Misc artists - 2009

Walker Evans (USA)

The photographic projects of American artist Walker Evans (1903–1975), which examined aspects of his contemporary American life and its environment, are a giant contribution to the history of art and photography in the 20th century. Evans’s photographs of sharecroppers in Alabama, which appeared in James Agee’s book, ‘Let Us Now Praise Famous Men’ (published in 1941), have become iconic images of the Great Depression era, personifying an overlooked segment of American society.

Tom Sandberg (Norway)

The Norwegian artist Tom Sandberg (b. 1953) uses black and white photography with an authenticity regarding the medium, revealing a subtle exploration of the inherent qualities of the photographic language. Visual economy, ambiguous surfaces and an affinity for complex reality, characterize his works.

Stephen Shore (USA)

The American artist Stephen Shore (b. 1947) became a pioneer of artistic color photography with ‘Uncommon Places’; the exquisitely beautiful contact prints of banal American scenes were shot with a view camera between 1973 and 1981. Over the years, his photos have also documented America and Americans, and include streetscapes and architecture shot to reveal them as abandoned film sets, and cryptic vérité portraits of people he meets.

Eline Mugaas (Norway)

Eline Mugaas (b. 1969) has in recent years made her mark as one of the leading Norwegian artists with photography as medium. Working with analogue technique, Mugaas has concentrated on photographing urban motifs as city landscape and architecture, but in recent work she has shifted her focus to interiors with or without people. Her works possess a dynamic quality, related both to their composition and the development process, which borders on the painterly.

Ron Galella (b. 1931) is an American photographer widely regarded as one of worlds’ most famous and controversial celebrity photographers. Galella’s prints are results of work in his private darkroom, and he is renown for his skill in making his own prints with passion for the fine art of photography, coupled with a dedicated do-it-yourself approach to his craft.

Frank Horvat (France)

Frank Horvat (b. 1929) began his photographic career as a photojournalist. The French artist settled in Paris in 1956 where he began to photograph fashion with a reportage style: real life situations, ambient lighting and 35mm cameras. During his long career, Frank Horvat has contributed to every major magazine, and his work has been exhibited worldwide.

William Eggleston (USA)

The American artist William Eggleston (b. 1939) has for almost fifty years photographed his ascination with and yet disdain for everyday American society. His work focuses on the Southern states and the desire, alienation and solitude of everyday life. He is a photographer with a rare sense of detail and an extraordinary ability to find beauty in the banal.

Signe Marie Andersen (Norway)

The Norwegian photographer Signe Marie Andersen’s (b. 1968) works range from simple landscapes to elaborate staged photographs treating the comic elements of loneliness, with references to what is sad and strange. She works towards a simple rendition of the complicated matter of being. After receiving her MFA in photography in 1997, she has held several solo-shows in Galleri Riis in Oslo, where she also lives and works. She published the book ‘Splendid Isolation’ in 2008.

Garry Winogrand (USA)

Garry Winogrand (1928-1984) presents through his photographs the urban American post-war society and social diversity. The American artist combined dramatic formalism with generous and at times palpable empathy for both his subject and his country. Winogrand is generally credited with having established “street photography” as a genre.

Per Maning (Norway)

Per Maning (b. 1943) is a Norwegian artist who works with photography and video. He has, with his black-and-white portraits of animals, achieved a leading position on the Scandinavian art scene. Maning’s works appeal to a broad audience, mainly due to their universal human character, where the portrait of the animal reflects back onto the beholder and enables us to learn more about ourselves.

Lee Friedlander (USA)

Lee Friedlander’s (b. 1934) unique vision underscores the two-dimensionality of the picture plane and the potential for photographs to contain varying levels of reflection, opacity, and transparency. Whether the American artist is photographing an interior or an exterior, Friedlander’s works explores the social landscape with an unflinching eye for realism and offer an alternative way of seeing. A manifistation of Friedlander`s importance was his major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2005.

Dag Alveng (Norway)

Dag Alveng (b. 1953) is an important figure in the Norwegian contemporary scene of photography. Alveng’s black and white photographs are a study in the play of sun and shadow and the power of light, as well as a focus on the traces of actions being performed. His works are represented in several public collections, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Hamish Fulton (UK)

The English artist Hamish Fulton (b. 1946) has from the late 1960`s focused on art resulting from walks the artist undertakes mostly by himself. Walking is the sole subject of his art, yet the resulting images, photographs and text engage the viewers to share the experience. A contemporary classic and pioneer of conceptual art he is represented in major public and private collections throughout the world.

Marijke van Warmerdam (Holland)

Marijke van Warmerda (b. 1959) is a Dutch artist internationally renowned for her short films, hotographs and sculpture, which together form an extraordinary consistent body of work. With a typically light touch, the work combines a deceptively naive approach to the act of seeing with straightforward strategies such as dramatic shifts of scale, doubling, reflection, rhythmic repetition or surprising juxtapositions to urge us to look with our eyes wide open.