While catching up on mail and publications last week, I spent some time reading about Antarctic Dreams, a collaboration between Gary Kolb and Jay Needham, in the Fall 2014 issue of Exposure. A 2010 exhibition/installation of the work at the Southern Illinois University Museum featured photographs made by Kolb and a collection of sound sculptures created by Needham while the two artists worked in Antarctica. Of particular importance to the artists’ journey there was exploring Deception Island, an active volcanic caldera and a place “steeped in the residue of the whale oil industry.” In the early twentieth century, tens of thousands of whales were processed at Whalers Bay on the island. Some evidence of this history remains; boiled whale bones are scattered over the beach and in the waters of the caldera. Kolb’s whale bone pictures are compositionally/metaphorically layered, combining images of bones and landscapes of the island, referring to the inevitable erosion of both elements. I am also drawn to Kolb’s photographs depicting monolithic icebergs and huge chunks of beached ice, reflecting the expansiveness of nature and the continent of Antarctica.

From Kolb’s statement: Antarctica inspires imaginations, an immense and nearly pristine continent, inhospitable yet enticing exploration and discovery. Governed through treaty by multiple nations that all stake political and research capital there, Antarctica is a contested space. With climate change and resource exploration leading to increased interest in the southernmost continent, we all live seemingly closer to Antarctica than ever before in history. In these images from my brief travels there I hope to articulate small pieces of Antarctica’s past and present-its history of exploration and resource exploitation, the lives of its resident birds and mammals, and its incredible natural beauty.

Source: SPE Member Gallery

I feel like I see exciting new work from Kimberly Witham every new months. I first posted her series Transcendence in 2011, followed by Domestic Arrangements in 2013. Since then, Witham has completed not only wunderkammer, which was in progress at the time of my last post, but also On Ripeness and Rot, a body of gorgeous, dark images inspired by Dutch still life painting. As well as prolific, Witham is experimental, using rich black, elaborate patterns, and stark white as backgrounds in her various projects, and transitioning from featuring bright pastel colors in her last two series to the subdued and earthy tones of her most recent one. Consistently, Witham is concerned with animal death, in a way “resurrecting” roadkill in her pictures. In her images, Witham practices an obvious control, respect, and knowledge of her materials, including the animal bodies she has collected. Their placement is at times peaceful and at others challenging, reflecting this complex quality of death itself.

From the artist’s statement: These photographs are a very personal meditation on beauty, fecundity, fragility and the inevitable march of time.  The visual language of these images is borrowed from classical Dutch still life painting.  In these paintings flowers, fruit and flesh are represented in varying states of ripeness and decay.  These paintings serve as both a celebration of beauty and a reminder of the inevitability of death.  They are simultaneously seductive and grotesque.  The materials used in my images are all culled from my surroundings.  The flowers and vegetables are from my garden.  The animals and birds are all road kill found close to my New Jersey home.  The ephemeral nature of my subject matter requires me to work only with what is available on any given day.

Visit artist's site: kimberlywitham.com

Tristan Hutchinson’s editorial series, Bird Market, follows one of Dublin’s oldest markets, the Dublin Bird Market. Dating back hundreds of years, generations still come to trade at this illegal market. Hutchinson joined aviculturists of the market for one year, documenting their meetings every Sunday on a street behind St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Participants hang cages from the walls, swap conversations, and sell birds to passing customers.

I always enjoy photo series about groups of men for whom birds are a hobby, like Chris Arnade‘s and Robert Ormerod‘s projects about pigeon keepers. I love the different view of masculinity expressed in these kinds of pictures.

Visit artist's site: tristanhutchinson.com

Found via: Oranberg Press

I was so happy to receive my copy of Robin Schwartz’s new book, Amelia & The Animals, in the mail earlier this week. The moment I first saw Robin’s work, I was completely enamored. She has remained one of my absolute favorite photography artists ever since. Robin began making the Amelia and animals photographs over a decade ago. I have been drawn to the series again and again over the past few years, never ceasing to draw inspiration from the beautiful, moving images of Amelia interacting with various kinds of exotic (or simply exotic-looking) animals.

Robin’s pictures illustrate so many pertinent themes, from the connection between humans and animals to the innocence and curiosity of children to the feminine presence in the natural world. Something about the photographs that always catches my attention is Amelia’s calm expression and gentle demeanor. Even as a small child (the earliest photos in the book picture Amelia at age 3), it is apparent that Amelia understood the reverence in her experiences with animals, often collaborating and now working on the photographs as a partner with her mother. She is never seen provoking the animals or even screaming in delight as other children might, but instead appears as a tiny woman connecting with the creatures’ souls in a saintlike way. Zimmerli Art Museum curator Donna Gustafson writes in the book’s essay, “these photographs whisper of lost intimacies and half-remembered myths.” Perhaps it’s the “palpable sense of loss” that Gustafson mentions, loss of a relationship between humans and animals, that I pick up on in Amelia’s graceful composure. As she ages throughout the book, Amelia becomes a wise, elegant shepherd of animals. I find myself forgetting the girl in the pictures is a high schooler.

It’s interesting to me now to look back on the images I selected for a post about Robin in 2010. I’ve looked at a lot of photography that explores, documents, analyzes, or criticizes the way humans today experience animals and nature, and although my tastes and opinions have evolved, Robin’s work continues to fascinate me. I relate so closely to not only the young girl Amelia featured in the photographs, but also the adult woman participant, Robin, to whom investing in the lives of individual animals and their caretakers and creating meaningful experiences and artwork with her daughter is so important, she has made it a deep part of her life. Below are a few images from the book, as well as some pictures I made of my copy. Amelia & The Animals is available from Aperture. View the Kickstarter campaign that helped make the book possible here.

Visit artist's site: robinschwartz.net

Kuraya Takashi’s Pets is a series of images of “missing pet” posters in Tokyo. The photographs depict the aged and distressed quality of the postings, the paper often water damaged, torn, and taped, and the image of the missing pet pixelated or otherwise distorted as a result of the elements. This worn quality itself is a sad reminder to those viewing the posters, either passing by on the streets of Tokyo or as a part of this series, of the pain felt over the loss of a beloved pet.

Using Google Translate, text from the posters is translated to English, then translated again back to Japanese. These now strange, garbled sentences are used as captions for the pictures. The act of photographing a photograph and running words written by caring pet-owners through multiple translations creates an off-putting effect. My reaction to the images is initially sadness and sympathy, then discomfort once I read the nonsensical text. It feels like I have intruded on something I thought I knew but cannot understand.

Visit artist's site: kurayatakashi.com

Found via: Feature Shoot