in media res (0825 – 1236). Manuel Sekou

Posted in photography, research on May 23rd, 2023
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in medias res is an ongoing selective collection of seemingly random online images as well as self-taken screenshots and photography. Featuring a selection of over 1200 pictures out of the personal archive, it deals with patterns of recognition, appropriation and contextualization of (popular) cultures. By reproduction through means of hard copy a shift of attention shall be provoked (in favor of THE IMAGE).

Following musical techniques of plunderphonics, the mode of situating and framing finds manifestation from 15th century renaissance art (emblem) through to present operating principles of the social media online platform instagram (hashtags). 
Focusing on reciprocal influence and interference between text and image, the project aims to intentionally subvert cultural codes of visual content and wording by allegory and metaphor. 
Associated figures of thought, socio-political terms, new slang, ambiguous terms of marketing and connotated phrases are addressed to expand (semiotic) nuances and undertones of modern day society (consumer culture, mainstream-noise, fashion-dynamics, politics / environmental issues), thus to challenge ways of perception of cultural sets of phenomena (meme).. 
Of course, a certain sense of humor is a substantial attitude of indifference to ride the jittering stream that shapes contours of global scenes of references and re-production of “meaning” through poor images.

in medias res is a context bundle. 
in medias res is a deep learning process. 
in medias res is highly subjective.

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A Kassen – Dimensions Variable. Rene Campolmi, Adam Carr, Jonatan Habib Engqvist. Mousse Publishing.

Posted in photography, sculpture on May 15th, 2023
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A Kassen is a Danish art collective whose work encompasses photography, installation, and sculpture. Recalling the process-over-product mantra of 1960s action painters and Pop artists, their practice hinges on central questions of authorship and explores the relationship between form and content. Beginning with an everyday object—a material such as bronze, or something more ephemeral, like a puddle or a reflection—A Kassen task themselves with acts of construction and deconstruction, reinterpretation and recontextualization, all the while challenging preconceived notions of what the phenomenon in question is. Through these manipulations, they create works meant to be seen explicitly through the context of art and aesthetics, where the spectator’s role becomes central—indeed, an integral part of the work. Bystanders become interpreters, creating layers of meaning and understanding while rewriting the narratives at hand.

Dimensions Variable includes essays by Irene Campolmi, Adam Carr, and Jonatan Habib Engqvist, and an illustrated chronology of A Kassen’s works.

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Hide. Philip Pecker. Mosses

Posted in photography on April 13th, 2023
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A journey of escape
The closer he gets to the border
The more he feels
What is truly disappearing
Press the shutter
Compress your thoughts
Through the aperture
Hidden in photographs
Becoming the shadow of light
On the barren snowfield
Perhaps you’ll begin to miss home 

“We are all dust.” – Philip Pecker

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MOUNTAIN NO MOUNTAIN. Yan Kallen. Mosses

Posted in photography on April 12th, 2023
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“At first; mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers; while you are studying, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers; but once you have had enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and rivers again rivers.” — “Transmission of the Lamp” (Song Dynasty) 



Artist Yan Kallen studied and lived overseas for many years, participating in many museum and gallery exhibitions abroad. However, Yan always regarded Hong Kong as home. Upon his return from Kyoto, Yan captured his own understanding and sentiments of Hong Kong using traditional Chinese painting style in combination with epiphany derived from Zen school of thought originating from Song Dynasty.

In this city, old houses are demolished every day and construction in process is found everywhere — around any corner, you can find a new high-rise building that seemingly came from nowhere. Revisiting places that were etched into his memory before he left Hong Kong as a child, this book starts from the home of Yan’s grandfather in Pak Hung House in Choi Wan Estate, Ngau Chi Wan. In this easily forgotten place surrounded by high cement walls, how can one gently set down one’s memories?

Perhaps this is a question that every one of us need to answer for ourselves.

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Between The Light and Darkness.  Yan Kallen. Mosses

Posted in photography on April 11th, 2023
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Atelier Antwerp. Ilja Keizer

Posted in photography, Self published on April 8th, 2023
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Atelier Antwerp is a portraits collection of contemporary Belgian Artists.

Featuring Sarah Neutkens – Porcelain id – Melody Van Gompel – Misha Demoustier – Nora El Koussour – Sam de Nef – Thibaud Frank Dooms – Lisa – Koo Gautama – Roosbeef- Kleine Crack – Gijs & Lisa – the Visual – Willem Ardui – Noa Lee – The Haunted Youth – Whispering Sons.

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THE AFOREMENTIONED. Viktor Chen-Yuan.

Posted in photography, Self published on April 6th, 2023
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The Aforementioned examines the dynamic relationship between object and human usage. It’s a collection of images that document the objects we encounter in daily life, in a personal yet archival manner.

This collection provides a soulful / geometric interpretation of the linkage between the object and the user. Some object stands oddly intruding from its environment, some sits quietly hidden from any attention, whether artificial or natural, object serves a purpose to someone or something at one point in time. From a cut opened steel fence to mystery hands at an intersection, they are seemingly unrelated yet deeply connected. The sequence reflects on the randomness of a daily encounter giving each occurrence a voice of its own.

Designed by Louis Kang
Introduction by Valarie Frost
Printed with Sensations Print in Taipei

Edition of 100

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Die Aufstellung. Rebekka Bauer. Verlag Marian Arnd

Posted in Exhibition catalogue, history, photography, writing on March 28th, 2023
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Die Aufstellung thematisiert die Weitergabe von Traumata des 2. Weltkriegs im Wohnhaus meiner Familie. Ausgangspunkt ist ein Archiv von 500 Metallobjekten, die mein Großvater, ein ehemaliger Wehrmachtssoldat, über mehrere Jahrzehnte im Keller unseres gemeinsamen Wohnhauses fertigte. Die Objekte werden in der handwerklichen Routine zu Trägern des Traumas. Um den Einfluss der unausgesprochenen Kriegserlebnisse auf den Familienalltag zu zeigen, setze ich die Metallgegenstände sowohl mit Kriegsfotografien als auch Familienfotos ins Verhältnis, die Ausschnitte aus dem Alltag meiner Familie bis in die frühen 2000er Jahre zeigen.

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THROWING MUD. Luca Anzalone, Lily Pearmain (Eds.).

Posted in photography, sculpture, Self published, workshop on March 22nd, 2023
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A diary of liberated gestures in clay.
Throwing Mud is a collection of photographs that document Luca and Lily reconnecting with play in their creative process through freedom of form and gesture.

“Lily Pearmain and Luca Anzalone spent a week playing with their respective materials in each other’s company. Lily with clay, and Luca with film. The whole project was an experiment in playing naively with materials that both authors had become accustomed to using. The resulting photographs have been collated here in a book, which the authors hope will act as a guide to play and childlike exploration of common materials.”

Limited edition of 300.  
Cover screen printed in terracotta clay

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Omen: Phantasmagoria at the Farm Security Administration (1935-1944). León Muñoz Santini, Jorge Panchoaga. Gato Negro Ediciones

Posted in history, photography, politics on March 21st, 2023
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Chasing the ghost, the traces of oblivion, and the echoes of what was and no longer is, the book “Omen” is a revision and reframing of the fraction of the photographic archive of the Farm Security Administration (1935-1944) hosted at the New York Public Library. That program—perhaps there is no need to add—was one of the milestones of modern documentary photography, instrumental on the constructing an hegemonic narrative; one mainly about triumph against adversity, division, and catastrophe in the recent history of the United States.

But by stressing the gaze over that monumental set of images, and scrutinizing at the corners of the pictures, at the backgrounds and details—in the secondary characters, in what should not be there, that which appears by chance, accident or error— it is possible to discover a different narrative, one that is thicker, murkier, more troubled, complex, contemporary and contradictory. Both a shatter and an apex: a premonition of the genealogical continuity of the many (tumultuous, visible and invisible, thunderous and silent) systemic violence that make up the face of American society.

A book that serves as a mirror of the distressing reality of the United States in our days, and, a the same time, as a device for reflection on the way historical and documentary photography is read and understood, taking the editorial eye to its ultimate consequences.

Photographs by Russell Lee, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, Walker Evans, Carl Mydans, Arthur Rothstein, Gordon Parks, Jack Delano

Excavations at the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs of the New York Public Library

Concept and selection by León Muñoz Santini, Jorge Panchoaga
Edition by Pablo Ortiz Monasterio

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