Week Forty Nine
Grete Stern (1904 – 1999)
Dream No 28, 1951
Grete Stern was born in Germany to a Jewish family, and in 1923 studied graphic arts in Stuttgart. She then studied photography with Walter Peterhans, and later with the Bauhaus. In 1929 she set up a graphic design and […]
Week Forty Eight
Hiroshi Sugimoto (1948 -)
Polar Bear, 1976
Based in both New York and Tokyo, Sugimoto studied photography at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles in the 1970’s. His work investigates themes of the transience of life, and the conflict between life and death. He […]
Week Forty Seven
Jem Southam (1950-)
Senneville-sur-Fecamp, April, 2006
Jem Southam is known for his series of colour landscape photographs, taken mainly within the South West of England where he lives and works. He re-visits sites over many years, documenting the changes however slight. This method reveals the fragile balance […]
Week Forty Six
Hannah Starkey (1971-)
Untitled, 2002
Hannah Starkey makes photographic images that are carefully staged and constructed, usually of a single female figure or a small group of female figures. Employing actors for these roles, their task is to stare into the distance, sometimes at walls or mirrors; sometimes seen […]
Week Forty Five
Jacques-André Boiffard (1902-1961)
Big Toe, Male Subject, 1929
Boiffard was a French photographer, linked closely with the Surrealists. He trained to study medicine, but after meeting Andre Breton in 1924, he became involved with the group known as ‘the bureau of surrealist research’. Based in Paris, this group of writers […]
Week Forty Three
Joel-Peter Witkin (1939-)
Vienna Eye Phantom, Philadelphia, 1990
American photographer Joel-Peter Witkin is known for his controversial and morbid images of dark and taboo subjects such as death, corpses, mutilation, the erotic and the religious.
He relates his interest in such subjects from witnessing a traumatic event as a child, […]
Week Forty Two
Beat Streuli (1957-)
Birmingham, 2001
Swiss artist Beat Streuli is known for his images / portraits of people seen on the street. For over twenty years he has documented people in cities all over the world – Tokyo, New York, Birmingham (UK), Frankfurt and numerous others – as […]
Introduction
My name is Gill Nicol and for the last four years, I have run lightsgoingon, with its mission to make contemporary art accessible, for as many people as possible. This happened through a range of workshops, training, projects, events and courses; providing knowledge, skills and increased confidence for individuals, businesses, community groups, teachers and the gallery and museum sector. Lightsgoingon has worked with a wide range of people and organisations including: Folkestone Triennial, Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery, Ikon Gallery, Chapter (Cardiff), Hampshire County Council, Film Agency for Wales, Bath Spa University and Plymouth Arts Centre. I have also coached and mentored some amazing creative people.
For the next three years, I am going to be Director, Audience Engagement at the MCA in Sydney, Australia.