Vendredi 03 Août 2012 15:13:22 par actuphoto dans Expositions

ZOOM : Eyes on Dutch fashion Seven photographers present their vision on Dutch Fashion an exhibition of DUTCH TOUCH Paris curated by Michel Mallard presented at ZOOM / EYES ON DUTCH FASHION Following the performance evening at the Fondation Cartier and the exhibition at the BETC showroom, the DUTCH FASHION FOUNDATION pursues its mission of promoting young Dutch fashion design with a new event —which involves a creative director and seven photographers— at the Musée Galliera. Coming from different directions, each of these authors offers a personal interpretation of the new Dutch fashion talents. Along the Galliera colonnades, the horizon of visions exhibited ranges from dream-like to conceptual. Sometimes, the imagery looks at Holland to play with Dutch emblems: Freudenthal/Verhagen comment on its 'flowery' side, Paul Graves veers toward the notion of territory, while Jonathan de Villiers ventures into Amsterdam's Red light district. In the Galliera garden, the sculptures of the Three Muses trade their stone tunics for avant-garde Dutch fashion. Under the lens and the creative direction of Michel Mallard, three revisited muses cover the facade's arches with 5 per 8 meters monumental prints. FREUDENTHAL / VERHAGEN Carmen Freudenthal (1965) and Elle Verhagen (1962) both studied at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, graduating respectively as photographer and fashion designer. From 1998 they worked together expressing themselves through art projects. It is only later that they became involved in fashion and began to experiment with fashion and art. Freudenthal and Verhagen accept the disciplines of art and fashion for what they are and experiments freely with them; always searching for ways to surpass themselves. The strength to continue determining what they themselves believe in, without surrendering to the dictates of the fashion or art bastions, lies in the pleasure their work affords them. Freudenthal/Verhagen's work is fast pace, free of convention and essentially anti-authoritarian. With their photographs full of non verbal information, they effortlessly transcend the conventions of established photography. Their commitment is pure and devoid of pretensions – they spare no one, least of all themselves. Work by Carmen Freudenthal and Elle Verhagen has been published in Dazed & Confused, Jalouse, Studio Voice, High Fashion, Visionaire, I-D, Self Service and N°B. They participated in several exhibitions in Europe, the United States and Japan. www.freudenthalverhagen.com JONATHAN DE VILLIERS Jonathan de Villiers was born in London in 1968. On leaving school he worked in a design studio and went on to found a professional lab in central London where he printed for many well-known advertising and fashion photographers. At the age of 25 he sold his darkroom, his intellectual and political interests drawing him to King's College, Cambridge where he took a degree in philosophy. On finishing his degree, changes in the character of commercial photography and the resurgence of the British art scene drew him back into the photographic world, and this led to a series of commissions from magazines such as Self Service and Sleaze Nation. Since then he has tried to divide his time equally between fashion editorial, advertising and fine art. He has shot for British, French and Italian Vogue, Numero and L'Officiel. He has shot world-wide campaigns for Sony and Time magazine, and the fashion houses of Anne Klein and Alessandro Dell'Acqua. In 2002 Jonathan directed his debut commercial for London agency BMP and their client DHL. He has exhibited at the Forde gallery, Geneva and contributed to Imperfect Beauty at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the touring exhibition Creativity and Commerce: The new Fashion Photography starting at the ICA Boston. Last year Jonathan had his first solo show in a major retrospective at the Hyères Festival of Fashion Photography, curated by Michel Mallard. De Villiers won the No Limit Award for pushing the boundaries of photography at the Rencontres d'Arles 2004. PAUL GRAVES Photographer Paul Graves lives and works in New York and Berlin. Born in Sept. 11 1969, he studied art in Vienna in the 90's. Directed music videos and commercials 92' to 96'. Worked with Bela Borsodi as a photo team from 2002 to 2005. Worked published in another magazine to british vogue and all sorts of places inbetween. Currently working on a future book project and solo work. VIVIANE SASSEN Viviane Sassen (1972) moves in diverse territories with her photographs. She exhibits her work in galleries and museums, but also works on commission. She did fashion spreads for So (Alexander van Slobbe) and Miu Miu (Prada). Photos that are not directly recognizable as fashion imagery, but that often have a clear connection with Sassen's free work. Another part of her work arises within an editorial framework for 'underground' magazines like Purple, Butt, Kutt and Re-magazine. Sassen makes use of various photographic styles. She uses a broad scale of possible options; internalised next to stylised poses, clearness but also unfocused ness, perfect colour prints and extreme colour interventions, total shots next to blow-ups of details. WENDELIEN DAAN People who see photographer Wendelien Daan's (1965) technically perfect, clean-cut images would not for a minute think she was autodidact. Daan graduated from Arnhem's Institute for the Art's fashion department and in her own words took a shortcut towards perfecting an overall image by photographing the collections of her fellow students. Daan moulds her pictures with the utmost precision and attention to detail, creating beautifully pure sculptural images in which her eye plays over the exterior planes that enclose the human form. Although figurative, her photos in their surface division, refer to the graphic clarity of Mondriaan while the intensities of light and dark that glide over the body are reminiscent of Vermeer. Daan captures a worldly image in a photo in the same way the naked eye registers beauty. Therefore no fuzzy outlines, background and foreground are equally sharply focussed. Daan's play on light and dark, her command of open and closed body language arrest the eye and emphasize female strength. Wendelien Daan has, among others, worked for Viktor & Rolf, Nike, MTV, l'Oreal, Mauboussin and Garnier. Her work has been published in books and magazines such as Jalouse, l'Officiel, The Face, Citizen K and French, Japanese and Russian VOGUE. www.wendeliendaan.nl STIJN&MARIE Stijn&Marie are the Dutch photographers duo Stijn Ghijsen and Marie-José Jongerius. At a young age, Marie started making photo-portraits of her girl friends and became intrigued by photography. She studied Italian and photography in Rome and moved back to Holland after being accepted at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts to study photography. After graduating she immediately was picked up by several magazines and she managed to set her own standard for portrait photography. Fascinated by images and how they can impact our world, Stijn started working for television. He worked his way up at a local television station and became a camera man. After a brief study in film and video he realized that it was the power of the single image he truly believed in. Between them Stijn&Marie worked, separate and together, for magazines, ad agencies and have had shows all over the world. After becoming a team they decided to pursue one of their mutual dreams and moved to Los Angeles; one of the most fascinating controversial places in the modern world, to explore their photography and work on their own projects as well as pursuing their careers on a global level. Their work was recently selected for the Hyères Festival's photography competition and has featured in its group show. MICHEL MALLARD During the past ten years, creative director, curator and photographer Michel Mallard has taken command of magazines such as L'Autre Journal, Biba, Colors, Jalouse, Marie Claire Japon, Blast, L'Officiel, and Vogue Hommes Intérnational. He has also art directed photography books for editors such as Schirmer&Mosel or Steidel (recently, those by Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff or Jean-Baptiste Mondino). Since 1998, Michel Mallard curates the photography exhibitions and the contest of young photography for the Festival de Mode et de Photographie à Hyères, numerous shows that have afterwards been hosted by the Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean in Luxembourg, the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris, The Photographers' Gallery in London or Unit-F in Vienna. This summer, he will present to the French public four international photographers at the Rencontres d'Arles. Between the pictures he chooses for the pages of a magazine and those he decides to hang on a museum wall relationships are often evident: the names of photographers Jonathan de Villiers, Kyoichi Tsuzuki, Maurice Scheltens, SØlve SundsbØ just to mention a few, tend to turn up regularly among his choices. He had his first solo photo show in Shanghai's F-2004 festival.