| | | | | | | | | The Flickering Phase, 1950s © Estate of Shigeru Onishi, care of Tomoharu Onishi, courtesy of MEM, Tokyo. | | | | | | The Possibility of Existence | | | | 17 September 2021 – 9 January 2022 | | | | | | Foam 3h: Leave and Let Us Go | | | | 17 September – 5 December 2021 | | | Foam Talent | Amsterdam 2020 | | | | | | | ... until 6 October 2021 | | | Now You See Me Moria | | | | A group of people from Moria refugee camp share photos and stories via Instagram about their daily life in Moria | | | | ... until 6 October 2021 | | | | | | Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam Keizersgracht 609, 1017 DS Amsterdam
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | Title unknown, 1950s © Estate of Shigeru Onishi, care of Tomoharu Onishi, courtesy of MEM, Tokyo. | | | | | | The Possibility of Existence | | | | 17 September 2021 – 9 January 2022 | | | Foam proudly presents the brilliant but forgotten work from the short photographic career of Shigeru Onishi (1928-1994). Onishi graduated in topology at the University of Hokkaido in 1953, after which he began applying his mathematical theories to photography. Although he abandoned photography after 1957, he did produce a short-lived but extraordinarily unique body of work with which he distanced himself from other movements and ideas in the Japanese photography of his time.
In his photographs, Shigeru Onishi attempts to transcend time and space: his works renounce photography as a snapshot, capturing a moment in time. He disregarded all the rules of the darkroom. For instance, he 'painted' the photographic emulsion onto the photo paper with a brush, deliberately creating irregularities in the development of the image. He used acids to cause deliberate discolouration, and hot chemical baths of up to 80 degrees Celcius to manipulate the development process of his prints. | | | | | | | | | | The Flickering Phase, 1950s © Estate of Shigeru Onishi, care of Tomoharu Onishi, courtesy of MEM, Tokyo. | | | | | | The result is a collection of dreamy - and sometimes sinister - photo montages, in which nudes, cityscapes, trees, portraits and interiors seem to merge. The art critic Shuzo Takiguchi described Onishi's work as "strange obscured coalescences of space and time" ("Through the Mechanism of Photography", Nabis Gallery, 1955).
The performative power of Onishi's work, which lies in the use of photography as an 'act' and as an expression of feeling rather than a document, seems to be an early precursor to the raw, poetic images of Takuma Nakahira, Daido Moriyama and the other photographers of the short-lived but influential artist collective, Provoke (1968-70). Although Onishi found brief recognition for his photography between 1955 and 1957, his mathematical theories led him to pursue very different motifs than other photographers, and after only two or three years he turned to abstract ink paintings. Foam is exhibiting a broad selection of vintage prints in combination with some of these ink paintings, which indicate the continuation of his artistry. | | | | | | | | | | Title unknown, 1950s © Estate of Shigeru Onishi, care of Tomoharu Onishi, courtesy of MEM, Tokyo. | | | | | | After his death in 1994, Onishi's work came to rest in museum depots where it fell into oblivion. It was eventually acquired by Katsuya Ishida, owner of MEM gallery in Tokyo. His photographic oeuvre came to international attention after MEM brought a selection of 19 photographs by Onishi to Paris Photo in 2017. In collaboration with MEM (JP) and Bombas Gens Centre d'Art (SP), Foam is now the first museum in Europe to organise a solo exhibition of his photographic oeuvre, thereby giving Shigeru Onishi's work its deserved place in photographic history.
Foam is supported by the BankGiro Loterij, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, City of Amsterdam, Foam Members and the VandenEnde Foundation.
In 2021 Foam receives additional support from Kickstart Cultuurfonds and the Mondriaan Fund. | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Fatima, from the series Leave and Let Us Go, 2020 © Alexandra Howland, courtesy of the artist. | | | | | | Foam 3h: Leave and Let Us Go | | | | 17 September – 5 December 2021 | | | With her series, Alexandra Rose Howland (1990, US/UK) presents an intimate portrait of Iraq, a country that is often misunderstood and misrepresented. In 2017, Howland moved to Iraq and began her long time work to understand and translate a people caught in the middle of conflict. During her time photographing there, she started collecting smartphone photos, videos and family photo albums of over fifty Iraqis from across the country, creating Leave and Let Us Go.
88 km in photos
How does one convey the complex reality of people caught up in conflict? As a photographer, Alexandra Rose Howland takes an inventive approach to communicating geopolitical events. In order to convey what she found after moving to Iraq in 2017, Howland began to document the eighty-eight-kilometre road between the relatively quiet Erbil to the frontline in Mosul. Seated atop a Landcruiser, every three seconds she took a picture of the landscape passing by her lens. She digitally stitched the resulting images together into an infinite panorama: from a local market in Erbil where life seems like business as usual, ending at the ruins of the Al Nuri Mosque in West Mosul which was destroyed in 2017 – and where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed the Caliphate in July 2014. In 2017, Mosul was recaptured by Iraqi Government forces with allied militias, the Kurdistan Regional Government, and international forces after more than two years of occupation by IS. | | | | | | | | | | Mosul University, from the series Leave and Let Us Go, 2020 © Alexandra Howland, courtesy of the artist. | | | | | | Selfies, Snapchat videos and moments of war
The exhibition Leave and Let Us Go in Foam 3h only shows the very end of the panorama: depicting the start of the reconstruction of the historic mosque. This scene forms the surface on which hundreds of photos from the smartphone archives and photo albums are pinned – those were collected from more than fifty Iraqis collected by Alexandra Rose Howland. These people, young and old, were willing to share their digital archives with her, offering an intimate glimpse of their daily lives. The complete collection consists of some 300,000 images, including selfies, Snapchat videos and photos of loved ones, as well as horrific moments of war. Precisely because of this criss-cross, one is confronted with different realities of a country where many are trying to build up as normal a life as possible, whilst dealing with the complexities of foreign interference and multiple militias trying to seize power. The intricate web of narratives proves it is impossible to determine who is on the right lines. Howland's own photographs are also mixed into this whole – no single vision is dominant. As such, Leave and Let Us Go is an intimate and multi-dimensional portrait that returns the narrative power of an often-misunderstood country to its own citizens.
Withdrawing troops
US President Joe Biden announced earlier this year that he would end the "War on Terror" by withdrawing US troops from the Middle East. The exhibition title is an oft-heard statement among Iraqis, deriving from the famous Iraqi song Oh My Heart by Bassam Al-Ali. Leave and Let Us Go expresses the frustrations of the Iraqi people: when someone pretends to be a friend or ally and ends up abandoning them to their fate. | | | | | | | | | | Maryam, from the series Leave and Let Us Go, 2020 © Alexandra Howland, courtesy of the artist. | | | | | | Alexandra Rose Howland (1990, Boston, US/UK) lives in Athens, and works mainly in the Middle East and North Africa. She studied Fine Arts and International Relations at the University of Southern California. In 2015, Howland changed course: she moved to Turkey and left behind a career as an abstract painter. From 2017 to 2019 she lived in Iraq. In 2018 she participated in the Joop Swart Masterclass of World Press Photo. Howland has worked for National Geographic, Wall St Journal, and Le Monde, among others. With the support of the British Embassy, she had her first solo exhibition Roads to Mosul in 2018 at the Oxo Tower in London and in Baghdad to raise money for the reconstruction of Mosul. She has participated in several group exhibitions and in 2015 she self-published her first photo book No Need For Tears, I'm Fine. Simultaneously with the exhibition premiere of her project Leave and Let Us Go at Foam 3h, Howland is publishing her second photo book of the same name (GOST Books).
The exhibition is made possible by the Van Bijlevelt Foundation, the Leeuwensteinstichting and Kleurgamma Fine-Art Photolab.
Foam is supported by the VriendenLoterij, Foam Members, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, the VandenEnde Foundation and the City of Amsterdam.
In 2021 Foam receives additional support from the Mondriaan Fund and Kickstart Cultuurfonds. | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | from the series Education is Forbidden, 2017 © Rahima Gambo | | | | | | | Foam Talent | Amsterdam 2020 | | | | | | | ... until 6 October 2021 | | | Each year, Foam invites photographers to submit their portfolios via the Talent Call, an international search for exceptionally talented photographers under the age of 35. Selected photographers gain international exposure and recognition within the photography industry through a number of career-building opportunities offered by Foam, including publication in Foam Magazine, participation in a travelling group exhibition and the opportunity for their work to be added to the prestigious Art Collection Deutsche Börse of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Frankfurt.
EXCEPTIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY TALENT
This year 19 artists were selected as Foam Talents 2020:
Aàdesokan (Nigeria), Sofia Borges (Brazil), Adji Dieye (Senegal/Italy), Rahima Gambo (Nigeria), Karla Hiraldo Voleau (France/Dominican Republic), Benoît Jeannet (Switzerland), Luther Konadu (Canada/Ghana), Matthew Leifheit (United States), Douglas Mandry (Switzerland), Philip Montgomery (United States), Camillo Pasquarelli (Italy), Simone Sapienza (Italy), Micha Serraf (Zimbabwe/South Africa), Hashem Shakeri (Iran), Gao Shang (China), Kamonlak Sukchai (Thailand), Guanyu Xu (China/United States), Yorgos Yatromanolakis (Greece), Alba Zari (Italy/Thailand). | | | | | | | | | | Pacha, from the series Red Lotus, 2019 © Kamonlak Sukchai | | | | | | These exceptional young photographers were selected out of 1.619 received submissions from 69 countries. Their portfolios were published in the internationally distributed Foam Magazine #55: Talent.
Subsequently Foam will now present their work in a travelling group exhibition. PORTRAIT
Although Foam Talent symbolizes a rich range of genres and uses of photography, the edition of Foam Talent 2020 is characterized by (sometimes lengthy) research, in which the role of the portrait is a recurring theme. Where Alba Zari tries to construct a portrait of her unknown biological father through old family photos and computer technology, Luther Konadu's work is a reflection of the photographic portrait itself: through cutting and pasting he investigates the construction of identity.
Adji Dieye responds to economically determined stereotypes and traditional roles by reinventing an African tradition of studio portrait photography. Karla Hiraldo Voleau distorts fact and fiction and undermines the male gaze through selfies and intimate portraits of her Latin lovers. The diverse series and artworks in Foam Talent 2020 show individuals and communities that have long remained invisible or in the margins, exploring who we are and how we see ourselves in a constantly changing reality: between the analogue and the digital, between myths and belief systems, between the private and public and between fact and fiction.
The Foam Talent programme and the annual Talent Issue of Foam Magazine are supported by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, the VandenEnde Foundation and the Niemeijer Fund. | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Now You See Me Moria © Qutaeba, courtesy of the artist. | | | Now You See Me Moria | | | | Personal experiences, anger and pain are the basis of this special project in which a group of people from Moria refugee camp share photos and stories via Instagram about their daily life in Moria, the largest refugee camp in Europe, located in Greece. | | | | ... until 6 October 2021 | | | This summer, Foam presents the exhibition Now You See Me Moria together with het Nederlands Fotomuseum en Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Each from their own perspective, the institutions aim to show these disconcerting images to a broad audience.
Pain, anger and personal stories are at the core of this special project about daily life in Moria. This refugee camp, located in Greece, is the largest in Europe. A group of people from Moria share their photos and stories via Instagram. @now_you_se_me_moria was started in August 2020 by Amir, a young Afghan man, and Noemí, a Spanish image editor who lives and works in the Netherlands. Foam presents a selection of photos and posters from this project, beginning 2 July.
Now You See Me Moria addresses existing stereotypes about refugees by stressing the importance of self-representation. The images in this exhibition strike a chord because they are taken by people who are stuck in Moria. A selection of the photographs show women living in the camp and are also taken by women from the camp. Many of these photos are taken with a cell phone. They portray the intimate everyday world of the residents. The people in them, including many children, remain anonymous to ensure their safety. Even though the photos are not always perfectly framed or aesthetically pleasing their strength lies in their authenticity. The viewer feels the gravity of the images.
Like no other, these photographers are capable of portraying the intimate everyday world of the residents because they themselves are part of it. Even though the photos are not always perfectly framed or aesthetically pleasing, their strength lies in their authenticity and purity. Often the horizon is skewed, or heads and feet fall outside the frame, but while watching you feel the necessity of what the images want to tell.
Foam is supported by the VriendenLoterij, Foam Members, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, the VandenEnde Foundation and the City of Amsterdam.
In 2021 Foam receives additional support from the Mondriaan Fund and Kickstart Cultuurfonds. | | | | | | unsubscribe here
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© 13 Sep 2021 photo-index UG (haftungsbeschränkt)
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