseldorf lecturer Andreas Gursky has curated a group exhibition for Sprüth Magers which will feature three of his graduating MFA students. Linked by a common experimental approach, Anna Vogel digitally alters embedded structures in found images; Louisa Clement uses an iPhone to exact a relationship between time and space and Moritz Wegwerth collapses the limits of “reality, fiction, abstraction and figuration.”
Paris
Anne Claverie
European House of Photography
Visual artist Anne Claverie will transform a room of the MEP, Paris into a vessel for a sculpted Cantobre tree. The plexiglass piece reverses the image to flip the roots onto the ceiling, echoing camera obscura. When visitors enter, they dive into the core of the photographic production process which stages a sculpted light produced by the pinhole.
Paolo Titolo
European House of Photography
Paolo Titolo spent some time photographing members of Cuba’s trans communities, most of which are set in private spheres. Evidently having earned the trust of his subjects, the photographer is able to capture the hope, fear, joy and anxieties in an extraordinary collection of portraits.
Herb Ritts, “Stephanie, Cindy, Christy, Tatjana, Naomi, Hollywood 1989” Image from mep-fr.org
Herb Ritts
European House of Photography
Form and ambience frame Herb Ritt’s photography. From a muscle trembling to sunburn, Herb Ritts’ works are studies of the body’s minutiae and experimentations in technique and atmosphere. The photographer was also a collector of European masters and was mentored by Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon and Robert Mapplethorpe.
Vienna
“View of the Invisible Skin” with Jana Hojstricová and Palo Macho
Slowakisches Institut
“Glimpses of the Invisible Skin” orbits representations of the body. Photographer Jana Hojstricová and the glass painter Palo Macho have combined their practices to capture fragments of unusual, static poses often veiled by a shirt or glove and are presented in glass panes.
“The Trace of The Real” group show
Atelier Schweizer
The show “The Trace of the Real”, or rather that which is absent, takes its queue from Rosalind Krauss’ “théorie des écarts” (“Gap Theory”). Artists Özlem Altin, Pidder Auberger, Martin Eiter, Dorit Margreiter, Olena Newkryta, Stephan Reusse, Gabriele Rothemann, Frederike Schweizer and Martin Streit have responded with their interpretations of an object’s imprint and exploration of the “in-between space.”
“Restricted Areas” by Danila Tkachenko. Image from bjp-online.com
“Restricted Areas” by Danila Tkachenko
Anzenberger Gallery
Between 2013 and 2015 photographer Danila Tkachenko embarked on a journey across several states of the former Soviet Union in search of abandoned industrial buildings. The images present submarines and aircrafts as abstract objects staged in captivating pale light. They symbolise a lofty history and visualise an impending armageddon.