Raoul Hausmann’s photographic work has long been underrated. This key artist of the twentieth century is remembered primarily for the central role he played in Berlin Dada with his assemblages, photomontages, and optophonetic poems, yet the vicissitudes of history caused his photography, an essential facet of his oeuvre, to be cast almost entirely into the shade. From 1927 on, Hausmann became an avid and restless photographer in Germany, in particular during his stays at the North Sea and Baltic coasts. While in exile in Ibiza after the Nazis came to power, he took an interest in the local populace and vernacular architecture, before emigrating again in 1936. During this intense decade, he reflected extensively on photography, developing a highly individual practice in the medium, simultaneously documentary and lyrical, inextricably linked to his way of thinking and living.

Produced on the occasion of Japan’s Modern Divide: The Photographs of Hiroshi Hamaya and Kansuke Yamamoto at the Getty Center, Los Angeles, 26 March–25 August, 2013.

Throughout his career Hiroshi Hamaya pursued objective documentation, while Kansuke Yamamoto favoured avant-garde forms of expression. These photographers embody two sides of modern Japanese life: the traditional and the forward looking, the rural and the urban, the Eastern and the Western.

Both artists grew up during the brief Taishō era (1912–1926), a period of industrialization and experimentation that ushered in the modern Shōwa era (1926–1989). It was during this time, between the international Depression and World War II, that Hamaya began to document regional traditions and social issues, primarily on the country’s rugged “back coast” along the Sea of Japan. In contrast, Yamamoto found inspiration in Surrealist art from Europe and produced innovative, socially conscious photographs, poems, and other works that advanced the avant-garde movement in Japan.

The plates of the present is a project based on the photographic process of photogram. In February 2013, artist Thomas Fougeirol and artist/curator Jo-ey Tang set up a photographic darkroom(nicknamed DUST) in Ivry-sur-Seine, bordering Paris. Since then, 130 participants have come through The plates of the present, comprising over 1,000 prints and a film. The project is named after the beginning of a sentence in William Henry Fox Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature (published in six installments between 1844 and 1946), the first photographically illustrated book. An exhibition was curated by Sonel Breslav at Baxter St/Camera Club of New York, New York in 2015 with a book published by Blonde Art Books and Secretary Press. A second exhibition was curated by Jo-ey Tang and Thomas Fougeirol at Galerie Praz Delavallade, Paris in 2017. At the end of 2018, the entire archive entered the permanent collection of Centre national d’art et de culture Georges-Pompidou, Paris.

Louise Lawler focuses her camera on high art and its spaces, from the rarefied white cube to the windowless storeroom, from the collector’s luxurious bedroom to the featureless boardroom. Part institutional critique, part social commentary and part wandering gaze, Lawler’s glossy photographs redirect the viewer’s attention from the artworks to their environs, exposing a set of supple relationships surrounding the presentation and marketing of art and its role in conferring and reflecting power.

In 1984, Lawler was granted access to the homes of visionary collectors Burton and Emily Tremaine, and she has since tracked the works she photographed there as they have wended their way through museums and auction houses, this publication gathers almost all the Tremaine Pictures produced between 1984 and 2007.

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition, Jochen Lempert at CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid, 1 June–23 September 2018.

The work of Jochen Lempert portrays the animal world in the most varied contexts: ranging from the natural habitat to Natural History museums, from the zoo to the city, in remote locations or in banal situations and objects.

In his tireless quest, Lempert has managed to create a vast archive of images that covers a wide spectrum spanning everything from everyday views to compositions that tend more towards abstraction.

Produced on the occasion of Jochen Lempert’s exhibition Hochsommerliche Aerosole at Richas Digest, Köln, 14 August–5 September 2020

Jochen Lempert photographs the animal world in the most diverse contexts: from their natural habitat to the museum of natural history, from the zoo to the urban environment, in remote places or banal settings and situations. Lempert compiles his findings in a vast archive of images covering an ample spectrum, from common everyday views, to compositions that tend towards abstraction. This interest in the natural world as a subject has been further complemented by his exploration of the properties and materiality of the photographic image. Analogue, black and white, hand-printed in the darkroom, his photographs resist categorization and confront the canons of today’s aesthetic.

More information on the exhibition can be found here.