Category Archives: Arts Academy Aalst

Work for the Academy of Arts in Aalst

Mois de la Photo Paris 2012

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Also this year we joined Aalst’s “Academy for Imaging Arts” for a weekend of indulgement in the photo exhibitions on show during “Mois de la Photo Paris 2012” – still having good memories of the beautiful images on display in 2010 we left with high hopes on a cold Friday night from Belgium. In the morning we were greeted with the familair sight of an Eiffel tower hiding in fog:

Eiffel tower in fog

Eiffel tower in fog

As tradition wants (it seems, we also started here in 2010), first exhibition of the day visited was at the “Bibliothèque nationale de France” hosting “100 Masterpieces of Photography”. It’s poster was straightaway my favorite picture:

100 Masterpieces of Photography

From there on we moved towards the “Ēcole nationale Supérieure d’architecture” where i found my favorite images of the whole weekend: the large format images of modern cities contrasting with their older remains, by Peter Bialobrzeski. I knew the work of this photographer already longer time (also went to a lecture by him at the photomuseum in Antwerp), and here in Paris my admiration for the works by this photographer only became stronger:

Peter Bialobrzeski

At the same location, black & white images by Gerard Rondeau were on show, below some impressions:

Gerard Rondeau

From here onwards, we travelled back to the 3eme arrondissement and made a brief stop at Galerie Baudoin Lebon showing images of Chrystèle Lerisse and Patrick Bailly-Maître-Grand:

Chrystele Lerisse

After this we moved to Hôtel de Sauroy, showing an exhibition called “Thanks to Luigi Ghirri and Italian Emerging Photography”. Nice image from Marco Barbon:

Marco Barbon

Final visit of the day was to Galerie les Filles du Calvaire showing “Corinne Mercadier, devant un champ obscur”:

Corinne Mercadier

This concluded our first day of exhibition visits in Paris, quite tired from all the walking the next challenge in Paris was waiting us: finding a decent, reasonably priced restaurant at this time of the evening (moreover Saturday). This took us quite a while, until we found a Thai (our favorite food)/ Chinese restaurant. We should have known better of course, the Chinese don’t have a clue how to cook Thai, other then putting some chili in an otherwise normal Chinese dish… Anyway we were so hungry that it didn’t really matter what they served us, we ate it anyway 😉
After a good night’s rest and nice breakfast at the hotel, day 2 of our “tour of Paris” could start, commencing with a visit to Maison européene de la Photographie. Nice images seen here:

Also a Helmut Newton (another one of my favourite photographers),

Helmut Newton

an amazing shot by Jean-Paul Goude of Grace Jones:

Grace Jones by Jean-Paul Goude

and beautiful black&white photograph by Bettina Rheims:

Bettina Rheims

Next visit planned was to the Centre culturel suisse, where I found this image by Annelies Ŝtrba very nice:

Annelie Strba

Further some images by Richard Avedon, Nobuyoshi Araki and Nan Goldin (this last one not really my taste, therefore no images, sorry) were on show:

Richard Avedon

From this exhibition we moved on to the Galerie des bibliotheques, where the exhibition “L’ Enfant & la Photographie” was showing. Here i didn’t find too many images nice to my taste, therefore no favourites here ;-). Since it was already getting late, we split up here from the rest of the group since the majority was returning by bus the same evening. We (my wife and I) treated ourselves to an additional night in Paris, and therefore could still visit the Jeu de Paume where images by Manuel Alvarez Bravo where on show: also very nice black & white photographs by this Mexican artist:

Manuel Alvarez Bravo

So, that was it – quite a long post about our adventures in Paris… Generally, I found this edition of Mois de la Photo a bit weaker then the 2010 version: this year there were much more “conceptual art” photographs, which sometimes (euh most of the times) I fail to understand hence do not really like, while during the 2010 edition more of the old masters were on show – for instance, I still vividly remember the amazing shots by André Kertész that I saw… I dont think this will be the case for this edition. But hey, every excuse is good to pay a visit to the City of Light! To finalize this long post (to make up for the long silence on this blog ;-)), some general views of Paris:

And a parting shot of our group:

Exhibition at Netwerk Aalst: Fat Birds don’t Fly

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We went yesterday with the Art Academy to an exhibition hosted by Netwerk Aalst. Although I was a bit sceptical at first seen earlier (dissapointing) visits at the Netwerk (we are regularly requested to visit as part of our courses on art history), I was pleasantly surprised. The main theme of the (group) exhibition is basically about people and their (de)constructed identities. Further, in the context of the Louis Paul Boon year, the exhibition is intertwined with audio clips and quotes from Boon’s “90 People” and “The Paradise Bird”.
My favorites at the exhibition? As first a video from Finnish artist Pilv Takala called “Real Snow White” where the absurd logic of the “real character” and the extreme discipline of Disneyland become apparent when a real fan of Disney’s Snow White is banned from entering the park in a Snow White costume, and as close second the photography series on the “Furries” by Belgian photographer Charlotte Lybeer: “The Furtastic Adventures of the Cabbit and the Folf” : in this series people who like to dress up as furry animals, (and organise gatherings where the animal behaviour is re-enacted (inclusive sounds they make – talking is prohibited at these meetings)), are photographed as their “alter-ego” in their own living room resulting in weird (sorry don’t find another word) pictures…
Definitely an exhibition worth a visit!

Paris – Mois de la Photo (Day 2)

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The following day after a (too) short night’s sleep we had quick breakfast (as an evening person coffee is more then enough for me to get me comfortable in the morning (or in other words: to get the grumpiness going haha) and then checked-out from our (for Paris standards: nice) hotel ,

Lobby Paris Hotel

and placed the luggage in the minibus before embarking on our ongoing museum stampede… For the ones wondering, we travelled Paris by metro:

Paris Metro

First in row today was “Musée national de la Marine” where some pictures from Rineke Dijkstra were exhibited (Dijkstra’s pictures are (for me) immediately recognizable: teens on the brink of becoming adults, and not sure knowing where they belong – they are clearly feeling awkward when photographed, and this recognizable feeling is what makes these pictures so fantastic):

Rineke Dijkstra

Rineke Dijkstra

When leaving the museum had to take the obligatory picture from Eiffel tower:

Eiffel Tower, Paris

and went on to the next exhibition in “Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris” where the idea was to visit the “scandalous” exhibition of Larry Clark – but hey, the fact it was so scandalous made for waiting rows until the next block. So we skipped this one, and instead went to the (probable evenly) shocking Gaza pictures showing the results of a war-torn country by Kai Wiedenhöfer: mutilated people, destroyed buildings,… quite confronting to watch (not my favourite of the day to be honest, I still like to think we are living in an ideal world – clearly not). Whilst the rest of the group opted to take lunch, a fellow student and me decided to make use of this idle (hehe) time to quickly visit the exhibition of André Kertész, which became quickly my overall favourite of the Paris exhibitions: his very graphical black and whites (“Dancer”, “Distortions”, “The Fork”, “Underwater”, “Chimneys” but even his color SX-70 polaroids) are for me the result of sheer photography genius. Happy not to have missed this one (rest of the group seemed not to have enjoyed themselves: so-so soup, arrogant waiter and expensive – while we had a massive pita for 5Euros only hahaha – sorry guys). After having joined up again together we found the “Maison Européenne de la Photographie”, another highlight for me with pictures from Raymond Depardon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Bettina Reims, Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon – so many great names, and what a collection of fantastic photographs – below one of my favorites (i forgot to note the photographer’s name, though – sorry):

Maison Europeene de la Photographie, Paris

There was as well a fantastic print by black and white master Ansel Adams, “Moonrise” – I stood in awe, not only for the photography technique, but as well for the printing quality:

Moonrise by Ansel Adams

In conclusion of this visit we had a stop-over for drinks in (another friendly hmm hmm) Paris bar, before embarking on a visit to the “Institut Suédois” – also here magnificent black and white pictures, I let them speak for themselves:

Institut Suedois

 

Institut Suedois

 

And finally, we concluded our visit to “Mois de la Photo Paris 2010” by entering the “Photos femmes féminisme” in the “Bibliothèque Marguerite-Durand”, an exhibition concentrating on the women who have been on the forefront of the feminism. Nice “classic” pics here, e.g. the Mata Hari one here below:

Mata Hari at the “Photos Femmes Feminisme”

We left this final exhibition tired, with sore feet, but contented having been submerged in such incredibly talented photography – in 2 years time we will be back!

Paris – Mois de la Photo (Day 1)

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After a long silence finally some news: Art Academy school commenced again (we are now in our 2nd year) and this year a weekend was planned in Paris to visit “Mois de la Photo”, featuring 100 photography exhibitions… This event goes through every 2 years in Paris. In total 10 students (from year 1 upto 7) joined in together with our teacher Frank Michta. Below you can find the flyer for the event (organised for 1 month from 27.10.10 until 30.11.10 – in case you missed it you will have to wait another 2 years, sorry!):

Flyer from “Mois de la Photo 2010”

 We left on Saturday morning 06:30am (was a bit hurting on Saturday) and drove together with a minivan to Paris – where we arrived only 1 (immense) traffic jam and 4.5 hrs later. Quickly checked into hotel and went off straigth away to visit our first exhibition of the day: “La France de Raymond Depardon” – immense prints from a 8×10 camera – what i loved here whas the immense detail in the prints, and the color combinations – nice job done documenting France! After a taking a quick grab-shot from the surrounding “Bibliotheque Nationale de France”

Patterns of bibliotheque Nationale de France

 and taking a quick (but delicious!) sandwich bite we went onwards to the “Espace Photographique de l’Hotel de Sauroy” where photographs from Jacques Borgetto, Francoise Nunez, Bernard Plossu and Sophie Zenon were shown. Entrance to the exhibition can be seen below:

Entrance to the “Espace photographique de l’Hotel de Sauroy”

 Beautiful black and white photographs! After this – time for a drink (ah ja – we are Belgians after all) in a cosy Paris bar:

Wall painting in a Paris bar

 As can be seen Paris is not too far from Belgium (for the un-educated: Grimbergen is a Flemish abbey beer). After this intermezzo we went to the exhibition from Sally Mann in the Galerie Karsten Greve – a famous American photographer known for her large format, black and white photographs of her kids (posing as if they were adults) and for her landscapes suggesting decay and death. While I really liked all her photographs, i was drawn to the “imperfect” ones, the toned and texturized ones… After this one we had a quick visit to Galerie Pierre Alain Challier (“Peinture ou Photographie?”) followed by the Cultural Institute of Mexico showcasing pictures from Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Agustin Jimenez and Luis Marquez. Again mostly black and white photographs, liked in particular the frame with the fisherman shown below:

Fisherman from Luiz Marquez

Finally we went to Galerie David Guiraud showcasing works from Elliott Erwitt and that was it, the day had flown by! All the galeries were closed, finally we found some time for a nice dinner in a Japanese restaurant, not without first entering a galerie showcasing some “Light” art – especially the below optical effect was a nice sight (the colors are actually painted on the wall/staircase!):

Optical effect on staircase

 After this back to the hotel for some well-deserved night rest (or so we thought – a room was quickly changed in an after-bar were we could sip on some wine (ah ja we are in France after all!) and talk some more about the things we saw…
This was a long post, but seen the long silence… Anyways part 2 of the visit (exhibitions visited on Sunday 21st November) will be the subject of the next posting!

Assignments – continued

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Another assignment for the Academy: “Viewpoint of a dog”. Below my interpretation of this theme, taken quite literally…
hol_cadzand-1_3_rgb.jpg

Picture data : Rolleiflex 3.5F, Ilford Pan F Plus 50, exposure unrecorded

The twin-lens reflex camera with its top viewfinder makes these kind of pictures of course quite easy, one does not necessarily have to go lying on the floor (in this case sand) to get these viewpoints. Working with medium format as well allows for a very shallow depth of field as can be seen from the above example.

Reflections

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As mentioned in a post earlier, one of the assignments for the Academy of Arts was to take pictures of reflections. So one weekend we set off to the Belgian coast (one way or another we always end up in Middelkerke though, maybe since i went there all the time with my parents during my youth?), with the idea to photograph refelections in the water pools formed in the tidal zone of the beach. Add to the that a paper boat beautifully crafted by my wife, and the result is something that symbolises the sea very good i think…
bel_middelkerke-1_5.jpg

Picture data : Rolleiflex 3.5F, exposure unrecorded, Kodak TMAX 400

A shot of the typical appartment buildings along the walking dikes of our coast can not be missing of course:
bel_middelkerke-1_3.jpg

Picture data : Rolleiflex 3.5F, exposure unrecorded, Kodak TMAX 400

Long silence

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Long silence so lots of news. Finally completed our 3rd move in 6 months (first from Dubai to Malaysia/Singapore, then from Singapore to Aalst in Belgium and finally to Gijzegem (where?) in Belgium…), let’s hope the chaos diminishes now fast… cause chaos it was! Add to that sending 3 kids to new schools (in a for them strange language), and the crazy idea of the undersigned to enroll at the Academy of Arts in Aalst. Or is it that crazy? Not in my view, it was a long outstanding dream of mine to finally enroll in such an art school and to try to give a more defined style to my photography. Abroad these schools were always out of reach budgetwise, in Belgium however things like this are far better organised. Result: since beginning of September i am back on the schoolbenches twice a week (although contrary to my younger years i now actually look forward to my commute to the school). Shocker No. 1 for the younger photographers under us: year 1 & 2 concentrate on black and white photography, and yes – using film only! (I have to say I was happy about this: i still feel film gives (for me) nicer results then the faster paced digital photography so whenever possible i was using my Fotoman 617 panoramic camera anyway (although i purchased a Canon EOS5d II in Singapore)). So back to film (and even Black and White) it is… In order to be able to keep on submitting my school work (which is going to be the larger body of personal work in the coming years) to the stock image libraries I decided to buy a new (?) camera using a larger (then 35mm) format. Finally my eye fell on a second-hand Rolleiflex 3.5F with a fixed 75mm Zeiss Planar lens which exposes film in a 6×6 format, building year somewhere in the 1960’s (!). As usual i am blown away by the results of this medium format camera (in terms of achieved sharpness in the negative, but also by the beautiful bokeh). Shocker No. 2 : we are developing films ourselves and… Shocker No. 3: printing (and i dont mean by inkjet – no, no: using darkrooms and developer, water and fixer baths) ourselves. Again for me this makes the photography process so much more complete – to be able to hold the film, to smell the developer and fixer, and to see the image slowly coming out on the paper. Our individual photography styles are being honed by learning us how to “see” (one would think that is easy…) – this is done through a number of subjects as defined by our teacher Frank Michta. Current subjects to be completed before the Christmas holidays are: “Reflections”, “Rain” and “Viewpoint of a Dog”. I will post some intial results of these (self-developed/printed) photos shortly.