What's On! Photographic events for MAY 2013 in Wales

Diffusion Festival 2013

Various Locations around Cardiff 1 - 31 May

Diffusion 2013 is staged in Cardiff, Wales’ capital, a city that in recent years has undergone major economic and social transformation. The festival uses both traditional and new media to create a strong visual presence across existing venues and found spaces and through various interventions in the public realm. We encourage visitors and residents alike to navigate Cardiff and its environs in new ways and to discover facets of the city they would not normally expect to find.

Above all, Diffusion 2013 is a celebration of photography and the photographic image, in all its forms. Whether created, published, exhibited, collected or distributed in a physical or virtual way, the photograph has the power to inspire and provoke reaction, to reflect our own experience and that of society evolving around us.

Events are being updated but the following have been confirmed:

Wednesday 1 May

11am f&d cartier Wait and See unveiling at Oriel Canfas

5 – 7pm Festival Opening Reception and From common differences exhibition opening at St David's Hall

7 – 9pm Alicia Bruce Encore exhibition opening at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama

Friday 3 May

6 – 9pm Exhibition openings at Chapter:

Maurizio Anzeri But it’s not too late, it’s only dark (Gallery)

Gideon Koppel B O R T H (Studio)

Emma Bennett Thief of Time (Art in the Bar)

Saturday 4 May

12 – 2pm European Chronicles exhibition opening at The Cardiff Story (1^st Floor exhibition gallery)

2 – 4pm Exhibition openings at Tramshed:

The Valleys Re-Presented 

Peter Bobby High-rise

Structures of Feeling: The Photographs of Geoff Charles

4.30 – 6.30pm Edgar Martins The Time Machine exhibition opening at Ffotogallery (see below)

5 – 8 pm Wild Oats exhibition opening at Milkwood Gallery

7 – 10pm Barnraising and Bunkers exhibition opening at g39

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Edgar Martins: The Time Machine

Cardiff 1 May - 7 June 2013

In 2010 and 2011, Martins gained exclusive access to 20 power plants located across Portugal. Many were built between the 1950s and 1970s, a time of hopeful prospects for rapid economic growth and social change. The Time Machine records objects and spaces whose grand and progressive designs testify to the scope and ambition of the vision they were built to serve.    Ffotogallery, Plymouth Road, Penarth, CF64 3DH

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Sebastian Liste: Urban Quilombo

Cardiff 4 May - 23 June 2013

Eight years ago sixty families occupied the “Galpao da Araujo Barreto”, an abandoned chocolate factory in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. Before that, these families lived in the dangerous streets of the city until they decided to come together and occupy this factory in ruins and turn it in a home. Liste has been working in this project since 2009, living with the families and their daily dramas. Documenting the daily life inside of this community, where the life moves between the universal bipolarity of harmony and chaos, hope and despair.    Third Floor Gallery, 102 Bute Street, Penarth, CF10 5AD

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Helen Sear: Lure

Cardiff 25 May - 21 June 2013

One of Wales’ most important artists, Helen Sear’s practice is characterized by her exploration of the crossover between photography and fine art, her focus on the natural world and the startling beauty of her work. The exhibition sees Sear continuing to explore the act of looking and relationships between nature, space and scale to present still and moving images of remarkable power.    Bay Art Gallery, 54B/C Bute Street, Cardiff Bay, CF10 5AF

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European Chronicles

Cardiff 1 May - 31 May 2013

European Chronicles puts forward a vision of contemporary Europe as experienced through photographic work reflecting various personal, family and community stories. The exhibition showcases the work of Mindaugas Ažušilis, David Barnes, Tina Carr & Annemarie Schöne, John Duncan, Anna Kurpaska, Catrine Val, Arturas Valiaga and others.

The exhibition is presented by Ffotogallery as part of Diffusion: Cardiff International Festival of Photography. A month long festival of exhibitions, discussions, screenings, performances, events and celebrations in both physical and virtual spaces and places.  The Cardiff Story, The Old Library, Cardiff, CF10 1BH

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Maurizio Anzeri: But it's not too late

1 May - 30 June 2013

Anzeri uses found photographs and embroidery to create subtly sculptural pieces in which strangers are given new identities; complex and mysterious. Anzeri sees photographic portraits as landscapes, exploring them in order to layer them with his own maps or orientation to invent what he describes as "other possible evolutionary dimensions for the people pictured". Labyrinths of forms and colours create intriguing geographies of faces, histories and souls with eyes that stare enigmatically from the centre of their 'masks'. Alongside this established practice, Anzeri will show new works that utilise embroidery and personal photography to create imagined or psychological space; private reality that becomes public fantasy.  Chapter, Market Road, Cardiff, CF5 1QE


Also at Chapter:

Diffusion Free Family Workshop 25 May 2013 Zine-a-thon: Join Mark Thomas and learn how to make your own photocopied zine. Diffusion Publishing Fair 25 May -26 May 2013 Diffusion Photobook Symposium 26 May Early bird booking before 1 May £15, after 1 May £20 Book HERE

Klein and Moriyama at the Tate Modern

The approach to the Tate Modern on Bankside, London

A few posts back I mentioned my outrage at the Phaidon 55 book on Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama.  Since then every photo magazine I look at has been going on about how amazing his work is and how important the images are for the field of street photography.

I must admit that the constant deluge of images has had a positive effect on me and I can see some artistic beauty in them (in some of them anyway).  In order to broaden my horizons further I thought I better go along to the Tate Modern and view their special exhibition on William Klein and Daido Moriyama.

Just in case you didn't know the exhibition was on!

Due to other commitments I only had an hour at the gallery.  Having been to several exhibitions this year I thought that it would be enough time but I was wrong.  This is one of the largest photography exhibitions I have seen and the space devoted to the two artists is extensive.

A very small portion of two of the Klein rooms

The photo above shows part of the Klein space.  I hadn't realised that he was also a videographer and there were two of his films on show on a constant loop - I didn't have time to watch both but they will be something I include on my next visit.  The picture doesn't really show the scale of the images on display.  The 'small' white panels on the left of the shot have been used to divide the room and they are over two metres high.

Some of Klein's work has been displayed in a contact sheet style as seen in William ABC  these panels were very large in size and totally dominated some of the rooms.

Entry to Moriyama's rooms

As I moved through the Klein galleries I recognised several of the images from his work.  I am not very familiar with much of it but have ordered some of his books to brush up on this important street photographer.  Aware of the time I pressed on into Moriyama's gallery space and was greeted by an image I knew only too well from my previous post: a prostitute smoking a cigarette.

The fish net tights are almost hidden away

Walking through the gallery and studying the pictures I found that several images jumped out at me, all ones that I had seen in photo magazines over the past few months.  It took me a while to find the famous fish net tights shots (as seen on a recent cover of the BJP magazine).  Individually there were several images that I thought were weak, just snap shots that had been converted to black and white with the contrast cranked up to full.  As a series they were far stronger and served to show the Shinjuku region of Tokyo in a dark but interesting light.

The dog!

One whole wall was devoted to the various version of the stray dog image that I so lambasted in my previous post.  The original image is the small shot in the bottom left of the frame and was detailed and only slightly over exposed.  It was interesting to see the process that Moriyama had gone through to create his perfect vision of this image.  I think there is a lot of character in this simple capture and have grown to like this image.  I'm sorry that my photo is clipped but these were massive images and I only had a 50mm lens on my camera.

As you leave the final room you are taken through into the exhibition shop.  There is a really wide selection of books from the two artists complimented by some general works on street photography.  I was lucky that I managed to escape the building spending less than £100 and could so easily have spent a fortune.  I was quite excited by the prospect of getting my hands on some issues of the 'Record' magazine but at £33 each (gulp) I had to put them back on the shelf.  One thing that was missing from the store was an exhibition book that covered the works on display - perhaps there were licensing issues?

After I got back home I went through the street images I had taken whilst at the Tate.  So, in homage to Klein and Moriyama, I present my photo 'Mirrored' taken right outside the front door of the gallery.  Perhaps I need to add more contrast and grain? :)

Mirrored