Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2012 at The Photographers’ Gallery: And the winner is …
On the 13th of July 2012 the Photographers’ Gallery in London opened its doors to the exhibition of the four artists shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2012. The annual reward of £30,000 is awarded to a living photographer, of any nationality, for a specific body of work in an exhibition or publication format, which has significantly contributed to photography between 1 October 2012 and 30 September 2011.
Last years’ Deutsche Börse Photoraphy Prize has been award to Jim Goldberg and previous winners include Paul Graham, Sophie Ristelhueber, Luc Delahaye and Walid Raad among others. The exhibition of the four shortlisted artists showcases not only a diversity of subject matter but also photographic approach, ranging from documentary photography of the everyday to the appropriation and recontextualisation of found and conceptual images . The country of the photographers’ origin couldn’t be any further apart , from Japan Rinko Kawauchi , American Christopher Williams and Pieter Hugo who was born in South Africa to British John Stezaker, this year’s winner.
The exhibition starts with Pieter Hugo’s monumental portraits from his project Permanent Error, which has been published by the German publisher Prestel in 2011. This thought-provoking project centres on a vast dumping ground for technological waste on the outskirts of Ghana’s capital city, focusing on the young slum-dwellers who are burning technological rubbish to survive. The photographs are accompanied by three TV sets on the floor screening footage the photographer shot of the dump and this project is clearly moving toward straight documentary although the style of the photographs retains Hugo’s characteristically detached, almost deadpan gaze of someone that is trying to merge the medium with art, the portrayed subjects are staring back at the viewer and therefore make one realise that they are as much a portrait of these young people struggling to survive as they are a portrayal of our consumer-orientated society.
In the same gallery the viewer Rinko Kawauchi’s photographs from her project Illuminance are on display – a project which could not be more different in style, feel or content to Pieter Hugo’s Permanent Error. Kawauchi’s work centres on the everyday, turning the mundane into the extraordinary and poetic and explores themes of life, death and the everyday. And although light, which often seems to be glowing or opaque, and movement are two constants in this photographers’ work, her photographs are often accompanied by an aura of quiet stillness. Kawauchi’s images are carefully sequenced and evoke moments of dreams, memory and temporality. Illuminance, which is the result of fifteen years of her practice, has been published in 2011 by French publisher Editions Xavier Barral.
The two nominees on display on the fourth floor of the Photographers’ Gallery – John Stezaker and Christopher Williams – would better be described as artists working with photography or making work about photography rather than photographers. Both of these photographers highlight how the medium occupied a unique place in our cultural canon at a time when our photographic heritage seemingly is threatened by new technologies.
British John Stezaker has been nominated for his retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in the beginning of 2011. Stezaker has been making photographic colleages since the early Seventies. Through juxtaposing found photographs, illustrations and stills taken from postcards, magazines and films, Stezaker adopts their content and context to create new and poignant meanings. In the age of Photoshop these oddly old-fashioned looking images not only have a surrealist undertone but also address the often-accidental power of the photograph.
As mentioned above, the works of Los Angeles-based artist Christopher Williams are also to be asfound in the same gallery space. Williams is nominated for his 2011 exhibition Kapitalistischer Realismus. He can truly be described as much as a conceptual artist as a photographer and for the past forty years, Williams has been creating highly-finished images of cameras and other technical apparatus. However, instead of taking these photographs himself, Williams has employed commercial photographers and the resulting images, of which three are on display here, are bafflingly different but at the same in a strong dialogue with each other. The language of the photographs borrows and alludes to the world of advertising and Williams thereby continuously questions our understanding of how reality is communicated and reflected through photography.
The member of this years’ jury are the director of the prestigious photography festival Les Recontres d’Arles Francois Hebel, the British art photgrapher Martin Parr, the director and curator of the Kunsthalle in Zürich, Switzerland, Beatrix Ruff and Anne-Marie Beckmann, the curator of the art collection of the Deutsche Börse. Brett Rogers, The Photographers’ Gallery’s director is the non-voting chair and according to the press release she finds that: ‘‘Each finalist addresses, in a timely way, issues of critical importance within contemporary photography. Operating between portraiture and social documentary, Pieter Hugo confronts us with the unsettling reality of the impact of e-waste in Ghana; Rinko Kawauchi brings her highly personal sensibility to bear on fragments of everyday life; John Stezaker demonstrates a rigorous exploration of the subversive force of the found image; and finally, alluding to the language of commercial photography, Christopher Williams continuously questions the aesthetic conventions and communication tools that influence our perception of reality.’’
On Monday the 3rd of September Juergen Teller announced that John Stezaker was the winner of this year’s Deutsche Börse Photography Prize – the first winner of this prize who has never taken a photograph. In my opinion, Stezaker’s victory is well deserved and sits rather well with some of the recent issues and confusion within the medium of photography. Even if one cannot call him a photographer, Stezaker’s collages and other works definitely make us think about photography – about how it is used and manipulated.
Anna-Maria Pfab
‘Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2012’
The Photographers’ Gallery
16-18 Ramillies Street
London W1F 7LW, UK
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, available at the gallery, as well as a series of artist talks.
